The Sun.
London, England, 1847-12-10 00:00:00

ROYAL SURREY THEATRE,

wee, Mrs. F. Davidge, No. 1, 1).41,14e-terrace, Kensington-road,
Surrey.
THIS EVENING,
BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR.

Edgar Ravenswood, Mr. D. W. King; Colonel Henry Ashton, Mr.
3WMahou ; Arthur Bucklaw, Mr. Rafter ; Raymond, Mr. S. Jonas ;
:Norman. M. H. Horncastle; Lucy Ashton, Mrs. D. W. King; Alice,
Iliss Collett.

---i; tie Tc,liOwed by the celebrated PAS DE FOLIE, from the Opera
Of GustaTns.

To conclude with GUT MANNERING.

Will be presented Shakspeare's Tragedy of MACBETH. Duncan,
3f-r. H. Horncastle ; Macbeth. Mr. H. Hughes ; Macduff, Mr. T.
Fredericks ; Banquo, Mr. F. Vining ; Hecate, Mr. H. Phillips ; Lady
Xlacbeth, Mrs. W. West.
To conclude with Dibdin's Ballad Opera of THE QUAKER.
ilteady, Mr. H. Phillips ; Lubin, Mr. it. Horncastle ; Solomon, Mr.
.Attwood ; Gillian, Miss Collett ; Floretta, Miss R. Isaacs.
A distinct entrance to the private boxes has been made (which
'have been re-fitted). Private boxes may be had nightly of all the
tortncipal Librarians ; and at the Box-ofrize of, the Theatre, which is
*pen daily from Ten until Four.
Boxes, 2s. ; Pit, Is. ; Gallery, 6d.

AtiTLEY'S ROYAL AN.IYRITIIEATRE,
Proprietor and Manager, Mr. William Batty.
Mr. Batty's performing Elephants.
THIS EVENING
The Grand Spectacle of THE CAMP OF SILESIA.
Entirely new Scencs in the Arens.,by the taiented Artistes of
the ttatatilishment, in the carious modes of equestration.
To conclude with a new Domestic Drama, called THE WHITE
WARM..

Bas-office open from II till 5
Acting and Stage Manager, Mr. W West.

MEE'll NG OF PA R LAMENT

THE THIRD EDITIONS
OF

"THE SUN"
CONTAIN, AS USUAL,
THE LATEST PARLIAMENTARY
INTELLIGENCE,

ALL OTHER NEWS UP TO THE HOUR

OF POST.

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Sun-office, 112, Strand.

TUE WEATHER.—SUN OFFICE, DEC. 10.
TECIRDLoSIZTER, Lowest, 52; Highest. 52 ; Noon, 51,

BLROMETER, 29.86. SV IND S. W. ; hazy.

MGR WATER AT LONDON-BILIDGE THIS DAY.
mnittg.. 1i minutes after I Evening .. 34 Allures alter 3.

poured forth like water, and the districts which they
selected for their temporary habitations disgraced by
the most inhuman outrages.
Many of the Irish representatives have earned for
themselves the respect and approbation of the public
by the manly part they have acted on the present
occasion. We have already alluded in favourable
terms to Messrs. H. GRATTAN and DILLON BROWNE,
who spoke out so boldly in support of the
proposition, and established their independence of all
control, and the fallacy of the claim put forward by
the Member for Limerick to the leadership of the
Irish representatives. Many others also deserve to be
spoken of in terms of eulogy for their conduct. The
public should know how few there are who have acted
with Mr. J. O'CONNELL in his attempts to delay the
progress of the measure, attempts of which he has
himself acknowledged the absolute inutility, when he
said, " That looking to the period at which the Bill
had been brought forward, and the certainty of
a protracted session taking place after the Christ-
mas recess, he thought there was no chance
of succeeding in that which, in common parlance,
was called the long game ;" and again—" He knew
there was no chance of defeating the Bill, or even
mitigating its provisions." How is it, then, with
such convictions, that the Hon. Member perse-
veres in his futile attempts at opposition ? Are
not the numbers on the division list sufficiently
conclusive of the deliberate decision of the House ?
Of the 105 Irish Members, but fourteen on one
occasion, and thirteen on another, joined the
Hon. Member, while 33 or 34 actually voted with
the majority; and there is no doubt that a very large
proportion of those who absented themselves from
the House would, if compelled to explain their
wishes, have appeared on the same side. Let, then,
the Hon. Member withdraw from his vexatious
opposition, and let him follow the example of one of
the most sincere and energetic of his adherents (Mr.
E. B. Rocas), and, after the clear expression of the
wishes of the great majority, withdraw from all
further resistance to the progress of the measure.
He may be well assured that he cannot render better
service to Ireland than by so doing.

Through all the derision which has been showered
upon those gentlemen and yeomen who congregate
upon the bucolic premises, No. 17, Old Bond-street,
the indignant utterances of Monopoly have still pre-
vailed. The Agricultural Protection Society still
flourishes--but its continued action is something like
that of the Dutch burgomaster, whose skeleton per-
sisted in perambulating the continent with the assist-
ance of a cork leg, worked by steam, long after his
decease. The skeleton of Protection still visits
" the glimpses of the moon ;" its manes have yet to
be appeased.
It is ridiculous to hear the platitudes of the
old system revived, as they were yesterday, at
the annual meeting of the association. It is
at once ridiculous and depressive ; for the obsti-
nacy evinced by the upholders of those defunct
principles which, until very recently, placed a mul-
tiplicity of restrictions upon international commerce,
promises to survive when the League has become
matter of tradition, and when the mercantile changes
of 1846 are remembered as the achievements of a
remote generation. Nothing will ever convince the
bigots of Agricultural Protection that their political
creed is a delusion or their logic a jumble of the
most incongruous fallacies. Their reason is clouded
by their superstition, and their whole physical and
intellectual powers are pledged to the advocacy of
an idea which is acknowledged by all the rest of
mankind to be an absurdity and a chimera. While

he late commercial alterations are recognised by every-
body else as the necessary consequences of a providen-
tial catastrophe, they have been incapable of regard-
ing them as otherwise than a series of unconstitu-
tional innovations, originating in the ignorance of
democracy, and connived at by the renegades of Par-
liament. When the most enlightened statesmen of
the age argued with themselves in 1846, that the
scarcity of provisions arising from the poverty of the
general harvest, and the almost total destruction of
the potato crop, would render the immediate
opening of the ports essential, as a preventive
against the starvation of the multitude, and
when they saw as clearly as they saw GOD'S
sunlight that when once the ports were
opened it would be a moral, and physical, and
political impossibility to close them again—the
sticklers for Protection still continued to babble the
dogmas of Monopoly, and to term the pernicious
operation of its tariffs the panacea for every national
misfortune. The expectations of the Ministry, as
well as those of the Liberal Opposition, were ful-
filled—famine followed immediately upon the scarcity,
and the removal of the restrictive duties levied upon
our importations became necessary, for the pre-
servation of the lives of the community. The die
was thrown; there was no longer any room be
retract. Free trade had proved to be a
necessity. The artificial barriers of the monopolists
were swept away by an irresistible flood of circum-
stances— by the breath of Nature—by the mandates
of DIVINE PROVIDENCE. And still the Protectionists
continued to babble over the advantages of a system
which had proved so destructive to the popular in-
terests, and to lament as an overwhelming calamity
the movement by which alone the people were saved
from perishing through inanition.
In consequence of a succession of such extraordi-
nary privations, and the necessity which has followed
therefrom of purchasing the produce of other countries
with bullion, the United Kingdom has been drained
of gold to the amount of some 33,000,0001. An ex-
portation of money in such enormous quantities has
naturally conduced to the endangerment of mercantile
credit, to the diminution of employment, and to the
reduction of the average comforts of the population.
Seeing this position of affairs, the Protectionists, from
the benches of the House of Commons, and from the
platform of 17, Old Bond-street, proclaim the sole
cause of our national disasters to be their favourite
bugbear of Free Trade. As well might they say
that a fire-escape was the cause of a conflagration,
that a ship's pumps were the cause of a leakage, or
that the grain imported from America has given rise
to the two past seasons of privation and famine. The
wiseacres ! Free trade the cause of our present
distresses ! What, in the name of common sense,
would be the position of the country at this moment
supposing the principles of agricultural protection had
been maintained in 1846 ?—supposing the ports had
been closed ever since against foreign provisions ?
supposing we had not been permitted to
buy the food which has cost the inhabitants
of these islands no less than 33,000,0001.
in gold ? Need we say what would have been
the result of such a proceeding on the part
of the Legislature ; need we say that, while we might
have retained an abundance of bullion and specie in
our coffers, hundreds must have perished from want
of the commonest necessaries of existence ! And, yet
forsooth, we I are told, by the lugubrious politi-
cians of No. 17, Old Bond-street, that the present
sufferings of Great Britain are attributable to the
operations of the Corn Importation Enactments !
Assertions like these are worthy only of reverberating
in the streets of Coventry, or of being swallowed by
marines.

The popular assembly in the Valais, held at Sion
on the 2d, after a very warm discussion, came to the
following resolutions : _ _ _

" The dissolution of the Grand Council and Council
of State.—The suppression of the immunities of the
clergy.
—The incompatibility between civil and ecclesi-
real functions.—The withdrawal from the Abbeys of
Maurice and St. Bernard of the right of collation- to
Par°ehial be fi 'rhofthe clergy and f
Government to
benefices.—The ces.— e property
religi°lls corporations to be placed under the superin-
tendence of theoontroL_Thei State, and in case of need under its
usegislative provisions of the provisional
(randto th e I::
nomination
itooni),sanctioned
teh e e oubnye
itheCouncil
of
fG rsatnadt
State.--An
....c
-uAn
nc i l.—
inquiryT h e
Decocoher___The named in the course of -the month of
whose existence shallic;entet of
Grand Council to proceed immediately
the convents, and those
to be made as to the
tranquillity to be suppresser incompatiblepolide—aiAll the laws, decrees, and
with public
Theoffence rendered since
poraextrnses of the war to
judgments in cases of
re:cd its favour.
aul/end other per-
-1544, to be null and void.--
be borne by such religious cor
sons as voted for it, advised it, or
—The Assembly recommended the Grand
grant naturalization to such citizens as h its
to
have taken
' arms in defence of the country, of the cause of liberty
and progress.—Civil instruction to be under the sup:.
intendence and direction of the State.—The expulsion
of the Jesuits from the canton.—The division of the
canton, if it be not opposed by the Confederation."
M. DE BOIS LB COMTB has recognised the Provi-
sional Government of Friburg. ile has addressed to

it two letters from Basle, interceding in favour of
nuns expelled from Bulle and Montey.
The New Zurich Gazette says—" We learn that
M. FISCHER, of Lucerne, ex.editor of the Catholic
Gazette, and second deputy of Lucerne to the Diet,
had arrived at Milan. He was immediately received
by the Governor, and on the following day was re-
ceived at Court, but all his efforts to obtain an inter-
vention were fruitless, and, with the exception of
some pecuniary succour, he was obliged to leave
Milan as he came.."

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