The Sun.
London, England, 1834-02-06 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

The debate on the King's speech was as uninteresting
and talentless as any on a similar occasion which we re-
collect. In the House of Commons, especially, the ora-
torical efforts were dull, common-place, and uninstructive.
In the House of Lords, the speeches of the Duke of Wel-
lington and Earl Grey alone deserved attention ; nor
were they remarkable for any very extraordinary display
of intellectual power, though superior to any of the
senatorial exhibitions witnessed in the people's House.
There is one important circumstance with regard to out
foreign policy, which we collect from the Duke of Wel-
lington's speech, and that is, that the ambitions proeress
which Russia is making, and more particularly her formi-
dable attitude in the East, where Turkey crouches at her
feet, has excited the patriotic alarm of even the Duke him•
self, whom the Whig prints have been accusing of an un-
English and unpatriotic sympathy with that rival and
barbarian power. The well drilled organs of the Treasury
had even gone so far as to insinuate that the secret encou-
ragement of the Duke and his partyemboldened the Northern
Autocrat in his insolent and aggressive policy, and threw in
• the way of the Whig Government obstacles with which they
would not otherwise have had to contend in resisting the
march of Russian aggrandizement. We never believed these
insinuations. When the Duke adopts an erroneous course
of policy he is apt to avow it in a manly, intrepid, and
unequivocal manner; and from the whole course of our
foreign policy since the Whigs came into power we have
reason to infer that Lord Grey is himself, at least, as
friendly to the establishment of a Russian supremacy in
Europe as any Tory Minister that ever existed. If not,
let the historical instance be adduced of a Tory Adminis-
tration that truckled more servilely than his has done to
the arrogant despot of the North. It was only the other
day that Sir Stratford Canning was appointed Ambassa-
dor to St. Petersburgh. The haughty Czar, who bears a
vindictive recollection of certain sentiments touching the
- Holy Alliance, which the late Mr. Canning uttered in
the 'Luse of Commons, when he broke off the inti-
mate connection between England and that despotic con-
federacy, which the Whigs, at their accession to power, re•
De wed—the haughty Czar, we say, objected to the appoint-
ment, and it was cancelled. Possibly he thought Sir
Ste afford Canning, from previous experience, was too well
acquainted with his intrigues in Turkey, and might be too
watchful an observer of his proceedings at head-quarters,
end too vigilant a sentinel of English interests. How
wroth] the Tory Minister Pitt—how would even the Tory
Minister Castlereagh have acted under such circum-
stances? Would even the one or the other have meekly
submitted to the insult inflicted upon their Sovereign by
repudiating his eepresentative ? Would either the one or
the other have so lowered the dignity of England as to
eose a ret to the Caltnuc Emperor on the appointment of
her Ambassadors? Never did British Minister so pros-
trate the Majesty of England at the footstool of Russian
domination. Iri t the King's speech tells us that the in-
tegrity of Turkey is to be preserved ! What remains of
Turkey is already in the grasp of Russia. The "secret
treaty " gives it her in tnortmain. It enables that Power
to exclude every other from the Dardanelles. If it did not
--if Russia chose to proceed to her object less cautiously—if
she cast aside the diplomatic forms of legitimate robbery
and relied upon mere open undisguised force alone—if
she took possession of Constantinople without pretending
any demand of " protection" on the part of the Porte,
and sent the imbecile Sultan into philosophic retirement
with the ex-Dey of Algiers--if Russia di! those things,
can any man believe that a Government which has just
recalled its fleet from the Archipelogo, and cancelled the
appointment of Sir Stratford Canning, to appease the
offended Czar, can any man believe such a Government
would oppose any obstacle to the dreaded despot, or take
any energetic measures to preserve the " integrity of
Turkey ?" The man who could believe it must have that
miraculous degree of credulity which enlarges its faith to
the demands of things incredible. Such a man would
hate no difficulty in believing, for instance, that Lord
Durham, a former and obsequious ambassador to Russia,
proved by his four or five criminal informations working
together against different newspapers, that he is a high-
minded patriot, end a stanch friend to the liberty of the
prtse. It anno', indeed, be denied, and so far are we
teem denying it, that we often observed upon the fact,
that the Duke of Wellington committed a deplorable error
when he allowed Russia, on a former occasion, to blockade
the Dardanelles, after giving a solemn pledge to the
contrary. The Treasury papers that nowattack the Duke;
for this error attempted to justify his policy at the time; ,
but we blamed it all/along, and therefore Earl Grey's
argument ad bominent is no answer to us, or to others,
who have feretokl the consequences, and censured the
itnpolicy of all truckling concessions to Russia, whether
made by White or Tory statesmen. Certain it is, how-
ever, that such an opportunity for resisting the encroach-
ing ambition of Russia never occurred during the admi
neeeetion of the Duke of Wellington as that which pre-
sen:vd itself when the heroic armies of Poland were in
tile field, 10 defend, in the face of Europe, that national
independence which England and France had guaran-
teed by treaty to the countrymen of Kosciusko. The
Whip, with Lord (then Mr.) Grey at their bead, made
a great outcry against the Tory Ministers for not resistinie
the second partition of Poland in 1794, though England
was not then bound by treaty to the protection of the
national existence of that people. The embarrassments
into which the Polish Revolution threw Russia caused
the recognition of Louis Philip by that power, which
observed how much the Autocrat dreaded any foreign
intervention in behalf of the brave people he was pre-
paring to crush. Had England sent a fleet to the Baltic
at that crisis, and threatened St. Petersburgh, the Polish
treaty would have been respected ; and Russia, jealous
and fearful of the spirit of the Polish nation, would not
have means nor opportunity to mature her ambitious pro-
jects in the East, which aim at the extinction of English
cc‘-emores in the Levant, and ultimately contemplate the
fulfilment of that design which the Empress Catharine
bequeathed to her successors—the conquest of our East
India pa.sesitulm Ministers talk of their alliance with
France as if it were some protection against the aggressive
policy of Russia. We long ago warned them to beware
bow they trust Louis Philip, who would betray England
at any time to purchase the friendship of the Czar. In-
deed he continually gives proofs that his great object is to
obtain the favour of the Autocrat. He wishes to cleanse
the stain from a revolutionary title by introducing as much
of despotism into his Government as be finds the French
people can patiently suffer; and if they do not take it
patiently, he has his 40,000 or 50,000 troops, as at the
funeral of M. Dulone, the other day, lining the streets
of the capital, which bristle with bayonets, while the
• nnonierg, with lighted matched, stand ready to speak
to the people of Paris, if occasion offer, in the logic of
St. Petersburgh. Is the alliance of the French Govern-
ment then one of which the Whigs ought to boast ? Have
the Doctrinaires of the Tuilieries followed up their smiles
and cajolery to Mr. Poulett Thomson, by reciprocating
our principles of free trade? No, the spirit of the im-
peril Calmuc overshadows France ; the politics that are
HIV -ated where the Neva flows flouri'h on the banks of
the Seine. If our Government relies on French alliance,
it relies on a broken spear that will pearce its own band.
_Morning Herald.

We have elsewhere given a report of a meeting of the
owners and occupiers of land in the hundred of Blything
and parishes adjoining, at Haleswortb, Suffolk, on Tues-
day last. The meeting was attended by Lord Stradbroke,
Lord Huntinefield, Sir Thos. Gooch, and other gentlemen
possessed of large property in Suffolk. Sir Thomas Gooch
observed, that " as far as he was enabled to trace the
rause of those incendiary fires, it Ras to be attributed to a
bad and dangerous spirit of combination." This is easily
said ; but what produced the bad and dangerous spirit of
combination? The stab ments which have been fur
Asbed to some of the London papers have, it is said,
beeo somewhat coloured, and this is possible. But
Making, every allowance for exaggeration, it is quite
evident, from whit fell from the speakers, that there is
no community of feeling between the upper and lower
glasses, or rather between the farmers and their labourers.
.41 such a state of things it is no easy matter to sug-
gest the means of staying the evil. Whenever an
Englishotan wished to point out to strangers a part of
biseountty, of which he bad cause to be more particularly
proud in all that regarded skill and dexterity in agricul-
ture, he named Norfolk and Suffolk. The Scotch farmers,
about eighty years ago, used to repair to these two coun-
ties,
and deem themselves happy to be allowed to labour
on any terms, that they might acquire a knowledge of
their boasted system. The workmen were decidedly the
best in England ; and it used to be remarked, that a
Norfolk and Suffolk labourer would go through more
work in a day, and perform that work better than the la-
bourers of any other county. Down to a comparatively
recent period there used to be in every parish, crack la-
bourers, who were in such demand with all the farmers
that they could make their own terms. This state of
things no longer exists. The mode of executing the poor
laws has ground down the labourers to a disheartening
level, which, by rendering skill of no benefit, has deprive&
them of the most powerful motives of exertion, and the
surest guarantees for go-el conduct. It is not a matter of
mere curiosity to discover the cause of this bad spirit,
because we must know the cause of the evil if we wish to
attempt a cure with any chance of success. We believe,
in our conscience, that the gentlemen of the cm-