The Sun.
London, England, 1846-10-19 00:00:00

PIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.

FROM THE MORNING PAPERS OF SATURDAY.
TIMES.—A meeting at a Mechanics' Institute is now-
a-days so usual an occurrence that it provokes but little
general observation. And even the more ambitious of
these reunions present very little to attract attention be-
yond the limits of the immediate neighbourhoods where
they are held. We should, therefore, have suffered the
recent soiree at the Bradford Institution to pass without
comment, had it not been for the presence of Lord Mor-
peth, and the remarks which he addressed to the meet-
ing. Without givins, our adherence to the creed of those
who believe that Mechanics' Institutes are to be the
means of redeeming the human race from ignorance and
barbarism to knowledge and refinement, we must admit
that, under certain conditions and certain management,
they may be productive of real good. But they require
this certain management—they ought to be governed by
these certain conditions—to prevent them from being
perverted into ridiculous, if not pernicious, exhibitions.
There is, perhaps, no temptation more alluring to the
indulgence of froward self-conceit or impertinent garru-
lity than that which is presented to a fluent but ill-
informed speaker by the opportunity of addreising
a worse-informed and illiterate audience. Ie such a
case, vanity fans the flame of presumptuous sciolism,
and the follies or prejudices of the many are fostered
by the self-complacency of one. The flippant speaker
and the heedless audience react upon one another to
propagate and promote erroneous opiniens, or inaccu-
rate conjectures, which are more dangerous than utter
ignorance. But the cass is far different when the
teacher is able, erudite, and impartial, the audience
docile, confiding, and unprejudiced. And there are few
more graceful kinds of intellectual condescension than
that which is manifested by a man of cultivated taste
who courts the opportunity of instructing the unedu-
cated, refining the unpolished, and correcting the preju-
dices of the half-learned, amongst his less fortsnate
neighbours. Nor will such an effort, in itself generous
and kind, be maimed of its strength or deprived
of its reward, if he who males it add to
the natural gifts of talent and of taste the
artificial advantages of birth and rank. Those who
deS,st toadying and despise "flunkeyism " will yet
reserve a proper admiration for him who makes rank
and birth instruments for raising noble aspirations and
encouraging exalted pursuits. And even those who
profess a political detestation of all class distinctions
will become reconciled to them in the person of one who
not only does not disclaim, but proudly avows his con-
nexion with and devotion to the humanities of science,
of literature, and of art. Associations of this kind have
become among the facts of the d.sy. They exist, and
they will continue to exist. The tone which they take,
the spirit by which they are guided, the maxims which
they evolve, pass into other assemblies and animate other
associations. They are only one form of that federal
propensi:y which is amongst the characteristics of oar
time. The advantage, then—nay, the necessity and the
duty—of giving them certain tendencies, of in:using into
them certain principles, must be toe obvious to require
any lengthy inculcation. When we recollect the facility with
which men are now-a-days leagued together for purposes
either social or political— either of good or el it—it is not
unimportant that in the minds of the masses the idea of
combination should be associated with the example of at
least one society where good order is observed, sound
knowledge imparted, and party prejudicos repudiated. As
Lord Morpeth said, "It is most salutary to have some
common neutral ground, where all can equally at times
meet together without any restraint, save that of mutual
self-respect." The violent invective, the coarse person-
alities, the ludicrous but baneful exaggeration, the taste-
less and tawdry declamation, which have been applauded
at many public meetings, convened for great and useful
purposes, compel one to regret that the minds both of
the speakers and their hearers had not barn previously
trained in schools of severe disicpline and sound taste.
That preparation of course is forbidden to the many,
still it may fairly be hoped that such meetings as these
- will do something towards modifying that extravagance
of opinion, and violence of Ling:lege, which often pro-
ceeds rather from the mutual repulsion of different classes
and the want of specific information, than from political
grievances or social oppression. If they merely bring
together persons of different stations and occupations
—if they lead the man of rank, the student, and the
philosopher into the haunts of busy industry—
they will have done much to consolidate the various
elements of our system, and to destroy the too frequent
but not inevitable causes of repugnance and antagonism.
And when once the ice is broken, literature or science,
or music, or amusement, will at least have the oppor-
tunity of proving their legitimate influences. We can
easily understand the Eton aspirations of Lord Morpeth,
when he looks forward to the time that some scholars
will introduce to the- knowledge of the Bradford me-
chanics " the blind old bard of Sci ‘'s rocky isle."
Without, however, anticipating that period—perhaps not
a distant one—we may profess ourselves content with
hearing the " bard of all time," and " the minstrel of the
North" well read and well criticised in an assembly of
men who live by the labour of their hands. A multitude
which can applaud Shakespere and appreciate Scott
must cherish feelings of kindliness and humanity far
higher and stronger than the passions of party or the
jealousies of caste. A peer or a doctor of laws expound-
ing the philos• phy of Hamlet and the pathos of Mid-
lothian" to a congregation of mechanics, would present
a study worthy of remark alike to the admirers and the
assailants of our social system.
CHRONICLE.—If the Queen's Ministers continue
unconvinced of the necessity of instantly abolishing all
artificial aggravations of a calamity against which they
have already invoked both the prayers of the Church
and certain extreme powers of the State, they will soon
find themselves standing alone in their appreciation of
public perils, -and their estimate of public duties. Every
day brings with it new appeals to the prudence and
sense of responsibility with which national opinion has
largely credited the statesman now at the head of affsirs,
and summons them with a force and distinctness that
ought to be irresistible, to do the one thing which is
clearly and certainly right. We may add, with all due
respect for the very respectable motives which are no
doubt at the bottom of an otherwise inexplicable hesita-
tion, that every day brings with it new rebukes to
the tardiness of a Government which neglects to put
its policy in agreement with its prayers, and indo-
lently allows a rather small proprietary, or delicacy,
to overbear the dictates of a transcendent ne-
cessity. Two or three days ago we recorded the protest
of the working men of our manufacturing metropolis
against the continued maintenance of a system that
darkens their immediate future with gratuitous difficulty
and avoidable suffering and privation. Yesterday, our
columns contained like protests from the capitalists of
manufacturing industry, as represented in the Manches-
ter Chamber of Commerce and from the municipality of
one of our most important seaports. To-day, it is our
very painful duty to lay before the public, in a letter
which we commend to the most deliberate attention of
all classes of our readers, views of the condition and
prospects of Ireland, and of the absolutely incalculable
magnitude of the present and coming calamity, which
dismally illustrate the unspeakable national absurdity—
we know not why we should not say, the glaring na-
tional sin—of maintaining, in the face of famine, laws
made against an inconvenient and exceptional
plenty. We grieve to be obliged to say that
our knowledge of our correspondent's sources of
information, and our confidence in his judgment, compel
us to regard the statements of this letter as coming
nearer to the real truth, and the whole truth, of a mat-
ter which perhaps no man living is capable of yet com-
prehending in all its horrible integrity, than anything
which we have yet presented to our readers. One
almost despairs of saying anything that can strengthen
an argument whose force lies in an axiomatic simplicity
that really leaves the logic of advocacy nothing to do.
How shall one " reason' such palpable truisms as those
which our operative and our capital manufacturers have
now united in urging on the practical consideration of
her Majesty's Ministers? What need of justifying an
alarm that grounds itself on facts notorious to the ;hole
world—or of vindicating and enforcing a demand so
strictly within the line both of an admitted exigency and
a recognised policy? How describe the indescribable
self-contradiction and fey of praying one wayand work-
ing another way—keeping up a barrier of certain
miserable shillings against the very food which we
implore Heaven to send us—helping our rivals in the
world-wide competition for the raw material of life to
forestall and outbid us ? In the very midst of a dis-
aster absolutely unexampled in British or European his-
tory—a disaster that erj ass every effort within tie
power of the State to maximise our supplies of food,
and minimise our consumption—at such a crisis to be
still insisting on keeping up a little artificial scarcity and
dearth of our own invention, and more than a little arti-
ficial waste and destruction! In the words of the Man-
chester Chamber of Commerce—" Extreme scarcity of
food is inevitable ; if labour fail, that scarcity will be-
come famine. Prayers are directed to be offered up in
our churches to have those evils averted, and yet one of
our laws enacts, that whatever may be the price of
wheat, the smallest duty to be paid upon the im-
port of it shall be 4s. per quarter ; another law decrees
that food brought into the country by certain vessels
shall not be eaten at all by our people ; whilst a
third declares that nothing shall be used in our distilleries
but that which would serve as food,' Well may the
memorialists talk of "conflicting and cruel anomalies."
This is burning the candle at both ends with a ven-
geance. Artificially diminished supply—artificially in-
creased consumption. Particular care taken by the
State to keep out a little corn from a famine-stricken
people; particular care likewise taken by the State to
waste a great deal. Why, what is this but a State pa-
tronage of famine? Here we have actually the law of
the land, armed at all points, fighting on the side of fa-
mine. We must note with approval, and recommend
for general imitation, the comprehensiveness of the
prayer in which our Manchester memorialists sum up
the demands that humanity and common sense now make
on the Executive Government of the country. We have
all been rather too apt to forget that the shillings of the
scale are not the only form of the existing State
bounty on famine. The admirable memorial before
us most effectively suggests that something more
than " the look of the thing" requires the in-
stant extinction of this system of national patronage and
endowment of a national enemy. The memorialists " be-
lieve that to mitigate impending calamities nothing less
will be sufficient than to admit into our ports every
species of food necessary daily subsistence, free of
uty ;to permit it to be ught indiscriminately from
every country by the vessels of every nation or flag, and
to allow oar distilleries and breweries use of sugar
and molasses, without reference to
the
have already brought, or may hereafter
lvarensgelsthwemilictho
us." We await, with a confidence that wouldipreclude anxiety if time were no object, the decision of
tt;e
vernment on the extremely simple question now
sub-
mitted-
to its prudence and humanity. Lord John Russell
is in possession of the inference which, arguing from his
0444cejaAttticiples, working men and capitalists
isanak to the present duties and responsi-
-.WV ty ' 3 Ministers. It is now for Lord

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