The Sun.
London, England, 1846-10-31 00:00:00

Q 3 brit-urn

LONDON, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 31, 1846.

Ministers have decided the two great questions by
which the national mind has been recently agitated;
they have further prorogued Parliament to the 12th
of January, instead of convoking it before the ex-
piration of the time of the previous prorogation ;
they have, consequently, given a tacit refusal to the
late clamour for the immediate opening of the ports.
That clamour has been very general and very earnest.
It originated in the dread of an extraordinary
scarcity in provisions. In those fears we seri-
ously participated, because there were solid grounds
for so doing until very recently ; insignificant sup-
plies were creeping into the markets; grain was rising
with alarming rapidity in price; food of various de-
scriptions was increasing in cost and decreasing in
quantity to an extent that threatened the most dis-
astrous consequences. Every one looked to the Mi-
nistry for assistance in this emergency ; there was a
general anxiety for the convocation of Parlia-
ment ; the opening of the ports was loudly
and almost unanimously demanded. Minis-
ters assembled for the purpose of deciding
upon the most advisable course to be pursued under
the circumstances. They have determined as we have
already stated ; they have resolved upon dispensing
with the deliberate recommendations of the Lords
and Commons until winter is considerably advanced;
they have resolutely adhered to the principles so re-
cently established by the Legislature in regard to the
continuance of moderate and temporary duties upon
the importation of foreign grain, and this notwith-
standing the recommendations of a specious panic and
the entreaties of a deluded people. In these impor-
tant determinations of the Ministry we recognise
both sagacity and independence.
With reference particularly to the abandonment of
the miserable duties still levied upon foreign pro -
visions, it must be observed that such a proceeding
could only be justified by the most imminent peril.
Until within the last few days the prospect afforded
by the corn-market could scarcely have been
more perilous. Famine prices appeared inevitable.
Starvation had already commenced in Ireland ; evi-
dences of scarcity were beginning to present them-
selves in England. Everything combined to justify
the Government in entering upon some remarkable
adventure for the removal of these impending diffi-
culties. Circumstances have demonstrated the
impolicy of any such an interference with
the enactments formally passed by Parlia-
ment. The deficiency is demonstrated to
have been superficial. Instead of our granaries
being nearly exhausted, they are shown to be excel-
lently stocked. The holders of wheat and flour,
whether farmers, or millers, or speculators upon the
corn market, were proved to have forced provisions up
to their present high prices, not in consequence of an
immediate or even a prospective deficiency, but be-
cause they reserved their supplies till something ap-
proaching to a famine price had been reached. This
shameful deception, however, has been divulged
long before its originators had anticipated. An ex-
tensive importation of American provisions, and a
prospect of further cargoes from Hamburgh, have
dissipated their anticipations of an exorbitant profit-
Grain will necessarily be rendered cheap by this com-
petition; indeed, indications of a decrease have
already become apparent in the Liverpool market—
flour having been offered at a diminution of Is. 6d
per barrel, and, wheat having declined in several
instances ls. per quarter. In that port the introduc-
tion of American provisions has been most encou-
raging and extensive. Within the course of Wednes-
day and Thursday alone the following quantities were
registered :-50,500 bushels of wheat, 6,400 barrels
of flour, 7,500 bushels of Indian corn, 600 casks of
beef and pork, with 370 barrels of hams. Nor are
these the only testimonies of the certainty with
which we may rely upon the corn-growers
and cattle-feeders of other countries, to com-
pensate these islands for the deficiency pro-
duced by the extension and virulence of the potato
murrain. Not merely are we receiving abundant
supplies from the western hemisphere, not only is
there a great probability of further assistance of a
similar character being derived from Hamburgh, but
extensive imports are being registered as arrived
from the wharves of Odessa. And all this, be it
especially reo,arked with the duties at the lowest
points ; with an increase equivalent to 719,042 barrels
of flour within a given week of this above a corre-
sponding one in 1845, at New York ; with the most
abundant harvest that has possibly ever ,been known
in Podolia and the Ukraine, and the exuberance of
which, if conveyed along the execrable roads that
lead to Odessa, and thence shipped to Great Britain,
would almost afford of itself a sufficiency for our
necessitous consumers.

With all these indisputable assurances of the
abundance of provisions already accumulated in our
markets, or thronging into our ports, with a know-
ledge that the diminished duties at present levied
upon foreign produce, is proving no hindrance whatever
to importation, and bearing in recollection that most
consolatory fact, that with a renewal of the potato dis-
ease there has been likewise an unusual excellence in
the quality of wheat, it is impossible to regard the
recent decision of Government as other than the
one most recommended by prudence, and as a resolu-
tion in no possible manner opposed to generosity.
Seeing that the present fragment of protective im-
posts would, if under existing circumstance re-
moved, be tortured into the emolument of the mono-
polist speculators, instead of diminishing the burden
upon the consumer, it would be worse than frivolity
and the very height of intemperate pertinacity to
persist in demanding its remission.
As to the extended prorogation of Parliament,
nothing need surely be said in extenuation, or we
should rather say in commendation, of that arrange-
ment. At a juncture when it is so advisable, and,
in some cases, especially in. Ireland, so imperatively
necessary for the representatives and the hereditary
legislators to be among their constituents, or among
their immediate dependents, it would be a most
grievous cruelty to summon those influential individuals
from the arena of their real usefulness to the shivering
desolation of St. Stephen's. Circumstances of an
unprecedented and embarrassing nature would of
course justify even that most grievous determination,
but, without those circumstances, an Administration
would be most culpable in prematurely summoning
the Members of the two Houses. When
such terrible calamities are afflicting the
United Kingdom ; when Ireland especially is sub-
jected to miseries more intolerable than those so
, long and patiently borne by that unfortunate country ;
I when the unemployed peasantry require the super-

The mind of the statesman can be imbued with no i
more valuable principle than that of interfering as
little as possible with the people in the management
of their own affairs ; and the value of this political
precept has never been more satisfactorily proved
than when it has been deviated from in matters affect-
ing the trade and commerce of the country. There
is no rule without an exception, and the circum.
stances should be extraordinary indeed to warrant a
departure from established usage in reference to
mercantile operations. Moreover, not only should
the circumstances be almost startling in their
novelty to justify the interposition of the
Executive, but, unless the means for effectu-
ating the interference be selected with the greatest
judgment, and prosecuted with the utmost circum-
spection, public embarrassment of an extensive and
deplorable character would be the inevitable conse-
quence. Last year the Government had the earliest
and most authentic information of the partial and
generally menaced failure of the potato crop. With
a laudable regard for protecting the Irish as much as
possible against the horrors of famine, the Adminis-
tration pursued their inquiries with incessant anxiety.
Sir R. PEEL proved himself equal to the crisis. The
Government completed large and secret purchases of
Indian meal, which happily reached our shores at the
very time when actual starvation stared thousands of the
Irish in the face. The admirable manner and the bene-
volent spirit which governed this proceeding of the
Executive, drew forth the warmest eulogium from men
of every political shade; because, independently of the
seasonable relief it afforded at a moment when the
greatest alarm had stricken Ireland to her very
heart, the legitimate operations of trade suffered no
derangement, in consequence of the secret and ener-
getic mode in which the charitable foresight of the
responsible advisers of the Crown were carried out.
But the circumstances of the present year are essen-
tially different from what they were a twelvemonth
back. What Sir ROBERT PEEL did then, and
with such eminent success, Lord JOHN RUSSELL
could not do now without producing the greatest
mischief. The awful visitation upon the chief article
of food to the Irish was then novel and unexpected;
it has now become notorious, and the healthy cultiva-
tion of the potato can no longer be relied upon. Go-
vernments cannot constitute &themselves the general
and permanent purveyors of the people. Such is not,
and never ought to be, considered their province.
The law of self-preservation, evoked by the great
warning of nature herself, prompts us now to resort
to other means than those which the agriculturists
of Ireland have unfortunately of late years so exten-
sively encouraged, for guarding ourselves against the
recurrence of the cumulative disaster that has over-
taken us, and especially on the other side of St.
George's Channel. And this brings us to the letter
which has been written by Lord JOHN RUSSELL to
the Duke of LEINSTER on the state of Ireland.
The letter is addressed to his Grace as the head of
the Royal Agricultural Society. It is peculiarly
well-timed—is fraught with wholesome and states-
manlike instruction, and is well calculated to put
down extravagant expectations. It seems to convey
a mild rebuke to the Irish landlords, and should con
vince them that they have looked to the Government
to perform what it was not only unreasonable in
them to surmise they would do, but what it is really
impossible for any Government to accomplish. After
lamenting that the landed proprietary should have
taken a wrong view of the Labour-rate Act, by sup-
posing that public works alone would offer the
readiest means of diminishing the difficulties of a
starving and unemployed population—the intention of
the Legislature having been, that such were only to
be undertaken to employ surplus labour after the
owners of the soil had commenced drainage and other
improvements on their own account,—Lord Joint ex-
presses his sorrow that, in several parts of Ireland,
calls are made upon the Government to perform tasks
which are beyond the power, and apart from the
duties, of Government :

For instance, it seems to be expected that we should
not only pay at an unusual rate of wages, but that we
should maintain, in this time of scarcity, the usual price
of food. A moment's thought will show that this is im-
possible. A smaller quantity of food is to be divided
among the same number of human beings. It must be
scarcer—it must be dearer. Any attempt to feed one
class of the people of the United Kingdom by the Go-
vernment would, if successful, starve another part—
would feed the producers of potatoes, which had failed,
by starving the producers of wheat, barley, and oats,
which had not failed. All that we have undertaken with
regard to food, therefore, is to endeavour to create a pro-
vision trade, at fair mercantile prices, where no provision
trade has hitherto existed, and where, without assistance,
none might be willing to undertake a new and unpopular
occupation."

Here we perceive the Minister wisely solicitous
against interfering with the merchant ; but he tells
the agricultural body that individual and social exer-
tions may do what the Government cannot ; that they
can, through committees of their own, supply shops
with flour at a fair price, to be disposed of at a mode-
rate profit; and that this has been done in Scotland,
where the potato calamity has been keenly felt. Even
this Lord JOHN admits is inconvenient with respect to
the market price of food, and is evidently only recon-
ciled to it upon the ground that under existing
circumstances "the good overbalances the evil."
His Lordship exhorts them to rely on their own
energies, to be judiciously exerted in their several
localities, and well observes, that "the interference
of the State deadens private energy, prevents fore-
thought, and, after superseding all other exertion,
finds itself at last unequal to the gigantic task it has
undertaken." The Irish must help themselves, and
we do not distrust the great holders of their
land ultimately discharging the momentous
duties that have devolved upon them to the admira-
tion of the present and future generations. They
are, as yet, staggering beneath the heavy affliction
that has covered the land, and much allowance must
be made for the natural dismay that has
overtaken them. Let them but only do
all that can be fairly expected from them,
and England, as heretofore, will not be found want-
ing to give Ireland every assistance to carry her
through the dreaded ordeal. But, as the Premier
writes, " unless: all classes co•operate, and meet the
infliction of PROVIDENCE with fortitude and energy,
the loss of the potato will only aggravate the woes
and sufferings of Ireland."

The vast importance of the subject introduced by
Mr. JAMES STEWART in his "Address to the Mem-
bers of Agricultural Societies and others interested in
Land," which appeared in The Sun of the 231 inst.,
has, as might reasonably have been expected, excited
much attention. Many communications have sinee
appeared from time to time in the public press in
reference thereto,-in one of which the character and
acquirements of Mr. STEWART as a legal practitioner
have been most gratuitously and wantonly assailed by
a gentleman of his own profession, who dates from
Lincoln's Inn, and signs himself " A Conveyancer."
Any person who puts himself prominently forward
for the amelioration of abuses, who proposes great and
comprehensive measures of reform, by which the
intererts or prejudices of any class may be affected or
offended, may make himself perfectly certain that he
will be exposed to the most virulent attacks on every pos-
sible point. It requires no small amount of moral courage,
and an anxious desire for the public welfare, to induce
any gentleman to come prominently before the public,
and thus to invite a criticism, not merely on the pro-
positions he thus enunciates, but also on his motives
and general character, however foreign the intro-
duction of the latter topics may be to the abstract
question.
Mr. STEWART, however, appears to have anticipated
the consequences, and to have fully made up his mind
to this result in his second letter, which appeared