The Sun.
London, England, 1841-07-17 00:00:00

LONDON:
SATURDAY, JULY 17, is-n.

Freedom of trade, freedom of worship, and
civil freedom all bang together,. and are parts
of the same system. • Our attachment to the
first, which we evince by continually reprobat-
ing its grossest violation—restrictions on the
trade in food—is but a portioh of our affection for
the whole, though circumstances just now make
us particularly dwell on that. The same party
in the State which contends for freedom of trade
contends also against the State Church, which is
a gross infringement on freedom of worship, and
against the exclusive (legal) privileges of classes,
which are restrictions on other men—to whom
the State is bound to show equal justice—and
violations of civil liberty. We, therefore, and
the party to which we belong, are the advocates
of a comprehensive, not to say, vast system or
theory of the government of society, of which
the abolition of the Corn-laws is a part, and is
now warmly taken up as a practical measure,
which immediately and warmly interests the
bulk of society.
Our opponents do justice to our general prin-
ciples by their combination against them. The
most immediate object in contest is the Corn-
law; tut those who advocate the continuance
of that law also defend the sugar and timber mo-
nopolies, and generally the whole system of re-
strictions on trade. They are also the staunch
advocates for the Episcopal Anglican Protestant
Church or sect, and for extending it. They are

the supporters of Church-rates and Ecclesiastical
. Courts. They assert that the Roman Catholics
ought not to have the same political power and
civil rights as the Anglican Episcopal Protest-
ants. The leading journal of the party, which
continually denounces Protestant Dissenters,
yesterday declared that the only means of pre-
venting the influence of Catholics in the Go-
vernmentdown wits to keep
to the smallest possible amount. Our op.
are also the oppo-
ponents, therefore,
nents of freedom of worship. Again, they
are sturdy champions
of ariStocra tic privi-
;ewes,—the decided opponents on all occasions
of every extension of the franchise, of every
• measure to give local government and individual
freedom to the multitude; and, of course, they
are the advocates of a system which is a continual
violation of civil liberty. Though the immediate
conflict is on a single point of these two Systems,
nevertheless to
terns,
nevertheless the two systems are brought face
face, and stand at every point arrayed against
each other. The whole system of political so-
ciety, or of Government, not only here but in
::!very part of the world, is brought into question,
and is concerned in our immediate and
struggles.
Such observations place our local, and party
contests on the high ground of enduring, not to
say eternal, principles, and e' noble them to our-
selves and to other nations, The attention which
the present contest has attracted abroad—as our
party struggles, because they touch important
interests and affect the whole of human society,
generally do attract attention—is a very de-
cisive proof that the question we are now de-
bating, though nominally it refers only to the
subsistence of our own people, interests an other
nations. We do not speak of the commer-
cl relations with them which are directly
implicated in the issue, though they show
the world-wide importance of our local
debates, but of the great system or theory
of Goverment which is in question, and
which must have an interest in all time for the
whole human family. To have the conviction
thus forced on the daily journalist, however
hastily and crudely he may throw forth his ob-
servations. is contributing to establish or over-
throw e. system which affects the welfare of all
lainkind, gives dignity to his labour, and de-
mands from him' which ever side he may take, the
most scrupulous care.
Nor i*this'knOwledge destitute of immediate
practiCtit conclusions, and of much in' spiring hope.