The Sun.
London, England, 1846-06-16 00:00:00

44' innins Int

LONDON, TUESDAY, JUNE 16, 1846.

The further discussion which the Corn Bill under-
went in the House of Lords on Thursday and Friday
last has enhanced the gratification with which we have
from the first regarded the free-trade policy of the
Government. The conflict between the protectionists
and their political opponents grew warmer and
warmer; the former, as a dernier resort, before suffer-
ing the Bill to get into Committee, made some ill-
timed, and narrow minded, but emphatic appeals to
the episcopal bench to vote against the measure ; the
spiritual Peers were aroused. Indignant at the suppo-
sition that, upon the paltry, miserable, and ungenerous
ground of self-interest, they ought to have voted
differently from what a majority of them had
upon the second reading, and that upon
the grovelling principle of pounds, shillings, and
pence, they might even yet be considered
capable of withdrawing their support, they at length
accepted the repeated challenges thrown out to them,
and freely entered the lists. The Bishop of ST.
DAVID'S was the first to appear. His speech was
lucid and temperate ; his argument, pungent, and
the exposure he made of the inconsistencies of the
monopolists, most
,felicitous. His address is all the
more acceptable, as he announced that it was, for the
most part, in unison with the sentiments of the whole
of the episcopal bench. He completely tore away the
flimsy veil which the agricultural Lords, in extrernis,
had thrown over their shameful appeals to the hier-
archy, and laid bare their selfish deformity. The
Bishop reminded them it was in vain they affected,
on the one hand, to treat the question as ruinous to
the institutions of the empire, and the labouring mass
of the population, and then, on the other, to invite
the episcopal bench, upon money calculations (which
certain lay Peers had the conceit to imagine they
could make better than the Bishops themselves),
to regard it purely as a landlord's question
He repudiated this insulting argument, and showed
they had as much right, and were fully as capable of
taking a comprehensive view of the measure as their
intermeddling opponents. He admitted their in-
comes might suffer diminution, but stated he should
derive ample compensation from the probable effect
of the Bill upon the comfort, prosperity, and well-
being of the great mass of the community. This was
language becoming one of the heads of the Church.
It conveyed, too, a keen rebuke. It showed a dispo-
sition to sustain individual losses, when the general
good of the country was to be promoted, and, at the
same time, operated as a caution to the monopolists
not to let the nation see that whilst their professions
took one direction, their acts took another. The
Bishop vindicated the necessity of some change from
the depressed condition of the labourer, such, that his
children were debarred from want of decent clothing,
to embrace the means of education that was open to
them.

The Bishop of EXETER next entered the arena, and
endeavoured to rescue the protectionists from the da-
maging attack they had received. After a sprinkling
of rhetorical subterfuge, he boldly proclaimed that the
independence of the reverend bench was all in all to
both rich and poor, and that therefore the temporali-
ties of the Church was what he chiefly looked to. So
much did he manifest his heart to be wrapped up in
this view of the question, that he almost licked the
dust before certain of their Lordships, and obsequi-
ously rejoiced that they made it their practice to ap-
peal to the bishops whenever they thought their espe-
cial interests were threatened or invaded. For the
sake of the poor, he desired their custom would never
be departed from. High wages, and not cheapness of
provision, was what he held to be of chief concern to
the lower classes. This Reverend Prelate modestly
disclaimed all knowledge of political economy. Per-
haps he thought it as well to do so, for if
there is one point more than another
intimately connected with this science, and which has
been over and over again clearly elucidated and in-
controvertibly established, wsgue ad nauseam, it is
this, that whenever provisions have been cheap, wages
have been high. Shrewd HARRY of Exeter !
But the last word from the spiritual Peers was not
to rest with _the Bishop of EXETER. The Bishop
of OXFORD couched his lance, and made his adver-
sary reel in the saddle. In a speech of infinite
credit, combining great powers of language with co-
gency of reason, he reduced the Bishop of EXETER
to the level of his own humiliating argument. He
denied the subtle version given by his reverend com-
peer of the appeals that had been made to their
bench. He denied that the appeals had any
reference to morals or religion, but solely
to their incomes; and throughout his able
address, like the Bishop of ST. DAVID'S, he visited the
authors of this mean argument with marks cf
withering contempt. He rejected the narrow idea of
the Bishop of EXETER, that they sat in the
Upper House, solely to represent a particular class,
and denounced these appeals as highly improper and
unconstitutional. What was best for the country,
and not what was best for the clergy, was the beacon
he steeered by. He would not allow the Bishop of
EXETER to escape,' by professing an ignorance of
political economy, and intimated that, a thorough
acquaintance with its principles would have been
readily enough displayed by his acute mind, had it
suited the vote his reverend opponent had pre-
viously determined to give. The evils resulting from
the heavily mortgaged condition of many of their
Lordships' estates, the wretched effects upon the
labourer, consequent upon the produced feeling of
indifference on the part of the landlord towards his
worldly-and moral welfare, and the manner in which
this again tended to thwart the exertions of the
clergy, were all of them different points which the
Bishop of OXFORD pressed upon the attention of his
auditors with peculiar force, and unpalatable truthful-
ness. The only way of doing justice to this eloquent
speech is to recommend our readers to give it a careful
perusal. We cannot, however, omit noticing the
following powerful passage with which he silenced
the cries cf " No, no," from the cross-benches, whilst
he was representing the present corn-law to be an
unnatural state of things :—" Do Noble Lords, who
cry No, no,' know the meaning of the term
natural ?' In the providence of GOD and by the
order of nature, wheat grows in the field; it is fed by
the dew and ripened by the sun, GOD working
through certain known laws. But does any one
believe that for the working man to have bread on the
cheapest terms is not a part of the economy of the
GOD of Nature ? I say a corn-law is unnatural.
is tLiwor best.
Lord Legislation is for the most part, I admit, an inter-
ference with nature, but that legislation which as
little as
possible interferes with the order of nature
t
who had been absent during the
sd deliverycoa of this
of enlightened
h speech,i was warned by
lit coadjutors
e impression s
attempted a reply. He indulged itnbadmade, and
a
vein of ridi-
cule, and quoted VOLTAIRE. lie tickled the fancy,
but the conviction wrought by the ennobling
argu-
ments of the Bishop of OXFORD remained unshaken.
The concluding remarks of Lord STANLEY bear the
stamp of ingenuity, but not of ingenuousness. He
surmised that, whenever a dissolution came, the
country might return a majority favourable to the
continuance of the aause of protection, and thereupon
adroitly asked their Lordships, to reflect upon what
would be their position, should they beforehand
sanction the measure of the Government. This was
a rhetorical artifice, of the sophistry of which the
mind of Lord STANLEY itself must have been fully
cognizant. The assumption was too monstrous to
entitle the inference to the least reflection. Mr. COBDEN
long since, in the House of Commons, analysed
the chances of the protectionists, were an appeal to
to be made to the country, and demonstrated their
worthlessness. That analysis has never been dis-