The Sun.
London, England, 1846-06-18 00:00:00

ness when the tide of defeat has set in ? Neverthe
less, distressing as is this ill-timed exhibition o:

pleasantry upon a question of such infinite importance,
we cannot but regard it as auguring well, and congratu-
late the country upon it accordingly. It is manifest

without question, that after the triumphant majorities
which each division upon the Corn Bill has given in
favour of free trade, both in the Upper and the
Lower House—it is manifest, we say, that this very
display of merriment among the protection-
ists proceeds from the very hopelessness and
helplessness of their position. Seeing that
their ultimate overthrow is inevitable, they appear to
be partially reconciled to their destiny, and prepared
to take the defeat in good part. Conscious that all

arguments upon the mercantile benefits or in

juries which must follow the adoption of the proposed
policy would be altogether so much useless exercise
of their lungs, they disdain the ancient admonition
of " sparing their breath to cool their porrage," and
digress upon all kinds of subjects saving and ex-
cepting alone the subject under discussion. From

this very insouciance we may perceive the certainty
there is of shortly beholding free trade the law of

;he land, and of beholding, moreover, the most in

veterate protectionists bowing down in acquiescence
to the doctrines of their antagonists, when time and

experience shall have proved to them that freedom of

commerce is the surest means of promoting agricul
tural welfare.

Sir G. CLERK on Tuesday brought forward in the
House of Commons five resolutions founded on the
recommendations contained in the minute of the
Lords of the Privy Council of Trade, of the 6th June
inst., and the greater part of the evening was devoted
to the discussion. We have already alluded at some
length to these recommendations, and approved of
the spirit in which they were framed, preferring
them to those contained in the report of the
Gauge Commissioners. The two first resolutions
were:only disposed of on Tuesday, and the further con-
sideration of the other three was adjourned until this
day. There is no doubt that considerable evil
resulted from the break of gauge, and that consider-
able inconvenience was occasioned thereby; but the
great question seems to be, is that inconvenience so
serious in amount, and productive of so much injury
to the public, as to make it worth the while of that
public to devote a large sum of money, amounting
at least to 1,000,0001. sterling, for its removal ? We
have already shown that if the change is to be at all
effected, it can only be made at the public expense.
Any other course would be so totally inequitable and
unjust that there would be little prospect of its re-
ceiving the sanction of a British Parliament ; indeed,
we doubt if a single supporter could be
found in either House to so monstrous a
proposition as that the great expense of
altering the gauge should be thrown on the par-
ticular company whose line was to be so altered for
the public convenience. Before, then, we come to a
conclusion on this question, it is necessary to con-
sider whether the evil is wholly unmixed, and whether
there is no advantage to the public in the existing
difference. There is little doubt, that in consequence
of the jealousy that has hitherto existed between the
London and Birmingham and the Great Western—the
representatives of the rival systems—each ofthose great
companies has been stimulated to the utmost
degree of exertion to increase the accommodation
afforded to the public, and to diminish the expense
as much as possible, for the purpose of securing the
public suffrages in favour of their own particular
gauge. By this means the great evil which would
otherwise have resulted from the monopoly exercised
by the companies has been in a great degree avoided,
and the public have had the benefit of a certain
degree of competition, the only one to which rail-
way management has hitherto been exposed, and
tahaem greatite advantage of which is so well known and
fully appreciate
railway
in every year,
far these improvements experienecea.rAev gaasiny,eit is almost universally
applications of the resourceas but in the
infancy of
oavne4n,,eitna.tissst improvements are introduced
quite ibmpossible to say how
ofesec:cotended, whatsmh
should
it is no trifling advantage that scientieficniamyenbe
have an opportunity of observing the workings of the
present system under varied and different circum-
stances, and it affords an additional chance of early
discoveries being made and coafrr%iieedwi:dtoesierxaebeluettihonai
It is, therefore, in some points
their in
Lord 5
ha
inpas is,in
at ht elreeassth, oquulidte stillsltaecxieisnt
to the narrow gauge at the public
tatodiwffaerreranncte
not at present recommending a redeuxcpteinonseo. f trhteibsraolasod
impossible to say that some simple and cheap
wpitlh, plan
orm aay..
not speedily be discovered for doing away
least considerably reducing, the evils at present at-
tendant on a break of gauge. Many mechanical
contrivances, stated by their Lordships to be of great
ingenuity, have already been submitted for that pur-
pose ; and although none of them may be quite suffi-
cient altogether to do away with the evil, yet it
is clear that the inventive genius of the
country is at work; on the question ; and it is
impossible to say how soon the problem may be

solved. This great expenditure would then become
worse than useless, and there is therefore strong

reason to pause before a step of the kind is irrevo-
cably taken. It being then admitted that the exist-
ing broad gauge lines are not to be disturbed, the

next question Is, what course can be adopted to re-

in the records of the Imperial Parliament. Some
amongst the antagonists of the measure have shirked
every consideration bearing upon its intrinsic merits :
they have sedulously avoided any direct allusion to a
given point of its application, and have contented
themselves with certain vague innendoes er rambling
references to colonial disaffection and other extraneous
matters. These orators, and these alone, have been
the utterers of what Mr. DISRAELI most happily de;
signated_ as " damnable iterations of stale sophistries.
They have showered upon the Ministerialists and upon
the nominal Oppositionists an appalling shower
of globular missiles—but these missiles have
invariably proved to be nothing more than the
bubbles of a specious and pretended logic. Others
have strayed still further from the question of impor-
tation and exportation duties by indulging in a strain
of vituperative bitterness upon personages whose
poli-
tical judgment they had prey iouslyfollowed as infallible.
But their revulsion of feeling has especially expended
itself upon one whom they had heretofore scarcely
neglected apotheosising. Inflamed with chagrin, and
debilitated by an irreparable defeat, their voices have
mingled tones of reproach and lamentation ; they
oscillated between personal invective and self-com-
miseration ; they directed their ejaculations almost
exclusively to the Prime Minister, and have almost
addressed him, in the very phrases of CATULLUS-
"NuIIane res potuit crudelis flectere mentis
Consilium ? . • • '
At non hac quondam nobis promisee dedisti
Voce : mibi non hoc miserm sperare jubebas !"
Only anxious to avoid any decisive collision upon the
real bearings of free trade, whether upon commerce or
agriculture, and at the same time to ensure, if pos-
sible, the discomfiture of those whom their morbid
imaginations pictured to them as their deadliest ene-
mies, they have snatched at anything likely to prove
a stalking horse for the ebullition of their excite-
ment—no matter to them if it were as garbled as the
statistics they selected as their first weapons of attack,
or as decrepid as their last weapon of attack
—the language used upon the Catholic Question, no
less than seventeen years ago, by Sir R. PEEL,
Such has been the behaviour of the advocates for a
perpetuation of the corn-laws in the House of Com-
mons. And, saving the avoidance of anything like
individual recrimination, the Peers have displayed no
inferior versatility. As Lord BROUGHAM jO.
cosely, but truthfully, observed, their speeches
reminded one of " choral symphonies," various
in their modulation, but " attuned to the same gamut."
If we required any demonstration of the accuracy of
this statement, the discussion which ensued upon the
Earl of Wicimow's amendment would illustrate its
correctness. What shall be said, for in-
stance, of a debate upon the taxation or non-
taxation of the food of the people degenerating into
a mere theme for quoting from VOLTAIRE, for
quibbling upon a text from " Paradise Lost," or for
jesting at the absence of physiognomical beauty in
the ex-Chancellor, Lord BROUGHAM ? Do these mere
frivolities of boarding-school chit-chat accord well
with the solid and thoughtful reputation which Lord
STANLEY has acquired as a Parliamentary speaker ?
Are they not, on the contrary, thejindications of an
incapacity to battle with a solemn and sober earnes