The Sun.
London, England, 1846-10-31 00:00:00

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LONDON, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 31, 1846.

Ministers have decided the two great questions by
which the national mind has been recently agitated;
they have further prorogued Parliament to the 12th
of January, instead of convoking it before the ex-
piration of the time of the previous prorogation ;
they have, consequently, given a tacit refusal to the
late clamour for the immediate opening of the ports.
That clamour has been very general and very earnest.
It originated in the dread of an extraordinary
scarcity in provisions. In those fears we seri-
ously participated, because there were solid grounds
for so doing until very recently ; insignificant sup-
plies were creeping into the markets; grain was rising
with alarming rapidity in price; food of various de-
scriptions was increasing in cost and decreasing in
quantity to an extent that threatened the most dis-
astrous consequences. Every one looked to the Mi-
nistry for assistance in this emergency ; there was a
general anxiety for the convocation of Parlia-
ment ; the opening of the ports was loudly
and almost unanimously demanded. Minis-
ters assembled for the purpose of deciding
upon the most advisable course to be pursued under
the circumstances. They have determined as we have
already stated ; they have resolved upon dispensing
with the deliberate recommendations of the Lords
and Commons until winter is considerably advanced ;
they have resolutely adhered to the principles so re-
cently established by the Legislature in regard to the
continuance of moderate and temporary duties upon
the importation of foreign grain, and this notwith-
standing the recommendations of a specious panic and
the entreaties of a deluded people. In these impor-
tant determinations of the Ministry we recognise
both sagacity and independence.
With reference particularly to the abandonment of
the miserable duties still levied upon foreign pro
visions, it must be observed that such a proceeding
could only be justified by the most imminent peril.
Until within the last few days the prospect afforded
by the corn-market could scarcely have been
more perilous. Famine prices appeared inevitable.
Starvation had already commenced in Ireland ; evi-
dences of scarcity were beginning to present them-
selves in England. Everything combined to justify
the Government in entering upon some remarkable
adventure for the removal of these impending diffi-
culties. Circumstances have demonstrated the
impolicy of any such an interference with
the enactments formally passed by Parlia-
ment. The deficiency is demonstreted to
have been superficial. Instead of our granaries
being nearly exhausted, they are shown to be excel-
lently stocked. The holders of wheat and flour,
whether farmers, or millers, or speculators upon the
corn market, were proved to have forced provisions up
to their present high prices, not in consequence of an
immediate or even a prospective deficiency, but be-
cause they reserved their supplies till something ap-
proaching to a famine price had been reached. This
shameful deception, however, has been divulged
long before its originators had anticipated. An ex-
tensive importation of American provisions, and a
prospect of further cargoes from Hamburgh, have
dissipated their anticipations of an exorbitant profit•
Grain will necessarily be rendered cheap by this com-
petition; indeed, indications of a decrease have
already become apparent in the Liverpool market—
flour having been offered at a diminution of Is. 6d
per barrel, and wheat having declined in several
instances ls. per quarter. In that port the introduc-
tion of American provisions has been most encou-
raging and extensive. Within the course of Wednes-
day and Thursday alone the following quantities were
registered :-50,500 bushels of wheat, 6,400 barrels
of flour, 7,500 bushels of Indian corn, 600 casks of
beef and pork, with 370 barrels of hams. Nor are
these the only testimonies of the certainty with
which we may rely upon the corn-growers
and cattle-feeders of other countries, to com-
pensate these islands for the deficiency pro-
duced by the extension and virulence of the potato
murrain. Not merely are we receiving abundant
supplies from the western hemisphere, not only is
there a great probability of further assistance of a
similar character being derived from Hamburgh, but
extensive imports are being registered as arrived
from the wharves of Odessa. And all this, be it
especially remarked with the duties at the lowest
points ; with an increase equivalent to 719,042 barrels
of flour within a given week of this above a corre-
sponding one in 1845, at New York ; with the most
abundant harvest that has possibly ever been known
in Podolia and the Ukraine, and the exuberance of
which, if conveyed along the execrable roads that
lead to Odessa, and thence shipped to Great Britain,
would almost afford of itself a sufficiency for our
necessitous consumers.

With all these indisputable assurances of the
abundance of provisions already accumulated in our
markets, or thronging into our ports, with a know-
ledge that the diminished duties at present levied
upon foreign produce, is proving no hindrance whatever
to importation, and bearing in recollection that most
consolatory fact, that with a renewal of the potato dis-
ease there has been likewise an unusual excellence in
the quality of wheat, it is impossible to regard the
recent decision of Government as other than the
one
most recommended by prudence, and as a resolu-
tion in no possible manner opposed to generosity.
Seeing that the present fragment of protective im-
posts would, if under existing circumstance re-
moved, be tortured into the emolument of the mono-
polist speculators, instead of diminishing the burden
upon the consumer, it would be worse than frivolity
and the very height of intemperate pertinacity to
persist in demanding its remission.
As to the extended prorogation of Parliament,
nothing need surely be said in extenuation, or we
should rather say in commendation, of that arrange-
ment. At a juncture when it is so advisable, and,
in some cases, especially in Ireland, so imperatively
necessary for the representatives and the hereditary
legislators to be among their constituents, or among
their immediate dependents, it would be a most
grievous cruelty to summon those influentialindwiduals
from the arena of their real usefulness to the shivering
desolation of St. Stephen's. Circumstances of an
unprecedented and embarrassing nature would of
course justify even that most grievous determination,
but, without those circumstances, an Administration
would be most culpable in prematurely summoning
the Members of the two Houses. When
such terrible calamities are afflicting the
United Kingdom ; when Ireland especially is sub-
jected topmatiiseenrtileysbomrnoe by more intolerable than those so
long and
that unfortunate country ;
when the unemployed peasantry require the super- t