The Sun.
London, England, 1841-10-19 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS

FROM THE DAILY PAPERS or YESTERDAY.
GLOBE.—One by one have the journals of the Go-
vernment abandoned, as untenable, the strong-holds from
which, when in opposition, they kept up an incessant
volley of vituperaticin against the Whig Minisiers ;indeed,
thee now confessedly find themselves reduced to the ex-
tremity of making the humiliating admission, that the ex-
isting Ministry obtained ofrice by false pretences. Instead
of there being- irrecencileable differeaceefilecterecn the
Whigs and Tories, there are, we are gravely told, really
no differences worth speaking of between them. The
former arc assured that they may, with very great pro-
priety, afford to the latter their support, in order to
enable them to carry on the Government—which, be it
remembered, they obtained by continually assert-
ing that the principles and policy of the former
would inevitably sap the foundations of the Con-
stitution, and destroy the Altar and the Throne!
An entire article in the Times of Thursday was de-
voted to this insidious project ; and on the following
day the Standard, in an elaborate disquisition, demon-
strated that it would he highly impolitic, and, indeed,
be manifestly unconstitutional, for the Government to
interfere with the Repeal Association of Ireland.
" Experience has abundantly proved," said the Stand-
ard, " that there are two, and but two, effectual modes
cf obviating the ill effects of a seditious movement. The
first is to put the sedition down with a strong hand—
and this must be resorted to when immediate danger to
the S:a'e is threatened. The other is to leave the evil
to burn itself out—neither feeding it by concession, nor
fanning it by feeble opposition, This letter is the
course which a prudent and a firm Government will al-
ways prefer when it can be adopted with safety ; and this
if, we doubt not, the course which the present Administra-
tion will pursue with regard to the O'Connell sedition in
Ireland." In this counsel, offered to the "present Admi-
nistration," derive:'. from " abundant proof," the result of
" experience," is found a complete vindication of the
course adopts I by the late Government with respect to
Mr. O'Connell and the Repeal Association. A fresh
illustration is also afforded of the unprincipled opposi-
tion to which that Government was subjected by the
Tories, bath in Parliament, and by their organs out of
deotes
STANDARD.—" Tire waters are ant; and the
question is, ere our new rulers engineers enough to let
them cff safely, ere they force a ruinous channel for
themselves I 'lle waters are out, physically as well as
politically ; and the greet statesmen, who, in default of
cw-n, may ask us why don t we cat potatoes, will be well
ants' ered by the counter-question—will they guarantee
us potatoes to cat 1' We tell the party who now stand
t the helm of power, that they are responsible for
whdtever may ensue from their long-protracted policy."
Such is the exulting tone in which an ex-Ministe-
rial Journal predicts the greatest calamity that can
befal a people--a famine. Words cannot describe
adequately all the horrors expressed in that one word ;
but to announce famine as at hand, is an occasion of
triumphs and even of mirth, with the Whig-Radical
writer, because he assumes that for a famine the pre-
sent Ministers can be made responsible, It is, says he,
the effect of their long-protracted policy, How long
protracted F They have been in office about six
seeks, and these six weeks comprehend no part of
" seed time,' and but little of " harvest time," and if
the six weeks comprehend both, earthly rulers are
not responsible for the weather. If any Ministers
can be held responsible for the threatened calamity,
surely the responsibility rests upon those who ruled
for deficit rail preceding its arrival, not upon the
men who have occupied the swim of _Government
for barely 84 weeks. But " the wish is father to the
thought." We trust that there is no reason to apprehend
famine or even scarcity. " The waters are not out," and
if they were, thanks to the wisdom that suggested the
Corn-laws, and to she firmness that maintains them, even
the most unfavourable condition of the weather would
not leave the country without a sufficient supply
of food. Has the effect of the Corn-laws been
to cause a grrat:r or less amount of corn to be
raised on our own soil ? Every one must answer
that the effect of these laws has been prodigiously to
augment the domestic supply. Here, their, is one
mode, and that the most effectual and satisfactory,
in which the Corn-laws have operated to obv'ate
,famine. Let us suppose that but one-third of the corn
land of England had been put out of tillage by a re-
peal of those laws—and the orators of the League
anticipate one-half—what would be the effect of a de-
ficient nary est—a harvest yielding but half a crop?
Why, Mr. M'Culloch, if we are not mistaken,
has ehown that to supply all the corn necessary for con-
sumption, would employ the teliok marine of England,
military end commercial. Let men judge, then, what
would be the cre,t as regards famine, even supposing
that prices ;sewn not rise abroad, of being driven to
import three quarters? Freight would of course rise;
profits would be made to rise enormously ; and this is
the object of the share that the moneyed capitalists have
in the present agitation. The effect of a repeal of the
Corn-laws would be to at least double the price of food
in a time of scarcity.
COUltlEß.—That much and deplorable distress
prevails in the manufacturing districts has never been
zither doubted or denied, but that its extent is, and for
tFe lost two years has been, wilfully exaggerated to
suit the dishonest views of unprincipled and
revolutionary factions is just as undoubted and un-
denieble. Sir Robert. Peel, whilst admitting
and lamenting the existence of the real evil,
with much justice, and not less moderation, excised
the watihd of all the peg, and dirt foully accumulated
upon it by the false Manchester quacks of Gibsons,
Cobdens, &c., so as to fester and inflame it the more,
by way of a heartless job at the cost of the un-
suspecting victim,' These street crying tinkers,
who tweet mend one hole in the kettle without at
the same time preparing. two more for another day's
occupation, swelled loudly end loquaciously in the
Commons' House, where they had promised their ope-
rative hearers in the country such a terrible onset before-
hand, about the dreadful decrease in the:funds u' friendly
or benefit societies, from the increase of claims arising
from the alarming spread of destitution, a decrease of
which in its amount they could know nothing, and of
which they pretended to afford no authentic statistical
details whatever, but rested its proof soicly on the
hollow ground of their own unsupported and valueless
allegations. It may be conceded at once, that 'the
funds of friendly societies could not be flou-
rishing in a season of depressed trade and de-
ficient employment, and singular would it be were
such a fact possible. Courteously taking for granted
the veracity of statements eel defective in evidence, how-
ever, Sir Robert proceeded to show from real and
official returns that, however benefit clubs might have
experienced the pressure of the times, savings' banks
exhibited little sympathetic accord with the melancholy
tale on a comparison of their actual condition and pro-
gress with that of former years. When rudely chal-
lenged with having unfairly limited himself to the years
most favourable to his argument—the same years fis
those previously referred to by the empty declaimers
themselves—he answered only by taking the wider
range of years required, and still conclusively proving
the same result.