The Sun.
London, England, 1846-01-20 00:00:00

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LONDON, TUESDAY, JANUARY 20, 1846.

Notwithstanding the secresy with which Sir
ROBERT PBEI carefully guards his plan on the
corn-laws, symptoms are occasionally manifested
which may lead to the belief that it is of a compre-
hensive character, and that it will not materially
differ from the proposition which, in the words of
Mr. Hunts, was " so large and so complete, that his
colleagues were terrified, and resigned." From
every quarter where the influence of Tory
Peers prevails, the most decided hostility to
the Minister is shown. He is denounced as
a renegade—as a man in whom no confidence can be
placed, and as a betrayer of the party who placed him
in power. In two or three instances a limited con-
fidence is still repwed in him, but even that is
conditional, and all that the interceding parties ven-
tured to propose to their unwilling hearers was not to
condemn a man before trial, and to wait
patiently till they knew what he really intended
to do. The symptoms, however, altogether are of
a very unfavourable character for the friends of free
trade, taking for granted that the House of Lords
can control the Minister. Parties are dropping off
daily. Earl DaLawaaa, the Lord Chamberlain, we
are assured, has resigned, the Marquis of EXETER is
going, and many others probably will follow in the
train. Several of the seceders belong to the Court;
they have access to her MAJESTY or her Royal Con-
sort, and may thereby have obtained some insight into
the mysterious secret which now causes so much
anxiety to millions of her MAJESTY'S subjects. In
fact, it is impossible to account for these defections on
any other grounds than the conviction that the Minis-
terial scheme is large and complete, though not imme-
diate in all its operations. A general belief now
prevails—indeed there is hardly any doubt on the
subject, that Sir ROBERT PEEL proposed to the ,
Cabinet in December a total repeal of the corn-laws.
Mr. Hume, usually well-informed on Ministerial
movements, says, "The resolution of the Minister
was so fixed on the measure that he risked the long-
cherished connexion with the Duke of WELLINGTON,
and was certain of breaking up the party of which
he himself was the head. Neither of these conside-
rations (weighty always with men seeking place and
power) deterred Sir R. PEEL from persevering ; and
he resigned, because he saw that he could not carry his
measure without all the influence of the Duke." The
Duke has returned to the Cabinet, it is true, and with
him a number of inefficient colleagues, but Lord
STANLEY would not yield. He joined, probably led
the dissentients, in opposing the plan, and has de-
serted them altogether rather than be a party to a
measure which will touch the landed interest. If
Sir R. PEEL had made any material concession, pro-
posed anything much short of total repeal, it is not
probable that the Minister for the Colonies would
have stood out alone, especially after he
had announced to Sir R. PEEL that he was not pre-
pared to form a Cabinet on the principle of non-
relaxation of the corn-laws. This result and the
events that are daily manifesting themselves in cer
omensof
taiu quarters may, therefore, be regarded as favour-
ablell embody n 1
what is intended, and can scarcely
leave an
that( y measures
en
n to
unison
nn proposedwith
on
Monday y
will doubt
the
principles of free trade
of reasoning or calculation.W e
comecannot e
any
yy
otherany
incoonde-
elusion. Since PEEL came into office all his ten-
dencies have been in that direction. The Bill for ad-
mitting foreign cattle, the Canada Corn Bill,
the magnificent sweep of four hundred articles
of foreign manufacture or productions from the
statute-book, the abolition of the duties on cotton,
the excise on glass, and many other acts of the
Minister, all declare that he is a determined supporter
of free trade. The greatest difficulty, hdwever, and
the most material step of all remained—the repeal of
the corn-laws. Without that all the rest would

be incomplete, and are we to imagine,
therefore, that a Minister who had deliberately pro-
Posed a large and complete measure, who has again
and again declared that it is the policy of this country
to buy in the cheapest and sell in the dearest market,
who glories in having already made such important
changes, and rejoices in seeing them succeed beyond
even his expectation, and who resigned rather than
be thwarted in his fixed policy, would resume office
to announce that he had been defeated? Sir ROBERT
PEEL knows the advantages, nay, the absolute ne-
cessity, of making great plans ample and complete;
and now that he has undertaken the task, and finds
no other party able to form a Ministry, he will not
ruin his character and defeat the hopes of his country-
men by half-and-half measures, merely to please those
who claim exclusive advantages, and yet have not the
courage or the power to form a Ministry for their ac-
complishment. That he will be opposed vigorously
in the Upper House we confidently anticipate, but the
Upper House is only one of the three estates. He has
the people of England, and Scotland, and Ireland, at
his back ; he can repose confidence in our gracious
SOVEREIGN. The measure is necessary for the salva-
tion of the country ; and with such aids, and a firm
and courageous spirit, he has nothing to fear.

Frequently as we have recently bad occasion to
particularise the various meetings convened by the
agriculturists, we must candidly avouch that no
single assembly of this nature has afforded us so
much entertainment as the one which took place on
Saturday evening, in the Borough-hall, at Tam-
worth. Its predecessors may have numbered many
more influential names ; they may have blown, as
through distant trumpets, the tidings of party
wrath into the ears of the Premier; they may have
sounded to him like a tumult in some remote street ;
but the present demonstration, swollen out with the
tongue-bubbles of a smaller rhetoric, bears a visage
of a yet more threatening expression. As far as the
Conservatives are concerned, Sir ROBERT PEEL has
been heaping barrels of gunpowder round his
threshold, and the present meeting is not unlike a
lighted cracker tied to the door-knocker. It must
undoubtedly, if nothing has hitherto accomplished
such an achievement, force upon the First Lord of
the Treasury a knowledge of his relative position
with his nominal supporters. Cambridgeshire, or
Willis's Rooms, may re-echo with anathemas upon
the League, and vituperations upon its adherents,
without in any especial manner startling Sir ROBERT
PEEL from the seclusion in which he is concocting his
redoubtable proposition for the consideration of Mr.
GREENE and the Committee of "Ways and Means;"
but here a party of infuriated protectionists come
forward in the very Borough-hall of Tamworth, and
actually lavish upon the head of its landlord every
possible epithet of dissatisfaction and displeasure. In
addition, of course, to the ordinary catalogue of agri-
' cultural arguments—that interminable catalogue of
indigence to farm-labourers, destruction to landed
property, &c. &c.—several personalities, in allusion to
the Premier, are introduced, throwing over the trans-
actions of what might otherwise have proved a very
hum-drum assemblage a delightful and unexpected
gleam of novelty. The Chairman, a certain, straight-
forward, blunt-spoken Mr. Pre, is the mouthpiece of
these anti-Peel and anti-free-trade sentiments. With
an extremely agreeable style of banter, which ma-
terially sharpens the subsequent declaration, he an-
nounces himself as inspired with a Personal reverence
, for Sir ROBERT PEEL, but he adds that this personal
reverence is accompanied by a Ministerial antipathy.
, Then follows the most sledge-hammer blow yet ad-
ministered to the Premier :—" Ile would tell them

that they must tell their representatives (explicit
Mr. PrE !) that they must fearlessly do their duty—
they must tell them that they had entrusted to them
their dearest interests, and that although they did

not bind them to the adoption of any specific
measures, they did not at the same time bind them to
the constant support of the leader of a party." And
this announcement was received, be it particularly
remembered, with " applause," and this applause
sounded in the Borough-hall of Tamworth. As-
suredly it is an unmistakeable symptom of
cooling on the part of the Conseil atives ;
it is a symbol, moreover, that if, like the satyr in
2Esop, they do not positively blow hot and cold to-

gether, they are undoubtedly growing very frigid
towards their former favourites, and very warm in-
deed respecting the abolition of restrictions upon
commerce. Correctly dui the Uhaisu... .Frah when
he declared, that in the event of a repeal of the
corn-laws, a mighty revolution was in store. And
assuredly it must be from the trepidation inspired
by this propinquity of a revolution that such death-
agonies and incoherent death-cries are blurted forth
by the advocates of a falling principle. Saving for
this spirit of benevolent palliation, we should be un-
able, with any patience, to listen to a gentleman like
Mr. SPOONER—who seconded the resolution against
free-trade--coming forward with the hoary language
"unaccustomed as I am to public speaking," and
then endeavouring to prove by a series of imaginary
suppositions, that no agricultural system but the pre-
sent was tenable or healthy. In good sooth, the
protectionists are driven to such desperation by the
stern and determinate movements of the League, as
to excuse any ebulitions of frivolity or inanity such
as those we have already specified. It is, indeed, by
merely looking upon them as a party now in the last
stage of delirium that we can dismiss them with a
smile of quiet commiseration.

On one or two recent occasions we have had to re-
cord acts of munificence performed by merchants and
bankers towards clerks in their service, but the follow-
ing extract from the fifth annual report of the Provi-
dent Clerks' Association, the reading of which, at the
meeting last evening, called forth immense applause,
we think speaks volumes, and which we heartily wi.,11
was generally adopted in preference to temporary
presents. The report itself was most pleasing, but it