The Sun.
London, England, 1841-06-25 00:00:00

~~~~~ ~ ~ ~ I~yA

LONDON:
FRIDAY, JUNE 25, 1841.

The election of Sheriffs yesterday has sorely
disappointed the leading organ of the Tories.
The Times anticipated that the Livery would
pass over Mr. ROGERS with contempt, but
Mr. ROGERS was elected without opposition.
So the Times and the Tories boast that the City
will return Tories, and they will be equally dis-
appointed. The election of Sheriff's is an indica-
tion that the election of Members will be a still
greater disappointment to the Tories.
Their candidates, in fact, are all fighting
against their own interests, and against the inte-
rests of the City. They dare not say a word
against cheap timber, cheap sugar, and cheap
bread. In fact, they espouse the principles
against which they call on the citizens to vote
in their persons. With the exception of the
Canada timber jobbers, and a few mortgagees of
West India property, the bulk of the electors are
favourable to a change in the sugar, timber, and
corn duties. They live by trade, and for them
to vote against an extension of trade is to commit
violence on themselves. We cannot conceive an
elector—not a jobber nor a monopolist—voting to
keep up the price of sugar, to preserve a mono-
poly of timber, or to maintain the !present gam-
bling with the subsistence of the people.
They may not be contented, of which we see
many proofs
• , with the alterations proposed,
which they think ought to have gone farther;
but the Tories are for making no change what-
ever; and they will vote for an inconsiderable
alteration rather than vote to nail the
they pre
d sent
As
system for ever on the country. esire
a greater change, the more high-handed and tri-
opponents of all
maphantly they can defeat the
change, the more likely they Will be to obtain
their desire. They are not to suppose if they
speak out boldly that the ia
Mints plan is to
be final; far from it; that Ministerial
srbult the com-
mencement of an improved system, which it de-
pends on them to carry forward.
With the principles of free trade the welfare
of our great commercial metropolis is closely
bound up. They have been advocated and
prayed for by its leading merchants, year after
year, since 1821 ; and to their prayers the open-
ing of the India trade, the modifications of the
Navigation Act, and the reduction of many pro-
hibitive duties, have been successively granted.
Gradually and successively, too, has the metro-
polis increased in wealth and splendour as re-
strictions have been removed. For those who
have advocated freedom of trade, who have par-
tially obtained it, and have profited by it, now
to vote for standing still, or to retrograde, is
quite impossible. Can the sun go back on the
dial ? The Tories, then, who look to the electors
of the metropolis for support, will be, we believe,
as much disappointed as the Times, which saw
the election of Mr. ROGERS for Sheriff on the
same day that it called on the Livery to pass him
by with contempt.

The readers of The Sun will find in another
column an abridged report of an excellent speech
delivered by Sir GEORGE GREY to the electors of
Devonport. No Member of the Government

can refer with more well-founded confidence to
:the consistency of his Parliamentary career than
t siriiixQnoE,and it is highly creditable to his con-
,s.titnerls that they so highly appreciate his public
ervices and those of his colleague, Mr. Tu-FFNEL,
f.l„-,,that a Tory is noi,Ahe lightest chance in the

,trs

borough. DERRY DAWSON, the brother-in-law
of Sir R. PEEL, has put himself at the head of the
Tory forlorn hope, but it is only to be buried in
the trenches. Sir G. GREY'S arguments in
favour of abolishing the Sugar duties and Corn-
laws (for he avows himself no finality man in
proceeding first with a reduction of the im-
posts upon bread and sugar), are incon-
trovertible, but there is one passage in his speech
which certainly does not plea§e us. We allude
to what he says about the course which the Mem-
bers of the Cabinet will pursue in the event of
their being in a minority in the ensuing Parlia-
ment. Why thus anticipate defeat? Why damp
the generous ardour of the electors of the Unitea
Kingdom, by telling them, on the eve of a great
struggle, that possibly defeat, and not victory,
awaits them ? Courage and self-confidence is
half the battle; confidence in the people, when
the patriotism and self-interests of the people
are appealed to, is more than victory—it
is the annihilation of the enemy. The pre-
sent is not the time for Ministers to tell
the country the degree of fortitude with
which they are prepared to suffer poli-
tical martyrdom. They are not now fighting on
the defensive. Having carried the war into the
enemy's camp, their followers expect other dis-
courses from them than homilies on resignation,
and on the merit, if captured, of wearing their
chains with decorum. The cause which Minis-
ters support—the cause, of righteousness and of
the poor—ought to infuse into them a bolder and
more determined spirit. Success, like a citadel,
may be often carried by storm. What but the
confidence which the Ministry had in the coun-
try, and which the country reposed in the Mi-
nisters, saved England from anarchy, when
the Lords threw out the first and se-
cond Reform Bills ? And though somt
acts of the Government have since wak-
ened the popular confidence in the literality
of its general policy, it has only to adopt a bold
and unflinching resolution upon the Corn-laws
and Sugar duties questions, and thereupon to
challenge as its right the suffrages of the elec-
tors, to ensure the most triumphant success.

We see with satisfaction that the
papers which arrived yesterday have cooled
down on the affair of the Chancellorship. They
are no longer hissing, bouncing, and spluttering,

like melted iron coming into contact with water.
No doubt the good feeling, of the Irish towards

the Ministers will return as soon as the mischief-
maker's retiring- speech is .forgotten. It is clear
that the whole of the excitement, which has no
rational ground, has been caused by the inconsi-
derate, if not malicious, observations of Lord
PLUNKETT.

Some of the Dublin papers mention Sir M.
O'LOGHLEN, the Master of the Rolls in Ireland,
as eminently qualified to he Lord Chancellor.
Admitting his great abilities and his unsullied
character, his religion is an effectual bar to his
receiving the appointment, even if a due sense of
interest would not induce him to prefer his pre-
sent permanent Judgeship to the temporary but
higher office of the Chancellor. Though he
cannot be promoted, he is still suscep-
tible of an affront at the promotion of
others and, while he may look with com-
placency on a lawyer of such eminence as
Baron CAMPBELL being placed on the Irish
Woolsack, he would probably feel deeply mor-
tified at seeing a man taken from his own Court,
and advanced above him to a place which the
law has forbidden him to occupy. If there were
no other consideration, what is due to Sir M.
O'LOGHLEN from the present Ministers, justifies
them for not having placed any Irish Protestant
Barrister on the Irish Woolsack.

The anger of the Dublin Bar, whether simu-
lated or not, is at least misplaced. It might be
proper if the Bar of England were not open to
them. But all its honours, including the Chan-
cellorship, are; and while no Englishman, we
believe, goes to practise in Ireland, no incon-
siderable number of Irish Barristers practise at
the English Bar. To quote one instance, Mr.
CHARLES PHILLIPS, known to every reader of
Newspapers, is an Irish Barrister, who acquired
a reputation in Dublin before he came to the
metropolis.
Baron CAMPBELL himself is one amongst

several proofs, that it is not necessary to be born
and educated in England to rise here to the
highest honours of the legal profession. They
may be claimed by the Irish, who do themselves
an injustice when they limit their ambition
to a monopoly of the professional honours of

their own country. We have not the smallest
fear, however, that the Irish Bar, or the Irish Press
willlong see this matter in an unfavourable light.
They have received too much from the Whigs
to allow the rabid Tories, with which Dublin
abounds, to make a handle of it to stir up
against Ministers, who have always meant well
and done well for Ireland.

We are assured from the spirit which is roused
amongst the people, that the ordinary run of
politicians will miscalculate the result of the
elections. Religion and morality have come to
our aid, and the customary cant of phrases will
lose its power. The people are awake to the great
stake at issue, and where the Anti-Corn-law
candidates are not successful, even :n counties
where the Pro-Corn-law men will walk over the
course for want of proper opponents, the Pro-
Corn-law men will feel, we are sure, that they
have gained no triumph. They will be sensible
that the eye of the people is on them, they will
flinch before public opinion, and some of those
who are elected monopolists will turn ft ee-traders.
.In another part of The Sun, we publish an ex-
hortation from the Baptist Community to ab-
stain from bribery. So excellent an example will
be imitated by the Clergy of the Established
Church, we have no doubt ; and bribery will be
discountenanced by the ministers of every sect.
The good cause will gain throughout the coun-
try by that, for the chief source of the strength
of the Tories is the venality of the electors.
Some religious men, we see, hesitate to embark
in politics, alleging that they are inconsistent with
religion. For theirsake let us observe, that every
bad law exists only by their power; it is the ex-
pression of the will of the community, including
them; and if they deem any law to be immoral
and unjust, they are as much bound to demand
its repeal as to abstain from cheating. If they
do not, it is kept in existence by their act, and
they are in part the authors of the guilt.
They
are bound to prevent all the evil, and
promote all the good in their power; no evil is
st
ho
egreatrname,
a s that caused by bad laws enacted in
and supported by their power ; and
no reprobation can be too severe for neglecting to
remove all such laws.

Now, that the law which withholds food from
the people is a most mischievous law, cannot for
one moment be doubted. It
e
tthsame time
degrades, im-
poverishes, and starves them.
A
it prevents that commerce betweecnt
it at
it so thek e
ep surestup bond
thoseo peace.f
political
In
distinctionsfa which
is intended
involve political animosities that commerce
knows not, and continually tends to destroy. It
is alike contrary to the laws of nature, as they
are developed in the progress of society—
to they
laws of morality, and the commands of religion.
We cannot understand how men can hope for
peace and happiness as long as they persist in
violating, in their social capacity, those princi-
ples which as individuals they follow and revere.
A false weight is an abomination; a man who
puts a penny-piece under a scale, and filches an
ounce from a loaf or a pound of butter, is a mean
and despicable cheat; but the Legislature enacts
a false weight for tile sale of corn, and surrep-
titiously and scandalously filches from the pur-
chaser two or three ounces on every pound of
bread; at least it does what is equivalent to that.
It does not declare that the quarter of wheat
selling for 60s. shall consist of only six bushels,
but it enacts, when the fair market price of the
quarter is only 455. that the buyer shall give
60s. for it. Of what consequence is it to him
whether the quantity be reduced or whether the
sum he pays for it be increased' It comes to.i