The Sun.
London, England, 1841-02-02 00:00:00

appointed. A similar Committee was also ap-
pointed by the House of Lords.
In due time these Committees made their re-
ports, includingseveral suggestions for the equali-
zation ofduties on the produce ofthe East and West
Indies, and for the improvement of the trade
with India. The drift of Lord ELLENBOROUGH'S
observations last night was to recommend the
Government to carry the suggestions of the
Committee into effect. But the Ministers have
already given notice of their intention to intro-
duce into the House of Commons a measure to
assimilate the duties on East India and West
India rum, in pursuance of the suggestions of
the Committee. This is a trifling measure ; but
as far as it goes we approve of it. We make no
sort of objection to giving our East Indian fellow
subjects all they ask. We are, in fact, strenuous
advocates for abolishing all discriminating duties
whatever, considering that it is wholly beyond
the sphere of legislation to direct or encourage
any particular species of industry ; but we wish
to impress on our readers that the Legislature
treats questions very differently, as they affect
or not its own Members,
In this case the motion recommended by a
few opulent East India merchants, and by the
reason of the thing, was scarcely made before it
was acceded to, and the suggestions of the
Committee scarcely ripe, before it is proposed to
give them the effect of law. In the case of the
Corn-law, however, to repeal which many hun-
dred thousand inhabitants of this part of the
empire petitioned last Session, a Committee was
refused, all inquiry was refused, and the Peers
and the Commons, having a personal pecuniary
interest in maintaining the law, steadily resisted
even the smallest attempt to give effect to the
prayers of the people. Their humble supplica-
tions went for nothing; those who spoke for
their cause were derided and scarcely listened to
and both Houses passed away from the subject
with ill-concealed disgust that the supposed ad-
vantages of their Members should be assailed,
and with ill-concealed contempt for the pe-
titioning people. The few rich merchants
trading to India, not coming into collision
with the landlords, were immediately attended
to; the millions hungering for bread, the manu-
facturers stopping work because they can get no
profit, but coming into collision with the land-
lords, who compose the Legislature, prayed in
vain. Such is human nature. The smallest
personal inconvenience weighs more with every
individual than the welfare of millions, and he
will, if he have the power—let him be called
Emperor, King, Consul, President, Peer, or
Representative—disregard or betray the public
welfare and gratify his personal feelings.
At the same time, there runs through the
oratory of the speakers on the subject a large
vein of hypocrisy. On both sides they referred
to the people in our Colonies and in our Indian
Empire. Now, it is well known that the
wages of the labourers, semi-slaves as
they still are in both dependencies, will not
be affected one doit either way by any altera-
tion in our discriminating duties. It is mon-
strously preposterous to suppose that the wel-
fare of some 80,000,000 labourers in India can be
influenced by the admission of a few barrels of
rum, or hundred weights of sugar, more or less
into our country. But the few European sugar
planters, the few merchants trading to India, will
be enriched by the change ; and while these alone,
amounting at most to a few thousand, not to
say hundred, Europeans, and their connections,
will be benefited, the change is hypocritically
described as demanded by the welfare of the

people of India. This is the hypocrisy of the
matter, to which is added a spice of pseudo bene-

volence.

The poor Hindoos, it is said, are our fellow-
subjects ; the Legislature is bound to take care
of their interests, just as it pays attention to the
negroes, and for their pretended benefit mulcts
the suffering labourers of England, their wives and
families. The Hindoos have no means of appeal-
ing to' the justice of the Legislature, they are
dependent on its bounty. To them the Legisla-
ture is, therefore, kindly disposed; to the peti-
tioning people who appeal to its justice, and have
some power to disturb its equanimity, it assumes
the character of a severe and rigid master. At
home its authority is at stake, and it stickles for
that at the expense of justice. The people some-
times assume the character of teachers, and they
can expect nothing from the benevolence of
the Legislature. It expects them, in fact, to
help themselves. They are freemen, and
must decide their own fate. What they can-
not command they will never obtain. The
inhabitants of India, and of the Colonies,
are thoroughly slaves. Submission, were it
violated, would be instantly restored, if possible,
by the sword; but as long as they are submissive,
the Legislature feels benevolently disposed to-
wards them. Between the people here and the
Legislature there is a struggle for power ; they
are something like rivals; they approach to an
equality ; the Corn-law-starved people may ac-
cordingly, at some time or other, command justice
from the Legislature—they will never receive it
as a favour,

The turning point of the late Presidential elec-
tion in the United States was the currency. The
VAN BUREN party was defeated by the advocates
of a national bank and paper money. Accord-
ingly it has been predicted that General HARRY...
SON will no sooner be installed in office than a
total change will be made in the monied system
of the United States. We have ventured to doubt
the probability of such a change, and we must
now refer to the intelligence from America, in
another part of our Journal, as tending to confirm
our opinion.

The great opponent of General JACKSON and
Mr. VAN BUREN was the monied interest as re_
presented by the United States Bank. The
Bank and the President were the two con-
tending powers. In the first instance Mr. VAN
BUREN has been defeated because his sub-
treasury scheme has not answered all the ex-
pectations of his countrymen. But now, in
the full tide of success, comes the "panic in
the Money Market;" the United States Bank
returns show that " it haslnot got the means of
standing for an hour before the slightest dispo-
sition to discredit it." " The question now is,"
says the New Yorh Herald, "will the Bank
stand the storm V' Whether it stand the storm
or not, the Americans are too sagacious not to learn
wisdom by the lesson which the condition of the
Bank teaches, and much too cautious to over-
turn a system of currency, in order to set up
anew bubble banks. A modification of the pre-
sent scheme may be admitted, but we may rest
satisfied, after the exposure of the Bank of the
United States, that the party of which it is the
representative, will be unable to carry any such
sweeping change as that our over-sanguine
money speculators have expected and announced.

In the article which we copy from the Times,
the condition of Louis PHILIPPE is represented
to be very precarious, painful, and tormenting.
He is surrounded by a mass of intrigue, complex
and embarrassing, from which all pretence, even,
of generous motives or patriotic spirit, is banished
by common consent. The Times gives that as a
description of French statesmen, but to us it
seems of more general application. It is not only
in France that statesmen want a fixed principle
tor their guidance, such a want is felt everywhere.
Our own statesmen talk of holding fast by the Con-
stitution ; of maintaining the institutions of the
country ; of resisting all progress towards demo-
cracy and republicanism ; of upholding the
Church; but almost every day sees them com-
pelled, whether they he Whigs or Tories, to
make or consent to some innovations which
weaken and tend to destroy the institutions of
the coun:l.s. Great changes have been made
the last f()17- • years ; the chanvei
have deprived tile institutions of the sanction
of i
that for them- I
rescriptiort, without winning