The Sun.
London, England, 1832-04-04 00:00:00

I they do not understand. At any rate they
would have acted more wisely had they adhc:ed
! to Falstaff's rule, and declined giving their
. reasons, and, in effect, had adopted the well
known distich of one of their own body—
" I do not like thee, Dr. Fell ;
The reason why I cannot tell."
The 128 persons who take upon themselves to
speak in the name of the University of Oxford
have, however, given us their reasons against the
Reform Bill, and which may be summed up in
this sentence—that it is " calculated to create a
restless spirit of innovation, to destroy the balance
• of power in our mixed form of Government, and to
convert afirnz and reason ale course oflegislation
into a succession of rash and dangerous experi-
ments." Now here we have not only a sweep-
ing condemnation of the new measure, but the
apotheosis of the present system. Surely the
very stocks and stones of Gatron and Old Sa-
rum must start into life at being pronounced by
the sages of the University of Oxford part of a
" firm and reasonable course of legislation."
That the rotten-borough system has been " firm"
enough must be well known to those who have
been enjoying, or who may be looking to enjoy
a share of the lay or Church patronage which
it has dispensed ; but of its " reasonableness" it
requires all the modest assurance of a seat of
learning, so much, we should think, as to make
mention. "Reasonable," indeed ! Never was
reason so perverted as this, when that which the
most ardent of its defenders has never ventured
in theory to pronounce as reasonable, shall
be, at the eleventh hour—now at the very
point of its dissolution, so characterised by the
teachers of reason to the rising generation. Ha-
ving set out with asserting, as we think we have
proved, that these learned Thebans have given a
sort of " ex-cathedra" opinion upon a subject
which they do not at all understand, we are not
entitled ourselves to turn round and attach any
importance to that opinion. But there are, doubt-
less, those who do, or will affect to do so ; and
we should not be at all surprised, in the course
of the forthcoming debates in the Lords, to find
a pompous reference made to this Oxford Anti-
Reform petition. To persons who do, or are
inclined to do this, we would simply reply,
" read it ;'' and if there is a man, or woman, or
child, who ever be'towed a thought upon the
subject, who could be found to put together
worse reasons against the measure than are there
concocted, we should say that the latter ought to be
whipped, and the former schooled into a more ra-
tional kind of argument. In short, of all the
Anti-Reform productions, this seems at once
the most jejune and imbecile. Coining at the
end of long and tedious discussion, one might
have supposed that, as the production of a learned
body, it would have comprised the cream of the
whole argument—instead of which it is mere
milk-and-water, deprived of its lair proportion
of milk.— Morning Herald.

CORN LAWS IN FRANCE.

PARIS, APRIL 1.

In the latter part of the sitting of yesterday, the
new corn law was definitively voted in the Cham-
ber of Deputies by a majority of 218 to 24. In
several of the details, and particularly on the clause
which regulates the amount of surplus duty on im-
portations in foreign bottoms, the Chamber was
much more equally divided. There was also a con-
siderable proportion of the Deputies who were
willing to support the proposition of M. Laurence
for the enactment of a temporary law, and the post-
ponement of tl'e definitive metsure till another Ses-
sion, but when the et:warble came to be voted by
secret scrutiny, the d ss,rnients were reduced to the
modest fraction of one in nine.

Having followed the debate with some attention,
I may venture to anticipate the appearance in an
authentic form of the new law as it has issued from

the Parliamentary crucible, after being subjected to
the somewhat intemperate observations of those
who thought their personal interests affected by it,
arid to the white heat of General Lamarque's oppo-
sition to any further facilities in favour of foreign
shipping, arid especially in favour of the shipping of
Great Britain. The following, then, are its leading
provisions:—

The first clause abolishes the absolute prohibition
which formerly existed against the importation of
foreign corn, when the price fell below 24f. the lice.
tolitre, or about 60s. the English quarter, in the first
of the four corn districts into which France was di-
vided by the law of the year 1821. This district in-
cludes the port of Marseilles, which is one of the
regulating markets from which the averages are
taken which govern the importation fur the whole
district, and it extends over the whole of the mari-
time departments on the Mediterranean shore of the
kingdom. In this district corn always bears a
higher price than in the northern or western pro-
vinces, although, if importation were absolutely
without restriction, the inhabitants of the south
could probably eat their bread cheaper than those of
the inland or Atlantic departments. As the law has
hitherto stood, however, the proportions between
the four corn districts are in the ratio of 24, 22, 20,
and 18, respectively. These figures represent, in
francs per hectolitre, the point at which prohibition
formerly beg in in each of the four districts, and
which, if reduced into sterling money per quarter,
would be represented as nearly as may be by 60s.
555. 50s. and 455.

By the next clause it is declared, that till the lst
of July. 1833, the duties to be levied on foreign
corn shall not be liable to any distinction or discri•
initiation in regard to the country of which it is the
produce. As to the corn and flour imported under
the law of 1821, the duties payable on their being
taken out of bond are to be those already fixed by
that law. These duties are as follows :

Districts Ist 2.1 3d 4th
2fi 24 22 t) lf. 23c. per hectolitre.
25 23 21 19 2 25 ditto.
24 22 20 18 3 25 ditto.

On corn imported under the new law, after the
averages have fallen in the respective districts below
the points at which prohibition formerly rook effect,
a surplus tax is now imposed of one franc and a
half per hectolitre on each fianc of fall in the price of
indigenous corn, as ver.fied by the averages of the
regulating markets. As no attempt was made in
the course of the discussion to alter the starting
point adopted by the law of 1821, which may be
held as fixing the remunerating price to the pro-
ducer, in each of the four districts, the principle
adopted in the clause 1 have just quoted was
ot huatt
o‘h
fvdich
oorsexacsited the
withint
liveliest
the walls
interest,
llsof as
the‘l vel
Cham-
ber. The Government had proposed that the
protecting duty should increase at the same rate at
which the Corn averages diminish—that is, that an
additional franc of duty per hectolitre should be im-
imposed for each franc of fall in price. The Commit-
tee of the Chamber, however, as you will see from the
report of M. C. Dupin, proposed that the increase
of duty should take place in a duplicate ratio—that
is to say, that there should be two francs of rise in
the duty for every one franc of fall in the price. This
proposal,. however, was so strenuously oppo.,ed by
the public Journals, and was besides so obviously
unjust to the great class of consumers; that it was
ultimately abandoned, and a mezzo termilie was
adopted, by which, as you have seen, the increase
of duty is to decrease in price, as three are to two,
instead of two to one, as proposed by M. Dupin and
his Committee, or one to one, as originally recom-
mended, and all along maintained by the Go.
vernment. By way of reconciling M. d'Argout
to this compromise between the two extremes, th,
more moderate supporters of the agricultural in-
terest, as opposed to that of the consumers, very
gravely told him, that as they had adopted the
juste milieu between the two points, at issue,