The Sun.
London, England, 1847-01-18 00:00:00

.I•ltening
.-t-=. Ant

LONDON, MONDAY, JANUARY 18, 1847.

The QUEEN and Prince ALBERT, and the Court,
arrived at half-past one o'clock this afternoon, at
Buckingham Palace, travelling from Slough to
Paddington by the Great Western Railway. Her
MAJESTY held a Privy Council at three o'clock, for
the purpose of arranging the Royal Speech to be
delivered to-morrow, by her MAJESTY in person,
on opening the session of Parliament. Most of the
Cabinet Ministers were expected to attend the
Council.

During the Parliamentary ♦acation, which will
happily terminate to-morrow, the scarcity of provi-
sion has been increasing, extending, and becoming
literally unendurable. What was grievous at the
termination of the session of '46, has become intole-
rable at the commencement of the session of '47.
Nor is this privation of food restricted to a single
province of Ireland, or, indeed, to the whole of Ire-
land—it is experienced more or less throughout every
portion of the United Kingdoms. Even in the me-
tropolis the price reached in cereal articles of nourish-
ment has in many instances been miserably dispropor-
tioned to the means of its inhabitants. Even in London
the restrictions still imposed upon the importation of
grain by the unwieldy and antiquated laws relating
to navigation have acted most prejudicially upon its
least affluent citizens. In the more rural districts, in
the more remote quarters of Munster and Connaught,
in the secluded islands of the Hebrides, and indif-
ferently in every portion of England, Ireland,
and Scotland, these grievances have pressed
heavily upon the population, and their pressure
is at this moment so unbearable, that the
immediate interposition of Government has grown
into a necessity. Fortunately for the people
the Parliament is now re-assembling, and the Cabinet
will no longer be induced to postpone those measures
of alleviation which have only been retarded so long
from a sentiment of honourable punctilio, from an
anxiety not to interfere with our most venerable con-
stitutional customs, from a disinclination to refuse
the fulfilment of those concessions which had been
so recently granted to our discomfited opponents.
By the re-assembling of our hereditary and repre-
sentative legislators, a period is at length put to this
pernicious, though somewhat excusable, procrastina-
tion.

The Ministers will now be enabled, without any
derogation to their character, without committing an
unpardonable offence to a suspicious minority,
without any harsh violation of the enactments
of the preceding session, to appease the hunger
of the thousands who are already either threat-
ened with, or suffering from, starvation. That
energetic measures are required under existing
circumstances has been recently and emphatically
avowed by the proceedings of the present Adminis=
tration. When a considerable squadron of armed
vessels in her MAJESTY'S service are transformed into
the bearers of provisions from the English markets to
the more destitute portions of Ireland, it is manifest
that the necessities of the community must be
most urgent, if not absolutely unprecedented.
Guns are not dismounted, war-steamers are
not freighted with grain, and other descriptions
of food, excepting in cases of extraordinary emer-
gency. Guns have been dismounted, war-steamers
have been freighted with provisions, by order of
Government, as the catalogue of ships published
only the other day in our columns sufficiently
attested—therefore an extraordinary emergency does
exist, and that extraordinary emergency demands
and justifies the most extraordinary measures for the
amelioration of the condition of the multitude. Par-
liament must acknowledge this; the Ministers have
already acknowledged it by their recent acts for the
diminution cf the scarcity in Ireland.
In the inaugural address to be delivered by her
MAJESTY to her faithful Lords and Commons, there
is little question that the members of the Cabinet
will afford the public more than an inkling of their
intentions as to the facilitation of the introduction of
food into the country. By preventing the further
evils consequent upon the operation of the navigation
laws, a fresh and fruitful source of nourishment would
be immediately opened to the population. By allowing
the use of molasses in brewing and distillation, a
great economy would be effected in regard to barley,
and an increased quantity, and a sustained quality,
and a decreased price, would be the in-
evitable consequences in both articles of con-
sumption. Besides this, moreover, a decided
step is rendered necessary for the final and immediate
opening of the ports. That step was, as is perfectly
well known, deemed advisable by Sir ROBERT PEEL
as far back as the November of 1845: it is now no
longer merely advisable—it is absolutely requisite.
Since that memorable month of political vicissitudes
the country has been perpetually subject to a deplor-
able dearth. The fears excited by the first calamitous
failure of the potato crop were confirmed in the follow-
ing autumn. The destitution, which had been heretofore
confined in a great measure to the Irish peasantry,
has since extended to the Highland labourers and the
Hebredian crofters. Whereas in the winter of 1845-6
the scarcity necessitated the establishment: of fever
hospitals in the more afflicted localities; -the scarcity
in the winter of 1846-7 has necessitated a
succession of Coroners inquests, with the
verdict of " Death by starvation !" That is the
nature of the difference between the two periods ofi
emergency, and in proportion to that difference must