The Sun.
London, England, 1851-10-07 00:00:00

tax of 83. per quarter was rejected with disdain.
Nov; they would rejoice in the most distant hope of a
ss. duty ; but their most zealous advocates tell
them (vide speech of Mr. HENRY DRUMMOND, at
the Surrey Agricultural Association) that they " can
no more get it back now than they can get at the
moon ;" and, unfortunately, this opinion is partici-
pated in on every side, and none are to be found
(PAUL FOSKETT excepted) with sufficient hardihood
to stand up on the other side, or to hold out a single
gleam of hope from the revival of protection. No,
horrible to relate, they hold out hopes of a very dif-
ferent description. They dare to assert that the
farmer is not absolutely ruined, and that, in the
presence of the burly men who had just devoured
sirloins and haunches to an almost incredible extent,
and washed them down with flowing bumpers of no
ordinary qualities, and in quantities proportioned to
the more solid viands by which they had been pre-
ceded and who would leave the banquetting halls,
only when the small hours had approached, and that
with the confident airs of " persons well to do in the
world," who could clink money in both pockets
as they went along. And yet, their leaders
had the audacity to tell them that they
were not ruined ! ! and a ribald press indulged in vile
sneers when any daring men did favour the company
with a touching Jeremiad on the decline and fall of
agriculture. Again, they were desired to exert them-
selves, in order to meet the increased competition—to
try improved modes of cultivation—to resort to the
appliances which science has rendered available—to
get the best machines, the most productive
manures, and to employ both in the most
judicipus manner. Were there ever such atro-
cious insults? What, tell them to abandon the
good old methods by which their fathers, honest men,
were enabled to make both ends meet I No, why
should they be at the trouble of thinking or studying
—of solving abstruse problems, or rising with the
cock to see every direction carried into execution
under the master's eye. That was worse again, not
to be tolerated for a single moment. But they got
nothing else. Some endeavoured to ride off on the
ancient and obsolete rule, that " no politics are to be
spoken at the meetings;" but that subterfuge
is seldom available, for the stentorian lungs of the
assembled yeomen shout down the attempted invasion.
No one as yet, however, has attempted to say that
protection will or may be brought back. Many have
eulogised the principle—it was exceedingly beneficial
to the country, although the short-sighted people were
insensible to its merits, but they are still involved in
mental darkness, and there is no possible hope !
Others " wish they may get it," but see no reason-
able chance of so doing, while others boldly say it
would not be worth accepting, and, strange to say,
receive a larger proportion of cheering than any of
the desponding orators. Let any who doubt the
accuracy of our statement peruse the reports of the
meetings of the Surrey Association, of the Shrop-
shire Agricultural Society, of Mr. 11013211 T PaLmea's
address to the farmers of Berkshire, and the speeches of
Sir JAMES GRAHAM to the mee of Cumberland, of
Messrs. HARCOURT and HENLEY in Oxford-
shire, and of Mr. DIS RAELI at Aylesbury,—
all will show that for the present, at least, the Pro-
tectionist cause has been abandoned by men of all
classes, and that even the agriculturists have readily
acquiesced in the free-trade principles that hare been
deliberately adopted by the British Parliament and the
British nation.

We earnestly invite the attention of our readers to
an admirable article relating to Ireland, which we
have extracted into our columns, from our esteemed
and respected contemporary, the Derbyshire Courier.
Our excellent collaborateur has taken a perfectly correct
view of the subject in tracing a considerable portion
of the evils under which the sister kingdom has long
been groaning to the absence of a circulating me-
dium adequate to the wants and exigencies of the
country. The very life-blood of industry is wanting,
and the extraordinary natural capabilities of the
country remain undeveloped, simply in consequence
of the quackery by which the national currency was
reduced below the necessary amount ; and rendered
incapable of performing its natural functions. The
land was there r ude and unreclaimed, or at least not
one-half as productive as it might easily be
rendered. The labour was there which might
have converted the wilderness into a rich
garden, that might have brought the soil into the
highest degree of fertility. But both were com-
paratively useless—the owners of the land were
ruined. They beheld the broad acres that had been
in the possession of their ancestors for centuries,
passing from their hands at totally inadequate prices,
while the working men were starving, unable to bring
their only capital—their labour—into practical ope-
ration, they were either unproductively consum-
ing the national wealth, of which they might
under more favourable circumstances, have been the
creators, or driven into banishment from their native
land, to seek in another hemisphere the means of liveli-
hood, which unwise and inequitable enactments bad de-
nied to them in the land of their birth. Why is it that
these untoward events occur; that the machinery neces-
sary to bring the elements together that might be so
beneficial to each other is wanting ? The solution is
easy—the problem is by no means abstruse,
There is, unfortunately, an absence of banking facili-
ties. The circulating medium of the country was
suddenly reduced by about fifty :per cent. at the
very time when, according to every principle
of sound policy, it ought to have been
largely increased. The boasted self- acting currency
code of 1844 practically destroyed 2,000,000 of our
Irish brethren, reduced the population about 4 per
cent. below what it would have been under more
favourable circumstances, leading to a reduction
of 25 per cent. in ten years, in place of an increase to
a nearly equal extent—and ruined landowners and
left creditors unpaid. How soon will the long-
suffering people open their eyes to the real cause
of their afflictions, and in place of flying
from the land of their nativity, seek the abolition of
that nefarious and unpoplar law that has produced all
their misfortunes ? But there is still the pros-
pect of speedy improvement. There is an
abundance of unemployed capital here, and
there are numerous channels for its profitable
employment on the other side of St. George's
Channel. The mutual wants may thus be sup-
plied, to :the advantage of both parties, if no
absurd jealousies intervene. We trust that both
sides nay at length be awakened to their true inte-
rests, and that we shall once more see Ireland pros-
per ous and contented.