The Sun.
London, England, 1846-07-01 00:00:00

FRASER.

Fraser has an article this month on the state of
parties, which is valuable, as showing that the Protec-
tionist Tories are still the same bigotted, prejudiced, un-
reasoning set of men that they were fifty years since.
Like the Bourbons of the elder branch, " they have
learned nothing, they have forgotten nothing." Speaking
of the glorious free-trade measures of Sir R. Peel,
which (forgetting the memorable declaration of the
Right Hon. Baronet, that the corn-laws were not merely
impolitic but unjust) he endeavours to sneer at mere
fiscal arrangements ; he says :
" We begin by expressing our unqualified regret that any
consideration whatever should have induced Sir Robert Peel,
on a mere question of fiscal arrangement, to break up the
best and strongest Government that has sat at the helm of
affairs for a quarter of a century. Had the trade of the
country been depressed, or the public revenue fallen away—
had there been threatenings of foreign war, which only a
change of policy could avert—had there been poverty, want
of employment, discontent and incipient agitation at home—
some excuse might have been found for his proceeding,
though even then it would have been perilous. But that he
should have chosen a season of unexampled prosperity to try
such an experiment, does, indeed, strike us as being an act•
to which, on the score of absolute political madness, we can
discover no parallel. Granting that he was right in the prin-
ciple of his measure, the time which he chose for pushing it
forward would have placed him in the wrong."
Now this is the true old Tory doctrine—listen not to
reason, grant not that which is "right in principle,"
because it is right—but knowingly maintain the profit-
able wrong until it is wrested from you by physical
force, or until all the, world plainly perceive that you
have yielded that to threats which you would not yield
to reason ; for that is the meaning of finding fault with
Sir Robert Peel for not waiting until " discontent and
incipient agitation had afforded him some excuse for
his proceeding "—as if any excuse were needed for doing
justice. Can a party honestly maintaining such doc-
trines as these (and that they are honestly maintained
by them, we verily believe) be safely entrusted with
the administration of the affairs of a mighty empire ?
In the following passage the gist of the argument of Sir
R. Peel, derived from the failure of the potato crop, is
either misunderstood or misrepresented :
" The ostensible ground of the Minister's change of policy
was the failure of the potato crop, and an anticipated famine
in Ireland. Was it candid in him to urge such a reason for
the abandonment of opinions and principles which he had
held throughout the whole course of his previous life, and to
which the party. which brought him into power was pledged ?
Surely not; and, with all possible desire to avoid saying
harsh things, we must be permitted to add, that he himself
knows that it was not. -The Government did not wait, it

could not wait, for the passing of its corn-bill or the ac-
ceptance of its reformed tariff, ere it provided against the
risk of destitution in Ireland. Long before Parliament met,
or the Times had said a word on the subject of the Cabinet
discussions, abundant supplies of Indian corn were poured in
from America to Ireland."

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puat t e forward
faminew theia Ireland, failure oafs
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Sirl
potato 4 31;c
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ostensible ground of his change of policy ; what he said
was, that he might have proposed a partial suspension of
the corn-laws, to enable him to provide against that
famine (in fact the pouring in the abundant supplies of
Indian meal was a partial suspension of the
operation of those laws), but that if he had
done . so, the whole question of the policy of
those laws would have to be re-considered when
their re-enactment should be proposed—that in the face of
such a failure it would be impossible to re-enact them—
and that therefore it was better to consider the question
at once, with a view to its final settlement. The failure
of the potatoe crop was put forward as a reason for the
immediate consideration of the question, not as a reason
for the abandonment of principles and opinions pre-
viously maintained. They were abandoned because
they were found untenable, and because the experiment
of the tariff had demonstrated that those free-trade doc-
trines which had previously been admitted to be cor-
rect in theory, were likewise profitable in practice.
The true reason of the Protectionist hatred to Sir R.
Peel is here undisguisedly set forth. It is not that they
dread the consequences of a repeal of the corn-laws:—
"We do not value the Corn-law one jot in couiparison
with the state of feeling which its repeal has occasioned. In-
deed, it is our honest conviction, provided gentlemen ex-
ercise common prudence, and farmers exert themselves, and
labour be not stinted, that Great Britain and Ireladd will, in
a very few years, raise more than corn enough for the con-
sumption of its own inhabitants; and that the home-grower
will be able to beat the foreigner out of the field, and be him-
self a gainer all the while, on account of the preference which
will always be given to the very superior article which he
raises."

His crime, in their eyes, is, that he has broken up the
Monopolist party. " Sir Robert Peel," says this writer,
" was more than the Minister of the Crown. He was
the avowed head of that party," &c., and the inference
to be drawn from all this is, that in the estimation of the
Tory party the duty of allegiance to the party over-
rides the duty of allegiance to the Sovereign. By break-
ing up a party so thoroughly selfish and so completely
anti-national as this, which would fain ride rough-shod
over both Sovereign and people, Sir Robert Peel has
conferred a benefit on his country scarcely in-
ferior to that which he has conferred on it by adopting
the principles of free trade as the groundwork of his
commercial policy ; and that the party is completely
broken up we have the unwilling confession of this
writer:—
" And, now, last of all, is there strength enough in the Pro-
tectionist party to justify an attempt on their own parts to
assume the Government? Without hesitation we answer that
there is not."
The literary contents of the present number are of a
high order. There is an excellent review of Mr. Mackin-
non's work on Civilization. An interesting resume of the
contents of Captain Stokes's recently published account
of the voyage of the Beagle along the coasts of New
Holland, and graphic sketches of the Dukes of Richmond
and Buckingham, the Earl of Radnor, Mr. Villiers, and
Mr. Bright among the contemporary orators, besides
several other papers.