The Sun.
London, England, 1840-01-11 00:00:00

Lion the Legislature, the Constitution is practically at
an encL Their deares and best of rights—whether
by the v:oi(-nce of tiie mob, or the tyranny of the
ATTORNEY. GENERAL, is of no cwisequence—are
overthrown." L not this remark hilly confirmed ?

The people of the Metropolis or the Metropolitan

Boroughs cannot meet publicly to petition for the
abolition of the Corn-laws, because they are certain
to be overwhelmed by persons who insist on bring-
ing forward a subject totally foreign to that
for which the meeting is convened. The
Chartists denounce the Corn-laws, but when a
meeting is called to consider them, they propose
for consideration—and they are so numerous that
they are sure to carry their proposition—Uni-
versal Suffrage, Annual Parliaments, with the other
points of the Charter. They might just as. well
propose resolutions on the Te❑ Hours' Bill, or the
Nor-law, or any other matter totally foreign to the
object of the meeting. In Edinburgh, i❑ Glasgow,
in Nottingham, in Sunderland, the case is the
same ; meetings have been in a manner suppressed,
and thus we are driven to the conclusion that the
Constitution is, pro tanto, actually suspended. The
electors are deprived of the power of assembling in
public, and obtaining an expression of public opinion
on one of the most important questions that ever agi-
tated a nation. With all deference to those who
pretend to maintain the rights and privileges of the
people by new-fangled police schemes, and by
driving asunder the Chartists when they meet, as at
Birmingham, in peaceful discussion, those rights
and privileges are already destroyed by the con-
flicting tyrannies of the authorities and the mob.
A revolution, it is said, is sure to end in despotism,
but we have already got the despotism in ever
having had the revolution, except it can be found
in the silent and stealthy operation of the Legisla-
tute, and in the steady growth and extension of the

Executive power.
Such a condition of society, which is, we believe,
entirely new, requires to he attentively considered
and carefully dealt with. To meet these new cir-
cumstances the " file can afford no precedent;"
and if hasty, shallow, so-called practical politicians,
attempt to deal with them, in the eagerness of arro-
gant authority, in the ordinary or Birmingham
fashion, the consequences will, most probably, be
fatal. The example of Mr. MURRAY, the work-
ing man and Chartist, as well as the kindred
examples of LOVETT and scores of others,
demonstrate that talent, energy, and eloquence
are enlisted on the side of the Chartists
as well as on the side of their opponents.
Numbers are probably with them. If the electors
be powerful in Parliament,the Chartists are powerful
at public meetings. To make laws against them
will not suffice : the means of executing the laws
must be found. Sympathy may go with the en-
forcemer.t of an old authority, but it will desert a
mew constraint, and any attempt to prevent by force
the non-electors from overbearing the electors at
public meetings will be considered dangerous, and
be opposed. Public opinion, therefore, or what
appears to be public opinion, will be expressed
by the non-electors ; the laws will be made by the
electors, Or according to their wishes, and the very
key-stone of all freedom, the coincidence of legis-
lation with public opinion, or the control of the
latter, will be destroyed. The legislator may de-
pend on it that the Conditior-of-England Ques-
tion, with a manifold variety of new circumstances,
to which neither theory nor experience can give
any clue, will force itself on his attention, and
compel him to treat it by no ordinary rules, but
according to a philosophy he has, we are afraid,

yet to learn.
We have been drawn aside from the Corn-laws
to consider one of the discrepancies which are every
day made manifest by their instrumentality. It is
one of their consequences, as we have said before,
to expose alt our institutions to hazard, to place
property in jeopardy, and to endanger the Consittu-
tion. In fact, however, they have gone nigh already
to destroy it, and therefore, partly, do we rejoice at
observing the solemn, the impressive language in
which they are everywhere denounced. At Leith
and at Stockport, as well as at Liverpool, they have
been held up to moral execration. This is
as it should be ; and now that statistical
considerations are no longer considered all im-
portant, we have no fear of the result. The Ile-
pealers have planted themselves on the high ground
of morality ; they are combating the avaricious
prie&thood, who support the Devil's laws, and the
pelf-loving landlords, with their own,weapons, at a'
great advantage, and they must be victorious.
When the people have so taken up the question,
when they begin to regard it not only as a
moral but as a, religious question, we do not
unt,',7rstand the wisdom of the Scotsman, which
prefers a moderate fixed duty, to demanding a total
repeal. Such It preference extinguishes the noblest
motives for exertion. For the public to demand a
fixed duty, would be to sanction a now.-denounced
robbery: far the Whigs to enact it would be to
make themselves reiippnible for a Corn-law, and
relieve the Tories from the odium now justly heaped
on them, bet us have, say we, no paltering with
this subject, but let us keep in the broad h;gh road
of principle, and demand, 4,1 4 matter of right and
justice, the repeal of the accurWil find impious
taxes on the (t.)04 of the nation.

The sympathies of the respeetable, moral, and I
peaceable people of England were enlisted, we have
no doubt, against the violence imputed to Mr,
FROST, or supposed to be contemplated by him
and his associates. The forcing unwilling men
along with them—the invading a quiet town—and
the suffering and anguish which might have been
inflicted on the tranquil and reposing people of
Newport, are the circumstances which IiAYP kindled
indignation wheievrr it has been felt against Mr.
FttosT. And how will they feel now when
they finil that these are not the nifePei2s for which
Mr. FRosT Las forfeited his life? All tbese be
might have been guilty of, and had his object only
been the recovery of a teneawWi he would not have
been guilty of treason. Nay, more, be might have
plundered and burned the town of Newport-,,he
might have gbot the flying inhabitants, and
if he could have proved that he and his compa-
nions were prosecuting a private feud against Mr.
PRoTHeno and Mr. PHELPZ, ilr wpjld have
escaped as Lord GEORGE GORDON 441, 300
was guilty of similar offences, so far as the
treason law is concerned, gut free. Such a
law, emblematical as it is of the hetiyns,
the falsehoods, din absurdities, which consti7
tute the great mass of oqr lawg, is also emblema-
tical of the character and missiog a ,the present
rulers of societ,. It is not without n 740) rP.gop,
learnt from obaeryation of many such facts, that Nr.
CARLYLE says that tiu people want a true leader,
not a 41.5 e and a sham leader.

Quirk,
iliit„torney-eunning, is 4. land of
" Shiftiezz,
bsays Mr. Carlyle, " and is
thing that fataeigs it
it is, luckily, mistaken in
toftenlit.,,
~ M fancieden toof bd no,: as Fujiptikt tlt
say to it--Thou
wit wisclona, rule thou ; wheryel"li4e'e44
isFeoernough.
gut Nature
amo;s:kviiiqwas-7.510,,
irithisi;ioroullwinags is not aar.43r,cling to
Dost thou
take me, too, Of c. ipa,ckery ?
and atturneyi7rn ? s.7bi. Akiiiff #,,c4..
,_
ou conventionalityse
bosom, though it pass at the
i;a1149!0,t;l,
.ow t into my
wig ty4 grow wheat out of it, for it is ~h4tV,,,f9,?!1-eorn, I
Verily u.i,i treason law is a quackery nud an
• • a. t : ts
attorneyistn—it is ci,1a.14. wa,cii is thro • •
,An into the
on
or tutlpih.oinn e 4 r 44.22?