The Sun.
London, England, 1841-05-05 00:00:00

PIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.

PROM THE DAILY PAPERS OF YESTERDAY.
CHRONICLE.--The Budget of Friday evening
may be
characterised as the most important financial measure ever
submitted to a British Parliament. Coupled with Lord John
Russell's announcement on the subject of the Corn-laws, it
amounts, in fact, to a complete and comprehensive reform of
our whole commercial andfinancial system upon the enlightened
principles
which, in the time of Huskisson, first obtained a par-
tial and timid introduction into our legislation. The principle
of prohibition being once departed from in the three great ar-
ticles of " corn, sugar, and timber," the various minor re-
forms required to rescue our tariff from the reproach so justly
cast upon it by foreign nations, ofexclusiveness and illiberality,
are sure to follow. In the well-known liberality of Mr. La-
bouchere's views, we see a sufficient guarantee that the oppor-
tunity afforded by the Annual Customs Bill will not be neg-
lected of making an important advance towards effect-
ing a revision of many of the minor duties, which im-
pede our commerce and prejudice our relations with other
countries, without materially adding to the revenue. On
tie whole, then, it is right that the people of England should
know that the cause of free trade is now in their own hands ;
that it now depends on themselves whether they are to be freed
from the burdens which the protection of class-interests, ten
times more oppressive than the legitimate necessities of the re-
venue, have imposed upon them. The question is simply this:
circumstances render it imperatively necessary to raise an ad-
ditional sum of 2,000,000/. annually ; this sum may be raised
without entailing a single farthing of additional burden upon
the country, but, on the contrary, by affording at the same
time a very important relief to the great mass of the commu•
nity, and a very great impulse to industry and commerce, by
extending the market for British manufacture, and encourag-
ing a mutually beneficial interchange of commodities with
foreign countries. If not raised in this way, there is no
alternative but to reimpose the house tax, the candle tax, the
coal tax, or some of the taxes, productive in proportion to
the generality and oppressiveness of their operation, from
which the country has of late years been relieved, so much to
the satisfaction and benefit of all classes ; or failing this, to
resort to a general income or property tax. That the choice
lies between these alternatives is manifest to Every one.
The Times tells us that it would be "an insult to common
sense to suppose that the Ministerial proposition relative to
corn, sugar, and timber, can be carried." Why so ? The
"insult to common sense " consists in supposing that the
Tories will ever agree to anything so beneficial to the
nation ; and they will not, as a matter of course, adopt
the alternative of dear bread, dear sugar, and dear tim-
ber, with a house tax, light tax, fuel tax, or a property
tax, rather than that of cheap bread, cheap sugar,
and cheap timber, without any additional taxes at all. Cer-
tainly it would be an " insult to common sense" to suppose
that Mr. Goulburn, Mr. Herries, and Sir Robert Peel, who
in 1831 saddled the people of England with " dear wood," and
an additional taxation of 600,000/. a year, which might have
been dispensed with if Lord Spencer's plan had beeen adopted
—who have on all occasions stood forward as the advocate of
the landlords' monopoly—who have received every concession
to the principles of commercial liberality, even when, as
in the case of the East India Rum duties, they were made in
faveur of our own colonies, with distrust and murmurings—
should all at once turn round and warmly espouse and advo-
cate measures and principles to which they have always
been opposed. But that Ministers have shown any
want of " common sense" in bringing forward these
measures is by no means equally apparent, unless it can be
established that a Government are bound to adopt the course
most contrary to the principles and professions of their whole
lives, and most detrimental to the interests of the country,
for no earthly object except that of cutting their own throats
and playing the game of their political opponents. If Herries
had announced his intention of adopting the scale of timber
duties which he opposed in 1831 ; if Goulburn had come for-
ward with a proposition for allowing the introduction of fo-
reign sugar ; if 'reel had startled the House by moving for a
Committee to re-consider the duties on Corn ; there would
indeed have been good ground for the imputation of
sacrificing character and consistency to a political
manoeuvre. But as applied to the present Government the
imputation is ridiculous. When were Lord John Russell, Mr.
Labouchere, or Mr. Baring other than advocates of free trade
principles? Who ever doubted that, if circumstances should
force upon a Government in which these gentlemen occupied'a
prominent position, the alternative, a reform of the tariff would
be preferred to the imposition of new taxes ? With a Liberal
Government, the only question could be, to what extent they
would have the resolution to act ueon their own recorded senti-
ments. So much for the wretched stuff about the
Government having been driven, in a fit of despera-
tion at . their recent defeat, to throw out a revolution-
ary firebrand. In the first place, so far from being a
revolutionary firebrand, it is emphatically a practical
measure, brought forward to accomplish sober and prac-
tical ends —to make good a large deficiency of the re-
venue, without imposing fresh burdens on the nation—to
steady and equalize the importation of foreign corn, and make
it subservient to purposes of revenue—to afford the labouring
and middle classes of the country the benefit of lower and less
fluctuating prices in some of the principal articles of consump-
tion—.to save the important market of the Brazils for British
manufactures, and ward off the prospect of adverse commer-
cial* legislation in the United States and the German League.
It is a measure brought forward in accordance with the ex-
pressed wishes of the manufacturing and commercial interests
of the country—a measure upon the policy of which merchants
and manufacturers of all shades of political opinion are united,
as witness the petition from the City of London, signed by 258
leading firms, with the Conservative name of " Horsley Palmer"
at their head. In the next place, so far from being a sud-
den inspiration on the part of Government, it is in ac-
cordance with principles resolutely struggled for for years and
years by its principal Member. But, once for all, we will
have done with all party recrimination about the measure.
Here it stands, and the only question for the country now is,
whether they like it better than the inevitable alternative.
For ourselves,. and for the advocates of free trade principles
throughout the country, there cannot be a doubt what course
to pursue. The principles for which we have always con-
tended being fully recognised, we will not stop to cavil at de-
tails. Upon the all-important question of the Corn-law, we
will be content to take it for granted from thee complexion of
the Ministerial measure, and from the language of the Chan-
- 'tailor of the Exchequer and the President of the Board of
Trade, that the " moderate fixed duty" announced by Lord
John Russell will be one calculated to satisfy the just expecte-
Urine of the country, and to command its support.
TIMES.—" Blow," Ministerial journals, "and crack your
cheeks !" Agitate, agitate, agitate ! Invoke the evil spirits
of revolution and discord—get up a great crisis, if you can.
Dreadful' as may be the pother you keep over our heads, it
will not do—we tell you again, it will nut do. All that you
can accomplish is to prove—what no one ever doubted—the
wickedness of the game which your masters have resolved upon
playing. As surely as " the burnt child dreads the fire," the
working classes of England, smarting under the oppression of
the new Poor-law, will stand aloof from any agitation, the ob-
ject of which is to keep the authors of that law in office.
In the present instance that object is not disguised. It
was not till after they had been twice disgracefully beaten
in the House of Commons—it was not till their reten-
tion of place without recourse to some sudden and
extraordinary expedient had become a matter of evident im-
possibility,—that Ministers thought of announcing any project
for the alteration of the Corn-laws. Who can fail to see that
the peculiar features in the present state of affairs, which have
forced the Whig Cabinet to adopt what Lord Melbourne de-
signated as the principles of a madman, are their own impend-
ing expulsion from power, and the unconquerable hostility of
the people to their favourite measure—the New Poor-law?
The mischief and the peril, which, at this time of all others,
Lord John Russell fears, are the effects which may be felt in
Downing-street and at Somerset-house from the late divisions
on Lord Morpeth's Bill and from Mr. Walter's election
for Nottingham. To prevent misconception, we think it
necessary to say, that we do not mean to argue the question of
the Corn-laws at all upon this occasion. We adhere to all
the opinions which we have formerly expressed upon that sub-
ject ; but we are very sure that no advantage can come, or
is intended to come, to the country from the proposition of
Lord Juhn Rustiell. Good cannot ensue from an attempt to
stimulate into ferocious conflict the mutual rivalries of the
agricultural and manufacturing interests ; nor is it in the at-
mosphere of strong political excitement that important com-
mercial changes can be rationally discussed or deliberately ad-
jueted. We protest, also against the fraudulent delusion by
which it is attempted to practise upon the credulity of the
working man, and to persuade him that the benefit which
may arise from the admission of foreign corn will
be suffered to find its way into his pocket. If this
were so, we should hear very little of the Corn-law grievance
from its most active opponents, the hierophants of the political-
economy school, and the over-grown cotton lords. The current
complaint, that the Corn-laws raise the price of labour so high
as to disable our manufacturers from competing with those of
the Continent, would have no meaning if it were not certain
that the rate of wages would fall in the same ratio with the
price of bread. The labouring class, who know what and who
these anti-Corn-law agitators are, will be able to judge, from
their conduct on the Factory question, and upon the Poor-law
question, whether they are likely, in
.their anxious efforts upon
this or any other subect, to
their own. j have any interests in view except
HERALD.—That Ministers contemplate a speedy, though
it may not be an immediate dissolution of Parliament, is a
matter upon which searcely any pefrson seems to have a doubt.
in the country,
.But, looking to their destitution o
their raggedness of character, and the general contempth which
is entertained for the poverty of theirg talents—the t e shuffling
and tricky styleof their policy, and their shameless tenacity of
office long after they have lost the of a Government,
people cannot help asking what are these fraudulent and bank-
rupt Ministers to gain by a dissolution? In the first place, a
+dissolution will put a premature end to the embarrassing and
.disastrous Session of 1841—a Session which has tested their
endurance of defeat and dishonour in the most remarkable man-
ner, and which, if prolonged to the ordinary term, was likely to
be to them a source of still more disgraee and humiliation. T hey
will thus obtain delay and temporary respite from further
punishment, and that is something to men who trust much in
lucky events and the chapter of accidents. A Royal demise—
an accession—a marriage, and a christening have all helped,
at various times, what their evening organ calls the " fortu-
nato Administration." And if they can only prolong their
()facial existence for six months longer, who knows what may
up? In the next place, they get rid of Lord Stanley's
turn
Mill for the urification of the Irish Parliamentary Registra-
tion.
:Leviathan They ')
save, thereby, for the present, several joints of the
and
borou sghmongFr' which voluminous hinder appendage' Lord 1I hprop,
who is their main
took under his. e °Tee , lately
longer stands bets •
especial protection in vain. His miserable Bill no
"seen it and the extended forceps of dishonouring
curtailment. In the third place, 'Ministers throw the country into
general excitement andwh agitation. And as agitation has saved
4se Whigs so often,
Conservatives, howeve may
them again? lf the
White Poor' it not save
to the
iniquitous + had acted the part in reference
h-alaw which me always advised them to
pursue, they would
which the IShvivg Paxti-an"hremoved the strongest argument
Corn-laws. e quite : ave for calling for the repeal of the
two laws cannot long agreest;ncitsivith the Standard, that these
stroyed or the other. Let thegte::toher--either one must be de-
They can now defeat the new Poor-lawsnsvatives choose between.
cf the masses of Englishmen to, th and bind the gratitude
:a•sist the Whigs to inflict it oe tr: for ever ; or, they can
years, and thus seal the doom of the T,,,uji.ritry for another five
themselves of a mighty moral power in th nsiows and deprive
empire. e government of the
POS r. —The Ministerials affect to be all '
ex-
citement about the repeal of the Corn-laws.in a blaze of rest, is mere trickery. We scarcely know whetherhis, like the
,
ing, puffing efectation is most ridiculous or this pant-
-However, it deceives no one,andmost impudent
can deceive
most drivelling fools. The hireling jobbers w non fain per_
but the
ou d
suade the public into a second Reform Bill f
ever, but it • '
t
do. The trick is not only palpable, but stale. B \conu what can the Ministerial do towards Corn-lawt fter all,
partyrepeal ?
They can do nothing. They know they can do nothing,
It is because they know that cannot accomplish
they
the
repeal of the Corn- law
3, that they venture to announce
ththe attempt- If there were the slightest probability of
eir success, they never would have dared to announce
such an attempt. Nothing
.would overwhelm them with
e certainty that ruin„ which the of the accomplishment of
y announce their • •
`accomplish as an imp intention of trying to
_their oe-en t provement. They are as convinced as
en s are, of the e
. of repealing the ('protection national folly—the madness
t;f;
e,a7ay ken" British landon British agriculture—of taking
DAHH9DIV of sum] occupiers and British labourers
• - butyin
the 13riti h •
, they/ venture -to propose that nation with corn ;
repeal becaus:,, they
eessett
ms
,flbs e
s • es,

N 4 ••_