The Sun.
London, England, 1846-06-05 00:00:00

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LONDON, FRIDAY, JUNE 5, 1846.

The House of Lords met to-day for the first time
after the Whitsuntide recess.

Numerous petitions were presented in favour of and
against the repeal of the corn-laws.

Lord STANLEY, in presenting several petitions from
Wilts and Cornwall against the repeal of the corn-laws,
gave notice of his intention to-morrow to move for
copies of the addresses that had been received from
the Legislative Assemblies of Canada on the subject of
the corn-laws.

The Earl of DA.Ltrous= then defended himself against
the attack that had been made upon him in the House
of Commons by Lord George Bentinck with respect to
the addresses from Canada, which led to a short but
animated debate.

Earl FITZWILLIAN gave notice of his intention to-
morrow to move certain resolutions with respect to Rail-
way Bills.
The Earl of DALHOUSIE then moved the second. read-
ing of the Customs' Duties (Tariff) Bill. The Noble
Earl entered at considerable length into the duties that
at present existed, and those which it was proposed to
reduce by the present measure.

The Duke of RICHXOND opposed the Bill.
The Earl of Wicx.Low opposed the Bill, as being
prejudicial to the linen trade of Ireland.

Earl GREY, although he deprecated continual changes,
accepted the present measure as a step in the right
direction.

Lord ASHBURTON opposed the Bill, and expressed his
surprise that the commerce of the country was able to
stand up against the continual changes that had been
made and proposed of late years.
Lord MONTEAGLE supported the second reading of
the Bill.

The Bill was then read a second time, and ordered to
be committed on Monday week.
The Explosive Substances Bill went through Com-
mittee, and their Lordships adjourned.

Whatever apprehensions were formed as to the
pertinacity of opposition with which the Protectionist
Lords might endeavour to clog the passage of Sir
ROBERT PEEL'S policy, by objections or emenda-
tions, they must now be fully exonerated from
all further suspicion. We believe we have already-
broached the opinion (and we must be permitted
to broach it again), that the behaviour of those
amongst our aristocracy who uphold the doctrine
of protection to agriculture forms a very agree-
able antithesis to that which regulated the dis-
cussion of their colleagues in the Lower House
of Parliament. Where one has evidenced an almost
interminable glibness of hostility, the other has re-
stricted itself to the most epigrammatic antagonism.
Night after night, week after week, month after
month, the debate lagged through the Commons, the
arguments (if with such an epithet they could be
dignified) drawn out to the most squeamish tenuity,
and yet oration following oration with the same
undeviating and unflagging perseverance. The
progress, however, which these same measures have
already made through the Upper House has been sig-
nalised by a conciseness as remarkable as the preced-
ing procrastination of the representatives. Pre-
cipitation and superfluous objections have been
equally avoided ; and, casting aside all those
extraneous allusions which had elsewhere in-
terfered with the Parliamentary proceedings,
their Lordships have confined themselves within
the extremest limits of the question. Both the
Corn Importation Bill and the Customs' Duties Bill
were immediately allowed to pass the first reading
without any attempt whatever at a division, and with
scarcely a dissentient voice. For the second reading
of the former three nights alone sufficed, while for
the second reading of the latter a few hours on the
very first night of their meeting after Whit-
suntide proved sufficient. Such a conscien-

cus and sensible subservience to the dictates
of prudence may be variously attributed—to the
exhaustion of debate upon the subject—to the warn
lug impotence of the fierce and almost spasmodic
labours of their associates in the Commons—to a
truckling spirit in the majority and a sense of hope.
lessness in the minority ; but to whichever of
these conclusions we may arrive the public
will entertain sentiments of enduring thank-
fulness to the Peers for the reasonable
mode of opposition they have adopted in the consi-
hsearjeabt
rl
ee a
tbe edt
ttwhh eae et
mni
ta
tti
thneevro
almvt
eai
ssns
tnuheeer,
consi-
deration of these momentous alterations. There is
ionn ew otherhie
h bothdiffe difference
Houses
and upon the peculiarity of which difference we are
the more inclined to tarry, seeing
public character of an eminent
justification
member of the
aristocracy, and one whose was
pronounced overnight by the unanimous ap
plause of his
s and of his compeers. Our '‘'ilu-
problematic to any one
sion cannot
1 the discussion wllich
who has glanced through bpeeer extremely
cut e
uss
pre-
ceded the second reading of
of
iaosnt°mthse' EDuties
Bill, in the course of which ,
f
cast upon
DALIIOUSIE availed himself of the opportunity cf
most distinctly repucliatir:q the imputations
him in the House 0.',.. Commons, immediately anterior
to the Whitsuiltiae vacation, by Lord GEORGE BEN-
TINCK. Those imputations, which amounted to the
voluntary and temporary suppression of official papers
from Canada of adisposition inimical to free trade, were
proved by the Noble Earl to have been altogether with-
out f iundation, to have been totally illusory, to have
been egregiously fallacious—and he proved this, more-
over, by a simple comparison of dates and calcu-
lation of distances. The difference, therefore,
which we here perceive between the conduct of the
representative protectionist and hereditary protec-
tionist, and the existence of which we are endeavour-
ing to illustrate, is simply a predisposition in the
former for the detection of some personality
by which the character of his antagonist may
be placed in an invidious light ; and in the
litter, a oueful Dupproniou of All tendencies'