The Sun.
London, England, 1840-08-25 00:00:00

not call on the Government to interfere with those
opmions, or to put down the meetings at Exe.er
Hall ; we listen to their absurdities—we can
lau,ll at their Julies, but w e claim the same
privilege for the opinions, however erroneous,
foolish, or mischievous of other men. Tl.e Times,
however, and those journals Is,ho call out to sup-
press one species of opinion and one species of
agitation, must, in consistency, suppress the
others ; and no Government—not even a Tory
one—till it have established a complete military
\ despotism, will undertake such a work.
No doubt the limes says the opinions and
pursuits of Mr. O'CONNELL are not those of the
Times, and therefore they must be dangerous to the
stability of the empire. Mr. O'CONNELL, however,
is not of that opinion, and he has as good a right
to form his own opinion as the Times, and to en-
force it by spoken words, as the Times has to en-
force its opinions by written words. There can be
no treason in any political opinion : for the Go-
vernment is the offspring of the people ; it exists
by their will, it grows from their opinions, and
they have just as good a right, if it seem proper to
them, to opine in favour of a republic or a federal
union as for a monarchy. The monarchy
does not exist for the QUEEN, or to satisfy
any abstract theory, or because it is agree-
able to the laws of nature, but simply because it is
the will of the nation ; and the nation may with
equal right will any other form of Government.
There is no law, whatever the resolutions of the
House of Commons may say, making it treason
to think that Ireland would be better governed by
a Parliament of her own ; and it is no more a crime
in Mr. O'CONNELL to propose a repeal of the
Union, than it was in Mr. PITT to propose and
accomplish it.
We do not agree with Mr. O'CoNNELL ; we
are far from thinking that the Irish should struggle
for a repeal of the Union. We find one
meddling law-making body mischevous enough,
and to set up another in Ireland, and perhaps
another in Scotland, would be only multiplying the
fountains of impure legislation. We differ on this
point in tot° from Mr. O'CONNELL, but we no
more invoke the law to put down his agitation,
than we invoke it to put down the more unchari-
table, ruinous, and disgusting agitation of Messrs.
Mb.NEILE and M'GHEE. If the Tories in oppo-
sition call on the Government to put down the
repeal agitation, in office they would use force to
put it down, and, bringing the Government into
collision with a heated multitude, would speedily
involve us in civil war and revolution.
From complaining of the treachery of GovPrn-
merit the Times jumps to reproach it with weak-
ness. If to do the bidding of the people and to have
no strength in opposition to them be weakness, we
pray that it may always be weak. The Go-
vernment of Sir ROBERT PEEL and the Duke
of WELLINGTON was never so usehil and never
so great as when it laid aside its beloved principle
of Church tyranny, and did the biddit;g of the
people in abolishing the Test Act, and in eman-
cipating the Catholics. Never d,d the Government
commit a worse act, than when it was strong
enough (and the Times will agree with us) to set
tl;c people at defiance, and pass the Corn-law. We
reckon the Opposition a part of the people ; and
to reproach the Ministers that they are not able to
make laws in spite of the Opposition, is merely to
say that the Whigs are not strong enough
to be tyrants. Had the Government ne-
ver been so powerful as to set the people
at defiance, the country would not now have been
cursed with a multitude of tyrannical Tory laws,
which, for the misfortune of the Whigs, they have
to administer. A strong Government—that is, a
Government supported by the whole people, as
against foreign nations—is a blessing ; a strong
Government—that is, a Government supported bt
an arinv, and by corruption of one kind or another,
as against the people—is a great curse and
a great tyranny. Because the Governments of
Europe are too strong in this latter sense, they
are all weak against each other, and a Tory Go-
vernment, endeavouring, at least to establish itself
in strength against the people at home, would, by
adding to our dissensions, increase our weakness in
relation to foreign countries. For the sake of peace
at home and strength abroad, the principles ex-
pressed by the Times must not be carried into exe-
cution by placing the Tories in office.

The averages and the sliding scale of duties are
the most ingenious parts of the Corn-law. They
were devised with a view of bolstering up that ini-
quitous enactment. They had Corn-law men for
parents; and nurses. The manufacturers and mer-
chants neither passed the law nor do they support
it. Altogether it is the darling child of the land-
lords' foolish, but scoundrel greediness, for all villany
is folly. At present the averages are beginning to
excite much attention, and the Pro-Corn-law men
condemn this part of their own law in the following
terms. The Bridol Mirror, a Pro-Corn-law jour-

nal, says :
" The weather and the harv(st have excited and are
still exciting the most intense at.xiety, both amongst the
agricultural and commercial interests, as a short crop,
and a consequent importation of foreign corn, followed
is that importation would be by a great export of
the previous metals, must be f.roductive of the most
disastrous consequences to the community generally.
A letter, of extraordinary importance, in reference to
;his subj,Tt, has just come under cur notice, from
which it appears that an atrocious conspiracy ha,,
been organised for the sole purpose of ra sing prices,
and so reducing the duty as to lead to the itoporta-
non of corn, the export of gold, and the attendant para-
lysis of all commercial and trading operations."
Mr. HANDLEY, one of the Whig Members for
South Lincolnshire, and a great stickler for Corn-
laws, writes as follows :
" It is perfectly notorious in London that several
large houses in the corn trade have combined and sub-
scribed to make forced purchases far the purpose of re-
ducing the duty, and hence the monstrous returns of
the last tour weeks, 9,598 qrs., 11,235 qrs.. 14,900
qrs., and 19,500 qrs., being in the average more than
double the amounts of any preceding month. Thus,
at a period of the y..ar when stocks are naturally low,
and when the arrivals in the port of London are repre-
sented as only 10,7125 qrs., and the quantities by laud
carriage 6 to 700 qrs., the returns of wheat represented
as sold in the same week are nearly double that quantity,
and almost equal to one-iburth of the aggregate amount
of corn sold in the 149 other cities and towns of Eng-
land and Wales named in the Corn Bill of the 9th
Geo. IV.
" The discrepancies in the average price of Mark-
lane and Boston are also singularly wide ; but the Lon-
dun returns are better borne out by the markets of
Guildford, Uxbridge, &c„ in price than :hey are by
comparative quantities. The Board of Trade has insti-
tuted a searching investigation as to the bulks repre-
sented as sold, and the bona fide nature of the transactions.
" Should; they be proved to be fraudulent, they will
be struck out of the averages ; but it it shall appear, as
there is too much reason to apprehend, that certain
parties have ready made such purchases, and hate
thought fit to sacrifice large sums of money, with a view
to future gain, I fear as the law stands there is no re-
medy, especially where the facilities are afforded, as in
Mark-lane, of three markets in the week."

So the averages do not answer the purpose of
the landlords ; other men can turn laws to their ad-
vantage as well as the

Lords of fat Evesham and of Lincoln Fen."
The Standard is as wrathful as Mr. HANDLEY
or the 137 istol Mirror, and vents its indignation
and its silliness in the following terms

s. The villany. exposed by Mr. Handley has strong
substantive claims to the notice and indignationoftihne
public,
but the exposure is otherwise of immense
•
terest. It proves the power of the great corn-dealers to
raise and lower the markets at pleasure, even in the pre-
sentl state of the law, when the borne supply necessarily
interferes with tbem ; and it proves also their real.
ness to employ the power in question for their private
gain, wholly regardless of the misery they it,fLet upon
the puulic. Let, however, the supply of our markets