The Sun.
London, England, 1841-10-14 00:00:00

PUBLIC OPINION.

The Morning Chronicle remarks, in a leading article
suggested by the late abortive attempt at Norwich of the
Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign
Parts to hold its public anniversary :--" Religion and
philanthropy must pay the penalty of Tory success.
They have lost their fairest opportunity for the promo-
tion of their benevolent enterprises. The impressions
which they have been accustomed to make on the minds
of listening crowds can no longer be repeated. 'This is
what the Church has got by its alliance with successful
faction. It has won Peel and lost the public. The
clergy who cared about the propagation of the gospel
in foreign parts should have looked more sternly on
the violation of gospel precepts at home. Their
missions must suffer for it. Their allies have paid
the multitude not to hear reason, and the result is
not surprising that they should refuse to hear reli-
gion. If the case were rightly understood by the dig-
nified clergy, as they retired in discomfiture from the
Norwich meeting, they must have felt that to this hu-
miliation they had been brought by the very acts that
bore the leaders of their party into the Treasury. We
hope the lesson will not be lost upon them."—The strict
alliance between the Church and the Tories, which the
Chronicle here speaks of, is an alliance which will be
beneficial to neither party. So far from strengthening,
it will have the effect of weakening both. Instead of
the one giving the advantage of its popularity to the
other, it is a clubbing of two unpopularites. The Church
should have kept aloof from everything in the shape of
party ; the Tories should have taken up a neutral ground
between the Church and the people. As the two are
now situated, they can only embarrass each other. The
one will act as a constant drag-chain on the other.
Reverting to the hacknied question of the Corn-laws,
the Post says:—" We have met with many sincere and
intelligent men who thought that on mercantile, but
more especially on what are called monetary' grounds,
it would be good policy to change the present Corn-law
to a system of fixed duties, as on other foreign commo-
dities. They have always failed to convince us by their
arguments, however we might admire the ingenuity with
which they were framed. But we never met any sincere
and intelligent man who maintained the opinion that a
repeal of the existing Corn-law, or any modification of
it, would be productive of great benefit to the
working classes, and give them more food, and bet-
ter food, than they generally have at present."—
By " sincere and intelligent " men the Post, of course,
means Tories, and the majority of these would naturally
be disposed to speak with. disapprobation of a repeal of
the Corn-laws. But no one questions the sincerity and
intelligence of Mr. Cobden, or of Colonel Thompson, or
of Earl Radnor, and those other Liberal landholders
who have such a great personal stake in the question ;
and these, to a man, are in favour of a revision of the
impost. Poll the sincerity and intelligence of the coun-
try, and it will declare, by an overwhelming majority,
for a repeal of the Corn-laws.
The Times asserts that the differences between the
Whigs and extreme Radicals are infinitely greater than
those between the Whigs and Tories, adding :—" With
a common interest in whatever upholds the rights of pro-
perty and rank, as well as in the zealous furtherance of
temperate freedom and national prosperity, the Whigs
and Conservatives are ranged in opposition to each other
chiefly on questions of time and degree. On almost
all the vital principles of public policy, professedly
at least, they are agreed. If we except, perhaps, the
manner in which a system of national education
ought to be regulated; or the treatment that should
be extended to a refractory colonial faction ; or the
instructions and persons best fitted for accelerating the
objects of an expeditionary force; or the judicious econo-
my requisite to keep the patronage of Government and
the national resources in a healthful condition ; or the
means most advisable for maintaining the interests of all
classes in the community, with a favourable and indul-
gent leaning towards the poorest—if we except the
diversity of view prevalent among Whigs and Conserva-
tives on such matters as these, we hardly know of a sin-
gle question on which they are essentially at variance."—
Your " If" has a wondrous virtue, in the way of ex-
ceptions. If we except the circumstances that the Whigs
are in favour of Reform, and the Tories against it ; that
the one party opposes monopoly, and the other sup-
ports it ; that the Whigs would go slowly forward, and
the Tories hastily retrograde ; that the Whigs recog-
nise the existence of the people, and the Tories act as if
they had no existence at all, as if, in short, the country
consisted solely of their own party ;—if we except
these trifling differences, then the IVhigs and Tories
are as like each other as two peas ! Such is the reason-
ing of the Times, which, by means of an accommodating
" it," reconciles all the differences between day and
night, light and shade, and proves that they closely re-
semble each other !

The Morning Herald says—" Not a single outbreak,
not a solitary row (to say nothing of the dignified extra-
vagances of an insurrection) can be conjured up to jus-
tify the fears or corroborate the foresight of the late
Administration ! When we compare the tranquil evolu-
tion of passing events—the unbroken succession in which
all the functions of Government and of society are deve-
loped, in their accustomed operation—(despite the dis-
carded postulates of Mr. Baring's budget)---with the pro-
phecy- of famine,' and the terrible denunciations of the
Anti-Corn-law confederacy, denunciations of war and pes-
tilence: we cannot wonder at the gloominess and resent-
ment of the parasites of a Whig Government and Whig
measures. We can offer them, on the other hand, no
consolation to countervail the discomfiture of. their
battle—the disproof of their prophecies. They must
be content with the bitter consolation that their wis-
dom is foolishness'—that all which they have said and
sung so long and so solemnly, of the disastrous con-
sequences of disregarding their doctrines and their an-
nouncements, is in the course. of gradual but cer-
tain repudiation. The bounty of Providence has
laughed to scorn their predictions of evil."--The
Herald is here shouting before it is out of the
wood. The " tranquil evolution of passim; events" is
a flourishing and consolatory figure of speech, got up to
tickle the ears of the Tories, but it has little or nu meaning.
Events are only tranquil just now, because the people are
sullen—because they have not yet got over the surprise
occasioned by the apathetic conduct of Ministers. But
the long dreary winter has yet to make itself felt by the
half-frozen, half-starved thousands in the manufacturing
districts ; the cup of bitterness has yet to receive the last
drop which will cause it to overflow—and then, what
will become of our Contemporary's fine flourish about
the " tranquil evolution of passing events ? "There is u
spin ••t at work in the country—not the less dangerous be-
cause its effects are at present unseen—which, if not
neutralised _by some enlarged, remedial measure of po-
licy, will ere long break out with all the active, unrelent-
ing energy of despair.
The Cheltenham Examiner, speaking of the Tory Mi-
nisters, observes :—" Lord Ripon is, as we all know, a
turncoat on a small scale, and consequently ranks as one
of the honest. Sir James Graham and Lord Stanley,
being apostates of greater note, are, we suppose, more
honest still. While Sir Francis Burdett. the very incar-
nation of apostacy, must, as a natural corollary, be the
ne plus ultra of honesty; as for Wellington and Peel
having shown something like an adherence to principle,
they may be of course regarded as the canaille of the
party, men who would hardly pass muster in the
' Honesty' club."
The Cambridge Advertiser addresses the following
warning observations to the Monopolists:—" Sir R. Peel
is for the present the mere creature of the landowners.
They who put him in will turn him out again.' But he
declares that he will be free ! True he is now bound heed
and foot, and has himself passively assisted to put on the
fetters ; but the time will come, when, like ancient Pis-
tol devouring the leek, he will be horribly revenged.
We believe him! We have firm faith in his consis-
tency. Monopolists! put not your trust in Sir R. Peel."
The Il'orcester Chronicle says of the Queen's Speech ;