The Sun.
London, England, 1840-12-15 00:00:00

LONLON, TUESDAY, DITEMBER 15. 1810.

r former times that soil was more than once violently
confiscated, and latterly it was confiscated on con-
dition that its owners should rear or convert the
natives into Protestants. True to this vil-
lanous origin of their right, the Orangemen
laboured, by all kinds of tyranny, to extirpate
the Catholics, but they only degraded them, and
made them increase the faster. Exposed to
numerous oppressions and privations, the Catholics
lived humbly, laboured hard, and paid high rents.
Tempted by these, the Orangemen, who were
ready to immolate others though they could not
sacrifice the smallest conveniency of their own,
leased their Protestant land to Catholic tenants.
But the Catholic priests continued to influence the
tenantry, and as these grew numerous, and obtained
a little property, they got political power, and in
some cases thwarted and defeated the views of their
landlords. This was not to be borne, and the owners
of the Protestant soil have begun on a systematic plan
to get rid of their Catholic tenants. In those
cases where it is impossible to extirpate the tenants,
because the whole population are Catholics, the
landlords have resolved to have none but tenants
at will, and so deprive the Catholics of political
power. In other cases, as in Fermanagh, where
there arc Protestants, Sir ARTHUR BROOKE,
amongst others, has declared that he will not let
any land to Catholics, when he can find Protestant
tenants. In Ireland, then, the right of property,
intended for the good of all, is used to depress in-
sult, and starve the bulk of the population.
Now comes Scotland. The Dungries Times of
yesterday week contains the report of a dinner given
by Sir W. MAXWELL to his tenantry at Monreith,
in Wigtonshire, when Sir WILLIAM said If any
of his tenantry could not go along with him in po-
litics, he would just say that while their leases
lasted he would live in friendship with them, but
he would not let alarm upon which there was a
vote to any person who could not or stould not go
along with him." To make quite sure, he added

that he was to have a voice in the vote of his te-
nants, and the tenant ought to consult him. In
fact, Sir W. MAXWELL will not take hereafter a
tenant who will not pledge himself to give his vote
to Sir WILLIAM'S friends and party. He means
to abuse the right of property to coerce every person
who pays him rent for permission to till the ground,
into political servility. He says in plain terms,
that he will employ it to establish a control over
the political opinions and political consciences of
men, and compel them to act, if he cannot com-
pel them to think, as he wishes. Such a project is
manifestly at variance with the public security and
public advantage, for which the right of property
iv established, and which Sir WILLIAM and his
friends expose to hazard by using it to perpetrate
a public wrong.

We could quote more instances of similar con-
luct, but we content ourselves with these, all recent

—the press yet ringing with them—one from
each great portion of the empire—to show how
landlords use their right of property in every place.
In all these cases the landowners are Tories, but it
such conduct be exhibited by Whigs they shall meet
from us with an equally stern reproof. We can
condemn these Tory landlords consistently and with
a good conscience, but we know not, except for a
mere party interest, why those journals should con-
demn it which were silent when a right of voting—
established like a right of property for the public
advantage—was used, as in the case of Mr. HAR-
MER, to coerce and punish opinions, or which joined
in the wolfish howl that was uttered against him.
The conduct of the landlords is of a piece with
that brutal intolerance which excluded Mr. HA R-
M ER, and found Mr. HETHERINGTON guilty. In
all of these cases the intolerants have used a right or
a power created by the law for the public advantage,
to gain a superiority for their own opinions, and
expose other men to contumely or to punishment
for presuming to differ from them.
We are not surprised, however, like some of our
Contemporaries, at the proceedings of the land-
owners. We believe them capable of anything.
The men who will deliberately, with contrivance
and malice, starve a single human being, much less
hundreds and thousands of human beings, every
year, in order, as they most mistakingly suppose,
to put money into their own pockets, will commit
any wickedness. We are, however, surprised
that those who have manfully and honourably ex-
posed this wickedness of the landlords, should
now say so much about their comparatively most

_ .
trifling invasions of the tenants' rights. Is
this another exemplification of the manner in which
not only the laws are made to benefit some classes,
hut public opinion is actually perverted to think
only of the few and disregard the many? The te-
nants belong to the middle classes, only the lower
classes are actually starved, and it is, we must
admit, consistent with the whole course of the na-
tional policy, and with the stream of public opinion,
to make a great outcry if but a little finger be laid
on the former, and to be silent even when the latter
are slowly and most painfully starved out of exist-
ence. The multitude, ask for a Parliament and
a press of their own, because they never receive
justice from the Parliament of the upper classes, nor
find sympathy in their press.
There is another consideration which shows that

the middle classes arc much interested in the coer-
cion of the tenants' votes. The manufacturers and
merchants arc deeply injured by the Corn-law.
They are impoverished, and their trade is impeded.
In Scotland the tenantry understand that the Corn-
law is a landlords' question ; and if the landlords
cannot coerce the tenants' votes, they may send to
Parliament Corn-law repealers. The tenants, then,
must be coerced for a more substantial interest,
as is supposed, than the mere success of a party ;
they must be coerced to maintain the bread tax
against their interests and their consciences; they
must be coerced to vote for the continuance of the
the landlords' plunder, and maintain by law a
stealthy Thug system of robbery and murder. The
landlords' power to filch away the property of other
men can only be preserved by a complete tyranny,
of which the coercion of the middle classes, who
have votes, is a part.

There is a somewhat remarkable coincidence be-
tween the liberal lovers of war on the other, and the
anti-liberal haters of freedom and lovers of corruption
and tyranny on this, tide of the ehannel.TheNational,
the great mouth-piece of the fighters, reproaches
M. GUIZOT and the partizans of peace with a
" stupid worship of material interests." That
journal requires that the immaterial interests of
glory and renown, to be obtained by crush-
ing the material interests of shopkeepers,
labourers, and farmers, be the airy basis of
the national policy. What are wounded,
maimed, and tortured bodies, perishing, like an-
other Moscow army, in the midst of snow, hunger,
fire, and execrations ? What are mangled car-
casses of men and animals blown up, as at Acre,
and covering the earth with a heap of quivering
bodies ? What are deserted wives and forsaken chil-
dren
ou s e
debasementorhospital, osiii starving by the highway, or thrown into a work-
to endure worse than death in the
utterof the mind and heart which is
there engendered, but-vulgar material interests, which
those who think of the immaterial interests
of great renown, and who aspire to glory and
promotion, to plunder and the Marshal's
staff, may and ought to despise ? In like manner,
vihat are the incarcerations of JOHN THOROGOQD

and Mr. BAINES, the shutting up in gaol of all
who object to
pay Church-rates, and the quarrels
which they cause in almost every parish, compared
to the immaterial interests of the Church ? Study
the Post, look into the Herald, read the Standard,
and there you will continually find, as in the
pages of the National, that the political eco-
nomists, and the liberal politicians, the advo-
cates of free trade, are continually derided for
a " stupid worship of material interests." There
is, according to all these journalists, some shadowy
grandeur, some sublime elevation of soul, some
mystical kind of adoration, whether it be of the
Church or of royalty, or of the aristocracy, which
is far superior to the vulgar material interests of
flesh and blood. The plain truth is, that these
material interests are growing too strong for
the lovers of war and the lovers of ty-
ranny. Peace is preferred to glory in France—
full bellies and warm clothing to the adoration of
the priesthood and the aristocracy in England. The
material interests upset the fine theories and dash
ing prophesies of the Tories and the•Napoleonists,
and they are obliged, in both countries, to take re-
fuge in mysticism. They are against material in-
terests, because material intcrests are against them.
The world begins to know arid disown them, and
the exposed and defeated charlatans and impostors
ate obliged, as a last resource, to deride the solid
interests of mankind, and hold up to love and vene-
ration the phantoms of their own crazy brains.

It is with mingled feelings of sorrow and shame
we refer to the correspOndence between Mr. DUN-
comlis, the Member for Finsbury, and Mr.
TOOKE, the Treasurer to the Society for the
Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.
The proceedings reflect great disgrace upon the
officers of the Society, for which the Co►mittee
must come in for a share, . if they do not take
some more fitting - steps than they have hitherto
done, to mark their high displeasure against those
servants of the Society, who, under the cloak
of piety, and for a sinister purpose, attempt
to undermine the political interest of the most con-
sistent, straightforward, and liberal Member in the
House of Commons. When we heard last year
that Mr. TOOKE would be put forward for the bo-
rough of Finsbury on the ground that he was a
pious man (thereby casting a stigma on the sitting
Members), we charitably believed that Mr. TOOKE
was a stranger to any such scheme, and if our me-
mory serves us right, an announcement to that effect
appeared in the papers. It is now, however, beyond
doubt—nay, more, it is proved--that he used the
influence he possessed as Treasurer ; and it is
farther asserted that he denied this fact also. In-
deed we must take this for granted, as Mr. TOOKE
declined meeting the direct charge made by Mr.
DUNCOMBE ; and the Committee, who are
" to his faults a little blind," most religiously avoid
the slightest allusion to the assertion that "he had
' solemnly denied at a meeting of the General
Committee that there teas any truth in the
charges." We leave Mr. TOOKE and the electors
of Finsbury to settle this point between them, with
this caution to the latter, and to electors in gene-
ral, not to believe one word said by a candidate
who claims their support on the plea of piety.
But there are other parties implicated as well as
the pious Treasurer. No wonder that Mr. CoATEs
fought. shy of Mr. DuNcoNtse, well knowing
that he was an accomplice, and that he had presented
the requisition at Mr. Toole. E's request to the
tradesmen employed by the Society. If the Com-
mittee wink at such conduct, they will bring usefti
and pious knowledge into utter contempt—they will
give a handle to the enemies of liberal opinions,
and the diffusion of education, which will be most
unmercifully used, and they will forfeit all credit
for candour and disinterestedness in their endeavours
to dispel the darkness of ignorance. This disclo-
sure will affect also another institution, and make
the public suspect that there may hive been jobbing
there also, and pious frauds committed for political
purposes. Mr. DUNCOMBE deserves great praise
for his determined perseverance in exposini! these
disgraceful proceedings.

There have been recently numerous rumours
afloat of projects for raising loans entertained by
most of the Great Continental Powers. While
schemes of borrowing were confined to Spain, Por-
tugal, Greece, Belgium, and the South American
States, it was hardly worth while to notice them ;
but it becomes kquesticu of national importance
to a country so commercial as England when we
hear of loans intended to be raised by Turkey,
Russia, Austria, and France. Whatever State
may be the borrower, England is expected to be the
lender, and we trust that our capitalists
will not
rush headlong into speculations which may plun:,e
into still deeper distress the commercial classes of

this country. With our railways, our immense
steam navigation, our mining, banking, and agricul-
tural improvement:associations, there is no want of
profitable outlets for capital at home ; and while
such is the case, it would be little short of treason
to employ it in putting am-is in the hands of France
to disturb the peace of Europe, or in enabling the
CZAR to carry on his crusades against the liberti's
of the free tribes of the Caucasus. As for the
smaller fry of money jobbers, they have suffered so
severely from the bad faith of the Spanish, Portu-
guese, and South American Governments, that we
trust there is no occasion to impress upon them the
wisdom of havng nothing at all to do with the
the ContinentLl
y have the
Gseovevrearinmloca:iitss.aboluf tat,oe
wit to keep their money in. their pockets, they will
be;e
oi)le raisedwl.l,ll,
only
;Is t
befu rtle
do more to advance prosperity at home and to main-
tain peace evetywhere, than if they entered a disturbingthou-
sandr
well for them to
recollect, that in the event. of a war, foreign Go-
vernments lrew oprr;:lt.e protests
sI
tag:vii
will be very lik<!ly to forget for a time, if
not altogether, their pecuniary obliga!ions ; and
consequently, that bad debts and war taxes are the
most probable results of any dabblin7, in the new
loans now making such a noise on the Stock
Exchange.

The Extraordinary Express from Paris received
yesterday, enabled us to anticipate in our afternoon
edition the news contained in the Paris Journals of
Sunday. The rejection of the appeal of Madame
NAPOLEON ; and the dis-
ussin
osf
LAFFARGE by the Court of Cassation ; the re-
moval
iltlh
tehe
remains of
several
Bureaux or Committees of
the Chamber of Deputies on the Budget, occupy
nearly the whole of Sunday's papers. We have
given in another column all that we omitted yester-
day relative to these interesting subjects.
c o
At the moment when numerous committees were forming
in all parts of France to assist the sufferers by the late iv-
undetions, the Duke do
.Bordeaux, animated by the same
sentiments, wrote on the 2.2 d of November to the Marquis
de Pasioret, requesting him to distribute in his name the
sum of 6 000 f. in those places whic3 have suffered the most.
The following is the letter, which the Committee at Paris,
of which the ,Marquis de Breze, the President, has oblig-
ingly communicated to us:—,

" Goritz, Nov. 22, 18.10.
4. Monsieur the Marquis
inundations
de Pastoret,-- I learn the dread-
ful misfortunes which the have occasioned in
France, and I hasten to request you to send from me 6,000 r.
to those places which have suffered the most partieuldrly,
Lyons and Avignon. Though I am Obliged to live far from
my country, I have never been indifferent to the misfor-
tunes which it suffers. My only regret on this occasion
is my inability to give more ; but while it receives the
little than I can offer, it will comprehend all that it would
have given me so much pleasure to have done.
" I repeat to you the assurance of my entire affection."
The Duke de Levis has subscribed 500 francs.—Le
Gazette de France.

The Moniteur of ibis morning has no official part.
Several London Journals have reported that a French

frigate had been captured in the Red Sea by an English
brig. The .lournaldes Dfbats contradicts the news, and,
by %%ay of answer to it, adds that there is at this moment
no French frigate in the Red Sea.—Le Constitutionnd

Madrid Papers of the Gth instant have been 're-
ceived. ESPARTERO was indisposed, and had
been bled that morning. M. OLOZAGA had
been appointed Spanish Ambassador at the Court
of France, and was to set out for Paris on the 7th.

The British Ambassador was laudably employed in
calming the political excitement which prevailed in
the Spanish capital.