The Sun.
London, England, 1833-11-12 00:00:00

merce, though our representatives at foreign
Courts are more highly paid than those of
any other nation, to watch over and protect those
interests. Thus did our Ministers connive at
the destruction of Poland to gratify Russia.
Thus did they also tolerate those proceedings of
her active and crafty politicians which have made
Turkey a servile dependency to the throne of
the Autocrat. This abandonment of our com-
mercial interests, our trade in the Levant will
one day sorely feel ; but then, to compensate
the nation for the surrender of such important
interests, the Whig Ministers bestow on it all
the " glory" which it can derive from those
volumnious and immortal compositions of Lord
Palmerston, which are known by the name of
" protocols," and which, independently of their
literary merits, have had the surprising effect of
keeping the Belgico-Dutch question in a pro-
gress of " speedy and final settlement" for the
last three years. But really England might as
well be without a Foreign Minister for any vigi-
lance or ability that is displayed in the protection
of her political or commercial interests in any of
the nations of Europe. We assisted France
in her aggression upon Holland, which obtained
a little popularity for Louis Philip and his Doc-
trinaire Cabinet, at a critical moment. But
French courtiers wheedle our Poulett Thomsons
when they talk of reciprocity with England.
They give our philosophers of free trade abun-
dance of smiles and soft words, but they stop
there.—Morning Herald.
It is pretty generally understood that the
difficulties which for a time obstructed the ap-
pointment of Mr. Ellice to the office of Secre-
tary at War arose from the desire of Mr. Ellice
to have a seat in the Cabinet, and the reluct-
ance of some of his friends to sit there by his
side. The obstinacy of Lord Lansdowne and
Mr. Stanley was for the time unconquerable,
and Mr. Ellice, foiled in his attempt to force
himself into the Cabinet, was contented for a
while with being viceroy over those who excluded
him. The design, however, has never been
abandoned ; and at this moment, while the crisis
of the struggle between the good and the evil
principle in Lord Grey's Administration is
evidently approaching, we are assured that the
project is revived with all the enthusiasm of
anticipated success. The qualifications of Mr.
Edward Ellice for a Cabinet office in the Reform
Ministry are many and various. He is so
thoroughly English in his tastes and sentiments
that, when he was appointed to the office which
he now most worthily holds, he was actually
preparing to bid us farewell, and to transfer his
powerful abilities and proverbially polished
manners to the other side of the Atlantic.
He so warmly sympathises in the views and
opinions of the Ministers, whose colleague he
desires to become, that more than once during
the late Session of Parliament he has enter-
tained them by heading, with his friend Lord
Duncannon, an active opposition to their mea-
sures. That he is a man of irreproachable
integrity none doubt who have read Mr.
Cobbett's admirable history of the " Greek
Pic." That he is a man of the most ingenuous
modesty all know who have observed how
much he is pained by any allusion to a trans-
action in which he played so conspicuous a
part. He is not incapacitated from going, as
Lord Durham says, " along with the people"
by any antiquated predilection for a Crown, or
any bigotted veneration for a Church. What
; more can be said in his praise ? He is brother-
in-law to Earl Grey. How will it end ? We
know not. But we are very sorry for the
Premier. Urged on the one hand and re-
strained on the other, sco'ded by Lord Durham
and ridiculed by Lord Brougham, now re-
proached by a sulky Gentleman and now
coaxed by a fascinating Lady, he finds in the
whole intrigue a sore trial for what the Times
wittily calls his " well-known delicacy and
honour r%—Morning Post.
" A member of the Carpenters' Union " is
egregiously mistaken, if he dream for a moment
that we had either no intention of inserting his
letter, or that we dreaded to insert it lest it
should be deemed an overthrow of the opinions
which we have expressed. Still less have he
and his brethren the slightest ground to ima-
gine that we would, in the face of right and
justice, advocate an oppressive claim on the
part of the master to the injury of the workman.
Our individual opinions are apparently well
known to our correspondent, and our columns
bear still inure evident testimony that in good as
well as in bad report—when the tide was with
them, as well as when it was against them—we
have always taken pleasure in doing justice to
the working classes. But it is no portion of our
duty to lead either them or any other, into pal-
pable errors. We would help them to good
—we would endeavour to aid them to better
their condition ; but we will be no party
to the fostering of overweening prejudice
and unjust pretension. The right of the
working classes to combine for the pur-
, pose of procuring an augmentation of their
wages, when they appear to diem to be below
the scale of just remuneration, is a right, so far
consecrated by the law, as that there exists no
law in condemnation of it—the same right is
equally conceded to the masters; and we ap-
prove of it in both instances, as the only safe-
guard of individual liberty, as well as the only
means by which the rights of both parties can
be fairly adjusted. But it is one thing to enjoy
a right—it is another to abuse it. Workmen
may combine without just cause for the purpose
of procuring an increase of wages which the
state of trade, and the amount of profits, will
not allow—and masters, in a similar manner,
are not exempt from the frailty of endeavouring
to cut down the rate of wages, not only below
what the wants of the workmen demand, as the
means of decent subsistence, but even below
what the fair average of their profits would fre-
quently allow. There are innumerable instances
of both cases on record ; and in proof of the
act we beg to refer our correspondent to the
almost invariable compromises which have been
the results of combinations both on the one side
and on the other. In almost all cases, both
parties have been, more or less, in the wrong.
The one has demanded too much, the other has
been unwilling to concede what justice demanded
at his hands. The one has lost the wages which
he would have earned, had he been employed,
the ) other h
in fact, have been injured, and
from
reason
than from obstinacy in the
r,
aill.oßoth,tt
heprofits on the employment of his
ealitother
one case, and pride in the other, preventing that
mutual good understanding which a candid
explanation would have insured. Now, why
should those things be ? What interest, beyond
a temporary and unworthy interest, can the
working man have in destroying the capital of
his employer, or, in other words, of in-
ducing him to give for a brief period
of time such a rate of wages as must speedily
send him to the Gazette, and incapacitate