The Sun.
London, England, 1841-11-13 00:00:00

THE QUEEN DOWAGER.

The bulletin of her Majesty's health exhi-
bited at Marlborough House this day was as
follows:_

" The Queen Dowager has had some sleep
during the night. Her Majesty's complaint has
undergone no essential change since yesterday.
" W. FRED. CHAMBERS, M.D.
DAVID DAVIES, M.D.
gi Sudbury Hall, Nov. 12, 1841."

The masters of the Morning Post seem
alarmed, and begin to threaten the Press,
through the medium of that Journal, with we
know not what prosecutions. In its tirade yes-
terday, on the subject of obeying the law, are
the following passages:—

If the Government be more anxious for the praise of
being called " Liberal." than for the protection of ra-
tional liberty, it is easy to see why this should be per-
'flitted to go on ; but if the Government do its duty it

will put the law in force, in order to punish those who
print and publish that the law ought to be resisted. . •
. . It is often urged that by taking notice of certain
offences the evil is spread abroad, and more harm done
than good—that in many cases contempt is the best cor-
rective. We own that-this does create a difficulty, and
that there is no absolute rule in such cases. It is the
part of practical wisdom to be guided in such cases by
circumstances. However, when we take into account
the quantity of error and prejudice which subsist upon
the Corn-law question, and the great liability of the
people to be stirred up to violence upon the subject, it is our
opinion that contempt is no longer the safe treatment for
those who publish that the existing law ought to be
resisted.

We believe, bold as have been the assertions
of the Press, that the Post and its masters may
safely be defied. We have discussed, and other
Journals have discussed, the duty of obeying or
resisting the law ; and we have maintained, and
shall continue to maintain, that it is the duty of
all men to disobey and resist an enactment or
decree, like that of HEROD, for putting infants
to death, and like that of our Corn-law makers,
which dooms the people to starvation, whenever
they can successfully resist it. To attempt to
punish the Press for such discussion and such
opinions is at once to doom men to the worst
kind of slavery, that of being the unresisting in-
struments of committing crimes they abhor,
when ordered by a tyrant.
It is quite true that if the law be resisted,
and those who administer it have the power,
they will punish the resisters; but we are not
acquainted with any law, either written or un-
written, which prescribes punishment for those
who discuss the propriety of resisting it, and who
come to the conclusion that a law is of such a
mischievous nature that to resist it, when men
are able, is a matter of duty. It is the opinion of
the Post, and probably the opinion of the land-
owners, that " they who affirm that the Corn-
law ought tosbe resisted "—that is, affirm that it
is a murderous law, a law which ought never to
have been enacted, a law which it is immoral to
obey—" deserve punishment for every such public
affirmation;" but it is not, we are persuaded, the
opinion of the majority of the sane and intelli-
gent people of this empire, or any other empire,
at any period of the world.
We refer to the article we have copied from
the Globe, to show that it is not the opinion of
that Journal and its readers—we refer to the
crowded meeting of the Dissenting Clergymen
at Manchester, in August last— we refer to every
Corn-law Association throughout the empire, all
of which are intent on organizing resistance to
the law, resolute to overturn it—we refer to the
manner in which it has been no less indignantly-
than justly denounced in three-fourths of the
Journals of the empire, to show that the majority
of the people are resolved to put down the Corn-
law if they can. Even the Chartists, who will
not join actively in putting it down, always ex-
press their abhorrence of it, and only refrain
from uniting with others to attain that object
because they look 'beyond it, and openly say
that they want to put down the authors of the
law, and take from them the power ever to
renew so barbarous an enactment.

Passing over the nonsense which the Post, in
common with a multitude of scribblers, and pro-
bably in common with its masters, expresses about
regulated liberty only existing in proportion as
the law is respected—as if the regulated liberty of
buying and selling where and when men like,
which is one of the most essential of all liberties
for our commercial people, would not be esta-
blished and protected by treading the abominable
Corn-law under foot--passing over all its custo-
mary and routine praise of law, per se, as if
every enactment, be it what it may, deserved
equal honour, and there were neither right nor
wrong but that which Members of Parliament
decree—we ask the Post, whose especial fault
is it that the passions or violence of the people
can be stirred up at all on the subject of the
Corn-law? We are aware that it is a most deli-
cate and tender subject; we grant that while
there are thousands of people out of employment
in every manufacturing town—while the mills
are stopped, and merchants and manufacturers
are breaking by dozens—when hungry mul-
titudes are loudly demanding bread—it is
a dangerous question to moot,—but who
has driven the country and the press into this
terrible dilemma? The landlords, we answer;
the Tories, whose organs now cry out and
threaten punishment to those who hold up their
profligate perseverance in wrong to merited re-
probation. If we had waited till now to de-
nounce the Corn-laws we might have been
liable to the charge of improperly appealing
to the people; but fbr three years and a half
have we incessantly reprobated those laws,
speaking of them at first as we speak of them
now ; and that our language now falls on the
ears of a long-suffering, and starving, and
perhaps infuriated people, is the fault of
the law-makers, who have stubbornly persevered
in plundering and oppressing them.
The subsistence of the people is, of all sub-
jects, the most delicate that a law-maker can
meddle with ; it is at the same time that one
which the least calls for his interference, because
all theory and all experience prove that the peo-
ple best provide for their own subsistence. His
duty is to protect their industry, not to direct
it. All theory and all experience prove that
whenever he interferes with it he does mischief.
He has no power to augment subsistence the
value of a single potatoe. He can only influence
the production of national wealth to diminish
its amount by changing its distribution. All he
can do, and all he does by Corn-laws, is to take
something from the right owner and give
it to the man who owns it not. He can-
not interfere with it, therefore, unless by vio-
lating that property he holds power to protect. At
the same time lie is, and must be, ignorant of the
circumstances, for no man knows them, which are
hereafter to regulate the production of subsis-
tence ; and if he peril his power by assuming the
enormous responsibility of providing for the sub-
sistence of the people, he must not blame those
who affirm that to submit to his frantic ambition,
or be the victims of his murderous avarice, is
not the duty of mankind.
We have not stated these opinions without
being well aware of their bearings and their vast
importance ; but it is impossible to know that one
law-maker admits that this law enriches himself
and all his tribe, by raising the price of the
people's bread; that another law-maker, speak-
ing the sentiments of his class, openly declares
that, whether men like this law or not, they shall
have no other ; that they must submit to be
plundered; that he and his friends have the
power of making laws, and they will eject from
°f ace every Ministry, as they have ejected one
which proposes to alter them,—it is impossible to
believe, as
we believe, after much consideration,
and in common with a great multitude, that this
law, which the landlords are resolved wrong-
fully to maintain,
people annually todohollinn esar al an
rdg et
o dnme ma
tbhe rb
y ofs
ttahre_
vation—actually withhgold. ing food from them,
which by their own honest industry they might
purchase in abundance—that it interrupts com-
merce, and prevents the progress of brotherhood
and civilization amongst the • nattons of the earth,
—it is impossible to know that such a law exists
only by the will of those who suppose
they are
enriched by it, without being forced to discuss
the doctrine of resistance, and coming to the
conclusion that it is a crime in the community to
obey such a law.

How
frail, too, let us to remark in cloylhates,:
is the tenure of power by those who assert that
unless their frantic ambition and
avarice be blindly obeyed, society, Which
they
did not create nor form, will fall into disorder.
The Times yesterday startled the community by
quoting proofs from Paris Journals, both Govern-
ment and Opposition, that France trembles on
the brink of another great social revolution, and
that its fats hangs on the life of a man who is
shot at once a year. It does not require a -poli-
tical remembrance beyond the year 1830, to con-
vince us that such a change in France would
have disastrous effects for our aristocracy. They
hold their power, then, by the frail tenure of
Louis PHILIPPE'S life, and they madly persist,
by their injustice, in turning the people, on whom
they must rely for support, into enemies.

The Morning Chronicle begins to be " ap-
prehensive of some danger to the great princi-