The Sun.
London, England, 1847-11-26 00:00:00

THE S

600,000 persons may be supported thereby, together
with what can be obtained under the Poor Relief
Act, and assistance from other quarters, for a period
of four months, after -41tilhich time any further steps
necessary for the maintenance of the people will be
taken. At present the Executive have made ar-
rangements for supplying the wants of the people
wherever the peer-4w is likely I. PIOT.
ineffeetive. The resaainster ►f the coasky is
to be left to its own resources, to the
exertions of the owners and occupiers of the soil.
They have the ability—if they choose to avail them.
selves of the opportunities within their power—of
giving profitable employment to the labouring classes,
and thus enabling them to live by their own honest
industry, in place of becoming pauperised, and look-
ing to others for that bread which should be earned
by the sweat of their brows. The first great lesson
to be taught the Irish people is a spirit of self•reliance,
that will lead all classes to exert themselves earnestly
and energetically in their respective stations, to avoid
the reproach of national mendicancy. The Irish
Members themselves are fully sensible of the demo-
ralisation that necessarily attends gratuitous re-
lief. In any nation it is very objectionable, but
in Ireland it is peculiarly so. The people are
satisfied with the humblest fare—a scanty supply
of the coarsest food is looked upon as sufficient to
dispense with the necessity of any exertion what-
soever, the lands are left uncropped, the fisheries
neglected ; while those who might add to the na-
tional wealth are fed at the expense of the nation.
Some weeks since we directed the public attention
to an address of the North Wexford Landlord and
Tenant Association to the landed proprietors and
occupiers of that county. That address should be
circulated throughout all parts of the island, for it
points out the means by which the present emergency
can be successfully encountered, the national diffi-
culties overcome, and prosperity and independence
restored to the people. It is by a cordial co-operation
of all classes, and a zealous determination by every
person fully and fairly to perform the duties inci
dental to his position, without any attempt at shirking
or evasion, that the country can alone be pre •
served. " The employment of the people in
the improvement and cultivation of the soil
is the only resource left for saving the na-
tion from anarchy, confusion, and ruin ;"—so
say the North Wexford Association, and every
unprejudiced person must concur in the opinion.
The people must be maintained ; they have now the
first legal claim on the produce of the several estates
prior to that of the clergy, mortgagees, or nominal
owners—they must be supported under any circum-
stances, and it must be obvious that " to support
them in idleness while the land lies sterile and un-
productive, if permitted to continue, must overwhelm
the country with a burden it is utterly unable to
bear." The Association also stated, " that a full
and saving measure of employment could easily and
speedily be effected, by a combined and comprehen-
sive movement on the part of the landed proprietors,
if they would come forward, and by their improve-
ments and cultivation develop the natural, resources
of their respective estates, and thereby give the labour-
ing population the means of supporting their families,
out of the poor-house." In doing so, every facility
will be afforded. The nation will gladly aid tht se
anxious to help themselves. Loans to the amount of
a million and a half pounds sterling have already
been applied for by the Irish landlords, under the
" Landed Property Improvement Act," of which
several have already been conceded to tha extent of
00,000/. sterling, and it is to be hoped that the remain-
der of that allcated by the Legislature to the
same purpose will speedily be made applicable,
and by the power thereby conferred on the 'landlords
there will be full means of giving useful employ-
ment to all ; more especially if the parties liable to
the payment of the poor-rates would, by a voluntary
arrangement amongst themselves, agree to give em-
ployment to the idle labourers in proportion to the
extent and value of their respective holdings.
We are grieved to find his Lordship speaking of
" the necessity for partial measures of coercion.'
We shall ,however abstain from comment until the
nature an c extent of the proposed measures are
i brouglit forward and fully before the public. It is at
least satisfactory to find that it is not by coercion
alone that Ireland is to be governed, but that the con-
templated enactments are " to be accompanied by
measures of a remedial character, calculated to ame-
liorate the condition of the people, and to restore se-
curity to life and property." Peace and tranquillity
can never he restored to Ireland until the causes that
have led to the disturbances are removed, until the
relationship between landlord and tenant is placed
upon a better foundation, and more equitable laws
than those at present in force, are brought into
operation.

We cannot feel much amazement that the Protec-
tionists should, through their Parliamentary leaders,
declare that our present embarrassments have origi-
nated—exclusively and immediately originated—in
the operations of Free Trade. The opportunity is too
seductive to be overlooked, out of mere sentiments of
justice and truthfulness. Monopoly is hors de combat,
Conservatism is paralysed. Toryism is defunct. The
prestige of the good old class of politicians who were
predominant in the good old times is vanishing. The
anti-popular faction is used up, and doomed to obli-
vion. something must be done, if possible, to re-
trieve their position think Lord STANLEr and Lord
GEORGE BIINTINCI. ; some show of life must be made—
even though it be as distorting and evanescent as
the galvanic convulsions of a corpse; some signs of
vigour must be made—even though they resemble
the momentary and ghastly spasms of dissolution.
The necessity requires no enforcement with the fol-
lowers of these noble statesmen ; they are driven to
acts of audacity by the very desperation., of their
cause, and by the perils of their most untenable posi-
tion. At this crisis in their destiny an oppor-
tunity presents itself for striking a last blow at
their adversaries, and, in the act of striking that
blow, of raising themselves again to power
and distinction. This opportunity is—the panic
which has seized upon the community. Here
is a theme for vituperation ! Here is a, handle
for sarcasm against the politico - economic
system contrived by such imbeciles and
visionaries as ADAM SMITH, as WILLIAM HUG.
X.ISSON, as RICHARD COADAN, as SIR ROI3ART PEAL,
aid as Lord Joula RUSSELL 1 What is honesty when
contrasted with the chance of such a bitter,
though ephemeral revenge ? What are truth, and
candour, and straightforwardness when weighed
against this golden opportunity ? Nothing. Lord
GEORGE BENTINCK yields himself up to the sugges-
tions
of this desperate fantasy. There is the fact of
our embarrassments, and there is the fact that those
embarrassments have been immediately preceded by
the free-trade enactments. The inference deduced
from these facts by the ingenious statistic's of the Noble
Lord the Member for Lynn are exquisitely specious and
deliciously calculated to gratify the spleen of his sup-
porters. All these national afflictions are attributed
to the malign and destructive operation of free trade.
The money market is involved ir. anxieties ; it is free
trade. The capitalists are stopping payment, and
coming down with a crash, one after another ; it is
free trade. There is little food, and less employ-
ments, in the manufacturing districts ; it is free
trade. Enough cotton is not imported from Ame•
rica ; 'it is free trade. Cotton won't come at all from
Ilindostan ; it is free trade. Free trade is,
in fact, the JOHN JONES of the farce; the
Little Piciu.E— or, rather the Big PICKLE
—of the vaudeville. Always doing wrong; always
plunging into difficulties ; in every body's way;
blowing hot when it should blow cold, and blowing
cold when it should blow hot. Free trade is held up
to the execration of the people as their bugbear ; as
the cause
h
cause of all their afflictions; as the false step
which has carried them over the edge of the preci•
pice, and is now hurling them down into the abyss of
picture of free tprtsecyle.
national bankruptcy. In drawing this malignant
,th but.
one in itsaerlf.G3°'
however, a little too f
stroyed its effect by
felicitous
aGm has just gone,
The motion was a
anything he has
i ndignation. he has_ de-
He has
If
he
has
provede intensity of his
proved too much—for his own argument.
raised his voice so i loudly that il
.hitherto Z.:
con-
centrated upon himself and his party thaa, scru-
tiny of the public, a scrutiny
verted in another direction by the immftienee
of affairs ; and under that scrutiny the ex-