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

ROYAL SURREY THEATRE.

Lessee, Mrs. F. Davidgc, No. 1, Davidge-terrace, Kensington-road,
Surrey.
THIS EVENING,
BRIDE OF LAMMERMOOR.

Edgar Ravenswood, Mr. D. W. King; Colonel Henry Ashton, ➢lr.
M*Mallon ; Arthur Bucklaw, Mr. Rafter ; Raymond, Mr. S. Jones ;
Norman. M. IL Horncastle; Lucy Ashton, Mrs. D. W. King; Alice,
Miss Collett.

~To be followed by the celebrated PAS DE FOLIE, from the Opera
of Gustavus.

To conclude with GUY MANNERING.
Will be presented Shakspeare's Tragedy cf MACBETH. Duncan,
Mr. H. Horncastle ; 3lacbeth, Mr. H. Hughes; Macduff, Mr. T.
Fredeab:ks ; Banquo, Mr. F. Vining ; Hecate, Mr. 11. Phillips ; Lady
Macbeth, Mrs. W. West.
To conclude with Dibdin's Ballad Opera of THE QUAKER.
Steady, Mr. H. Phillips ; Lubin, Mr. LI. Horncastle ; Solomon, Mr.
Attwood, ; Gillian, Miss Collett ; Iloretta, Miss B. Isaacs.
A. distiact entrance to the private boxes has been made (which
have been re-fitted). Private boxes may be had nightly of all the
Brinekpal Librarians ; and at the Box-office of the Tkeatre, which is
open-daily from Ten until Four.
Boxes, 2a. ; Pit, Is. ; Gallery, 6,1.

AriTLEY'S ROYAL AMPHITHEATRE,
froprietor and Manager, i,tr. William Batty.
Mr. Batty's performing Elephants.
Tins EVEN IN°
The Grand Sy,eetaele of TIIE CAMP ON' SILESIA.
Entirely new Seems in the Arena, by the talented Artistes of
the Establishment, in the various modes of equestration.
To conclude with a new Domestic Drama, caned TILE WHITE
FARM.

Box-office open from 11 till 5
Acting and stage Manager, Mr. W West.

MEETING OF PA RL lAMENT

THE THIRD EDITIONS

"TFIE SUN„
CONTAIN, AS USUAL,

THE LATEST PARLIAMENTARY
INTELLIGENCE,

ALL OTHER NEWS UP TO THE HOUR
OF POST.

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rn WEATHER.—SUN OyncE, DEc. 10.
Tiummoitwrza, Lowest, 52; Highest. 52 ; Noon, 51.

BAIWKETER, 29.86.—W1ND S.W.; hazy.

WATER AT LONDON-BRIDGE THIS DAY.
Morning.. 16 minutes after 3. Evening .. 34 minutes attar 3.

- 44,
vs

LONDON, FRIDAY. DECEIIBER 10, 1847.

The Bill for the Prevention of Crime and Outrage
is Ireland was last night read the second time, Lord
'GEORGE BENTINCK having asijourned his motion, in
consequence of the illness of the Premier, and Mr.
CfsisnoLas ANSTY having (although with re-
luctance) acceded to the plain and unmistakeable
opinion of the House, and postponed his address for
documents. Mr. HUME and the other Members who
had motionsjon the paper pursued a similar course,
and the orders of the day were proceeded with. It is
scarcely necessary now to advert to the arguments in
favour of the Bill. They have commanded the all
but unanimous assent of the British nation, and even
of a very considerable majority of the Irish repre-
sentatives_ Those who have ever before appeared as
the most uncomprising opponents of every descrip-
tion of coercion expressed their cordial approbation of
the present Bill, and acknowledged the imperative ne-
cessity for protecting the lives of her MAJESTY'S
peaceful'. subjects, and rendering it possible for them,
without, -what may be termed foolhardiness, to reside
on thei r respective estates, and personally to superin-
tend tt lose improvements and afford that general em-
Pi3el°Yret,r
_en‘t,_eby which the national prosperity can best
of t;
Anal; t dn. If any doubts remained in the mind
of liberal feelings—if the long-
c(llf.eec dished
in
initsh against every species of coercion
pause
bfweorehave participated), should in-
duce• him: to
these doubts
his assent to the
nisteri al measure,
of
that consistent
would be removed
by, the statement
nsaisnbtouense boast on th
ts
idle _Litbheeralv—etethranat
v,nninching reformer of
all
M ,tuber for Montrose. It was
man
When
he
mate
pe .rt of that Honourable Gentle
de
" that no person was ever more constant
t' ban he had been against ill-using the peop:(olftirrue
a.
I and ; that he had throughout advocated
the
removal of all ground of complaint, and
that they should be treated in a manner to make
them satisfied with the Government." In fact, the
present is not a coercion Bill. There is no endue
restriction of the popular liberties. The powers con-
ferred on the distinguished nobleman who now fills
the Viceroyalty will not unnecessarily be brought into
• operation. His Excellency must be thoroughly con-
. vinced of the pressing necessity of such a step, and
oust also receive the sanction of the Pi ivy Council,
b efore there is any recourse thereto. And it is only
tf le would-be murderer, the embryo assassin, that will
be affected, and his mfarious designs defeated thereby,
an d the great mass of the people, the industrious
an, 1 honest men, willing to labour for their daily
brE .ad, yearn even more earnestly than the gentry
the mselves for protection against the atrocities of the
law less gangs by whom human blood has been s

poured forth like water, and the districts which they
selected for their temporary habitations disgraced by
tha 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 iu 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. Rocuz), 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. 1.7, 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
the 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 184 h, 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 Gon's
1 sunlight that when once the ports were
I 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 restrictiv e 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 to
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 Drvrsi PROVIDENCE. And stil 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 33,000,060/. An ex-
portation of money in such enorntous quantities has
naturally conduced to the endanger orient of mercantile
credit, to the diminution of ernplo yment, 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 Corm nons, 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 cans. 3 of a leakage, or
that the grain imported from Ame: rica has given rise
o 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 coun try at this moment
supposing the principles of agricul .aural protection had
been maintained in 1845 ?—suppc 'sing the ports had
been closed ever since against fo reign provisions ?
supposing we had not been permitted to
buy the food which has cost the inhabitants
of these islands no less tYnan 33,000,0001.
in gold ? Need we say what would have been
the result of such a proceed ing on the part
of the Legislature ; need we say Ca at, while we might
have retained an abundance of In Ilion and specie in
our coffers, hundreds must have :perished from want
of the commonest necessaries of emistence ! And, yet
forsooth, we 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 onl y of reverberating
in the streets of Coventry, or of beirg swallowed by

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