The Sun.
London, England, 1840-03-21 00:00:00

The Committee on the Flour Importation (Ireland)
Bill was postponed till after Easter.
The Tithe Commutation Act Amendment Bill was
passed.
Colonel SIBTHOLIP, the econonomist or Joseph
Hume of the Tories, gave notice that on the intro-
duction of the Canada Bills, he should call attention to
the expenses incurred by the Earl of DURHAM and
MR. POULETT THomsoN. The House adjourned at
a quarter past ten o'clock.

Lord ASHBURTON is generally considered to be
the most appropriate representative now alive of
the breeches pocket policy. His arguments, how-
ever specious, may always be traced to his own
interest. In 1828 he was a great merchant, and
was then, as he stated last night, "by no means
favourable to the Corn-laws." Now he has left
trade—he is a great landed proprietor, and he finds
that the Corn-laws have worked better " than the
proposers of them could possibly have supposed."
He finds that they prevent fluctuation—that they
did not cause the difficulties as co the currency, and
that it is " not possible to conceive any artificial
system that could work more perfectly." Here we
see, as distinctly as if our consciousness were that
of Lord ASHBURTON, the influence of the
breeches pocket. The sensorium of the Noble Lord
is situated in the neighbourhood of the right
thigh, and the low position of his mental organs
accounts for the limited extent of his vision.
He used this argument :
" When Gentlemen talked of the dangers of fluctuation,
they seemed to have forgotten that the price of food, above
all other articles, was that in which there was necessarily
great fluctuation, and it was matter of surprise to him to
see bow little fluctuation bad taken place. When the law
was introduced, it was expected the average price woulc'
be 605., and if they looked carefully to the prices at dir_
ferent periods, it would be found that it frequently had
not amounted to that, while in seasons of the greatest
scarcity the whole extent of the advance had been from
60s. to 665. If they looked at other parts of the
world they would find that the fluctuation had been
still more considerable—on the shores of the Mediter-
ranean, for instance—while those which m;ght be more
particularly called the Low Countries of the world__
he meant the plains of the Ukraine.—had, only
two years ago, suffered from the most fear.
ful famine ; and yet these persons expected, notwith-
standing the fluctuations of the seasons, which were con-
stantly occurring, that the articles of human food—of all
articles the most liable to fluctuation—should not fluctuate
at all.—( Hear, hear.) But let them compare the fluctua-
tions in the price of corn with the fluctuations which had
'aken place in the prices of other articles of commerce.
In the price of iron, of wool, and of cotton; fluctuations in-
tritely more extensive bad taken place than in the price of
It was, therefore, a fallacy to say that the Corn-
ws were in fault, or that they had riot worked well."
Why, we ask Lord ASHBURTON, the landowner,
should there necessarily be great fluctuations in the
price of food above all other things ? He will re
ply, "Variations in the season." Mr. A. BARING,
the merchant will respond, " I live to correct these
inequalities. It is the business of my life to buy
commodities when and where they are cheap, and
sell them when and where they are dear. Food is
the production of every spot where man lives. Cot-
ton, silk, iron, wool, are the productions of com-
paratively narrow spaces—food is universally
created. Only allow me free and unlimited scope
for my exertions ; stop me not from going where
like, and when I like, for a supply, and you may
rely on my always bringing you abundance, and
always equalizing the prices both from year to year,
and from country to country." Such would be the
reply of the industrious self-sustained breeches-
pocket BARING, the merchant, to breeches-poc-
ket BARING, the landowner and bread-tax eater.
The landowner's sphere of vision being limited,
from his eye being so near the ground, he asserts
that the whole extent of the advance of the price of
wheat in seasons of scarcity had been from 60s. to
665. In 1838 the price was 88s. A large por-
tion of wheat was introduced into the country at a no-
minal duty, when the average price must have been
above 735. In 1836 the price was down to 365.
These are fluctuations which may be equalled in
the records of the middle ages, or in the Steppes of
the Ukraine, but could not exist in any community
where trade was free, and where there were any of
those energetic equalisers of prices, such as was
ALEXANDER BARING, the merchant.
The difference between 665. and 60s. is 10 per
cent.,the amount of fluctuation,according to breeches-
pocket BARING, the landowner. Now we re-
ceived yesterday from the House of Commons a
return, No. 127, "of the prices of victualling-
stores for her MAJESTY'S Navy, in the year
1840, and the amount per cent. by which
the prices of those stores in 1840 exceeded
the average price of the three years pre-
ceeding 1839. Also a return of the amount per
cent. by which the prices of 1840 exceeded the
prices of 1839 ;" and we beg the attention of the
reasoner from the pocket to the following items :
In 1840 the excess of price, above the average of
the three years preceeding 1839, was--of wheat
per cent. 28.86, of oats 22.15, of malt 36.62, of
biscuit 20,38, of flour 40,66, of beer 50, of spirits
38,55, of fresh meat 11.18, of salt beef 12 55,
and of salt pork 18.19. In the whole list there
is not a single article, the produce of our own soil,
except vinegar, the price of which is not above 10
per cent, excess, while the average of ten articles
we have quoted is 27 per cent. higher in 1840
than the average priCes of 1836, 1837, and 1838.
The price of 1840 exceeded the average prices of
1839 by--wheat per cen!. 8.36, malt 18.7, flour
3,30, beer 17,39, salt beef 13.77, and silt pork
13.05. The fluctuation, then, between one year
and the average of three, was nearly three times as
great as the man who sees with his thigh described
it, and would probably be six times as great were
the year 1836 alone compared with 1840. So
much for the correctness of the most profound
and skilful of all the reasoners from the breeches
pocket.
The landowner, however, goes on in his endea-
vour to make the nation admire the wisdom of the

The letter on the Church of Scotland, which
appears in another part of the paper, will convey
some useful information to our readers, Scotch as
well as English. We have repeatedly stated that
the great object of the Clerical Non-Intrusionists is
to grasp the whole patronage of the Church of
Scotland, and in this we are fully borne out, not
only by this letter and by several others which we
have received from Scotland, but by one who knew
well the character of the clerical body—the late Sir
HARRY MONCRIEFF, for many years the leader of
the party that now cry out so lustily against pa-
tronage. Adverting to some unprinted Acts of As-
sembly in 1645, and to one in particular to " allow
Presbyteries to plant Churches," be describes with
perfect truth the grasping disposition of the CH A L-
NIERS4S and CA NDLISIIES "f the present day.
" These acts," he says, " show the solieitude of
the clergy to get into their, own hands the com-
mand of as many patronages as possible." The
son of this venerable clergyman introduced into the
General Assembly the very Act that has made
such a commotion in Scotland, and which, if
carried into effect, would, in the words of his
father, " give the clergy the command of all
the patronages in the Church." From what we
can learn, many of the people of Scotland con-
nected with :he Establishment, and the Dissenters to
a man, begin to view the question in this light ; and
we therefore anticipate that the clerical usurpers will
ultimately be defeated. There are other points of the
letter to which we might wish to call attention, but
must defer any notice of them till another oppor-
tunity. We may merely add, that the balance in
the Assembly was turned by the Burgh Elders
elected to the General Assembly under the Munici-
pal Reform Bill.

corn.

There is no coin which so readily passes curre t
among well-meaning men, of little knowledge and
contracted views, as a spurious humanity. Unable to
look beyond the iminedieie consequeeces of any act,
they are ehocked at whatever appears to them to wear
the semblance of undue severity. This is already pretty
generally manifested in the conduct of those who, from
conscientious motives, are doing all in their power to
represent the hostile policy of the Government
against China as fraught with cruelty and injustice.
Not one of these people, we would venture to affirm,
took the trouble to examine our peculiar positio in the
Eist ; or to ie quire whether an over-strained delicacy
towards the Government of the Celestial Empire might
not be the means of deluging the plains of India with
the blood of hundreds of thousands of British subjects.
It sounds mighty fine to talk about us seeking the
Chinese, and not the Chinese seeking us ; and
that if we do not like the conditions upon
which the Celestial Government is disposed to
sanction a trade with us, we are at liberty
to let it alone. The dolts who affect to take this
view of the question either know, or ought to know,
that were we thus to abandon the trade, it would be
proclaimed from Pain to St. Pctersburgh that we were
ignominiously expelled forever from the Chinese waters
—that one of our " Ambassadors," as they would be
stvied, was put to death ; the other, with all the
" 'English foreign Anvils," imprisoned and forced to p
li-
tion the clemency of the Great Emperor for their lives.
and that the g ods of the " Barbarians" were destroyed,
and their ships forced to fly before the guns of Celestials,
" makite; a noise like a thunderbolt." Now what
would be the first effect of such a proclamation in India,
in A ff4l) anistan, and e yen in Persia ? A universal
rising in the East utterly to abolish the power of Great
thitain in Asia. When the Burmese were before in
arms against England, it is well kr.aan that the
Emperor of CHINA, of whose pacific policy we now
hear so much, had actually ordered them a powerful
reinforcement of native troops, and that this Chinese
army was on its march against the English, when a
courier stopped it by intelligence that the war was over. 1
That TiteeewADDEE only awaits an opportunity of
agein declaring against us, we have had som,humiliatinc
proof's within toe last two years. That srveral other
native Princes would fly to pin his standard, we require
no better evidence than 11,s been furnished by the con-
spiracies recently discovered in the very heart of our
own territory. It would be ridiculous to pretend to
deceive the Asiatics by setting forth an account of a
voluntary renunciation of the Chinese trade ; and thus
were our Government silly eno'sgh to listen to the ad-
vices we have mentioned, instead of the probable loss of
a few lives hill the Bocca Tigris, or sonic other part
of the Chinese waters, we should have to encounter all
the horrors of a bloody and protracted war for exis-
tence as a power in the very territory which we now
possess in India
A good deal has been said about the unwarlike
character of the Chinese by those who are for submitting
to the caprices of their rulers. Now, as our demands
era clear and explicit, the less warlike they are the
greater is the probability that they will yield at the ap.
the
tnere for an appeal to anti-warlikepearance of force, and therefore the
sympathies of the the less occasion is
nation. It is not blood but freedom of trade, official
redress for wrong, and pecuniary compensaton for
mint. We cannot afford either silently to despise, or
pe-
cuniary injury, that is sought by the Britishd Govern-
magnanimously to forgive, the insults and oppre,,sions of
any people so-near our Indian Empire as the inhabi-
tants of China ; and as our policy i 4 purely dc fens:ve,
we ought to have less scruples to.. force, or
rather a necessary display of it, than in by
seeming timidity, the repetition of wrongs, whose
ticntg;urttne', a
in resor
example might prove fatal, by provoking the infliction
of wounds in a more vulnerable quarter.
Those who contend that the Chinese Government has
given us no just. provccation for resorting to hostilities,
have either not made themselves acquainted with the
plain and simple facts of the case, or they are parsons of
intellect so obtuse as to be incapable of compirehending
the plainest statements. It is well obEerved by a Mr. '

bread taxers, and submit with patience to their de-
creed, by telling it to look to the shores of the Me-
diterranean, and the plains of the Ukraine, and there
out People would see great distress and fearful
tectin
g
famine, owing to the fluctuations of the seasonc af-
food, the most liable, he repeats, of all ar-
ti sto fluctuate,
We again call on BARING,
the merchant, to reply to BARING the land-
owner. ~ So I . ' • "
'
BARING, thew admit it is, says ALEXANDER
world,
and a:
who has agents
all over the
cotton-manufacturers oaftww,hose demand for mote
goods the iron-masters •erhampton, and the
of 'Manchester, would call
into double activity thosenever lP)roductive agents that are
never tired, and areons in li .
I mite ,
price of food is liable to arr.reaet e
fiwni—" So
I admit the
spaces, but I commandh t
e world cars send cottons, and woollens, and iron,
anywhich ourcx .
ingenious people can manufacture to almost
'
tent, to almost every known part of the giebe
and
I can buy wheat at Odessa, at New fork,
Dantzic. The harvests never fail at all and at l
these
places in the same year. Toe skill -less .1 - ess agri.
culturists of the Ukraine, who have nothing but
agriculture to subsist by, who have no other
trade than that of exporting agricultural produce,
and who must consequently depend on their own

soil ; or the poor inhabitants of the shores of the
Mediterranean, an agricultural or vine-growin.„Y
people, wh:) have no t-leans of buying food, to anv
extent from other con:arms, whose trade is compa-
ratively limited-.--WilLiC ships are certainly not
found in every sea—l:Jule people must be exposed

Sir H. HARDINGE approved entirely of Sir. H. I to great privations when their harvests fail ; hut the i
VIVIAN'S conduct towards the Cadets and the Col ege, harvest of Manchester never fails ; the spinning
y
hut heard him vindicate himself from the attacks of n vv-
mules and the po.ver-looms are alwa s fruitful ;
papers in that House with regret. He thought those Heaven never mocks the hopes of our skilful arti-
attacks should be passed unnoticed. Mr. NV/muttTort
and Sir DE LACY EVANS complimented Sir HUSSEY tans and manufacturers, if they do not fail thein-
i VIVIAN for his conduct and his explanation. .
se.ves. NS:lth their harvests, susceptible of almost
Sir THOMAS COCHRANE made himself look a little ri- f indefinite increase, I can buy food for them, if you
diculous by quoting the United Service Gazelle and the I will allow me, in any and every part of the world,
Asiatic Journal as authorities for a complaint he made shielding them against those terrible distresses to '
that passengers were not satisfied with the treatment in which the mere agriculturalists of the shores of '
the Mediteranean, and of the plains of the Ukraine,
her Mesty's packet.
however fertile their fields, are continually exposed.
In the Committee of Supply several votes for the
Ordnance Estimates were agreed to, Mr. HUMS ex-
pressing his regret that they were so large. You must have a sinister interest to serve, Brother
The principal discussion which followed referred to BARING, or you never could have compared our
the dismissal of Mr. FooT, and Sir H. VIVIAN cx. country, which, from the great abundance of its
plained, as we have already stated, that the Ordnance mineral and manufacturing wealth, and the great
had nothing to do with his dismissal. The Solicitor of skill of its people, whose commerce visits every
the Ordnance appointed his own agents in the country, shore, and is able to purchase food from all the el-
and he mi4ht have cut his connection with Mr. FooT, vilised world, to the shores of the Mediterranean,
for his activity at the Devonport election. That the inhabited by the destitute, poor, and skill-less
Tories should interest themselves so w:rmly in favour L . -
azzaroni, and to the plains of the Ukraine, ju:t
of freedom of election, was a subject of rejoicing and mirth
to Lord PALMERSTON. A good deal of conversation brought into tillage by a motley race of Malo-
took place on this point, but no further information was Russians and Germans."
elicited. The Tories are angry that they have not all The merchant, were he not somewhat disgusted
things their own way, and their anger makes them for at the bad faith of the landowner, and could he
the time patriotic. We so like their patriotism, that spare time from looking after his ledger, might,
we shall do all in our power to keep alive their anger. perhaps, go on to observe—" I notice that you
After voting a sum tor the Commissariat, the House gentlemen landowners do not comprehend the
resumed, and went into a Committee of Ways and
effects of trade in reventing fkctuationsy
Means, in which a sum of 8,000,0001. was voted out of p ,and our
the Consolidated Fund, for the service of the year comparison of the prices of corn since 1828 with
1840. prices in former periods—for exa lie, Is 1"

_inp ietween 1772
and 1792—are fallacious, unless you take into ac-
count the tendency of trade and the progress of so-
ciety to prevent fluctuations, so that they ought to
be in the ten years ending 1840 less than in the
ten years ending 1790, and less when our
trade is extended over the whole globe
than when it was confined to our own island,
and the shores of Europe. You know, Brother BA-
RING, if the records of prices, as quoted by ADAM
SMITH, can be at all relied on, that the price of
the quarter of wheat varied in this country in the
thirteenth and fourteenth century from 6s. per quar-
ter to 21. Bs., to 31. 125., and even to 161. You
know that as commerce has extended, and skill has
unproved, that there have been no such gluts and
famines in any part of the civilized world as were
frequent in the middle ages ; you know that this
equalization of prices, neutralizing the variations of
the seasons, has been caused by the increase of
those watchful men all over the world, whose bu-
siness it is to buy when and where commodities are
cheap, and sell them when and where they are dear ;
and you must know, as this class of men is continu-
ally increasing, that the process of equalization is
for ever extending, and that fluctuations ought
to have been less in the ten years ending with
1840, which have been years of profound peace,
and of commerce, as-extensive as your Corn-laws
would allow it to be, than in any previous ten years
of the world's existence. The fact, however, is,
that the fluctuations have been very great—that we
have almost returned, owing to your limiting us as
far as you can to our own islands for a supply of
food, to the terrific fluctuations, the overabundance,
and the famines of the middle ages. This is the
consequence of your execrable breeches-pocket
legislation, which contravenes the order of nature,
and causes fluctuations, distress, and starvation,
where Providence has provided for stability, pros-
perity, and abundance." So the ALEXANDER
BARING of 1828 might be expected to speak to
the ALEXANDER BARING of 1840, exemplifying,
at long intervals that characteristic of self-con-
tradiction which always marked every speech, and
almost sentence, of Lord ASHBURTON.