The Sun.
London, England, 1846-11-02 00:00:00

THE SU

"But that which is not possible by a government is
possible by individual and social exertions. Every one
who travels through Ireland observes the large stacks of
corn, which are the produce of the late harvest. There
is nothing to prevent the purchase of grain by proprie-
tors or by committees, and the disposal of these supplies
in shops furnished on purpose with flour at a fair price,
with a moderate profit. This has been done, lam as-
sured, in parts of the Highlands of Scotland, where the
failure of the potatoes has been as great and as severe a
calamity as it has been in Ireland.
" There is, no doubt, some inconveniences attending
even these modes of interference with the market price
of food. But the good overbalances the evil. Local
committees, or agents of landowners, can ascertain the
pressure of distress, measure the wants of a district,
and prevent waste or misapplication. Besides, the
general effect is to bring men together and induce them
to exert their energy in a social effort directed to one
spot ; whereas the interference of the State deadens
private energy, prevents forethought—and, after super-
seding all other exertion, finds itself at last unequal to
the gigantic task it has undertaken."
As to the other question touched upon in the letter,
namely, the revolution which must take place in the
agricultural system of Ireland, it is alarming to think of
the rapidity with which we are hurrying on to another
season without any clear conception of what we are do-
ing or ought to do. What is to be the substitute for
the potato? Carry the Irish people through the present
winter, by the expenditure of five or six millions of
money, and how are they to live next year? How are they
to get through next winter ? If public works withdraw
hundreds of thousands from the cultivation of the soil,
what kind of harvest shall we gather in next autumn ?
These are questions which Lord John Russell cannot
altogether leave to be settled by the respectable persons
who compose the Agricultural Society of Ireland. Lord
John Russell may have reason to regret that the negli-
gences of a long series of Governments have thrown upon
him the tremendous responsibilities of guiding, so far as
a statesman can guide, a social revolution. But let him
not mistake his position. The whole industrial economy
of Ireland will have to be settled on a new basis, and no
preliminary investigations for which a Government pos
sesses resources above those of private persons can be se
aside as beyond its province.—Chronicle.

•
Information was received yesterday that Admiral
Parker, with the whole of his squadron, had entered the
Tagus.
Ruff's "Guide to:the Turf," or Pocket Racing Compa-
nion for 1846, containing acalendar of the races in Great
Britain and Ireland during the past season, the Nomina-
tions for 1847, a full list of the Derby, Oaks, and St.
Leger Lots, &c. &c. will be published on the 14th inst.,
and not on the 4th,
..as erroneously announced :in the
sporting papers of yesterday. Advertisements will be
received at 170, Strand, up to Thursday next.
On Saturday morning the second battalion of
Coldstream Guards were assembled in square at Port-
man-street barracks, to hear the finding of a Court
Martial read on private J. Loring, of No. 1 company,
who had been tried by a District Court Martial, for
making use of abusive language to the sergeant and cor-
poral on duty, when he was confined in the guard -room
for being absent a short period, and brought to barracks
by patrols. He was found guilty, and sentenced to un-
dergo six months' imprisonment and hard labour.
The papers have told so many contradictory stories
as to the period oif7' the Queen's visit to the Duke of Nor-
folk, at Arundel Castle, that we deem it right to state
that no such visit will take place until after the cele-
bration of the birthday of the Prince of Wales, which
will be kept at Windsor on the 9th inst.—Observer.
John Bright, Esq., M.P., is now seriously indis-
posed, arising, it is said, from an ulcerated throat. In
consequence the public meeting which was to have been
held in the Free Trade Hall, Manchester, on Wednesday
evening last, has been postponed, he having promised to
attend the meeting in question, which had been called in
consequence of his having consented to become a candi-
date for the borough at the next election.—Leeds Mercury.
The late Henry Stephen Fox, Esq., late Minister
from our Court to the United States, whose demise is
announced to have taken place at Washington, the
middle of last month, was collaterally related to the pre-
sent Lord Holland, being son of the late Honourable
General Fox. Mr. Fo:i was, we believe, in his fifty-
fifth year, and unmarried.
ACCIDENTS ON THE RIVER.--Yesterday, on the
river off Battersea, a boat, in which were four persons,
was capsized in consequence of the passing of one of the
Citizen steamboats. All were instantly immersed in the
water, and prompt assistance being rendered three were
saved, but the remaining one, a lad of about ten or
twelve years of age, was drowned. A short time after-
wards, off Chelsea, immediately opposite the Cadogan
Pier, a boat containing a party of five was accidentally
overturned. Immediate assistance having been dispatched
from the pier, fortunately no life was lost.
FATAL ACCIDENTS.—On Saturday Edward Harvey,
aged 72 years, who was in the employ of Messrs.
Cottam and Allen, ironfounders, of Cornwall-road, Lam-
beth, and whilst stepping from the roof to the scaffold,
he missed his footing, and fell to the basement, whereby
he sustained the most frightful injuries, from the effects
of which he died soon after his admission into Guy's
Hospital. Another accident took place on Saturday to
a man named John Dangerfield, aged 61 years, a pen-
sioner, residing in Mill-street, I3ermondsey. He was on
the way home from the City, where he had been to
receive 91., his pension, and while crossing the carriage-
way on the centre of London-bridge, he missed his foot-
ing and fell under a cart wheel, and before the driver
had time to stop the horke the off wheel passed over his
body. He was taken to St. Thomas's Hospital, where he
died in two hours, from severe internal injuries.
SUICIDE BY A BANE CLERIC.—All inquest was
on Saturday taken by Mr. Mills, at the Old Queen's
Head, Lower-road, Islington, on the body of a gentleman
named Marshall, who, at the time of his death, was a
clerk in the Bank of England. Mr. Roper, of America-
square, Minories, a fellow-clerk of the deceased, gave
evidence, showing that the unfortunate man, from some
domestic difierences, had become very unsettled in his
mind, but it was not for a moment supposed that he
would attempt to destroy himself. On Thursday he com-
plained of indisposition, and, by Mr. Roper's recom-
mendation, did not go to the Bank at the usual hour in
the morning. About four o'clock in the afternoon be
left that gentleman's abode, and the same evening
drowned himself in the New River. Verdict, "Found
drowned."

FOREIGN PRODUCE.—The latest importations into
the northern port of Hull of cattle and provisions from
the continental states have comprised the following:._..
The Hainburgh, from Hamburgh, brought 150 casks of
butter, 48 oxun and cows, 7 calves, and 44 pigs; the
Transit, from llamburgh, 26 casks of butter, 31 oxen
and cows, 13 pigs, &c.; the Queen of Scotland, from
Hamburgh, 107 casks of butter, 89 head of cattle, 3
horses, and 37 pigs; the Archimedes, from Hamburgh
also, 12 casks of butter, 14 head of horned cattle, 5
calves, and 18 pigs; the Rob Roy, from St. Petersburgh,
8 ankers arid 60 kegs of cranberries, 3 packages and 27
bags of potatoes of Russian produce; the Ormsby Hall
and the Albion, from Ostend, respectively, with entire
cargoes of apples, amounting to about 200 tons in
weight, the produce of Belgium; the Monarch, from
Antwerp, among other articles, 8 calves of Belgian
produce; and the Leeds, from llamburgh, 85 casks of
butter, 3 casks of hams, 3 casks of beef, 26 oxen and
cows, and 55 pigs, with other produce. These arrivals
took place at Hu!l in the space of one week, and are in-
Wresting, as showing their extent in comparison with the
exterablve minis 0 such productions hers.

LORD JOHN RUSSELL AND THE
DUKE OF LEINSTER.
If Lord John Russell thought only of courting or
keeping up popularitiin Ireland he would never have
written the letter to the Duke of Leinster, published by
the Dublin Evening Post, and copied into this journal on
Saturday. That letter is a frank and honest, rather than
a political document, and yet excites the wildest appre-
hensions, and provokes the loudest outcries, is that which
relates to the supply of food. " Food within everybody's
reach, and at a moderate price," is the demand with
which the priests, demagogues, and people of Ireland
are thundering at the door of the Cabinet. Lord John
Russell answers that the demand cannot be complied with.
The embarrassment with which we have to contend lies
in the fact that food is scarce, and therefore that some
must go with short allowance. Ireland, with a large
portion of her population living upon Government
wages, will be sure to obtain at least her usual
share of the common stock, but if, in addition.
she had food brought to her by the instrumen-
tality of Government, at a price lower than the
market price, it is quite certain that she would gain the
advantage by a grievous injustice to the rest of the em-
pire. In some parts of Ireland, however, and more par-
ticularly in the rural districts of the west and south,
there is, properly speaking, no food market. The pea-
santry, receiving land in return for their labour, in lieu
of wages, have hitherto grown their own food, and no
class of dealers has arisen by whose agency they might,
at a time like the present, obtain food from a distance.
Imagine thousands of purchasers suddenly demanding
bread or meal in a village, n here a solitary buster could
scarcely find a dozen customers before. An unex-
pectedly large monster train has been known to clear nut
the bakers' shops even of Brighton, and to raise bread
for a few brief hours to a famine price. What, then,
must be the result in remote districts of Ireland, where
the ordinary machinery of supply is so slight and
inadequate, when there comes a demand sudden and
vast enough to try the resources even of a metro-
polis. In a country full of enterprise, like England,
the commencement of extensive public works calls at
once into existence a host of small dealers, by whom the
wants of the labourers are supplied. Every battalion of
railway navigators has its camp-followers. The same
thing takes place, and will still further take place, in the
more advanced prosperous districts of Ireland, and if in
any of those districts competition does not speedily
cause food to be supplied in sufficient quantities at a fair
market price, it is for the gentry, the clergy, and other
educated persons to take measures for correcting the
evil. What is needful for a single parish may without
great difficulty or sacrifice be done by its own inha-
bitants, while to provide thus for ten thousand parishes
would far exceed the powers of any Government. .But
for districts in which society is less advanced, and where,
as we have said, no food market can be said to have
existed hitherto, Lord John Russell and his cols
leagues think it necessary and safe " to create
a provision trade at fair mercantile prices," by
the establishment of Government depots. Of the
extent of this necessity we are tot in a condition to
judge, but it is evident 'enough that the Government
cannot, even upon the most urgent necessity, turn pro-
vision merchant without serious consequences. It cannot
carry on the trade in food upon a small scale, nor can
it precisely determine beforehand the limits within
which it will operate. Lord John Russell, however.
is fully sensible of the perilous nature of the experiment,
and will doubtless proceed with caution. Meanwhile,
his appeal to the landowners and others who have local
influence in Ireland, to do their part, ought to be effec-
tual.