The Sun.
London, England, 1841-08-20 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the PUBLW JOURNALS.

FROM THY MORNING TAYYIII OF THIS DAY.

CHRONICLE.—" Like master, like man." The
Times, as well as Sir Robert Peel, has been importuned
with questions about what it means to do. The prin;•
ciples and policy of a party must be in a singular pre-
dicament when se much curiosity is excited as to its
course. Happily the oracles are not all dumb. Though
Sir Robert will not speak, the Times will. Sir
Robert •is silent, because lie has taken no fee ;
whether the Times be loquacious for the opposite reason
is left to conjecture. If no, it condemns the baseness of
its leader's principle; and if yes, itconfesses the baseness
of its own. However that may be, the Times favours
us with its prescription, as if " regularly called in."
Iqofficiates, we presume, in the character of
apothecary, feeling the public .pulse, and ascertain-
ing the patient's taste in medicine, preparatory
to the advent of the great Quack as physician.
The dose recommended is a homeopathic one ; a " very
measured advocacy" of " long notice and gradual pre-
paration" for " the restrictions on the importation of
Corn" being " gradually abated." Such is the new
ground taken up by our Contemporary, who coolly
affirms it to be the old ground which he has always oc-
cupied. " Measured advocacy" with the Times will be
a novelty indeed ; but if such a phenomenon must appear
it could not come more appositely than in the form of
" measured" remonsixance against popular starvation.
The Tories have been aeoused of violence. Are they not
for letting the people perish by degrees ? And is not that
moderation ? " We are, in the aktract, opposed to the re-
strictions of the present Corn-laws." Who shall in-
terpret this oracular response ? Who explain the
meaning of an abstract restriction? Is it anything like
an abstract Lord Mayor ? how do the abstract restrie-
tions•of present laws differ from the a bstract restrictions
of absent laws ? Is it "in the abstract" that the Corn
laws make the labourer pay twelvepence for an eight-.
penny loaf ; or, in the concrete ? We pause for a reply.'
The stream runs clearer as it flows, until at length the
Times makes-1 telligible assertion, and puts a very
pertinent qu "In principle, or however else it
may be word...;'7w 're opposed to the present restric-
tions. Why -. '0,4 en, set to work at once, and write
them down ?" Ay, why not.
TIMES. The home and colonial philanthropists who
took so deep an interest in " the Children's Friend So-
ciety," and who so pathetically deprecated its dissolution,
I are making a zealous effort, we find, to bring it once-
, more into existence—though doubtless in a new form,
and probably with a new designation. Projects of this
sort, flay them as you will, are often as unreasonably te-
nacious of life as a well-skinned eel. Nothing could be
more just . or forcible than the public obloquy under
which the late kidnapping society was doomed to pine
'and eventually to perish. In proportion as its original
supporters became acquainted with the objectionable sys-
tem of trepanning, whereby its juvenile victims, unable
to exercise their own discretion, were literally trans-
ported and enslaved, they withdrew their coun-
tenance from such a scheme, one after another, till at
length the whole concern fell to pieces in Exeter Hall,
and appeared to be finally annihilated. Our readers will
see, however, from our City article of Monday, that the
boy-nfongers at the Cape of Good Hope, who constituted
the principal customers for the youthful cargoes which
the Children's Friend Society were in the habit of ship-
ping to the South African market, have become just as
impatient at the ceso.tion of their usual supplies as the
philanthropic crimps at home are to renew and extend
the traffic. The fact that a proposal and subscription
for reviving this affair have bet.-71. originated at nearly
the same moment both in London s'!ul at the Cape,
plainly shows that the conjunct effbrt has been pri-
vately preconcerted ; and as the interested Colon:Ss are
shrewd enough to know that an imposing aggregate cog.;
tribution on their part may possibly serve the double
purpose of calling forth a seasonable supply of the arti-
cles in demand, and of requiting themselves with a por-
tion of the earliest consignments, a considerable number of
them have subscribed from ten to twenty or thirty pounds
apiece, on the understanding that for each ten pounds so
subscribed they shall be entitled to the services of an
emigrant—taking the pick of the invoice in rotation.
The Cape . subscribers, it seems, profess to have been
driven to this expedient by the circumstance that
they do not find the Catfres and Hottentots adapted
for the hard work of the colony—an acknowledgment
which plainly implies, either that they mean to work
their youthful exiles with a severity which the natives,
though inured to the climate, are unequal to, or else that
the term of stipulated bondage is to be so protracted
that the striplings, even if not overworked when young,
will ultimately yield them a profitable reversion of op-
pressive labour during many succeeding years. That a
plausible face will be put upon this colonial movement,
and that the project will be loudly lauded as opening a
much-needed asylum for children who would otherwise
be abandoned to vagrancy and crime, is what we are
quite prepared to expect.
HERALD.—We yesterday pointed out the very in-
sufficient, but most Whiggish amount of means which
Lord John Russell had consented to appropriate for
carrying out the recommendationsof the Commander-in-
Chief of the British army, Lord Hill, and of the pro•
vincial Commanding General, Sir R. Jackson, to com-
plete and increase the permanent defences of Canada,
and showed that, in point of fact, nothing of any import-
ance or iitility could be thereby effected. The construc-
tion and completion of the Canadian fortifications and of
the military lines of communications in that noble pro-
vince have 'to be accomplished out of the yearly savings
from, and the paring down of, the militia and volunteer
grants ; so that for every stone added to a military
work, or for every rood of land cleared for military
Foninninicationi the militia and volunteer regiments—the
immense value of which was seen in the Canadian rebel-
lion-Twill be injured in efficiency. The safety of the
province.separated, as it is, from the mother country,
not only by the ocean, but for a great part of the
year, by the climate and season—is, to a great
extent, dependent on its militia and volunteers, and
on the, sufficiency of its permanent defences. Lord
Hill and Sir R. Jackson have solemnly declared
to the Colonial Secretary that " No dependence upon
the decided superiority of our troops, and arrangements
made for defence connected with them, should lead us to
neglect the construction and completion of permanent
works calculated for the protection of the points of most
importance to us." Yet Lord Jehn Russell will only con-
tribute to that construction and completion from the
scrapings of a miserable pettyfogging economy, which
will injure the constitutional military force of the colony,
and will damp the ardour and cool the patriotism of men
who have already made great sacrifices to maintain that
connection, on the continuance of which the Noble Lord
writes so hesitatingly.
POST.—The leading Radical print of *yesterday pro-
claims that " the constituencies have miserably failed of
securing their own interests," while " her Majesty has
never failed of the discharge of her duties." 84, then
even RadiCals have found out that in political matters the
people may be wrong and negligent, and the monarch
right and attentive. Truly this is an important Radical
discovery, to which we wish they could keep their eyes
when it is not their own selfish interest to do so as well as
when it is. The view which the Radical organ now pro-
pounds, when resolved into a political principle is pre-
cisely the Tory view of such matters. The Tories not ,
only think, but have always thought and professed, that