The Sun.
London, England, 1841-09-24 00:00:00

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LONDON:
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 1841.

A controversy has arisen between the Morning
Chronirie and Morning Post, concerning Sir R.
PEEL'S impatience to have the Corn-law settled
in May, and his determination not to meddle
with it at present. The former journal thinks
the Premier inconsistent, the latter describes
him as perfectly consistent in language and
conduct. We are constrained to side with
the Post. In May the Whigs were agitating
that question in Parliament; in September Sir
R. PEEL, backed by a large majority of both
Houses of Parliament, and backed by the majo-
rity of the electors, has decided that it shall not
be agitated in Parliament. So far as the Parlia-
ment is concerned, the question was settled by
the accession of Sir R. PEEL to office. The law
is to remain unaltered. No language can be
clearer or more explicit than that used by the
Prime Minister, Lord STANLEY, Sir J. GRAHAM,
and Sir E. KNATCFIBULL. They will admit no
other alteration whatever than some petty modi-
fication of the mode of taking the averages, and
some very trifling alteration in the sliding-scale.
We repeat, then, that Sir ROBERT PEEL'S acces-
sion to office settled the Corn question, and his
impatience in May was only impatience to be in
power.

But will the manufacturing classes—will the
religious men who met at the Conference—allow
Sir ROBERT PEEL, the two Houses of Parlia-
ment, and the county electors, to settle the ques-
tion in their own way ? We know not. An
Evening Paper says " Sir -ROBERT PEEL will not
have boldness enough, even though encouraged
by the proverbial bearing of the great DUKE,'
to risk the consequences or proroguing the Par-
liament for six months. We go further. We
do not believe the QEEEN will act upcn such ad-
even though it should be tendered to her."
Sever Town Councils, several cities, parishes,
t.:l
and public
bodies are holding meetings to me-
niorialize the QJ;EN not to prorogue the Parlia-
ment till the Corn-lai7s be altered. Will they
bend the determination of the squires and their
inan ? Will any amount of distress influence ,
their judgment? We are afraid not. Till there be I
union amongst the people, they can afford to de-
affirm—believing, of course
spise them, and they
—that the distress is iu nowise caused by the
Corn-laws. It is the result of over production,
bank paper, they say. They will
or too much
not yield, therefore, to any demonstration which ,
can now possibly be made, and will disregard
all representations of distress. But if no distress,
of opinio:l in the manufactur-
and no expressicn
ing districts will
either frighten or soften the
the self-willed ir en, who are constituted a strong
Government, to continue a
great oppression—if
d at all Lizards, to starve
they are cleterrnirie
down population to nearly the level of the home
supply ; to run down commerce, till England
becomes, like Venice in its ruins, distinguished
for its palaces and its paupers--dnothing short of
rebellion against the bread to-
-goys will shake
them, and there be no chance of rebellion—then
we must conclude that Sir FiOBERT PEEL is
his impatience is gratified, the Corn-law ques-
tion is settled by his accession to office, and many
capitalists may prepare themselves for decay,
and many labourers for starvation.

40-
In the debate last Friday, Mr. CosnEN'said--
The wages of labour were the rations of the poor ;
but the ina]ority of that House, by diminishing the
market fur labour, were lessening those rations. The
labouring classes should know who it was that robbed
them. It was not the capitalists. He said solemnly
that he believed no calamity could be more deeply felt
by the manufacturers in Lancashire and Yorkshire than
that they should be driven to the necessity of lowering
wages. The capitalists were aware that the worst thing
for them was to have a badly-remunerated population.
We believe Mr. COBDEN, and moreover we
believe that the capitalists of the manufacturing
districts, begin tofeelperplexity and dread. What-
ever degradation, and whatever humiliation may
fall on the working classes, the capitalists appear
,yrtheil4Aing classes to be the instruments of
rell „aritEediately'Mflicting it. IN-ecessarily they up-
'.?-. hold all the rws in their respective neighbour-
hoods; and tri s seem (if the laws be unjust) to
albe the oppre ' rs of their own workmen. They
', are, by the operation of the market, forced to
e Y"
:t
levy the leillorde tax on the operative's loaf,
'\... - 5

and thus appear to be his plunderers. For too
long a period, unforturat. , they made common
cause with the landlords, imitated ` their vices,
and helped them to keep t►e lower classes in
subjection. At present they begin to feel the
horrors of being surrounded by an ill-remune-
rated population.

Driven by_ the. low price of goods, the little
and the lesserihig-demand for their productions,
the cotton-masters at Stockport have lately re-
solved to offer the spinners a reduction of
wages, amounting, as the spinners say in a
placard which we have lying before us, to
171 per cent., or sixpence per thousand hanks.
The masters will probably be able to carry this
reduction into effect, because employment is
slack, spinners numerous, and self-acting spin-
ning-mills, which dispense with the spinners, are
daily coming more and more into use. But how
are their efforts met by the spinners? The
placard, which has been circulated far and wide
in the neighbourhood of Stockport, calls on the
people " resolutely and determinedly, in one
consolidated union to show all possible resistance
to the aggressions which are attempted to be
made upon the rights of industry."

" Has not," it asks, " every effort been made from
time to time by our employers to reduce our wages, un-
til they are so low as to bring us to the starvation point."
" If the working-men," they sal'," submit, and allow them
to take such advantages with impunity, they will set the
example to other masters, and every workman is liable
to suffer ultimately." " Working men," it concludes,
" we call upon you, as you love yourselves, your wives
and children, your country and posterity, to make one
determined stand in behalf of right against might, of
the weak against the strong, in behalf of hunger and
starvation against tyranny and injustice. Shall it be
said that we are willing laves; that we are willing for
our children to be only half clothed and half fed, and
our foreheads branded with the mark of slaves or in-
feriority ? 0 ! forbid it Heaven ! forbid it Justice ! !
and above all, forbid it you, the workinc, men of Eng-
land, Ireland, and Scotland ! ! ! LTp then, brave men,
arouse in your thousands, and show your united strength,
by protecting your only property, your all in all, hbour,
without which the world would be an universal desert.
High taxes, high rents, large profits, with low wages,
will ruin any nation in the world ! !

The war of labour against capital, which has
been for some time slumbering, will again be
roused; fresh contentions will spring up, and
fresh strife will add to the insecurity which al-
ready prevails in the manufacturing districts ;
more angry passions will be kindled, more crimes
committed; and who will be to blame ? If we
cannot wholly exonerate the masters and capi-
' talists, who have too long been passive under
an unjust tax, because they felt it less than the
workmen, the chief blame must fall on the
Clergy, who have done nothing to enlighten the
legislators and teach them justice, but much to
harden them in the legislative iniquity by which
both Clergy and landlords have at least seemed
to profit; and the chief blame must fall on the
landowning lawmakers, who have continually
made laws, as Lord STANLEY admitted, and Sir
JAMES GRAHAM has unblushingly recommended,
to raise rent at the expense of those who pay it.
If it be painful, and even dreadful, as we think
it must be to all these classes—capitalists, Clergy,
and landlords—to live surrounded with a very
poorly-remunerated and much-exasperated po-
pulation, they are already severely punished
for their folly, avarice, and cruelty.
The workmen cannot require to be informed
that wages are settled by the higgling of the
market, and that the capitalists have no more
power to make them sell their labour for less than
the market price, than they have to force the
Americans to sell them cotton below that same
price. Wages are the result of a bargain be-
tween the capitalist and the labourer, and with-
out saying that there are no circumstances and
no laws which give the capitalist an advantage in
making the bargain, it is clear that whatever
tends to increase the demand for labour will en-
able the labourer to make a better bargain. Of
all the laws which place the labourer at a dis-
advantage, none are so ruinous as the laws which
raise the price and limit the supply of food; and
of all the circumstances which increase th? capi-
talists's power over the labourer, none are so
efficacious in diminishing employment. The
Corn-law, therefore, more than other laws, places
the labourer at the mercy of the capitalist ;
and the spinners should, in the first instance,
direct their energies to obtain a repeal of the
Corn-law. Till they have accomplished that
they will object in vain to masters lowering wages,
who act under the spur of necessity; and when
they have accomplished that, they may, and will,
by the landlords' help, if needed, command
higher wages.

Our purpose, however, is, not to preach to the
spinners, which we know were a vain work, but
to call the attention of the Legislature to the
above facts, and remind it that it is resposible
for all the misery, strife, and crime which may
grow out of the dispute, and which exist in so-
ciety-. The Legislature sets out on the principle
that it can prevent evil ; it makes an immense
number of laws to attain this end ; it regulates,
controuls, and hampers every 'part of society,
and clearly makes itself responsible for all the
misery and crime which exist.

We have received a communication from a
good Radical, which it is unnecessary to publish,
tlking a different view of Mr. WAILEY'S con-
duct from that which we have taken. We have
not, indeed, devoted much space to the Hon.
Member, for we are not aware that his opinion
individually is of great importance. As the re-
presentative, or misrepresentative, of the borough
of Finsbury, we have seen him with regret
sweeping away difficulties from the path of Sir
ROBERT PEEL. The constituency of Fins!)ury
can scarcely like to be made scavengers for the
Tories, whatever may be the taste or disposition
of Mr. WAKLEY.

Mr. WAKLEY is for giving Sir ROBERT PEEL
a fair trial. Why, Sir ROBERT is decidedly op-
posed to the repeal of the bread-tax ; Sir Ro-
BERT took office to support that tax. He was
carried into power by the monopolists; Mr.
WAKLEY'S constituents are free traders. He is
the servile instrument of the priesthood; Mr.
WAKLEY is supported by those who are hostile
to the Church. Sir ROBERT PEEL is the de-
clared enemy of Extension of the Suffrage, of
the Ballot, and of shortening Parliaments—he
is the decided enemy of further organic change ;
and how Mr. WAKLEY, who justly condemned
Lord JOHN RUSSELL'S principle of finality, can
show any favour to Sir ROBERT PEEL'S de-
termined Conservatism surpasses our compre-
hension.

We cannot help Sir ROBERT PEEL being Prime
Minister : the electors have so decided. We
must submit to that evil, but it is something new
not to regard the triumph of our opponents as
an evil, and glory in the chains they impose.
If Lord JOHN RUSSELL'S mere declaration of
finality—to quiet his Whig friends, while, in fact,
he always kept moving in his own direction, and
at his own speed—was bad, Sir ROBERT PEEL'S
determination to remedy no abuse he can main-
tain by the help of a maj9rity of corruptionists
is detestable. To give him and the monopolists,
the iniquitous bread-taxers, a fair trial, is like
granting a notorious and detected pickpocket an
opportunity of practising on the passers-by in the
street, instead of placing him in the dock at the
Old Bailey. If Mr.WAKLEY be sincere in avow-
ing Radical principlcs, his conduct in smoothing
the way of the starvation and aristocratic Ali-
njsters sexcessively silly. If he be not sincere
the l e :natter
rsohmotitslded,
Navthleenast at the end
first elected,
o[7.
tnheee necessary
atlsiat:hehep
procurehis trust into
tl •
the sanction of the. electors of Fins-
orreslgn
nrydsf.br his conduct,

The Paris Journals of Tuesday have all reached
us. Their contents are of no political interest.
The National complains loudly of the injury
done to its circulation by seizures upon charges
which a Jury cannot be brought to entertain,
and expresses a belief that the Government
intends to crush political discussion altogether.
No serious disturbances took place on Monday
night. The following extracts from the Papers
include what news they contain of any interest :
The total amount of the receipts from the Octroi duty

of Paris, from the year 1830 to 1840, both inclusive NA
3007055,655 n

A. letter fr(

Several F

Berlin

be Swabian

ii;•eurv, says

.in par&ular lee
Priif fia the • Order of the

,
Eagle. A very gooc, unuei.,tanaing exits at this moment
bei m een the Cabinets of Berlin and the Tuilleries. The pre-
sence here of General de Rumigny, and that of General Hoche-
leben at Compiegne, may be regarded as a favourable in-
dication."

The Havre papers mention that the English steamer, the
Grand Turk, on coming into harbour on Saturday, ran against
the head of the jetty, broke her bowsprit and sustained other
damage.

A few days since a servant girl at St. Omer having been
told that to steam potatoes was the best way of cooking them,
closed up an iron pot, in which she had put some to hod, with
a luting of clay round the edge of the cover, and placed a heavy
iron weight on the top to keep the steam in. An explosioii of
course ensued, and the girl was severely scalded, but not
dangerously.
A correspondent at Mechlin writes to the Independant of
Brussels :—" Two young men, one 21 and the other only 19,
who, from their language and manners, seemed to belong to a
wealthy family in Holland, committed suicide a few mornings
since in the garden of one of our principal:hotels. Their names are
unknown ; they had no papers with them ; and all that is known
is, that they have been several weeks in Belgium, going re-
peatedly from Brussels to Antwerp in the public vehicles ; that
they had a great deal of money with them • and passed a gay
life, spending upwards of I,ooof. a-day. They left a note for
the master of the hotel, in which it was merely ,aid that their
parents would pay their debts."
" Pope Gregory XVI.," says the Diario di Roma, " who
has re-established the order of St. John of Jerusalem within
his States, has formed the idea of tailing it back to the primi-
tive object of its institution, whence it derived its name of
Hospitaliers of St. John, and has conferred on it the direction
of the pontifical military hospital, into which are received
soldiers of every class. As soon as the Lieutenant of the
Order was made acquainted with this intention of his Holiness,
he hastened to prepare for the purpose the vast building
granted by the Pope to the Order near the Ponte Sisto, in
which 500 beds have been placed, and which was ready on the
Ist inst. to receive as many sick. Ihe Pope has been in per-
son with all due ceremony to bestow his benediction on the
new establishment."

Marshal Soult has resumed his residence at Meudon

The Journal du Havre publishes the following report of
the capture of the Gabriel, communicated by Captain B:ay, of
the Jeune Pauline, just arrived at Havre, from Rio Janeiro :
" The English b •ig Acorn having, in latitude 5 N., perceived
at a great distance a vessel pillaging another, made chase, and
instantly the Gabriel hoisted all her sail, and endeavoured to
escape. At three in the afternoon the Acorn fired, and
the Gabriel returned the fire, at the same time hoisting
Portuguese colours. The chase continued for twelve hours,
during the whole of which time firing was kept up by
both vessels, but eventually the Gabriel was dismasted,
and captured. She was sent to St. Helena. but her crew,
consisting of 58 men, Spaniards and others, were put on hoard
an English vessel at Rio. The captain jumped overboard du-
ring the chase, with all his papers. The merchandize found
on board the Gabriel is valued at 8,0001. The Acorn had not
time to ascertain to what country the vessel which was being,
pillaged by the Gabriel belonged, but she carried English co-
lours." Captain Blay also reports that the English merchants
resident at Rio have presented Captain Lecesannet, of the Ito-
land, with a handsome gold chronometer and snuff-box, and
given to each of his crew a hundred francs, in testimony of the
sense entertained of their humanity in saving the crew and pas-
sengers of the India."

We have learned the following further particulars of the late
unfortunate duel, which took place at the Lucca Ba•lis, from a
source on which we can place every reliance :—" The origin
of the misunderstanding between Dr. Crooke and Mr. Plow-
den, appears to have been of long standing. but the imme-
diate cause of the duel occurred at a ball given by the Bache-
lors at the Lucca Baths; where Mr. Plowden was in conver-
sation with a lady, when Dr. Crooke came up to him and
offered him a gross insult. Mr. Plowden requested his
friend, Mr. C---, to ask for an apology from Dr. Crooke,
which being peremptorily refused, left Mr. Plowden no alterna-
tive except that of requesting an early meeting to be ap-
pointed. It was agreed that the parties should proceed, at
the termination of the ball, across the Modenese frontier.
The principals were placed at 12 paces distance, and fired
upon a signal given by Dr. Crooke's second. The parties
fired almost instantaneously, the fire of Mr. Plowden taking an
unfortunate effect. The parties shook hands, Dr. Crooke
making use of the words, ' I forgive you, you have acted
rightly.' Mr. Plowden and his second then left the ground
and returned to Lucca. Dr. Crooke, who was surrounded by
several of his friends, who had accompanied him to the ground,
was conveyed back to the Lucca States, where he lingered
until the evening following. When the melancholy circum-
stance was made known to the Duke of Lucca, who entertained
a strong feeling of friendship to Dr. Crooke, he observed to
those about him, that Mr. Plowden was forced into the unfor-
tunate affair, adding, If you drive me into a corner, what can
I do but defend myself.'
_ _

The Temps, in remarking the spirit of equity which presides
over the taking of the census, and how little it can injure the
lower classes of society, who are excited to oppose it, says, that
there are in France 1,200,000 persons liable to the patente du-
ties or dues for licences to trade, 900,000 of whom (that is
the three lowest classes) have long had this tax imposed upon
them to the utmost rigour of the law, and, therefore, can
have nothing to fear from any new assessment, since it can
only touch the richer and most influential of patentable
persons, who have hitherto been always more favoured. To
this the Moniteur Parisien odds, that in Paris there are not,
perhaps, two houses of an inferior order which do not pay the
legitimate amount of their taxes; but it has been discovered
that many sumptuous mansions have been rated at no more
than thirty or forty windows, when; in fact, they have perhaps
as many as 150. Near Paris, says the last-Mentioned journal,
a vast chateau has been found set down at sixty windows, when
in fact it had 300.