The Sun.
London, England, 1846-03-02 00:00:00

Trte protectionists turned pale as the united voice of the peo-
ple,: celebrated the triumph of " their worst enemies." The
"f 'arrner's friends" also received another blow in the nomina •
6 m of the Earl of LINCOLN. Mr. RIMY, of Basford, came
foi 'ward to propose him, and in spite of the unseemly inter-
ru, otions of gentlemen on the hustings, he boldly declared
thl a although Lord LINCOLN was not there, he would not
onl, y nominate him " but get him in. It was not the first
tim t a subaltern had achieved a victory in the absence of the
gene val ; he had not expected to take part in an
electicrieering contest, but the circumstances were such that
any ins,i. Who had feeling left in him, must, as he did, fling
himself ,into the struggle, with warm blood and spirits high,
and fight for peace, and liberty, and independence." To-
morrow the contest will take place, and it remains to be seen
whether th,e electors of the northern division wil! give their
votes for an untried candidate and a worn-out cause, or range
themselves unt.leithe banners of those who are now all powerful
only because they are acting for the people's good, and in
accordance with the wants and wishes of the people.

The majOrit y of ninety-seven is decisive of the success of Sir
Ros Era PEEL'S measure in the House of Commons. It is
possible, it is true, that some Conservatives who voted with
Sir R. PEEL on Saturday morning may fall off in future
divisions, and we have heard of two or three Members likely
to take this course. They would not be a party to so strong
an opposition as a refusal to go into Committee to consider
Sir ROBERT PEEL'S proposals; but when the several facts of
the measure come to be considered in Committee, and
when the Bills to be founded on the resolutions in Com-
mittee come before the House, they will ote against
the Minister. But not many are likely to take this course ;
and, on the other hand, the protectionists may make sure that
some of their rank and file will fall off in future divisions.
All the two hundred and forty are not animated by the same
zeal in the cause as the MiLzsEs and BANnEsits and CoLgu-
JIOUNS—the expectants of office under the Duke of RlCH-
norm. Sir T. Acta-ND declared that, though intending to
give his vote against Sir R. PEEL in the first division, he
would be no party to a factious and vexatious opposition, and
that a decided majority in favour of the Government would
determine him to keep aloof from all subsequent opposition.
There are manyother moderate Conservatives—men with strong
attachment to Sir R.-PEEL and who have voted against him
with the greatest. reluctance—men who have given their
votes against the proposal, less from strong aversion to it on
their own parts, than in obedience to the feelings of consti
tuents—who will follow Sir T. ACLAXD'S example. The pro-
tectionists -will never muster two hundred and forty again.
That two hundred And forty was a convulsive effort. It is to
be observed, also, that the number of absent Liberals is
greater than that of absent Tories. The whole number of
the absent, allowing for North Nottinghamshire, Wigan,
and Bridport, as vacant, was seventy-one. Of these
twenty-six are accounted for as paired. Of the re-
maining forty-five only fifteen are Tories, and
thirty are Liberal Members. Mr. Waxson and Mr
GRANGER, who were among the Liberal absentees, were
compelled to go on circuit, and Mr. Ricanto, we are in-
formed, was compelled to go on business to Paris ; and these
three gentlemen would have been in the division if the de-
bate had not beer so unreasonably protracted. We regret to
see that so many as eighteen Irish- Liberal Members are
absent, on a question of which Irish famine is a principal in-
gredient. However, we may infer that the Government will
on future occasions have the benefit of the votes of several
of the thirty Liberal Membez who were absent on Friday
without Fairs. And if North Nottinghamshire is to return
anot'ier protectionist recruit, Bridport is safe to return a sup-
porter of Sir ROBERT PEEL'S policy.
We rejoice to hear, on the best authority, that the Govern-
ment measure is safe in the Lords, and that it will be carried
in that House by a majority of not less than thirty. Our
readers may rely on this statement, and disregard all the
blustering of protectionist Dukes and newspapers, who blus
ter the more about the House of Lords only, because they
know that they have no chance in that House.

Not merely has curiosity been satisfied by learning the upshot
of the division on Saturday morning, but it has likewise been
gratified by listening to the arguments adduced by Mr.Corinme
before the termination of the discussion. Had not his con-
valescence enabled the Hon. Member -for Stockport to take
(however tardily) some share in the debate, there would
have been a manifest hiatus in the proceedings of Parliament
upon this enlightened and comprehensive measure. Every
one, whether free-trader or protectionist, was naturally
anxious to become acquainted with the exact sentiments en-
tertained at this moment by Mr. COBDEN, because in him
they beheld the most influential of all out-of-door political
economists ; because in him they beheld, as it were, the mind
aid the muscle of that great Asociationwhich had tended so
much to impel the system of abolition to its accomplishment ;
because, moreover, in him they beheld the most popular pri-
vate representative in the House as-far as the question at issue
was concerned, Besides which, people were the more desi-
rous of hearing that Honourable Gentleman's voice from the
Opposition benches, as to- some sceptics his intentions seemed
to be problematical ; they clung with despairing avidity to
the hope of his impeding Sir ROBEZT'S policy by persisting
in his demand for an immediate and Motel repeal of both im-
port and export duties. It was the last straw at which, in
the agonies of their destruction, these satellites of Mr.
MILES grasped with spasmodic eagerness and stolid perti-
nacity. Mr. BRIGHT'S acquiescence with the Premier, and,
in addition to this, his impassioned eulogium upon that Right
Hon. Baronet, would have satisfied any dispassionate mind
as to the intentions of the Hon. Member's colleague.
Nevertheless, so blinded with their own perverseness were
these self-legislators, that they chuckled audibly in their
club-rooms at the stumbling-block preparing for the Prime
Minister, quoted the epistle addressed by the Mem-
ber for Stockport to the tenant-farmers of Great
Britain, and revelled in these fallacious notions
even in the purlieus of Westmiaster. On Friday night,
however, Mr. COBDEN, as the embodiment of the Anti-
Cern-law League,- as the symbol of the popular voice
and of the popular will, snatched this last phantom of re-
demption from the reach of the protectionists, and cast them
for ever adrift amidst the surge of their own selfish disap-
pointment. His speech was a condensation of the opinions
which have been battling in the Lower House during the pre-
vious twelve nights : the fallacies which were previously
floating about haphazard, 'without any recognisable shape,
were in that oration reduced to a concrete atom, a kind of
existent nothingness. He was the political pentagraph with
which the mammoth array of argument spreading over the
past discussion was reproduced in a clear, sharp, and minia-
ture epitome. As such Mr. COBDEN'S presence immediately
before the Parliamentary tellers were introduced, was frought
with extreme utility, since with the assistance ef his clearjudg-
ment the Members were enabled to take a common• sense
review of the measure and its consequences directly before
recording their vote. Although oppressed with the languor
of bodily debility, there is traceable in the manner of the
Hon. Member for Stockport, during the utterance of his re-
marks, a peculiar and sunny cheerfulness, which is alone at-
tributable to the satisfaction with which he perceived the
triumph of the cause for which, through many bitter and
protracted troubles, he had been the daring and devoted
champion. In the opening of his observations. Mr. COBDEN
pointed out, with a :at eady finger and a laughing lip, the out-
rageous absurdity of the agricultural gentlemen insisting
upon an appeal to the country as a means of insuring the
perpetuation of the present pernicious barriers against the
introduction of cheap grain ; he avouched the extension
of the franchise, as now practised by the League, to be a
custom sanctified by five -hundred years' duration ; and he
appealed to their pradence as legislators, to their justice as
Christians, to their reason as men, to deny the working
classes no r ready :access to plentiful and wholesome
provisions. Compared with the cant, selfishness, and party
quibbles of the land proprietors in opposing Sir ROBERT
PEEL'S policy, the peroration of the Hon. Member's speech
has much real beauty and nobleness. He takes a capacious
survey of terrestrial exigencies ; he insists upon the necessity
of allowing the laws of GOD and Nature alone to regulate
the supply of nourishment to tlie populace; and concludes
with this simple but emphatic language :—" We have set
the world the example in all great improvements. We
gave it the representative system; the rules and regulations
of this House have -become the -models for every delibera-
tive assembly. We have given the world a free press;
we have given it civil and religious freedom, and every insti-
tution which belongs to liberty and civilisation; and now we
are going to give it another example, greater than all."
Depressed as Mr. ConDEsi's energies might have been from
indisposition, -he has spoken precisely as be should have
spoken : he has spoken exactly as the people wanted : he has
spoken in accordance with the dignity of his present posi-
tion as an eminent and sagacious legislator. When record-
ing the present glorious revolution- in commercial policy, the
future historian will identify with its acceptance—and that
in an especial manner—the name, the words, and the in-
tellect Of RICHARD COBDEN. It is seldom that such victories
have to be announced by the journalists—victories achieved
not by the shedding of one drop of blood, not by the waving
of one single sword, not by the deathful propulsion of cannon
balls, but with the peaceful weapon—logic, by the divinest
attribute of human nature—our reasoning faculties. When,
therefore, we remember that these opinions have been maisly
inculcated by one voice, and that voice Coanzie's ; when N% e
remember that a vast moral revulsion in the cause of the people
has been mainly produced by one man's exercise of rhetorical
and argumentative powers—and that man, COBDEN; when
we remember that the means of incalculable happiness to
posterity as well as to ourselves, have been mainly rescued
from monopoly -by one-bold and vigorous champion—and that
champion CornimN—surely, for once, even the most bigoted
should not become niggard of commendation ; their generous
and manly expressions of gratitude should be accorded to
rticitmln COBDEN without stint in length or eartnestness.
With him all real lovers of their kind unite their largest and
warmest sympathies, seeing (as they do) in him a man striv-
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ha achievement leh is mainly, and we may say paramountlmber for Stockport—men to whom the present great
7, attn.-
butable.

1 Madrid papers of the 22d ult. abound with rumours, but
bring no news that can be depended upon. It was currently
reported that the new Finance Minister was to commence
his career by cutting down the expenses of the army and the
Royal Family. If he wishes to remain in office he had better
refrain from this species of economy, for Cznismu. and NAR-
VARZ to a certainty would oust him in a week. Another
, report was, that there would be a modification of the Minis.