The Sun.
London, England, 1841-07-10 00:00:00

power to correct this legislative error, and ex-
tinguish this legislative crime.

It must also be remembered that the commerce
of the country was tolerably prosperous till the
beginning of 1838. The continual remissions of
taxation made by the Whigs from their accession
to office, continually fed the hopes, stimulated
the energies, and rewarded to a certain extent
the exertions of the industrious classes. An end,
however, came to these remissions of taxation,
and the fiscal system interfering with every
part of the social machine, clogged its progress.
When additional taxation became necessary in
1840 its retardation was made painfully appa-
rent to all. Though science and morals had alike
denounced the iniquitous Corn-law many years
before, it was not till 1840 that its effects were
so far developed that any Ministry could have
been justified in proposing to alter it. Assuredly
had the Whig Ministry so proposed, it would
have caused an instant dissolution of the Cabi-
net. There is no other measure which can give
more relief to the people than an alteration or abo-
lition of the Corn-law, and nothing more credit-
able than the wantonness of malice can induce
any writer to accuse the Whigs of not having
proposed an amendment in that erroneous and
scoundrel legislation, while( they had ;great ma-
jorities in the House of Comm is.

Argument and facts of a 'similar character ap-
ply to the sugar duties. Since slavery was abo-
lished, there has been no year of very exorbitant
prices, but 1840 ; and no justification, therefore,
till after the experience of that year for pro-
posing an alteration in the law. Had Ministers
proposed it when prices were getting up, before
any person could'tell how far they would rise, or
how temporary was the elevation, the statement
that the Whigs were taking advantage of a ino
mentary and passing state of the sugar market,
to injure the sugar planters, would have been un-
answerable and most injurious. Till 1841, then,
the Ministers would not have been warranted in
proposing an alteration of the sugar duties; the
timber duties Lord A LTHORP tried to correct, and
was by the monopolists defeated. It implies a
false charge against the Ministers, then, to affirm
that they inexorably maintained the protective
system when they had large majorities, and only
abandoned it to harrass their successors. It is
only within the last three years that several of
its worst consequences, which were neutralised
before by successive reductions of taxation and
extension of the market, have been developed,
and tardy as we thought the Ministers-were in
attacking it, the present contest is a proof that
they have now attacked it too soon for the con-
tinuance of their power.

We have lately laid before our readers two or
three proofs of increasing attachment to free
trade amongst the farmers, and here is another.
On seconding the nomination of Mr. ELIOT for
Roxburgh, on Tuesday last, a Mr. MURRAY, of
Kerr Mains, used the following language:—

lam a farmer; I have no means of paying my rent
but from the laud I occupy. The cry of agriculture in
danger has been raised through the length and breadth of
the land. What is that cry raised for ? Mr. Scott says
that he regards with alarm an experiment that has a ten-
dency to destroy our home agriculture, and lay us at
the mercy of foreign nations.—(Hisses.) But I ask,
if he is desirous, as he says he is, that the food of
the people shall be as cheap as it can be consistent
with a due regard to the permanent security of agricul-
ture, is he taking steps to procure that ? I congratu-
late you on the fact, that a large portion of the farmers
of this county—the largest and most influential portion
of them—will be found voting in favour of Mr. Elliot.
—(Cheers.) I will tell you a fact which, perhaps, may
startle you. I am a farmer on the Duke of Roxburghe's
estate, and so wide-spread and universal is the feeling
that the present system of the Corn-laws is positively
incurious to the farmers (because it is injurious to the
whole community), that five of his Grace's tenants, pay-
ing among them a rental of 8,4001. per annum, will all
go forward and record their votes for Mr. Elliot.—
(Cheers.) There was a cry raised that cheap food would
lead to low wages. That was a most delusive cry,
Cheap food had nothing to do with low wages. I have
been in the United States ; I have seen a labouring man
there earn his dollar, or nearly 4s. Gd. a day, while his
loaf was only 4d., and his beef or mutton only 3d. per
lb.—(Cheers.) As this is a subject in which I am pecu-
liarly interested, and hope to see a measure carried
which shall be really beneficial to the farmer, I can con-
fidently assure you, that the farming interest is to be
most benefited by the thriving and prosperous state of
the crowds I see before me. In your prosperity rests
ours.—(Cheers.) The moment that the manufacturing
interest of the country falls from its high position, down
goes the farmer. We have had three indifferent harvests
of late, and corn has risen very high ; but then look at
the'state of the manufacturer who buys our wool. From
the languishing state of manufactures there hat been no
demand for wool, and that article has in consequence
fallen in price, till it is now less than ls. per lb. If a
lower price of corn. would take money out of one of our
pockets, the thriving and prosperous state of manufac-
tures would put it into the other.—(Cheers.)

His statement that farmers are beginning to
suffer in the price of their wool, was confirmed
by Lord HOWICK at the nomination for Northum-
berland on Tuesday. It is confirmed, too, by the
account of the Exeter Wool Market of July 1,
as follows :

Here all is still gloom, and in the raw article farthe
positive decline has taken place, several parcels of yolk
wool having been sold at 7i-d. per lb., a lower price than
we think we have had to state for several years ; white
the tendency at present, it were vain to attempt to dis-
guise, is still downward.
Great importations of colonial wool are con-
tinually taking place, which fetched rather an in-

creased price, and perhaps tends to beat down
the price of home-grown wool. With this vast
quantity of raw material, pouring in from many
quarters, if the landlords will not allow the peo-
ple to have food, and will not allow them to
find customers abroad, it is plain that the wool

cannot be worked up and the prices must fall.
To continue the Corn-laws the landlords must
also demand a heavy prot.cting duty on colonial
wool, when they and the colonists of the Southern
hemisphere will go to loggerheads. The re-
medy for their quarrels, as for all our com-
mercial evils, is to set trade free, and then the
farmers will he sure, as Mr. MURRAY said, to
find their prosperity in the prosperity of the ma-
nufacturers.

We presume Mr. NEWDIGATE, who appeared
on the hustings at Brentford to nominate Colonel
WOOD, must be an elector of Middlesex. It is
said, indeed, that he is to be the second Tory
candidate on a future occasion. To him, there-
fore, in common with the other electors, is the
language of Mr. BYNG addressed, which appears
as an advertisement in another part of The Sun.
If he be susceptible of any generous emotions,
the contrast between Mr. BYNG'S kind words and
his own harsh language, must give him great pain.
Mr. NEWDIGATE is, we believe, just of age, and
yet he had the impertinence to. reproach Mr.
BYNG, a consistent politician for fifty years, with
the errors of his political life. Mr. NEWDIGATE
not only forgot the reverence, due to age, but the
courtesy which is common amongst gentlemen.
He admitted that Mr. Byrfp's private life was
amiable—happy will it be for Mr. NEWDIGATE
if, at the end of his career, any man shall be able
to say either of his public or his private life that
he resembled the good Mr. BYNG.

---
We have received little information of interest in the
political line from Paris by our correspondence of Wed-
nesday. The Council of Ministers which had met on
Tuesday after the KING'S return was said to have been
occupied with the fortification question ; but the main
subject of its deliberations was known to be the final ad-
hesion of France to the settlement of the Oriental ques-
tion, and her nominal reconciliation with the great
Powers of Europe. There is little doubt now but that
France will actually sign the protocol which closes the
acts of the Conference, but it is suspected she will set on
foot secret negotiations both with the Porte and Greece
for regaining her influence in the Levant. M. PISCA-
TORY'S mission to Athens still remains a mystery, but
from the character of that Envoy it is most probable that
he is looking after what sort of a chance there may be
for France, in case of the Candiotes and the other Chris-
tian subjects getting the upper hand, to intervene with
effect. The last accounts received at Paris from the
Levant are favourable to the prospects of the Turks ;
things are more quiet both in Albania and in Syria, and
it appears that the forces of the insurgents in the Can-
dian mountains have been grossly exaggerated, not more
than 4,000 men being actually under arms.
M. HLJMANN, the Minister of Finance, had still a dif-
ficulty in negotiating his loan, and capitalists did not
seem at all anxious to put themselves out of the way to
accommodate the French Government. Two failures
have taken place in Paris, one a banking firm, Messrs.
YIERRUGUES, VERNINAC and Co., the other of a large
Marseilles and West India house, MARENTIE and Co.
The liabilities are: considerable, and many houses here
are sufferers. Some firms :in London will also lose by
these accidents
Saint Natignal. Gnards have beet protesting against
the'diSWution•of a company of the Bth Legion because