The Sun.
London, England, 1841-12-16 00:00:00

If

AND
Vubitt Optrion.

" Who runs may read."

'REIGN.
The Moniteur contains a long report from the Minister
of War to the King, followed by a Royal Ordonnance,
bearing date as long ago as Sept. 8, whereby the army,
on a peace footing, is directed to be reduced from 433,000
to 344,000 men. This will effect a saving on the budget
of 1843 of 30 millions of francs.
The alleged rioters at Toulouse, who were dragged to
prison with iron collars about their necks, have been ac-
quitted by the Jury. This is another blow to the Govern-
ment. " Sixteen acquittals and one condemnation," says
the Quotidienne, " and that, too, for an assault. Such is
the finale of the formidable affair of Toulouse, in which
the Ministry pretended to discover a demonstration of
Communism, not mounting to the assault against the Go-
vernment, as Carbonarism did against the Restoration,
but rushing upon society, to pillage, devastate, and de-
stroy. We always regretted the tumultuous manifesta-
tions in which the inhabitantg of Toulouse indulged, but
we never lost sight of the circumstances which led to them,
and of the illegal pretensions of power against the liber-
ties of the municipality and the interest of the tax-payers.
We are glad, therefore, that the verdict of the Jury has
brought back the attention of the public to this point."
The National has the following remarks upon this
noble verdict of a French Jury:—" The Jury intended
by their verdict not merely to acquit the political priso-
ners of Toulouse, but also to mark with their reproba-
tion the system of internal policy followed by M. Guizot
and his colleagues. Honour to the advocates who had
the good sense to put the question in that way ! Honour
to the Jury who so resolved it ! The new and striking
lesson which has just been given to the Government will
haveno effect upon men who are incorrigible, but it will
hasten the moment when, left to themselves, as M. Joly,
the advocate, observed—' Alone, like crime and misfor-
tune,' they will disappear for ever from the political scene."
It is rumoured that the Court of Peers, eager to esta-
blish itself the court-martial of the press, has resolved
to find M. Dupoty guilty, although there is not a shadow
of evidence to connect his name with the Quenisset con-
spiracy.

- The Augsburg Guzette gives a letter from Beyrout of
the 7th, which states that the Druses have recommenced
hqstilities. Three convents and the villages around them
have been burnt. The Emir Beschir, who had shut him-
self up in Deiret Kannar, was forced to capitulate. He
was allowed to retire, after having been despoiled of
everything, and he arrived almost naked at Beyrout. The
Druses lost 400 men, the Maronites 1,200. While the
account from Beyrout was being written eleven convents
were on fire.

The Madrid Castellano states, that the Army of the
North would amount to 32,000 men, without including,
the division of reserve, which is to be stationed at Al-
faro, Tudela, and Corella. The latter is to consist of
four provisional regiments and a regiment of infantry.
The entire of this force is to be commanded by General
Rodil.

PUBLIC OPINION.

The Morning Post contains a leading article on the
subject of the Puseyites, the evident object of which is
to defend them from the attacks of their opponents.
" Whatever faults," says the Post, "may be attributed to
the Tracts for the Times' (and the authors of them
never pretend that they have not faults), this great merit
may be claimed for them, that they are never barbed by
party bitterness. They are pervaded by a Catholic
spirit—a spirit of mild, serious, argumentative earnest-
ness, which deals with facts, and principles, and senti-
ments, but troubles itself not with either parties of indi-
viduals. But the antagonists of the Tracts for the
Times' have taken exactly the opposite coarse. They
concern themselves chiefly with party matters and with
personal matters. They have given full swing to anger
and bitterness, and so far from answering argument with
argument, many of the most vehement attacks upon the
Tract writers (not the writings) have been made by those
who have never read the Tracts, or at all events have not
taken any pains to understand the drift of them. Even
Lord Ashley (with all due submission to his Lordship)
we are constrained to place among the latter class, be-
cause we have a better opinion of his understanding
than to suppose that, after attentive consideration of the
Tract on Reserve in communicating religious know-
ledge,' he should suppose the drift of the author to be
the suppression' of any point of religious truth."—lt
can scarcely be said that the Puseyite doctrines are re-
commended by a " mild spirit," when their tendency is
to revive the intolerant discipline of Laud ; to encumber
religion again with its old, worn-out ceremonial observ•
ances ; and to check freedom of thought by means of
auricular confession. But our great objection to the
Puseyites is, not that they differ from what is called
" the low Church party"—for every man or set of men
have a right to their own opinions—but that differing, as
they do, from the State Church as at present constituted,
they still take her emoluments. To be honest and con-
sistent, the Puseyites should at once follow the manly
example set them by Mr. Sibthorp.
The Morning Herald observes, in an article suggested
by the late Derby Conference:—" That Corn-laws do
not materially check the exportation of our manufactures
is proved by the facts stated at the Derby talk.' Since
1815, down to the present year, there has been a gra-
dually increased exportation of hosiery, which is the
staple fabric of the Midland counties. But, say the
Nottingham manufacturers, wages have decreased iu pro-
portion as our exports have augmented. This may be
so; but these acute gentlemen forget that during the last
five and twenty years the value of money has greatly
increased, and that two-thirds of the wages of 1815 will
purchase a larger proportion of the necessaries of life in
1841 than the nominally higher wages of the former year
then did. This is true in respect to every payment, save
of taxes; the amount now paid by the nation in taxa-
tion is more than double what it discharged with
greater ease in 1812. The real cause of the diminished
comfort of the Midland counties' artisans is the enor-
mously augmented burden of taxation as levied under
the present system of currency. The greater the amount
of corn imported under that system the greater will be
the distress amongst the operatives, and the greater will
be the number of bankruptcies amongst the millowners."
The Chronicle thus comments on some observations
on the Derby Conference, that appeared in Tuesday's
Times :—"By a natural association of ideas, its thoughts
were far away, with the landlords' majority, and the
promise of bread-tax spoliation intact, and the pledges
to timber monopolists, and sugar monopolists, and all
the sinister interests that were amalgamated into the
strong party' that Toryism was: determined not to
want. And they did not want it ; they had it in the
elections ; they have it in the Upper House and in the
Lower House ; they have had its victories and its tri •
uniphs ; and now, Times I Peel ! Corn-law Dukes !
Landed Majorities I Confederate Mondpolists I what
is your strong party to do ?' The very thought of that
question, its remote verbal suggestion, chokes your ad-
vocate, in hie hour of pride,' blunts his sarcasms, re-
torts his censures, baffles his vituperations, and leaves
him bewildered in a maze of impotent and self-destructive
falsehoods. A strong party,' united by principle, would
know what it was to do. All the world would know
beforehand. Its principles would be an infallible direc-
tory to its measures. The only doubt would be on mere
details. Such is not the conditicin of Tor) ism ; the
world has no conception of_ what it is going to do ; nor
its friends, nor its enemies, nor its followers, nor, we
verily believe, its leaders."—We do not believe that even
Sir Robert Peel himself knows what he is going to do,
but will be guided solely by the circumstances of the
passing hour. As for being influenced by any enlarged
system of policy, he is the very last man on earth we
should suspect of such a thing. He is just fitted to be
the head of a shallow, tricky, purblind, shilly-shally,
wait-awhile Government, which is ruled by the paltriest
notions of expediency, and looks exclusively to the
Chapter of Accidents for escape from whatever predica-
ment it may get into.
The follo wing is from the Times:—" With all our un-
ceasing anxiety for the prevention of crime and the
maintenance of social order, we have uniformly consi-
dered the new rural police as a mere mischievous ex-
crescence, neither necessary in ordinary circumstances,
nor likely to be generally approved of. How an inno-
vation so burdensome and inexpedient should have hap-
pened to obtain the sanction of Parliament, can be satis-
factorily accounted for only upon the principle of the
well-known proverb, that one fault invariably leads to
another.' Having introduced a system of pauperism
which, while endeavouring to render legislative relief
less eligible than the earnings of industry, has gone to
the opposite extreme of maing vagrancy itself prefer-
able to workhouse inflictions, the short-sighted Whigs, in
ridding the poor-rates of many necessitous incumbents,
have created such an amount of distress as naturally oc-
casioned the suspicion that the country would be over-
run with hordes of prowling mendicants, requiring a
commensurate increase of constables for the due protec-
tion of the public."
The Advertiser is of opinion that the Tories are pre-
paring a new Coercion Bill for Ireland. It is not un-
likely, for to coerce and dragoon people into passive
obedience, its the favourite policy of the Tories. If,
however, they attempt such a project, they will not only
miserably fail, but arm Mr. O'Connell with tenfold
power to thwart and embarrass them. Of course their
Coercion Bill, should they be fools enough to bring for-
ward one, will be aimed chiefly' at the Repeal agitation,
to which, in consequence, it will be the means of giving
an immense impetus. The surest way to put down Re-
peal is to leave it to itself—to let it die a natural death.
We subjoin the Advertiser's comments on this subject:—
" In the Times of yesterday there is an article of por-
tentous import to Ireland. It is impossible to read that
article and resist the conviction that a new Coercion
Bill, infinitely worse than the Bill of 1833, though that
was sufficiently odious, is hatching for the suppression of
public liberty in the sister kingdom. The Times counsels
the Government to put down sedition, and extinguish the
cause of repeal in Ireland. The advice, we doubt not, is
the consequence of a previous resolution on the part of a
Tory Administration to do the very thing that it is coun-
selled to carry into effect. The resolution is put forward
to strangle liberty in that country, under the pretext of
putting down sedition and crushing the cause of repeal;
and information of such determination being conveyed to
Puddle-dock, forth comes the Jove of that classical lo-
cality with his terrible thunders against Mr. O'Connell,
the Roman Catholic priesthood, sedition, repeal, and a
thousand persons and things besides. Tyranny is never
at a loss for pretexts."

IVIONMY—TRADE—COMMERCEL
An Association has lately. sprung up in Dublin, under
the protection of the Lord Mayor. Every member be-
longing to it pledges himself to use nothing but Irish
manufacture, and a number of marts have been opened
for the exclusive sale of Irish make and produce.
Every description of manual labour at Dundee is now
failing alarmingly. The dock-yards are emptying daily.
One joiner, who in May last had fifty men in his em-