The Sun.
London, England, 1848-07-15 00:00:00

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LONDON,ISATURDAY, JULY 15, 1848.

A very erroneous impression has been engendered
by the development of free trade as a system. It is
imagined by many that our mercantile interests are
opposed to our agricultural interests, that the manu-
facturers of cotton and the manufacturers of corn are
sworn and irreconcilable enemies, that the factory
labourer of Manchester and the farm labourer of
Lincolnshire are beings whose pursuits are incom-
patible the one with the other as the pursuits of
fellow-countrymen and contemporaries. No one can
have the fool-hardiness, however, to entertain such a
preposterous notion any longer after the enthusiasm
which on Thursday evening greeted the toast pro-
posed, at the great meeting of the Royal Agricul-
tural Society, by the Earl FourEscus—that toast
being

" AGRICULTURE, MANUFACTURES, AND COMMERCE."
It was a most felicitous combination of words—words
symbolical of the three enormous sections of this
industrial community, upon the prosperity, enter-
prise, and harmonious alliance of which the glory,
the nationality, and the constitution of Great Britain
are immediately dependent. And it was a felicitous
circumstance that this fraternal toast should have
been proposed under the shadow of that glorious
old minster which the American Ambassador (Mr.
BANCROFT) eloquently apostrophised as "the most
stupendous monument ever reared by the genius, the
delicate taste, and the religious sentiment of our
ancestors," that it should have been proposed
at an epoch when, according to an allusion
made by the same distinguished citizen, " the tree
of peace is so firmly rooted into the soil of these
islands that its boughs only rustle in the breeze of
the stormiest revolutions," and that, above all, it
should have been proposed in Yorkshire, that im-
mense county, which, in the words of the Earl FOR-
TESCUE, " comprises within its bosom the varied
manufactures of the West Riding, the shipping and
commerce of Hull, and the fair and fertile fields of
Holderness and Cleveland !" Under this auspicious
and appropriate coincidence of time and ;locality the
triune toast of " Agriculture, Manufactures, and
Commerce," acquires a very peculiar and attractive
significance.

Within our recollection we cannot for a long time
past call to mind a more interesting and, in a
social point of view, a more important demon-
stration than that which the day before yes-
terday crowded the venerable precincts of the
city of York with " a living and moving panorama
of the industrious English of to-day." It was a spec-
tacle racy of this old historic England—this England
which has riponed in its maturity under the warlike
pomp of the Romans, and the maritime audacity of
Scandinavia—which was not effeminated by the pre-

cocious civilisation introduced from Normandy, and
which, amidst all the vicissitudes of conquest
and rebellion, has preserved even to our own
day the evidences of its Saxon origin in its
robust and masculine nationality. It was well
to be reminded of this at a crisis of such peculiar im-
minence ; and it was impossible that we could have
been more forcibly reminded of it than by the assem-
blage of such an association as the Royal Agricultural
Society. We will assert at once that, to our think-
ing, the interest and importance of the demonstration
in question was very materially enhanced by the pre-
sence of the illustrious Consort of our SOTEREIGN,
the young Prince whose amiable disposition, whose
conspicuous intelligence, and whose largeness of heart
have endeared him to every right-thinking patriot

in the length and breadth of England. If we
wanted any corroboration of the sincerity which
appeared to characterise the noble speech in which a
very few weeks back his Royal Highness the Prince
ALREET advocated the rights of the labourer—that
speech which quickened the whole pulse of the popu-
lation by the eloquence of its earnest simplicity—we
should find sufficient testimony of its truthfulness in
the remarks uttered on Thursday evening by the
same august personage. In the course of the address,
in which his Royal Highness proposed as a toast,
" Success to the Royal Agricultural Society of Eng
land," the Prince Consort observed, that " agricul-
ture, which was once the main pursuit of this like
every other nation, holds even now, notwithstanding the
development of commerce and of manufacture., a fun-
damental position in the realm." That sentence contains
a golden truth, a truth which we would see ap-
preciated among all classes of our enterprising
population. We would see the minds of our farmers
and of our manufacturers, of our artisans and of
our field-labourers, of our corn-makers and of our
cotton-makers disabused at once and for ever of that
blundering idea that the establishment of free trade
must necessarily lead to their estrangement. Away
with the old bugbear which teaches that emancipa-
tion of commerce is the annihilation of agriculture !
which asserts that the diminution of the Customs'
duties must inevitably lead to the insolvency of
tenant-farmers ! which declares that the yeomen
and the traders of Saxon England have
not derived their existence from the loins
of the same ancestors ! Now that the cause
of so many heart-burnings has been long since
settled, let all chafferings and hagglings, let all ill-
blood and rancour, let all jealousy and contention be
forgotten, off hand, in a manly spirit, and, while the
rest of Europe are convulsed with revolutions, let the
people of England be one in heart and in hand, de-
voted, unanimous, resolute, and enthusiastic, in their
determination to promote the national happiness.

We really cannot discover any sufficient grounds

for the mystery maintained in some of the public de-
partments, and more particularly in the Colonial
Office, with respect to a certain class of documents,
which may not perhaps be very important in them-
selves, but; which acquire an extraordinary interest
from the attempted concealment. Curiosity is one of
the strong.:st passions of our infirm natures, and men
who would not take the trouble of cutting the leaves
of a blue book in which those documents had been

,nserted, R ill eagerly seek for information if there is
any the slightest appearance of a desire to withhold it
when there are reasonable grounds for its production.
John Bull hates what are termed " State secrets."
He cannot understand the refined diplomacy of his
continental neighbours, but desires a fair and candid
exposition of naked facts, that he may himself be
enabled to judge how far the public officials are
Justified in. the line of policy they have adopted, the
course they hare pursued. Let there be but a single
hint of suppression, of garbled reports, or of extreme
secresy being attached to any public matter, and his
e immediatelyann a t
bearrested,
contented
until an open
his sympathies
awakened,attention is
and he
and unreserved revelation is made of the subject-
matter in dispute.
We do iaot mean to assert that the greatest possible
reserve sh mild not sometimes be maintained, in order
to conduct the public business efficiently. There
may be c.snfidential communications which it would
be extremely wrong to publish, unless, indeed, they
have beeng so far acted upon that any individual has
been thereby prejudiced without further proof or
investigatiton. For instance, we believe that it is cus-
tomary for every governor of a colony to forward
periodicah reports respecting the character and official
ability anid conduct of every subordinate officer under
his contml and direction. It would clearly be most
unreasonable to suppose that any such subordinate
who might fancy himself to be aggrieved by a com-
municati,on of such a character should be entitled to
demand a copy of that confidential dispatch
so long as
he may be retained in the service of
should he be dismissed from his situation in con-
sequence 1 lereof, and
.cast upon the world, with

' blighted prospects and damaged character, the case is
altogether different, and we unhesitatingly assert that,
under such circumstances, he is entitled cx debito
justitice, to the fullest, and most unreserved statement
of the true facts of his case, and a thorough investi-
gation as to the truth of the charges that have been
preferred against him. In such a case the rules of
official subordination and etiquette can no longer be
violated. He has ceased to be the servant of the
Government, but he still remains a member of the
great body corporate, and as such is entitled to the
undoubted privilege of every British subject, that he
shall not be condemned unheard, and without the
fullest opportunity being afforded to him of repelling
the accusations that have been made, and of vindi-
cating his character, conduct, or acquirements, which-
ever may be called in question. It is due to the com-
munity in general, that the grounds upon which any
person who has once held an honourable and respon-
sible station, and who has been removed therefrom,
should be clearly and explicitly revealed. If he be a
bad man who has degraded his office, the sooner the
public receive full information as to his delinquencies
the better, and he has no just claim that his errors
should be shrouded under the official shield, and he
himself protected from the contempt and reprobation
which he had richly deserved. But if, on the other
hand, he has been the victim of a faction, or of the
personal dislike or hatred of a superior officer, every
manly feeling in the human breast, every principle
of fair and impartial justice demands that he shall
not be permitted to perish in silence, his wrongs
being not only unredressed, but unheeded and un-
known. The subsequent full and unreserved expla-
nation also answers another good purpose. The
knowledge that these explanations may be demanded,
and, if so, that they will undoubtedly be granted,
exercises a salutary influence, and imposes a whole-
some moral restraint upon those in power not to
abuse the temporary authority with which they are
invested for any private or personal motives, as they
must be conscious that the secret springs of their
actions may one day be brought to light.
We have been led into the foregoing observations
in consequence of a conversation which took place in
the House of Commons, upon Monday evening, rela-
tive to the case of Mr. Thomas O'BRIEN, late Colo-
nial Secretary for Sierra Leone. It appears from the
statement of Mr. HAWES, in reply to a question asked
by the Honourable Member for Youghal, that Mr.
O'BRIEN had been removed from office in consequence,
first, of his general unfitness, and, secondly, of his
pecuniary embarrassments. Towards the close of his
statement, however, another and a very different
ground was put forward, namely, that it was neces-
sary to choose between Mr. O'BRIEN and the present
Governor of the colony. As it was impossible both
could be retained in the public service, one or the
other should be removed, and therefore Lord GREY
decided upon dismissing Mr. O'BRIEN. Now this
appears altogether at variance with the former part
of the explanation. It does not distinctly appear
what were the real causes of the dismissal. This,
however, is not the portion of the case with which we
desire to deal. Mr. O'BRIEN may, for aught we
know, have been deservedly suspended. But that is
not the question. Upon public grounds, we protest
against the distinct refusal to produce to the country
the papers explanatory of the circumstances. This is
the portion of the case in which every Englishman
must feel interested. Even the humblest felon is
entitled to a copy of the indictment preferred against
him ; while a gentleman—from his recent official
position alone, if he possessed no other claim to that
character—is refused the production of the documents
which must completely crush him, or which will vin-
dicate his character in the public estimation. Could
a more effective mode be adopted of damaging the
Governor, and serving the ex-Secretary ? Why
should they not be produced ? It appears rather a
lame excuse to say, " that they abound in personali-
ties, and display a most acrimonious feeling." Let
it be conceded that Mr. O'BRIEN has not displayed
tact or discretion, points for which his countrymen
have never been very remarkable. If that personality
and acrimonious feeling be wholly unwarranted—if
the charges against the Governor (charges which, if
rumour be correct, are of a very serious character) be
unfounded, upon whom will the missile recoil ?
Manifestly upon him who now demands the produc-
tion of these documents. If it be intended by the
refusal to shelter the Governor (we do not hereby de-
sire to be understood as offering an opinion on the
case, for we know nothing of that gentleman or of
the merits of the controversy), surely a more silly
expedient was never adopted. The Hon. Member
who moved for their production states that he has
read them, and that so far as Mr. O'BRIEN is con-
oerned, he sees nothing objectionable therein. Should
the refusal be persevered in, can it be doubted that
when the motion is renewed on Monday, for which
evening the Hon. Member has given notice of his in-
tention of bringing it forward—that he will quote
everything serviceable to his client and injurious to
his opponents? Mr. ANSTEY is by far too acute an
advocate, and Mr. O'BRIEN, who we believe ventured
to enter the lists with the departed Liberator, with
whom he waged a wordy war for several years, is
too practised a controversialist, and too hard a hitter,
to permit the Governor to obtain a safe and efficient
shelter under the official robes of the Colonial Secre-
tary. Let the acrimonious documents be permitted
to lie upon the table of the House, and the public
will then know upon what grounds Mr. O'BRIEN has
been dismissed from the service of his QUEEN and his
country.