The Sun.
London, England, 1846-06-02 00:00:00

THE CORN BILL.

We can never sufficiently appreciate the advantages of
having. et great soldier in. the Cabinet, and. a Field
Marshal in the House of Lords. It immensely facilh
tates the -mechanical process of change. Nothing is so
desultory—so apt to clog its own movements—so blind
to its destiny—so apt to waste its resources—as a legis-
lative crowd. The moment they are frightened they
get into a heap, and begin to tread on one another 's
toes. They are too great for the drill. For maser more
important reasons, therefore, than that particularised by
the Roman Emperor, it is desirable that a Senate
should have one head. The Duke of Wellington supplies
in the Lords that important disideratum. After a due
amount of reconnoitering, feeling, demonstrating, skir-
mishing, and other preliminaries, he matures his plan
in politic silence. Just on the eve of struggle he informs
his Generals what they must do. Aides-de-camp fly
with his orders. Chiefs listen to his instructions. No
matter how little the soldier, or the officer, or even the
commander of a division, knows of the general plan. It
is theirs to hear and obey. If the Peers threaten to be
rather too high and mighty, or if they show indications
of jibbing, there is a reserve which will either supply
their places or push them on. The Brobdignag Duke
pulls out of his pocket fifty mannikin Peers, who count for
as much as the best for this kind of warfare. The affair
goes off with all the grace and composure of a parade. The
word of command is all that they wait for. Attention !
Right about ! And they all are converted by intuition,
and turned by instinct. The people are at the same time
edified by a revolution and entertained with a spectacle.
It is really quite a lesson—whether in the art military
or the art politic, is not at first discernible—to hear the
Duke addressing his comrades. " I beg leave," he says,
" to point out to your Lordships, that it is your duty to
consider well the consequences of any vote that you may
give upon this subject—to consider well the situation in
which you place this House." That is the question for
the Lords. There is a delightful, a scientific simplicity
in this way of putting the case. We do not find a word
here, cr indeed in all the rest of the speech, in the
smallest degree allusive to the merits of the ques-
tion, or even to its subject. The Bill might be one
for swallowing Polk's insolence and giving up Ore-
gon, or the abolition of all duty on tobacco, or a
great central railway terminus in Waterloo-place,
or the confiscation of half the property of the Peers, for
anything that appears in the speech. The corn-laws are
as rigorously excluded from it as the Ten Command-
ments are from a schoolboy's theme. He gives the pure
mathematics of the question. " Consider well the
consequences." " Comider the situation in which you
place this House." His Grace adds an expression which
speaks the very soul of military discipline. No member
is to consult his own opinion, his own safety, or his own
reputation, but to identify himself with the House. A
soldier is a unit in the army, a Peer is a unit in the
Duke's branch of the Legislature. " Nay," he says, "it is
the duty of each to !lace himself in the situation of the House
before he determines to give his vote, and to consider
what would be, under all circumstances, the consequence
if the House were to follow the course he may be about
to do on this occasion." We beg most entirely to concur
in this advice, and entertain no doubt that it expresses
the true theory of a legislative vote, so far as regards
the duty of a member to put himself in the situation of
the House. There are Peers, we cannot help thinking,
who have consulted their party or their pique by giving
an adverse vote, though nothing would perplex them so
much as to find the Lords placed in collision with the
Commons and the people of England. Yet, as the Duke
puts it, it does rather merge the man in the army. •
His Grace then reminds his bearers that he has once
before advised them to beat a retreat, and he implies
that they retreated with success. At any rate they
saved their lives and their coronets. Like the judicious
warrior in " Hudibras," they have lived to fight another
day, and, as in the former instance, to run away also.
The Duke encourages them to hope that a repetition
of this movement will be accompanied with equal ad-
vantage. This, in fact, is pretty nearly all that he has
to say. So he says it again :—" I beg of your Lordships
to look a little to the measure upon which you are about
to vote." This seems to promise a word or two on " the
merits." No such thing. The nature of the inspection
is explained by the rest of the sentence :—" and the
consequences likely to follow from a rejection of that
measure." The Lords are to lock at the measure a little,
and pass it, just as you make a shying horse look at a
wheelbarrow a little and pass it. The inspection is not
to be tediously long, or superfluously inquisitive.
But, on the principle, we suppose, that abundans can-
tela non nocet, the Duke repeats his warning for the
fifth or sixth time, without concerning himself much to
diversify the langnage : —"I ask your Lordships to look
at the manner in which this measure has come before
you, and consider what is likely to follow from your re-
jecting it." What those consequences will be he states
clearly enough, but we fancy we can just trace a little
tenderness and unsteadiness of touch when he comes to
describe the state of things which renders these conse-
quences inevitable. "My Lords, this measure was re-
commended by a speech from the Throne ;"—written,
his Grace might have added, " by my Right Honourable
Friend in the other Housei"—" it has been passed by a
majority of the House of Commons, consisting of more
than half the House of Commons. My Noble Friend
has said in the course of this debate, this vote of the
House of Commons is inconsistent with the original
vote given by the House of Commons on this same
question, and inconsistent with the supposed views of
the constituents by whom they were elected. My Lords,
I do not think that is a subject which this House "can
take into its consideration; for, first, we can have no
accurate knowledge of the fact; and, in the next place,
whether it was a fact or not, this, my Lords, we know—
that it is the House of Commons that has passed this
Bill. . . . That we know by the votes of the House
of Commons." Now, this is much ado about nothing, for
the purpose of disguising something. The Duke insists
on the measure being recommended by the Crown and
passed by the Commons ; both of which are by no means
extraordinary occurrencesi and. neither of which is
usually considered to bind the hands of the Lords. He
parades the " facts " of the case, the votes of the House
of Commons, -and all that,- and then pretends that :the
Lords have nothing to do with the. supposed views of the
constituency. Have they not ? On the contrary, in the
clear still depth of his Grace's own sound understanding
the views of the constituency—of. the great and enlight-
ened majority of the people-e-are the reason why his Grace
gives way, and recommends the same course to the Lords.
He knows that the people are not against, but for the
measure. He knows also, better than we could tell
him, that the formidable " consequences " which he
mentions a dozen times over, viz., the collision of the
two Houses, the introduction of another Bill, the forcible
passage of that other Bill through the Lords, and the
irremediable damage done thereby to the Upper [louse,
would not arise from-the, mere accident, of a temporary
agreement between a speech from the Crown and a re-
corded vote to the House, but from the fact that that
speech and that vote were backed by an irresistible power
of public opinion and public determination. His Grace
contrives to elude this fact. The views of the constitu-
ency cannot be ascertained, he sayseitad whatever they
are to have teething to do with them/. He has more to
do with them than he chooses to confess. If there were
no other votes in the case than a Royal speech and a
vote of the Commons, he might safely recommend the
Lords to do what was right in their own eyes without
far of the consequences.
_

His 3-race's discussion of the " consequence" is so
thoroughly en militaire that it deserves at least a place
in his dispatches, whatever its propriety in his legisla-
tive compositions. " I beg to remind you, my Lords,
that you ought not to take a position on which you
cannot stand, on which you can do nothing." Most
excellent advice 1 Would that it were more generally
followed. Nine-tenths of the follies and miseries that
surround us would have been avoided if people had only
considered how they were to get out of the scraz_before
they got into it. Will his Grace allow us to -suggest a
trifling addition to this golden rule that you
ought not to make an advance in which you cannot
persevere, and every step of which von will have to re-
trace. The Duke, and his friend in the Commons, have now
for three or font. times, completed very long, difficult,
costly, and fatal political marches, in spite of the re-
monstrances of the wisest advisers, with no other result
than an uncommonly quick and disastrous retreat.
For thirty years, with some slight changes of plan, the
nation has been marching under the Duke and his
party against free trade, and now we have to get back
all that distance as well as we can in a less number of
weeks. But we will go on with the Duke's dispatch.
" You have great influence on public opinion ; men
have great confidence in your judgment ; but, sepa-
rately from the Crown and the House of Commons, you
can do nothing: if you break your connexion with the
Crown and the House of Commons, you will then put an
end to the functions of the House of Lords.. My Lords, I
ask you to reflect what must be the immediate consequence
of your rejecting this Bill."
Now, we must say that we think the Lords do not owe
much to his Grace for the peculiar and very gratuitous
footing on which he has placed their acquiescence. He
has made it a mere capitulation for fear of "the conse-
quences." They might be supposed accessible to reason.
tie has not vouchsafed them one argument about the
corn-laws. They might value his own opinion. He has
assigned no other ground for his own conversion than
the very irrelevant and dangerous one, that he was
bound to his Sovereigns
wwwith
tt hh s
so ob
marvellous y
muchp ecf uo icaerminioaoqintgiudveh motives
eohobfi gratitude,veearec
om
which obliged him to do all the mischief that his Sove-
reigns, present or future, might possibly ask at his
hands. lie might have suggested to the Lords(ithisa4trtehtieorne,
was some authority in the voice of the people, that an
peace-
ableness,o
a
Pnidn,anba
above all,
notd be far
pwrong.tleh.
o ugH het 0 nvy thei,
ich
niacontrary,keshe
smtuenddioeudslythbaltinmkeoddetshtey poet?
humble and the sensible distrust their own judgasent
when they find themselves alone in their opinion, which
is the supposed foundation of that unanimity required in
our juries, and without which society must soon be dis-
solved. lie might have urgel that the cause was not
sacred, that the sliding scale was not an article of faith,
that in a matter of mere commercial opinion it was
right for comparatively uninformed men to submit to
sound practical authorities. For these and all other
possible topics. he substituted one—only one—one stated
about a score times over with hardly a change of ex-
pression ; and that was simply a dread' of the con-
sequences.-7 imes.

Her Majesty the Queen Dowager has consented to
accept the office of Patroness to the Adult Deaf and Dumb
Institution, Red Lion-square, and, according to her accus •
toured liberality, has presented the funds with 451.
s
THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH -The division in the
clock, the new
way (reaching to
House of Lords on Thursday night was received here
having
yester-
daythe Midland station at Norrnanton) by the electric tele-
graph. When the telegraph is completed between Leeds
e(dF
a r i d
considerableay ) about ninepart :f'
ctand London, which we understand will.be in the course ofnt
the summer, information may be conveyed fro either ex-
tremity to the other in the course of about seven minutes.—
be en I 1 icoor an‘i'leT-
Leeds'lntollipencer,

ROYAL ACADEMY EXHIBITION
(CONTINUED).
100. Pandora—G. Patten, A.—is a picture of great
pretension, and also of considerable merit. From its
immense size, it attracts the attention of every visitor.
The figure of Pandora is a nude of; the Rubens rather
than of the Titian school of art, and albeit hypercriti-
cism might have something to say on the subject of the
anatomy of the figure, yet
" Ifaud ego paucis offendar maculis,"
the picture is, in more senses of the word than one, a
great picture, and proves that Mr. Patten has been no
inattentive or unworthy student in the school of the
Fl aiish masters.

103. The Supplicant—R. Redgrave, A.—
" Please to give two single knocks."
Ode of those pictures in the painting of which Red-
grave delights. The motto explains the subject. A
beautiful little girl standing at a door, and endeavouring
in vain to reach the knocker.
117. Cupid and Psyche—Painted for his Royal High-
ness Prince Albert.—T. Uwius, R.A, Psyche,
returning from the infernal regions with the vase of
celestial beauty (obtained from k'roserpine, at the com-
mand of Venus), is tempted by vanity and curiosity to
lift the lid of the mysterious treasure. Why should I
be so silly as to carry all this beauty to Venus without
stealing a little for myself ?' Alas ! instead of beauty
there issues from the vase a noxious vapour, which
throws poor Psyche into a deep sleep—and she must fall
from the rocks, but that Cupid, always hoverin,g
round the object of his love, flies to her protection, re-
vives her from her trance, and restores her to animation'
and enjoyment.—See the Fable of Apuleius." This is a
small cabinet picture beautifully finished. It is an ex-
quisite illustration of the fable.
134. The Departure—Scene in . Circassia Sir W.
Allen, R.A. A Circassian chieftain taking leave of h
i is fa-
mily and hastening to the wars. The landscape n the
background is beautiful exceedingly, and the warriors
amronufnutieldn,
fafinude
aanpdp
184. Early Morning—W. Collins, R.A.—ls a beau-
a:nenertglyy.about to charge down a glen,
beau-
tiful landscape. The struggle between day and night,
the darkness gradually melting into dawn, is very fine.
Collins-has three other pictures in the exhibition-90.
Hill Sands, Devon ; 106. Shrimpers ' hastening
home ; and 529. Meadford Bay, Torquay, all beautiful,
but scarcely equal to Early Morning.
122. A Canaidate for a Portrait—C. Landseer, R.A;
" Paint me so."

Such was the request of this lovely child to the artist,
and admirably has he executed the commission. It is a
little gem.
152. The Wounded Smuggler, by the same artist, is
too melodramatic for our taste ; but _ _ _

337. Mary Avenel showing her trinkets to Mysie
Flapper, the only other contribution of this artist to the
exhibition, is an admirable illustration of Sir Walter
Scott's description of the scene ; the good humoured as-
tonishment of the lively Mysie Flapper contrasts ad-
mirably with the composed, dignified, melancholy pla-
cidity of Mary Avenel.
F. Goodall contributes two pictures-84, Spanish Pea-
sants retreating from the French Army ; and 239,
Going to Vespers. There is some clever grouping
in the first of these pictures ; but the Going to Vespers
as a piece of colouring, is quite Rembrantesque. The
cloisters, up which the figures are hastening to the
chapel, are illuminated by a lamp, the lights from which
are distributed in a most Nonderful manner.

REVIEW of the MONEY MARKET
FOR THE MONTH OF MAY, 1846.
This has been a somewhat extraordinary month in
matters affecting the value of capital and the condition
of trade. The progress of the American negotiation,
and the passage of the Corn Bill through the Com-
mons, have been calculated to restore confidence and ac-
tivity ; but on the other hand, the unaccountable vagaries
of the railway people, and the serious apprehensions
which have lately arisen as to the intentions of the Up-
per House towards the Corn Bill, have more than neu-
tralised these good influences.
The departure of everything like prudence and com-
mon sense from all the classes of persons concerned in
our uufortunate railway difficulties, appears to be com-
plete. At the date of our last review, there was a
general feeling of satisfaction at the prospect of nineteen-
twentieths of the railway schemes before the public
being " wound up" under the Ministerial measure. As
far as our own observation went, we met with nobody who
did not
!express a hope and desire that an effectual
clearance would be brought about by the Bill.
During the present month, probably one hundred
meetings have been held, and certainly, at not more than
one fourth of them have resolutions to " wind up," re-
ceived the assent of the majority. In the greater num-
ber of instances there has been an unanimous deter-
mination to proceed. We have observed, that in hardly
any instance are the directors and promoters of the
schemes disposed to " wind up." These parties are
generally the most clamorous in favour of proceeding.
There can be no doubt, that this sudden and radical
change in' the disposition of holders of scrip, was very
largely encouraged by an unlooked for rise in the price
of railway sharesi, which occurred at the beginning of
the present month. The improvement was so decided,
that for a few days the bustle bore a strong resem-
blance to the delirium of the.dog days of last summer ;
but the fit was altogether transcient and factitious.
There is, indeed, good reason to belive, that it was the
result of a deep laid trick of a few leading capitalists,
who deal- in property of this description. The Com-
mittees of the Houses of Parliament on the various
groupes of schemes, appear to be quite as careless of
eonsequencep as the directors themselves. Preambles
are passed with the greatest coolness, and the only con-
siderations which' appear to prevail are the merits of
each individual line, viewed totally apart from the ge-
neral question.of railway expenditure.
We have omitted no proper opportunity of warning
our readers of the danger attending this state of things.
We are at this moment as strongly convinced as ever,
that if the present course is
.to be followed without check,
within some very short time we shall find ourselves in
such a sea of troubles as we have not experienced for
many years. The first people to suffer, and to suffer
'also-for the longest time, and with the greatest severity,
will be the directors of the several schemes which obtain
their Bills ; next in order will be the shareholders, and
!after them all that portion of the public who happen to
have railway speculators . for debtors or creditors.
It is the purest folly to suppose for a moment
that the disposable capital of the country can
at all afford to carry on, not the whole, but even one-
tenth part of- the mass of railways likely to pass, in
addition to those already in course of construction. We
have seen too much of the incapacity of railway direc-
! tors to believe, that any greater discretion will be exer-
cised after the Act is obtained than has been displayed
in the preliminary steps. Every scheme will feel sure
that its peculiar merits justifies a " vigorous prosecu-
tion" of the works, and there will be a general steeple-
'chase after recusant shareholders who cannot, and
wealthy shareholders who can, and who must furnish the
money.
Before the issue of this number, the decision of the
House of Peers On the second reading of the Corn Bill
will have taken place. We fully expect that that stage
of the measure will pass by a majority of thirty or forty,
but we have great doubts of its success in Committee.
We think it highly probable that the party who will
act trader Lord Stanley will be able to effect such altera-
tions as will be fatal to the Bill. In the occurrence of
such an event, the country will be placed in
a situation of great diffieulty. The alternatives
under such a state of things appear to be three. (1.) Sir
R. Peel may retain office, and forthwith dissolve Parlia-
ment. (2.) He may quit office, and the . Queen may
authorise Lord Stanley to form a Cabinet; Lord Stanley
would doubtless be able to do that. The question would
then become, will Lord Stanley attempt to carry out his
views with the present House of Commons, or will he
dissolve Parliament ? We think decidedly' he would
dissolve. (3.) Lord Stanley may decline or be unable
to take office, and Lord John Russell may be sent for;
and there can be little 'doubt that Lord John would
immediately appeal to the constituencies. Our own
opinion is, that in the. event of the failure of the
Bill in the Lords, Sir Robert Peel will remain in
office, and Call a new Parliament, and submit his mea-
sures to them as a final effort in their behalf. In this
place, we express no opinion as to the merits either of
Sir Robert Peel, Lord Stanley, or Lord John Russell,
but in a monetary point of view, it is our duty to calcu-
late beforehand, as far as we can, the probable effect of
these political disturbances. The fate of the Bill will be
decided by the end of the first week in June. If it be
lost, we consider a general election inevitable about the
opening of July. Parliament would then meet in August
or September, and the fate of the new measure could not
be fully settled before the middle of October. The rejec-
tion of the Bill will, therefore, certainly entail upon. the
Money Market a state of uncertainty for not less than
four months, probably much longer.—Banker's Magazine.