The Sun.
London, England, 1847-01-23 00:00:00

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iHE WEATIMIL—SuN OFFICE, JANUARY 22.
THERMOMETER, Lowest, 33; Highest, 38 ; Noon, 36
BAROMETER, 29 82.—WIND E.N.E., hazy.

libtli WAf AT lAEN DUN-MC.II)OE TUth LAY.
Morning .. 23 minutes after G. I Evening .. 47 minutes after 6.

parted stability to the Administration. Nothing would
have been easier than for Sir R. PEEL so to have
; shaped his course on the first night of the session as
to have ensured, within a short period, the overthrow
of the present advisers of the Crown. The agricul-
tural nature of the questions, officially decided to be
the first to engage the attention of the Senate, and
the specious reflections which he might, with his
known skill and address, have cast upon the past
errors (if any) of the Government—first, in connexion
with Ireland ; next, in regard to the delay in open-
ing the ports—left nothing undesired to the ex-Premier
had he coveted an opportunity for accomplishing the
resignation of the Cabinet. Instead, however, of in-
viting any political combination which would have
produced such an untoward result, Sir R. PEEL, by
the declarations he has made, at the earliest possible
period, has assured the Government that he will sus-
tain them against any Protectionist opposition in the
same honourable spirit in which Lord JOIIN RUSSELL
and his party, in the last session, supported him
against the same force ; and that he will likewise con-
sider their past and present difficulties with sentiments
of forbearance and generosity. Such conduct was
disinterested, noble, and patriotic ; and such being
the part which Sir R. PEEL was prepared to take, it
mattered little, except in so far as the economy in
time was concerned, what were to be the tactics of the
Protectionists. To Sir R. PEEL, and not to them,
did the country look, and will continue to look, for
that additional Parliamentary strength (beyond what
is included in the ranks, exclusively Ministerial), of
which the Government may stand in need
for succcessfully carrying through the different im-
portant measures required to redeem us from a
national crisis of a very alarming character. We
are not indifferent to the advantages of unanimity,
but we suspected that the reason we were not bereft
of them by the Protectionists, in either the Upper
or Lower House, during the debate on the Address,
' sprang not from choice, but necessity. We knew
the monopolists to be of a class of politicians on
whom the lessons of experience are lost, whose pre-
tensions to wisdom render them a laughing-stock, and
whose impulses of humanity never cross the
frontiers of selfishness. Their quiet demeanour on
the first night of the session is to be attributed, not
to any change in their nature or opinions, but to
the awful ordeal of harrowing distress which
thousands upon thousands of our fellow-beings have
been, and are still, destined to undergo in Ireland and
the Western Highlands. As a party, then, the
Protectionists would have been utterly gone, beyond
all salvation of credit with the country, had they
held any other language than that of sympathy
for the keen afflictions of their Scotch and
Irish brethren. Wise in their own generation, they
merely bowed to the storm, and whispered a disposi-
tion to acquiesce in meliorative measures.

_ .
No sooner, however, has an harmonious answer
been given to the Speech from the Throne than out
bursts the Lord of Goodwood, with all his pristine
virulence. Impatient of the decent restraint in
which he had been fettered for a few hours,
his Grace the Duke of RICHMOND rushed
to Brighton, to preside at the dinner of
the Sussex Agricultural Protection Society, which
came off ou Thursday. Closely associated as this chi-
valrous Peer is with Lord STANLEY, the observations
of his Grace furnish us with a satisfactory clue to
the animus of the party. The ducal speech was 1
fraught with sweltering venom. Old sores were
rudely ripped open—the " duplicity of Sir ROBERT
PEEL, lost to every honourable feeling, his conduct
of last year a disgrace to the English House of Com-
mons and to the national character, the unprin-
-1 cipled legislation of the House of Lords, Scc."
—these, and similar hair-brained sentences,
formed the staple commodities of the Duke
of RICHMOND'S peculiar and unrivalled oratory. A
great check wculd be given to intoxication could a
drunken man only once recognise himself in a glass.
In like manner, a man drunk with passion is equally
incorrigible, from being unconscious of the ridiculous
figure he cuts under the influence of morbid excitement.
It would be idle to assure the agricultural Peer that
his inflated harangues are suicidal. His Grace has
"the greatest confidence in the good sense
of the people of England ;" the people must
grievously lament they cannot return the com-
pliment. Ills Grace is for " pulling off his
gloves by and bye, and having a stand-up
fight." All this is very jocose bombast, sound, and
fury, signifying nothing. Better far for his Grace
to run back into the school-room, and store his mind,
than remain truant in the play-ground, blowing
bubbles in the air. There are mcny excellent traits
in the Duke of RICHMOND'S character, but his re-
peated hallucinations are painful in the extreme.
Don QUIXOTE had his individual excellences, but
his greatest admirers blush for his pranks among the
mountains.

employment, and the removal of the impediments that
now obstruct it. These are shortly the points
embraced, and it is impossible not to agree in the
soundness and propriety of the principles laid down.
It was by these very principles that the Government
were actuated in framing the provisions of the Labour-
rate Act ; and had that statute been carried into
execution in the manner contemplated by the Ministry
it would have had the most beneficial effects. It was
never supposed that the means thus afforded fur the
absorption of the surplus labour, in the execution of
public works that were left to the selection of the in-
habitants of the districts to be benefited thereby,
and the expense of which was to be defrayed by easy
instalments, spread over a period of ten years, would
have superseded all private enterprise and exertion—
would have led to the total abandonment of the agri-
cultural operations so necessary for the welfare of the
proprietors and occupiers of the land, and of the
country in general—would be made use of so reck-
lessly and with so little regard for the character of
the works selected and sanctioned at the several
sessions, that what was intended to be merely an
auxiliary would be adopted as the chief, if not the
only, mode of employing the population. Had its
provisions been judiciously used, in place of being, as
was unhappily the case, abused, the results would
have been most valuable, and we might hereafter
have said, in the words of the Select Committee on
the state of the poor in Ireland, in 1830—" That the
effects of these public works have been extended cul-
tivation, improved habits of industry, a better ad-
ministration of justice, the re-establishment of peace
and tranquillity in disturbed districts, a domestic
colonization of a population in excess in certain dis-
tricts, a diminution of illicit distillation, and a very
considerable increase of the revenue." We do not
now seek to enter into or investigate the causes that
led to this failure, or to make charges against any
parties or classes. We think there has been too',
much recrimination, too great an anxiety to fix blame
on every side. We merely desire to vindicate the
Ministry from the imputations that have been cast
upon them, to justify them from the reproaches with
which they have been most unjustly assailed. Great
facilities had been given to, and inducements held
out, for private employment. Series of Acts relating
to works of drainage, &c., enabled any landowner to
obtain a loan at a moderate rate of interest, with
ample time for the discharge of the principal, for the
improvement of his-property. True it is that these
Acts were not as perfect as they might hare been
made, but much could have been effected under them,
as may be seen from the report of the Highland and
Agricultural Society, to which we some time since
adverted, had they been duly used and taken advantage
of; and, in order to give still greater facilities, the
Executive took upon themselves the grave and serious
responsibility of sanctioning large expenditures in a
manner different from that authorised by the Legis-
lature. They have been charged, too, with diverting,
the labour of the country from the ordinary agricul-
tural operations, that are of such vital importance
that an adequate supply of labour could not be ob-
tained by the farmer to cultivate his fields. It is
scarcely necessary to repeat that the rule, long since
adopted and published by the Board of Works, is
that every individual desirous of giving employment
to any number of men, may have persons assigned
to him from the public works, and if the persons so
assigned refuse to work for him, they will forth-
with be discharged, and never again obtain public
employment. The neglect of tillage and the want of
n o t preparationto b e
ascribedfor t the forthcomingto
the
G
Government
v
ernb
ma revnets t,
works, therefore,or t the

effects of the Labour-rate Act, but to the indisposition
of the farmers themselves to take the necessary steps.
Having thus rendered simple justice to the acts and
motives of the Government, we are convinced they
will still do everything in their power to cause the
absorption of the surplus labour, to afford facilities
for private employment, and to remove the im-
pediments that now obstruct it.

Constantinople papers to the Ist have bee,* received.
They confirm the intelligence previously received of a
change in the Turkish Ministry. SAID PADUA Sue.
ceeds KOSREW PACBA as Seraskier. The. Journal de
Constantinople of the Ist informs us that the ex• Grand
Vizier IZZET MOTIAMED PACUA, who had been living in
exile since his dismissal from the post of Governor of
Adrianople, iutended to fix his residence in Constanti-
nople. The Constantinople customs for the ensuing
year have been sold to a company of Armenian:bankers
for 120,000 purses (600,0001.)
Madrid papers of the 14th have arrived.

According to the Bcraldo, a new Ministerial combina-
tion is contemplated, which will include MoN, BRAVO
Mtramr,o, and CAst lac.ro as members of a Cabinet of
which IsTunrrz is to continne the chief. The discus-
sion on the Address had commenced in the Senate.

TRIgTANY is at the head of a large band of Carlist:
in Catalonia. and notwithstanding the exertions of Gen.
BRETON, TitisTANy's forces are continually increasinc.
His plan seems to be by feigning to retreat before th.
QUEEN'S forces to endeavour to lure them into the
mountains, where guerillas always fight regular troop-
at an advantage.

Att 1 fr
, dr,,
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4001&\‘,
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