The Sun.
London, England, 1841-07-26 00:00:00

MORNING SUN.

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.
FROM THE DAT. y PAPERS OF SATURDAY
CHRONICLE.—The last return has been received. Wex-
ford adds two to the list of Reformers. As the list now
stands they amount to 290. But as Mr. O'Connell is returned
foe both Meath and Cork, and has announced his intention of
sitting for the latter, the new election for Meath will add one to
the list of Reformers. Again, the decision of the Assessors,
by which Waterford, Athlone, and Dublin were given to the
Tories, is so totally at variance with the law and the uniform
decisions of Revising Barristers in England, that the elec-
tions for these places must be set aside. In Carlow county
the poll was closed long before the legal hoar, in the teeth
of a formal protest. Seven seats will thus, in all probability,
be wrested from the Tories. Belfast is in the same predica-
ment with Waterford, Dublin, and Athlone, and the elec-
tion will be set aside. It is also understood that the Tories
will lose one of the returns for Harwich. When the new
Ministry come to vacate their seats, they will not all of them
have a Tamworth to fall back on. Some of them, if w e are
not much mistaken, on going hack to their constituents, will
experience a reception by no means to their taste. The Tories
will have an opportunity of ascertaining the difference between
single elections and a general election. We cannot be charged
with over-estimating the strength of the Reformers in the
new Parliament if, allowing for the additions which they must
obtain soon after its assembling, we set them down at upwards
of 300. With an opposition so strong numerically, and stronger
still in their cause, which is that of the whole nation, with the
exception of the monopolists, led by Lord John Rassell, Sir
Robert Peel will soon find that he is not exactly on a bed of
roses.
TIMES.—In his recent speech to the electors of Tam-
worth, Sir R. Peel described the growth and origin of the
party of which he is the leader is Parliament. Perceiving, he
said, at the time of the Reform Bill, that "that change was
accompanied with a restless desire for further change, he then
foresaw the importance of laying the foundations of a great
Conservative party, attached to the ancient fundamental in.
stitutions of the country, not disposed to resist such changes as
the altered circumstances of society might require, but a party
determined to maintain on their ancient foundations the in-
stitutions in Church and State." From that time, he added,
my object in public life was not so much to gain a position
of official power as to build up that great party which has been
gradually acquiring strength, . . . a party not so strong
in its numbers as it is strong in the confidence of
the country." That Sir Robert Peel, in watching over the
formation and growth of this Parliamentary party, has per-
formed his office well, and so as to entitle him to public grati-
tude, we have not been slow to acknowledge. Our confidence,
however (much as we respect the Right Hon. Baronet), is
placed, not in him, nor in his followers in either House of Par-
liament, but in the real Conservative patty, the party of the
country, which has restored him to power, not because he is
Sir Robert Peel—not merely as a more creditable adviser of
Royalty than Lord Melbourne, or a more faithful defender of
the landed interest than Lord John Russell, but as the represen-
tative and expopent of certain intelligible principles. Sir Ro-
bert Peel did not make the Conservative party in the country ;
no wisdom or foresight of his could have created it, had there
not been a material in the nation out of which it must necessa-
rily arise. All that he could do was to train its outward ener-
gies in the way to conquest, and by his Fabian tac-
tics in Parliament gain time for its consolidation and
development. That he has done. But the life of
Conservatism consists in the deep-rooted attachment
of the majority of the British people to the Church of which
they are members, and to the laws under which they live.
The insolent encroachments of the Dissenters in England, and
Romanists in Ireland, during the period between the passing
of the Reform Bill, and the dismissal of Lord Melbourne's
first Ministry by King William—the rapid progress which the
opinion of the dominant party seemed to be making towards a
total suppression of the Church of England as established by
law—these characteristic features of the palmy days of Whig
Government roused to a consciousness of strength, and
to a sense of the duty of taking an active part in poli-
ties, multitudes of virtuous, religious, and peaceful, but
courageous men, who would have suffered a noisy mino-
rity to ride roughshod over them under almost any other
circumstances. At the same time every session dis-
covered more and more plainly the tendency of Whig
principles to overthrow the sober and rational system of
self-government which lies at the foundation of our
civil institutions, and to substitute for it a centralized
despotism, not less revolting to the feelings or less injurious to
the sights of Englishmen, because wielded by the nominees of
a Parliamentary majority. Nor was this tendency rendered
more palatable to minds which had been educated under the in-
stitutions of Alfred, by the fruits it bore. The wholesale ma-
chinery of espionnage by Commissioners, the establishment of
a rural gendarmerie, and., above all, the enactment and opera-
tion of the New Poor-law, excited a degree of general abhor-
rence and alarm which would have been fatal to any Govern-
ment. These are the causes, together with the degrading
alliance between Ministers and the O'Connel influence in
Ireland, which have established upon the basis of the opposite
principles the ...great Conservative party. The success of Sir
Robert Peel, and the duration of his power, must depend upon
the faithfulness with which he acts upon those opposite prin-
ciples. But upon this momentous subject we must reserve
what we have to offer for a future opportunity.
ADVERTISER.—The address of Lord John Russell is not
likely to facilitate the Right Hon. Baronet's ( Sir R. Peel's)
efforts in the work of Cabinet-building. That important
document. cannot fail to interpose obstructions to the exe-
cution of the proximate Premier's projects, which the lat-
ter never anticipated. It is an able and luminous manifesto
of the course which the Liberals, under the leadership of the
Noble Lord, are resolved to pursue the moment they are me-
tamorphosed from itlinisterials to an Opposition ; and furnishes
a clenching confirmation of all that we ventured to predict a
few days previous to its publication of the decidedly liberal cha-
racter of the principles for which they are prepared to contend,
and the energy, decision, and perseverance, with which they
are resolved to pursue their objects, until their efforts are
crowned with complete success. The atmosphere of the Opposi-
tion benches is, after all, the atmosphere in which the Whigs can
breathe most freely. The Opposition is their native element.
As an Opposition they have, from the time of Fox and Sheri-
dan downwards, achieved their greatest victories, and gained
their brightest laurels; and there can be no question that new
triumphs and fresh trophies await then in the new sphere on
which they are about to enter. In the ranks of the Opposition
they will, we doubt not, redeem the character they have lost,
and restore the confidence which the people of England have
for some time ceased to repose in them. And there will be
this further and powerful stimulus to patriotic efforts in their
new capacity of Opposition, namely, that the triumph of their
principles is not only inevitable, but will be of speedy accom-
plishment. Let the Liberals only be resolute and unremitting
in their assaults on the strong holds of Toryism, and down the
edifice will speedily tumble in pieces before them and they
will recapture Downing-street amidst the loud and universal
plaudits of the nation.
HERALD.—The Globe of last night delivers itself of a
feeble and general denial of the charges we brought on Wed-
nesday against Lord Palmerston's commercial policy in Europe.
We deal with facts, the Globe with assertions. We dare that
Journal, or its master—its "eminent band," its "person of
quality"—to contradict one of the facts we then stated, to refute
one of our conclusions. It is not "the foreign policy of Eng-
land," as the Glebe would make us say, that has been making
mischirf and confusion in every quarter of the globe,—it is the
foreign policy of Lord Palmerston. But to arrive at something
certain, we repeat that Lord Palmerston personally has de-
stroyed two treaties, those with Austria and Turkey—which,
as originally devised would have been most advan-
tageous to our commerce; that he refused to ratify an excel-
lent treaty, procured with difficulty from Naples by his own
agent, and that he has thereby inflicted deep and grievous injury
on our commerce. Are these charges true or are they false?
We challenge the Globe to the proof of their falsity, to the con-
tradiction of one of the facts we have asserted in connection
with them. "Impeachment," the Globe justly says, " would
be too light a punishment for a Minister proved guilty of such
delinquencies.' Is then the master whom the Globe has
served so long now unworthy of defence ? Is Lord Palmerston
to be " deserted in his utmost need by those his former bounty
fed ?"

POST.—The aemouncement contained in Lord John Ruse
sell', address to the citizens of London that the present Minis-
ters of the Crown intend not to resign, but to cling to office
until the new Parliament shall literally turn them out, has
excited general disgust. It is perceived that in pursuing this
course Ministers wilfully inflict practical and substantial injury,
upon their Sovereign and country, and that they do this for
no other purpose than the mean and base one of appropriating
to themselves the little crumbs and morsels of patronage which
may happen to fall to the disposal of Government between the
present moment and that in which it will not be
possible for them to cling any longer to office. It
is obvious that until the present Ministers are out
of office, and their successors are appointed, man-f
of the most important functions of the Government'
are necessarily in abeyance, that her Majesty is deprived of
the advice of constitutional and responsible Ministers
possess-
ing.lv the confidence of Parliament, and that, in many respects,
the nation is exposed to all the inconveniences and hazards of
an intarregnum. Is it possible, we ask, to reconcile with
loyalty,
patriotism, or honour, the conduct of a body of Mi-
nisters who, for their own selfish ends, voluntarily prolong a
state of things so anomalous, unconstitutional, and unsafe.
The immediate practical evils inseparable from the course
adopted by Ministers are not less manifest than its theoretical
hostility to the plainest principles of the British Constitu-
tion. Is there at this momnt in the Government of
England any Foreign Department with which the Ministers of
_Department
States can or will confer with a view to any practical
result ? Is there at this moment any Colonial
with which merchants and capitalists devising _ enterprises
of
commerce or emigration can advantageously confer? It there
any Board of Trade to which deputations of tne manufacturing
.or trading classes can usefully resort to offer their suggestions,
sec to seek advice or guidance in reference to their important
interests? These questions can only be answered in the nega-
tive, and we see England is kept absolutely without a Govern-
ment, so far as these important matters are concerned, for the
worthless and contemptible purpose above mentioned.
GLOBE.—The Corn-market is, in the language of the
trade, " creeping up." Each successive market-day
brings an advance of 2s. per quarter ; and as there ap-
/pears no indication of settled, seasonable weather, fears
begin to be generally prevalent that the crops will be
-seriously affected both in quantity and quality by tte
continued rains. Butchers' meat will also be yet (I.arer
in price by the great quantities of hay which base been
;Toiled. Bread and meat, the main articles of consump-
tion for human food—the former essential to existence,
the latter to create strength for labour—are
to be for the next twelve months far above thus likely
the average
prices, and consequently difficult of r
even with sufficient employment at exess to the poor,
f
waves. But the rr
prospect beco 'che ordinary rates owaves.
es more alarming when
viewed in connexion with the
state of the labour market.
The weekly trade-reports
from the different. manufac-
turing districts cornier., •
. e l varied intelli-
gence of "no imPrw". ement. Distressscarce exisy ts to a dreadful
ex tent throughor 'the
manufacturing districts. Thousands
of families ir_ cipal manufacturing towns of the
northern ry.,,fricts,
ats of the principal staple pro-
ductions. of the count , are reduced to a state of desti-
tu,tior_ by, want of employment. The demand for their
lraremr has gradually diminished, under the baneful in-
Juences of the restrictions which were imposed on
trade, for the imaginary benefit of the landed interest,
;until the evil has become general, and is rapidly ad-
-yawing in its progress to those results which were long
since predicted as inevitable. Because these results
were, for a time, slow in their movements, and were
at intervals stayed in their march, and counteracted
by circumstances extraordinary in their nature, and
temporary in their duration, they were either sternly
denied as the inventions of sordid interest, or laughed
at as chimerical—the dreams of dotage, or the phan-
tasms of insanity. Now that the elections are over, and
the ecstasies of delight in which the monopolists were
thrown by their majority begin to subside, there are
evident indications of a lurking suspicion that the tri-
umph is likely to be followed by a drawback upon the
glories and the gains which were anticipated from it.
The most obstinate incredulity begins to be shaken ; and
the most inveteratesticklers for " protection to agricul-
ture," even though manufactures
to doubt
wither under its blight- r
lug influence, be
4.liolubt whether the thing has not
been carried too far.
admitted,
from the manufa.c-
timing districts, it is now°
calculated to excite uneasiness,uli,tted, are of a description
There is no reasoning with

hunger. A starving man has a summary argument with
him who would attempt to convince him that he ought to
starve patiently. " Hunger," says the homely proverb, "will
break through stone walls." When men are driven to despe-
ration by starvation, not only in their own persons, but
in those dearer portions of themselves, their wives and
children, it is in vain to talk to them f the duty of su-
bordination to the laws, and the necessity of patiently
resigning themselves to the dispensations of Providence.
We have invariably insisted, that it will be found impos..
sible to maintain the existing Corn-laws in seasons of
commercial distress, arising, as that distress does, out of
those laws, without endangering the public tranquillity
and the security of property. Aeseit plebs jejuna timere.
Mobs and popular outrages are the necessary conse-
quences of deficient food. Were the restrictions and
prohibitions upon foreign importation reduced, and a
moderate fixed duty substituted for the present
sliding scale, the supply of corn would be regu-
lated by the demand, and its price would be
preserved from injurious and sudden fluctuations,
which enable fraudulent speculators to tamper with the
market, while the producers and the consumers become, in
turn, the victims of the system which is absurdly repre-
sented as the protection of both. It is obvious to
every one capable of understanding the most simple
arrangement of facts, that were corn allowed to be im-
ported from abroad at a moderate fixed duty, the price of
corn in a country so rich and industrious as England,
capable of producing manufactures suited to the wants
and desires of every people, could never rise to an wor-
bitant extent above the level of the surrounding mdkets.
When, therefore, prices rise enormously above this, their
natural level, as they are sure to do under our present
system, whenever the home harvest is in any degree de-
ficient, the cause of the high price will be obvious to
the whole world. Every one will see that the dearth is
not real, but artificial ; that the famine is the work of
man, and not the visitation of Heaven. To assign such
consequences to the dispensations of Providence—dis-
pensations which it would be unavailing to canvass, and
impious to censure—is adding hypocrisy to cruelty : it
is the attempt of heart-hardening cupidity to conceal
the real character of its selfishness under the garb of
piety ; and will provoke, as it deserves, the contempt
of man, and the indignation of the great Being whom
it at once libels and insults. The suffering masses
of the population are too well instructed in the
causes of the distresses which they suffer, not to
see that it is by the perverse policy of the Legis-
lature, controlled and coerced by the landowners,
that they are oppressed, and the means of their exist-
ence compromised. Those who are prepared to defend
such a system must also be prepared to meet the com-
motions and outbreaks of which it will not fail to be
productive. It is not in the nature of things that a
vast manufacturing population, like that of England,
should continue quietly to submit to a system which
narrows the market for their produce, and thus de-
prives them of employment ; while at the same time
it compels them to purchase bread at a price so exor-
bitant as to force them to the confines of starvation.
But a deficient or greatly deteriorated harvest will
open the eyes of the farmers to the effects of the Corn-
laws, for the preservation of which the landlords com-
pelled them to vote at the recent elections with a rigour
never before exercised. A wet harvest would work
wonders in exposing the delusion of the " protection to
the farmers" afforded by the sliding scale ! A wet har-
vest would open the ports at a shilling duty ; and thus
the farmer be taught by the sharpest of all possible teach-
ers—stern experience—that the system is unworthy of
confidence which is inoperative for protection when most
needed. A prosperous manufacturing population will
always be the best protection to the agricultural interest,
by consuming, in steady and constantly increasing quan-
tities, the different articles of agricultural produce. The
landowners themselves will eventually be taught, al-
though, possibly, not until they also have purchased
wisdom by calamity, that the state of things most likely
to be put in jeopardy, the property they have received
from their forefathers, is that which turns the trade in
the first necessary of life out of its natural course.

STANDARD:—Our question—" Upon what pretence
do Ministers retain office in defiance of a vote of Parlia- I
ment now ratified upon an appeal to the people ?"
remains without an answer, or an attempt at an answer.
If any inconsistency could seem strange in the politics of
the Whig-Radical party, this obstinate refusal to meet
so plain a question would excite astonishment. It will
be remembered that upon the dismissal of the Whig-
Radical Cabinet in 1834 the Government was for
about a week or ten days conducted provisionally by
the Duke of Wellington, in attendance upon the
return of Sir Robert Peel, absent in Italy, at the
time of the dismissal of Lord Melbourne and his
colleagues ; and it cannot be forgotten with what affected
horror and indignation all the organs of the Whig-Radical
party denounced what they called the unconstitutional
anomaly of a provisional administration. But what is the
anomaly of a provisional administration, compared with
the anomaly of an administration conducting the
Government in defiance of a vote of Parliament ?
In what position is the Queen placed by such a proceed-
ing ? Her Majesty is plainly treated as a cipher, or if
more, as the accomplice of her guilty advisers. But the
Queen is not a cipher—her Majesty is, and we trust ever
will be, the first power in the State ; not the sole ',over
indeed, but the first, and more than co-ordinate of either
House of Parliament. It is no abatement o
1; her high
station and transcendant dignity to say ",:nat the consti-
' tution confers this power with an exincta.tion that it shall
be exercised in harmony with the 'l4eliberate sense of Par-
liament. Her Majesty is now 'placed in that exact posi-
tion in which, by the spirit of the constitution, she is to
act for herself ; properly speaking, she cannot be said
to have any advisers in the crisis. The condemned
Ministers must ;lot be heard to advise in their own
case. Her Aiajesty is, therefore, left to the exer-
ercise of her own independent judgment—the only
counsel that has been offered to her is that of her Par-
liament, suggesting the dismissal of the men in office,
arid that of the people echoing the voice of Parlia-
ment. How, then, can the most loyal and affectionate
construction of the retention of the present Ministers
deny that the Queen disregards the advice of her Par-
liament and the wishes of her people ? lip to the
19th of July it was impossible to interpose the hypo-
thesis that the people and the Parliament were at va-
riance, and it might be said that the Queen could not
choose between them ; that hypothesis has, however,
been extinguished by Lord John Russell's admission
that the people have ratified the vote of the House
of Commons by " an overwhelming majority" at the
elections. Her Majesty can, therefore, now have no
difficulty—she now has to exercise her high function
with a full knowledge of the wishes of her loyal and
affectionate subjects. Were the Ministers loyal men—
honourable men—gentlemen, we should not have to write
this at the present day. Before this they would have
given to their Sovereign the grace of an early and ge-
nerous compliance with the wishes of her people ; but
that they are not loyal and honourable men, or gen-
tlemen, is proved by the whole course of their conduct
towards the Queen. They began by charging her
Majesty as a writer of election squibs to serve their
party=; when in difficulties they placed her Majesty and
her household between them and dismissal ; and from
first to last they have represented her as participating in
their own mean desires and meaner resentments, until
now, when they allow her to stand unconsciously on her
part, in open and declared opposition to the expressed
wish of her ParliP:-rent and people ; in short, they
have studiously
of the Britt
A'Laboured to incorporate the Sovereign
least n empire as bound by the lowest and
res'ctable ties to the service of their party.
If Qur-en Victoria is popular—and popular, we rejoice to
she is in the highest degree—she owes her popu-
larity altogether to her amiable and noble qualities,
and to the gallant and generous spirit of her subjects ;
for her. Ministers have done all in their power to de-
grade her and render her odious, both as a Queen and
personally. The crowning effort in the war against
the Queen's influence and dignity is, however,
the now retaining office. For this there is no apo-
logy which the criminals dare to offer to the
public—none which they can dare to offer to the
Queen. They are dragging their unconscious Sovereign
into a conflict with her Parliament and people. They
are depriving her of the grace of acting as every mem-
ber of the house of Hanover has acted in circumstances
similar to those in which her Majesty is placed—they
are presenting to her use the fatal Stuart precedents.
This is their honour--this is their claim to the charac-
ter of gentlemen. They will find, however, truth and
loyalty will find their way into the palace, despite of all
the guards set for their exclusion, and truth once pre-
sented to the clear and powerful understanding of the
Queen,,.. there can be no apprehension as to the result.
;(:)13RIER—There is, we believe, some hitch about
an .
the st,
rean'ersliip. There ought not, however, to be
y
Shaw Le
We are inclined to speak as respectfully of Mr.
the duties of theiraporibaehfotyre
ability and •
fevre, and ,to st.tbenhe as frankly. to the. gene-
ralwith,as alnVyhlocnheh, eanddiscihf discharged
were no Conservative Member equall • or even better
qualified, we should be inclined to say, let well alone.
lv
vseu
Membersc h is by
nmoigrAhtearneads itlhye
beeasne.am./el.d deogzueannyC,onsosmere-
much better, versed in the law and customs of Parliament
than Mr. Lefevre, with the recommendation, and a strong
one it is, that as the majority of the House is decidedly
Conservative in opinion, the Speaker selected should be
one fairly representing that opinion. It should be recol-
lected, moreover, that with the new Legislature Sir R.
Peel's plaq, agreed to by resolutions of the late House of
Commons, for an improved mode of trying and adjudging
upon disputed elections, will first come into operation.
Upon this improved system the Speaker is empowered to
nominate absolutely the first committee of the House which
constitutes a court of appeal in denier resort, if we re-
member rightly ; and this committee, so nominated, is,in its
turn, empowered to select and appoint all other committees
for trying election petitions.
As will readily be under-
stood from these circumstances the Speaker henceforward
will be invested with a juristiction and powers greatly
transcending those of all former occupants of the chair.
Now it is not to be endured that there should be a shadow
of a chance for the appointment on any committee of
such people as Sir George Strickland, for example,
•
whose conduct on the Hull election
committee was
Airno-
toriously such, that with - • Thesiger we should in-
fallibly challenge him it fc und on any jury, before
which a cause of our own was directed for trial. And
then the Lord Advocate and the Elliotts again ; who
can have forgotten the infamous Hawick case? One of
these Elliott,, we see, has the assurance, in a letter
in to-day's Times, to complain of the Lord
the peace at
Lieu-
tenant of Roxburghshire for preserving
the late election. He talks about " indignation" at
" such crimes" as the employment of the militaryat th
fore
that salutary purpose. Where was his "indignation"
preceding election, when he and Lord Minto might have
seen, and did see perhaps, the Conservative voters thrown
into the river and treated with every violence and brutality
by the Elliot voters and tenantry ?_Were he and his, lordly
brother then "joking and laughing one moment. and
speaking seriously the next," whilst their own ferocious
mob was doing the business of the election for them ? No,
no, we must have no Stricklands, Rutherfords, or El-
liotts on Election Committees. Let them give place to
more honest and impartial men.