The Sun.
London, England, 1841-10-13 00:00:00

And every youth behind a counter, who nre.
,:;:.10US to please an,'.
They, acquire thereby a habit of deference to
others, and ofrespect for their wishes, tliatbeCom es
I the habit of their society, and is the essence of
civilization. The desire to serve implies depend-
ence of some kind or other, and the principle of
universal benevolence in trade is synonymous
with the mutual and universal dependence of
all the traders. The savage is an isolated and
self-dependent man, and the acme of civilisation
is to reduce all, without exception, within the
circle of mutual and universal dependence.
Such a description of the desires, exertions
and principles of traders, is calculated to excite
our wonder, that they have not been more
Isuccessful in promoting civilization; but our
wonder ceases when we trace iu all the countries
of Europe the hand of Government dili-
gently at work to counteract and impede the
operation of the benevolent desires of traders.
Trade is considered in many States as ignoble.
That national tariffs, by interrupting national
intercourse, impede the extension of commerce,
and prevent the mutual dependence and mutual
interests of nations from extinguishing fierce
political rivalry and political enmity, is well
known; and it must now be equally apparent
that laws interfering with the home trade, to
enrich one class at the expense of others, put
rivalry and enmity between those whom
trade makes mutually dependent and mutually
friendly. Naturally, for example, no classes
lare more mutually dependent one on the other,
than manufacturers and agriculturists, but
the Corn-law has put strife between
them, and almost made them regard each
other as the worst of enemies. The Legis-
lature which impedes trade and builds palaces,
as the Tories recommend—which narrows in-
terchange and communication, and pays artists
and buys pictures—which our landlords prac-
tise, in order to promote civilization—acts as un-'
wisely as the parent who should instruct his
children how to adorn their persons, set them an
immoral example, and forbid them to learn any
honest business, The true way to promote civi-
lization is to give full swing to that desire to
benefit others—to minister to their ease and
comfort, which is common to all trades, and
which is plainly set forth in Mr. PENDRELL'S
advertisement, as the motives for his ingenious
exertions.

A few days ago Mr. ARNOLD, the Revising..
Barrister for Westminster, decided, on good con-
stitutional grounds, that Peers had not a right
to vote for Members of the House of Commons,
and he struck Lord DINORBEN, and other Peers,
off the register for Westminster. The day be-
fore yesterday Mr. COVENTRY, the Revising-
Barrister for Marylebone, took an opposite view,
and as there is, he said, no law to prevent
Peers voting at elections, but only a resolution
of the House of Commons, he decided that Lord
BRIDPORT, and fourteen other Peers, who live
in Marylebone, should be placed on the register.
Such is the certainty and precision of that rule
by which we are required to guide our conduct,
and which Barristers and Judges, while they
call it law, make out of their own heads.

Practically we apprehend Mr. COVENTRY'S
decision will be set aside in case of a disputed
election. The Commons, in virtue of their own
resolution, that Peers shall not interfere with
elections, would strike off every vote given by a
Peer, and as they alone are the judges in all
election matters, they would, in fact, give their
resolution the paramount authority of law. The
Learned Barrister is technically correct in saying
that a resolution of the House of Commons is
not the law of the land; but, practically he is in-
correct, for the resolution will have the authority
of law, and whenever the votes of the Peers shall
come in question before a Committee of the
House they will be expunged.

The Emperor of CHINA has offered a reward
of a hun4red thousand dollars and promotion to
the fourth rank to any one who shall send him, fo?
preservation in the Imperial Museum at Pekin,
the head of Captain ELLIOT. But for the un-
seemly habit in which his Imperial MAJESTY in-
dulges, of severing the heads to which he takes
a fancy from the shoulders, we should recom-
mend the merchants engaged in the China trade
to address a petition to our Gracious SOVEREIGN,
praying her to make the Emperor of CHINA
a present of the ex-Plenipotentiary. Indeed the
CeleStials must entertain a prodigious opinion
of the disinterekedness of the British residents
in China, seeing that the offer of a hundred thou-
sand dollars failed to purchase from them the most
incompetent and mischievous head in the foreign
community. Not to take a hundred thousand
dollars for a head which they would have gladly
given five times that sum to get rid of in any
way more consonant to European ideas, must
have argued in the minds of the Celestials extra-
ordinary disinterestedness. Let but the Em-
peror of CHINA promise to allow Capt. ELLIOT'S
head to remain on its own familiar shoulders,
and let the dollars and the promotion be be-
stowed upon him, and we have not the slightest
objection to his " gratifying the Imperial glance"
by the appearance of the ex-Plenipotentiary at
any of the six Boards to which the Son of Hea-
ven may promote him. The brood of ELLIOT
is happily one which we need indulge no fears
of becoming extinct in England; and if, in the
process of time, the EMPEROR should desire to
increase the stock in his Celestial dominions, it
is more than possible that we shall be able to ac-
commodate him with as many as he may require.
As for Captain ELLIOT himself, his proclama-
tions addressed to the Chinese prove how severe
a student he is in all the arts which constitute
the requisites for exalted office at the Court of
Pekin. His bombast is unrivalled in the
full and swelling volume of its inflation.
His enumeration of his titles is performed
with a self-complacent minute exactness
which bids defiance to Celestial rivalry. 'We had
thought we knew something of Captain ELLIOT'S
rank and pretensions here, but on glancing at his
proclamation to the people of Canton, dated the
2:2d of May, we find that his Excellency is of
quite a different opinion. He there styles him-
self " the high officer of the great flourishing
nation," " a public officer and a great Minister"
—titles to which the people of England have for
some time suspected his claim. These titles the
ex-Plenipotentiary several times repeats, and to
prove to the Chinese the terrible consequences
of provoking his wrath, he assails them with a
distich of doggerel worthy of a Pekin Court lau-
reate. The admonitory hint to the people of
Canton, expressed with the true Mandarin gra-
vity, " 0 ye people, try and think a little !" is
one which they had little reason to expect from
such a quarter. Should the Emperor of CHINA
decline to receive him on the conditions
we propose, his proclamations alone ought to
obtain for him, and his heirs and successors law-
fully begotten; from his own countrymen, the
distinguished title of Mandarin ELLIOT.
Sir LE FLEMING SENH.OUSE said that he would
rather have died and been buried under the
walls of Canton than have signed the dis-
graceful terms of the 27th of May for the
evacuation of that city; and the Canton Register
states that the .ruin of his country's honour
and interests in China caused that gallant
officer to die of a broken heart. There cer-

tainly never was a greater sacrifice ofinchnation,
and of the promptings of an enlarged patriotism,
and a sound policy to the dictates of strict
military subordinate duty, than .in the re-
tirement of the British forces from Canton at
the command of such a nincompoop as EL-
LIOT. The lively indignation which the hn-
becile conduct of this functionary has every
where excited, has prompted some of our
Tory Contemporaries, not only to insist upon
knowing the full extent of the powers entrusted
to him, but likewise to demand how it hap-
pened that the late Government promoted him
to a trust so responsible. They seem not to know
that Captain ELLIOT was not sent out from.
England as Principal Plenipotentiary. He wkla
but one of three Commissioners, and only at-