The Sun.
London, England, 1834-01-31 00:00:00

PIPIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS

\lr. Sadler hating lcund it convenient to
pocket his long-boasted pretensions to the repre-
sentation of Leeds, has found inSir Johnßeckett,
Lord Lonsdale's son-in-law, a successor of pretty
much the same kidney, and destined, there is
good reason for hoping, to achieve pretty much
the like success in his appeal to the Leeds elec-
tors. A man's public character must be of no
enviable complexion when it costs him a speech,
the report of which exceeds two closely-printed
columns, to wash away a single charge, namely,
that of having been " a political deserter ;" for,
curious to say, the Liberals of Leeds accused
this official Barnacle of having been " a rene-
gado,"—"a turn-coat,"—of having been a Whig
in 1806, and ever afterwards—what he now can-
not help being considered (or God knowswhat
plunges he might make to extricate himself from
so unprofitable an opprobrium) no better than
an egregious and irredeemable Tory. In the
course of the said speech, therefore, we must
admit that the Learned Baronet did succeed in
proving that he never had been a Whig at all ;
that he entered office in the year 1806 ; that the
first moment he had it in -as power (as
Under Secretary in the Home Department, and
under Lord Sidmouth, a sort of demi-Whig
Home Secretary)—without being of the Whig
party, or any other party but the party of
self, which, to do him justice, he has never
to this clay abandoned,—he shows in his speech,
that having got into office as soon as he could,
he held it as long as he could—namely, until he
and all the rest of the clique were sent about
thcir business. He makes, indeed, a merit of
having accepted Mr. Peel's proposal to become
Jege AdVocate General for the United King-
dom, instead of for Great Britain only, without
receiving (what it does not appear that even a
Tory Administration would have allowed him)
double pay as a recompense for the more ex-
tended honour ! " A turncoat !" No, truly,
there was small occasion for that, the learned
Lowther in law being one of those who wear the
glossy side of the garment outwards from the
minute they are able to buy one. We don't
quarrel with the learned gentleman's history of
his own early schooling and his family's domes-
tication in the town of Leeds, which was given
in good plain English. But why, Sir John, did
you wince so horribly when the townfolk began
to question you touching the votes you had
given, and those you might (but will not) be
called upon to give hereafter, upon those great
subjects which have occupied Parliament for
the last five or six years, or are to engage its
notice in future Sessions? Did you vote for
emancipation ?—" No." For the repeal of the
Test Act?—" No." For the abolition of sla-
very ?—" Non mi ricordo." Did you ever
give a single vote in favour of civil or religious
liberty ?—" You are really too hard upon me—
Non mi ricordo." How will you vote upon

the corn laws ?—" The farmer wants protec-
tion ;" i.e., "I will vote for their continuance."
How will you vote on Church Reform ?—" I
have a vast respect for the Dissenters, but ap-
prove of the connexion between Church and
State ;" i. e., respondet " Nil." We will,
however, do Sir John Beckett justice. lie
thinks that now the elective franchise has been
extended, a reform of corporate abuses may take
place, which means, we presume, that such
abuses would now be ineffectual to any purpose
of Parliamentary influence. Nor is he a
friend to military flogging, except in the last
necessity ; on which alone, moreover, he would
maintain the impressment of seamen. Why
does not Sir John Beckett put forward his
greatest claim—his friendship to Lord Lowther
from the time of Newmarket Dawson to the
present day ? What constancy of friendship !
Times.

A meeting on the subject of the corn laws
is to be held at the Crown and Anchor this
day. A better time than the present cannot
possibly be chosen for agitating this great ques-
tion. The manufacturing population are gene-
rally employed, and the Legislature may deli-
berate without fear of popular commotion. On
the other hand, by a wise decision, we may
prevent the German States from adopting a
measure which would prove injurious to them
as well as to ourselves, but of which we have
no right to complain, having driven them to it,
and we may lay the foundation of a system of
intercourse with the Continent, equally advan-
tageous to its inhabitants and to ourselves. It
is to be kept constantly in mind, that we enjoy
peculiar advantages for manufacturing, and that
it must be more advantageous for the people of
many parts of the Continent to buy their manu-
factures from us than to make them ; but then,
to enable them to buy from us, we must buy
from them in return. The nonsense that is
talked at what are called agricultural meetings,
is really astonishing. In the Chronicle of
yesterday, we gave from the Kelso Mail an
account of a meeting of the landowners of the
i\lerse and Tiviotdale, at Kelso, of which the
Duke of Buccleuch was chairman, at which
the speakers seemed to vie with each other,
as to who should utter the purest twaddle. Mr.
George Baillie, junior, the mover of the first
resolution, went over all ancient and modern
history to prove that all sensible people deemed
agriculture of importance, and having ascertained
that " the knowledge of the people of this country
on this most useful science before the time of
Julius Cesar was very limited," he traced to
the visit paid us by the Romans, the progressive
skill which had at length astonished the world
in the Dandie Dinmonts of the Tweed and the
Teviot. " From that time (the visit of the
Romans) to this, with some interruptions, it
has gone on progressively, and at this day we
have attained as a nation an eminence in the
practice of agriculture, which is unknown to, and
unequalled by, any other country in the world.
Well and truly may Great Britain boast of the
invincible bravery of her soldiers ; well and truly
may she boast of the undaunted courage of her
sailors ; but as well and as truly may she boast
of her agriculture—(Cheers)—as I assert it is
as firm a bulwark as either of the others. What
would her armies in the field—what would her
fleets on the ocean avail her, without her agri-
culture, as no war can be maintained, no honour-
able peace can be formed, without an abundant
supply of agricultural produce at home ?
(Hear, hear.)" No doubt, Mr. Baillie, beef
and bread are indispensable to heroism ; and
where beef and bread abound, heroes will
abound also. It requires no ghost to tell
us, that a large population cannot exist
without much food. We will go farther than

Mr. Baillie, for we will say an improved agri-
culture
is an infallible test of the civilization of a
/Iraq. But will Mr. Baillie, or any of the
..1 _ kttaigfp who met at Kelso, tell us how it is
country densely peopled, and with-
P4'.l-'l3,4'.'''''i..47' -third of 'the population, or five
4 :,I.C' y 0
half of people, employed upon ar-
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tides destined for the foreign market, and who
export about thirty-seven millions worth of ma-
nufactures every year, to be without d good agri-
culture? In countries like the United States,
where there is much land and comparatively few
people, agriculture is bad ; for land is of too
little value, and labour of too much, to admit of
high cultivation. But though the agriculture of
the Ohio may be very inferior to that which the
Laird of Mellerstane views from his windows,
and there may be more windows in Mr. Baillie's
mansion than in any sixty houses of the Ohio
farmers, yet it would be a great mistake to sup-
pose that the labourer on the Ohio has any
cause to envy the oatmeal porridge-fed hind who
ploughs Mr. Baillie's beautiful fields. In fact, a
nation exporting manufactures largely must
have a high agriculture, because the firmer
has always a market for his produce, and
higher prices than the farmers who export
food, by all the charges of importation,
&c. He has, too, a monopoly for bulky
produce which cannot be brought from a
distance, and the means of abundantly ma-
nuring his land. When land is abundant, and
people few, agriculture is necessarily bad, and
where there is a limited soil and a dense popu-
lation, agriculture must be good. As long as
we have a large population productively em-
ployed in manufactures for the foreign market,
our agriculture must be good. Another of the
Kelso sages, 'a Mr. Dudgeon Spylaw, spoke
with great pathos of" our fertile fields relapsing
into barrenness, and our happy (porridge fed ?)
peasantry being turned loose in idleness and
want." Pray, Mr. Dudgeon, who is to be so
generous as to feed our twenty-four millions of
people for nothing, so as to allow the stalwart
peasantry of the border to wander about the
fields with the Ettrick shepherd at' their head,
the merry song relieved by country sports and
exercises ? They who send wheat and oats hither
will expect to be paid for them, and how is the
payment for the food of twenty-four millions of
people to be obtained ? The Dandie Dinmonts
are becoming too poetical for us. We will tell
these men their danger—their danger is not in
having a part of the 5-i millions of manufacturers
for the foreign market—fed by foreign corn,
obtained in return for their manufactures--
but in having these manufacturers to feed
after the market for their manufactures
has been cut off. As long as we have
our manufacturers fully employed, we need not
be under any alarm for our agriculture ; but
should our manufacturers suffer materially, not
only would our farmers lose them as customers
in the home market, but they would have to feed
them as beggars ; for they may rest assured that
men will not, by being told, in the language of
Mr. Malthus, that the table is already full, wend
their way to the nearest ditches and there lie
down and die. Woe to the landowners of Eng•
land if ever they•have the sole feeding of the
population, which they are stupid enough to
seek, for this would he a proof of declining manu-
factures, and would amount to a confiscation of
the soil. The Dandie Dinmonts may not see
this; and we pray that they may never be taught
by experience. Of all the delusions that ever
haunted the mind of a fool, the delusion of a
large population employed in manufactures for
exportation, co-existing with the land of the
country thrown out of cultivation, is the most
outrageous. These are woeful extravagancies.
We are not, however, astonished that the far-
mers should be somewhat uneasy at the prospect
of a free trade in corn at a fixed duty. They
have all been taught to look to the corn laws
for high prices. Free trade will certainly
prevent high prices, except in particular years.
But the question which puzzles them is, the how
much would the fall in prices be ? Men who
have embarked capital in cultivation, and who
hold land on leases, at determinate rents, are
naturally unwilling to lose by any measure, how-
ever beneficial it may be to the nation. When
we consider that the corn trade was in effect free
down to the French war, that all the countries
producing corn were then in the market, and
that prices notwithstanding were comparatively
high, we cannot help thinking that there is no
cause for alarm to the farmers. An evening
contemporary, the Globe, alludes to a fact ascer•
tained by Mr. Tooke, that the crops are very
frequptly abundant in nearly all the corn grow-
ing countries of the continent in the same year,
and that this abundance continues for a series
of years, and refers also to the evidence of Mr.
Joseph Sandars, that he has known fine Baltic
wheat, equal to English, sold at twenty to
twenty-two shillings a quarter for five or six
years in succession. This, however, proves
little. Wheat is not the food of the people in
the countries on the Baltic, The shutting the
market of so great a consuming country as
England, or the allowing wheat only to be
warehoused, must make the Baltic wheat almost
unmarketable. But no person would say, that
with a regular trade and a regular consumption
in England, wheat would not instantly rise in
price to about forty shillings. Where wheat is
not the food of the population, it must sell
for what can be got for it—as witness Ireland.
—Morning Chronicle.

When Lord Durham commenced no less than
three criminal prosecutions against as many dis-
tinct newspapers for one silly paragraph, utterly
unworthy, as we think, the serious notice of any
man of good sense, and which paragraph was
as fully contradicted by those who had given it
to the world as it had been circulated—when,
we say, Lord Durham commenced those three
prosecutions, he made it known, if we recollect
right, that he was only anxious to vindicate his
private character from groundless aspersion, but
that his character and his conduct as a public
man were the property of public opinion, and
that his fame as a politician was to be its own
protector ;—without remembering what were
the precise words in which the sentiment was
conveyed, we believe we have faithfully given
the sentiment itself. But what was the practical
commentary of the Ultra-Whig, Lord Durham,
on his own liberal text ? He applies for an-
other criminal information against another news-
paper, that stated something about his having
hoisted the French tri-coloured flag at Cher.
bourg, in honour of his august friend, the
equally liberal Louis Philip, who certainly
likes prosecutions of the Press just as much
as he loves the tri-coloured emblem of
French liberty. It was pretty well for one Whig
Nobleman—one of those who used to toast
'' The freedom of the Press ; it is like the air
we breathe, if we have it not we die"—it was
pretty well, in all conscience, for one Whig No-
bleman to have fuur criminal prosecutions
against that much-toasted freedom of the Press
working at the one moment. But strange it was
that, after fraternising in public with the '° Ci-
tizen-King" in the celebrated Congress at Cher-
bourg, which was to counterpoise the political
influence of that of Munchengratz, the liberal
Lord Durham should consider it libellous to

state that he emblazoned his yacht with the co-
lours of Louis Philip, whose principles it is to be
presumed he admires, and of whose gracious
smiles and hospitality he had just partaken. But
it was not true—granted. It was only a trico-
loured pennon of the yacht squadron—be it so.
What did the fiction or the mistake, or what-
ever it was, impute to him ? Simply, that he
displayed at the mast-head of his pleasure-boat
the colours of a nation at amity with our own—
the colours of a King, to whom the Treasury
Papers tell us that our own Government have
pledged themselves in sworn friendship. This
might be a silly thing for him to do ; but did it
impeach either his morality or feelings of
loyalty to his own Sovereign ? If Louis Philip
had, indeed, performed the promises which he
made to Lafayette, when he was bargaining for
that crown whose brightest lustre is now the
reflected smile of him whose imperial robe is
dyed in the blood of Poland—if he had given
the people of France a " monarch with republi-
can institutions," and excited the hostility of
the Northern Autocrat, by his uncompromising
attachment to free principles, instead of earning
his gracious approbation by such a line of con-
duct as the anti-revolutionary Nicholas patronises
—if he had preferred virtue to gold,4nd loved the
freedom of the Press better than its persecution,
then might the hoisting of the " tricolour" byLord
Durham, if he had hoisted it, convey the impres-
sion that his patriotism was something more than
mere parade, and his liberalism not altogether a
fiction. It might even allow the inference to be
drawn that the aristocratic English democrat,
like the Citizen King, preferred that new-fangled
thing, "a monarchy with republican institutions,"
to that old-fashioned Constitution of England,
which consists of a King, Lords, and Commons.
But even so, such an imputation would only ap-
ply to him as a public man and a politician, his
private character would he still unimpeached.
If Lord Durham does not regard history as an
" old alnianack," he might find examples of pious
and good men even in the Greek and Roman
republics. He might even have read of one
Algernon Sydney, who, though he had the mis-
fortune to prefer republican theories to the prin-
ciples of the mixed constitution of his own
country, was a man of unsullied moral worth,
and spotless private fame. From all that we
have said on this subject, it may be easily col-
lected that we concur with Sir J. Scarlett in the
distinction which he took in showing cause
against the rule 'for a criminal information—
namely,
that the alleged libel related to the poli-
tical opinions of the Noble prosecutor, and had
not the most distant reference to his private
character,—a view of the subject in which it
appears that the Court completely acquiesced,
and upon which they discharged the rule, leaving
his Lordship to take nothing by his motion,
except an additional portion of that sort of fame
which will by no means raise his character as a
public man. What can the discerning public
think of a politician who has the sentiments of
ultra-liberalism perpetually on his tongue, and
applies for a criminal information against the
-
Press for publishing something that he supposes
casts a reflection on his political opinions? We
are sure that all but the slaves of those pseudo-
patriots, who are attempting to hunt down the
Press, will think the King's Bench right in
leaving his fame to be its own protector.—
Morning Herald.
If we rightly understand the meaning of an
extremely cautious article in the Globe of last
night, our contemporary, like ourselves, has a
lurking idea that the new Spanish Ministry will
not be of long duration. After the expression
of many, and we make no doubt sincere, hopes
for " an Administration likely to favour a liberal
and constitutional course, voluntary improve-
ment, social progression," &c., all which might
be very good if there was not an infinitely more
important object to he first settled, our contem-
porary adds the following :
We frankly confess that we have been led into the
foregoing remarks chiefly by some expression of fear on the
part of well-informed Spaniards that a party exists in
Spain which will be prone to promote violent theoretical
changes in the first instance, and, consequently, who
will endeavour to embarrass every Administration that
will at once lend itself to their objects. Thus they
anticipate a short career to the Administration of M. Mar-
tinez de la Rosa, and fear the forced adoption of councils
which will render a widely extended civil war inevitable.
It is scarcely neces.ary to add that this is a desponding
view of the case, and one which may originate in a par-
tiality to the displaced Minister ; but there is a sufficient
possibility in it to produce an intense interest in imme-
diate Spanish proceedings. Happily, the influence of both
England and France will be strongly exerted to maintain
sobriety and steadiness in the Spanish Councils ; and,
with a view to a more intimate concert, it is probable that
the chan:e now taking place in the French Embassy to
Madrid has been determined upon."

From the peculiar situation in which she is
placed the Queen Regent has no alternative but
to throw herself into the arms of the Constitu-
tionalists. She is already, in fact, completely
at their mercy, or, in other words, the slave of
her own army. Its commanders dictate to her
what she is to do, and their influence again is
derived from the party at the head of which,
through necessity, they have placed themselves.
This will appear to be the case if the tenor and
result of the Catalonian remonstrance is con-
sidered. Llauder informed his mistress that
by the exertions of the military officers the
turbulent Catalonians (meaning those in the
Carlist interest) had been kept down, and her
authority secured." With more propriety might
he have said that, by bringing forward the Con-
stitutionalists, and giving to them the political
ascendancy, he had so far preserved Catalonia
to the Queen. These Constitutionalists, how-
ever, are merely the inhabitants of the
maritime towns. The Queen Regent, ne-
vertheless, obeyed their mandate ; for, after
all, Llauder was the vehicle, the mere
medium, through which their wishes were trans-
mitted. He must indeed have been a reluctant
instrument in the affair, if there is any consistency
in man. He was deeply implicated in the arrest
and subsequent execution of Lacy. He also
fought against the Constitutionalists when Mina
attacked Spain with refugees on the side of the
Pyrenees, and Torrijos along the shores of the
Mediterranean. And can Llauder imagine that
the Constitutionalists will forget these things,
when the ground is once secure under their feet ?
Once in the hands of the Constitutionalists, the
Queen can only trust to their prudence. Judging
from the past, that will not avail her much, and
our contemporary is perfectly correct in fearing
" violent and theoretical changes." Spain, we
seriously apprehend, is on the eve of such scenes
as were represented in 1821 and 22, when the
country was governed by clubs and demagogues
when the Government was obliged to patronise
debating societies as a means of securing its
own power, and when " The Constitution
or Death" was every where placarded. It
is much to be feared that the excesses and fol-
lies into which the Spaniards then rushed will
now be renewed, and it is a melancholy truth
that in some respects those follies and excesses
exceeded all that were witnessed during the early

days of the Frenel revolution. They cannot be
thought upon wAout feelings of horror. The
clergy then, a 3 they are now in Lisbon, were
the chief objects of attack. In the Landaburian
Society, held under the auspices of Government,
and serving as a kind of check upon the Cortes,
one of the most popular orators of the day, after
acknowledging that during the war of indepen-
dence the clergy materially contributed to the
expulsion of the French, spoke in the following
unambiguous terms :—" But we must now an-
nihilate them ; we must do with them as was
done in France, where, in one night,
incre-
dible thousand were executed." This orator, mcre-
dible as it may seem, was long and loudly ap-
plauded. The next objects of attack were the
Nobles. They were too rich, too influential, and
consequently were to be pulled down. What was it,
we ask, but these follies and excesses that cured
Martinez de la Rosa of his early constitutional
propensities ? So completely cured was he that
towards the close of the La Isla experiment he
was called an anillero, a term synonymous with
aristocrat, and then used as a term of reproach.
He was considered a man of no nerve—a man
of half measures. The leaders who directed the
Spanish Revolution in 1821 and 22 are not
now certainly in Madrid ; but they are in the
provinces, and it is they who direct the military
dictators statioried there. Their ends can only
be attained by revolutionary means, and if the
Queen and her Ministers do not cordially go
along with them the Constitutionalists will
not fight the Carlists. But, says our Ministe-
rial Contemporary, " the influence of both
England and France will be strongly ex-
erted to maintain sobriety and steadiness in
the Spanish Councils." It may be very easy to
talk of all this in London ; but will it do in
Spain ? Will the frigid and, as it may be thought,
interested advice of Lord Palmerston stop the
march of that revolution which he is supposed
to be encouraging ? Circumstances compelled
Don Pedro to place himself at the head of the
Revolutionists in Portugal, and Queen Christina
will inevitably be compelled to do the same thing
in Spain. Their cause is alike. Each seeks
to trample under foot the fundamental laws of
an ancient Monarchy and thwart the wishes of
the people. Don Pedro overturned all he could
in Portugal. He has established spoliation as a
system, and resorted to piracy as a means of
filling his Exchequer. Lord Palmerston sent
over advice, and what has it availed ? . Let him,
however, try his hand in Spain.—Morn. Post.