The Sun.
London, England, 1835-10-08 00:00:00

From all parts of the country the cry of agricultural
distress is loud and deep. We believe it would be
difficult or rather impossible, to fix upon any period
since the foundation of the British empire when the
farming interests of England were at such a state of
deplorable and apparently hopeless depression. We
say hopeless, because the melancholy evidence of this
state of things makes no impression upon a Govern-
ment which is so intent upon its own selfish projects of
personal ambition, that it has neither time nor heart to
bestow upon the distresses of the farmer. If even the
Government were capable of feeling sympathy for the
sufferings of the agriculturists, it has not the wisdom
nor the statesmanlike capacity to devise or adopt any
efficient measures for their relief. But the fact is, they
seem to have no care for any national interest, domes-
tic or foreign, so long as, by keeping up political agi-
tation in the country, and sacrificing British inte-
rests, and all opinions and principles which they
ought to cherish as Britons and Protestants, to the
Popish demagogue of Ireland, they can secure a bare
majority in the House of Commons to preserve to them
their places and their salaries. That the King feels
deeply for the unexampled distresses of that large and
most valuable portion of his people, who cultivate the
British fleece and who hold the British plough, we be-
lieve, and it was with pleasure we read the testimony
borne by Lord Chandos to those patriotic feelings of his
Majesty, in his speech at the Buckinghamshire agricul-
tural dinner the other day. The Noble Marquis, whom
we need not say is on all occasions the firm and un-
compromising friend of the agriculturists, told the
farmers whom he addressed, " I must tell you that you
and your interests are looked upon by the Sovereign
with the greatest anxiety—with the anxiety of a farmer.
His Majesty is himself a farmer ; he frequently is em-
ployed looking over the farmers at Windsor. During
the last Session, Iliad the honour of having an interview
with the King, and his Majesty expressed his opinion
on the question of agricultural distress, and stated how
anxious he was for the restoration of the farmer's pros-
perity." But let us ask what hope can even the King
see for the farmer, as long as the country has such an
Administration as the Whig-Radicals 'of England and
the Popish "Missionaries" of Ireland have forced
upon the Throne ? What can be expected of a Mi-
nistry who mocked the suffering agriculturists with the
Malthusian and anti-Christian Poor Law Bill as a
measure of efficient relief ? Did not Lord Althorp—
the honest Lord Althorp, hold out that pauper-
starving Bill as a splendid boon to the farmer in his
misery, as if the extension of the debasing work-house
system through the land could produce any benefit ex-
cept to the well-paid Commissioners and their assist-
ants, who, like the pious functionary in Gil 131 as, grow
rich by managing the affairs of the poor ? Did not
Mr. Spring Rice, when pompously prefacing the in-
troduction of his miserable Budget, eulogize the Mal-
thusian Bill in the highest terms, though its inevitable
tendency is to swarm the country with beggars, thieves,
and incendiaries, and to promote child-dropping and
infanticide, as the Bishop of Exeter truly predicted ?
Have the sufferings which this Bill inflicts upon the
poor improved the condition of the farmer 1 The
answer to that question may be 'found in the increasing
cries of agricultural distress, which resound from every
part of the country.—Morning Herald.
The whole Ministerial press, and every nun who
lends or borrows countenance to or from the present
Administration, in his orations, whether before or after
dinner, have been labouring for a full month, as readers
and hearers know to their cost and sorrow, to convince
the community that there can be no good days in
England until the House of Lords is abolished or
metamorphosed, in order that such statesmen as Mr.
O'Connell and Lord John Russell, Mr. Roebuck and
Mr. Daniel 'Whittle Harvey, Sir S. Whalley and Mr.
Wakley, may bear undisputed and unmitigated sway
in the State. 'We did not expect that the friends and
advocates of Lord Melbourne's Cabinet and of revolu-
tion would be very successful in persuading the coun-
try that its institutions ought to be rooted- up, merely
to suit the purposes, to augment the power, or to
gratify the resentment of a discomfited and ineffi-
cient set of Ministers. It was easy to foresee that
the writers and orators who undertook so hopeless
a task would run themselves out of matter and of
breath, without making any progress in their under-
taking. But yet we own we scarcely ventured to
anticipate that their failure would be so signal and
complete as to extort even from themselves the humi-
liating confession that they had been able to effect
nothing, that they bad made no converts, that, at the
end of those labours by which it was intended to dis-
credit and destroy the House of Lords, the House of
Lords remained in a position of greater security and
honour than at the beginning. The following is the
last night's lament of the Globe over its ineffectual
toils, a lament not unaccompanied by humiliation, since
its serves as the prelude to an apology, which probably
would not have been made had not its necessity become
apparent ; an apology, we must take leave to add,
which is degrading, because it is not founded upon
truth :---

" We have little hope that ours, or any views of important
modification in the structure of the Upper House will be en-
tertained at present, either by Government or by any power-
ful party in Parliament. We have no knowledge of any pre-
paration any where to grapple with the subject in a practical
shape. We do not think it, however, the less necessary to
contribute our ideas on that subject to the general stock,
while we can do so without bias or interruption from the con-
tests of party." . _ _

The lamentation and apology sound well after a
series of elaborate articles, in which the necessity of
" an important modification in the structure of the
Upper House"• was enforced by all the artifices of
factious misrepresentation ; it which it was repeatedly
proclaimed that the mind of the nation was made up
upon the subject, in accordance with the views of the
writer ; and in which the precise plan of " modifica-
tion" which the writer would prefer was carefully and
anxiously given, lest—(for this modest apprehension
was distinctly avowed)—lest, wanting this important
information, the unenlightened nation, in its hot and
eager pursuit of a " modification," now become essen-
tial to its happiness and very being, might, perchance,
run its head against some less beneficial or less perfect
scheme than that of our contemporary. When the
devoted partisans of the Melbourne Ministry, the ar-
dent admirers of Mr. O'Connell and his speeches, the
promoters and eulogists of several very worthless and.
stupid notices which now stand upon the Order Book of
the House of Commons for next session, confess they
"have little hope that any views of important modification
in the structure of the Upper House will be entertained
at present either by Government or by any powerful
party in Parliament," it is surely time for the hopes to
rise high of all honest, true, and loyal subjects of the
King, of all the lovers of the Constitution, of all the
friends of public peace, order and security. The
enemies of the nation's happiness and welfare have
laboured, with what assiduity and zeal none know
better than themselves, to inflame its passions and
subjugate its understanding upon a most important
subject ; and, lo ! they are compelled to confess
that the sound judgment and correct feelings of the
people are too strong for them—that they have
toiled, and contrived, and agitated altogether in vain.
We do not recollect in political controversy so
precipitate and disorderly a retreat as that of our
Ministerial Contemporary. A subaltern in the
ranks of his party, he flies from the field without
waiting for orders, and carries along with him pell-