The Sun.
London, England, 1850-06-01 00:00:00

bienbt
Mrs

LONDON, SATURDAY, JUNE 1, 1850.

Another step having been taken last evening, in the
House of Lords,.in the late advance movement of the
Sabbatarians, We are compelled to revert once more to
a subject which has become not one jot more obnox-
ious to the public at large, than it has to ourselves.
Those who imagine that we derive any satisfaction
whatever from reiterating our opposition to the ad-
vocates of Sunday stagnation, are marvellously mis-
taken. It is not only with a feeling of reluctance,
but with a feeling of absolute repugnance, that we
renew our antagonism to a body of men who
are, doubtless, many of them:highly conscientious,
but who are at the same time so egregiously self-
opinionated that they are preparing the way by their
fanaticism for a general reaction of indifference. So
inevitable are the evil consequences of their recent
proceedings in Parliament, supposing those proceed-
ings to be effectually carried to the length of actual
development, so certain, to our thinking, is that re-
action of indifference, if not of positive irreligion,
that we shall not cease to protest against the whole
agitation as one of the grossest impiety and hypo-
crisy, no matter what the misconstruction of our in-
tentions or misapprehension of our sentiments.
In the admirable and argumentative speech de-
livered last night in the Upper House of Parliament
by Lord BROUGHAM, immediately upon that House
forming itself into a Committee upon the Sunday
Trading Bill, the Noble and Learned Lord warned
the advocates of the measure from the danger incurred
by their proposal, and one that would neces-
sarily defeat their own purpose, the !danger
of rendering the religious observance of the Sunday
unpopular. There is wisdom in this argument;
there is common sense in it—it appeals irresistibly to
the understanding, and shows at once in most con-
spicuous colours the absurdity of the whole move-
ment. Render the Sunday unpopular with
masses—as you must inevitably do by the enfo'
ment of such irksome and arbitrary regulationf and
its desecration will follow as a natural con..aence.
-y
Go a step beyond the limits of endurance- our do-
mineering bigotry, and the day which y-
would see
reverenced by the multitude will beco-' an obi
general detestation. Let us glue. the natureect of
of
some of the proposed of the Legislature
in this matter—am:Pe how far the Sunday Trading
Bill is calculated braise the popular idea as to the
dignity of religion By this enactment it is to be
resolved that milknay be sold on Sundays, and that
cream may be 801 on Sundays, but that no tea, or
coffee, or brew, or sugar, or butter can be bartered
between Satvday night and Monday morning. Call
you this eligion ? What has butter got to
do with Cristianity ? What has sugar got to do
with the adoration of the Divinity ? Are morals
affected prejudicially by tea ? Or is an orthodox be-
lief' incompatible with coffee ? Surely there is some-
thing very disheartening and (we must say it) dis-
gusting in this miserable fribbling over the laws of
revelation—this wretched system of measuring out
the chances of salvation, as it were, by avoirdupois
weight I Surely there is' something, moreover, as
ludicrous in the horror entertained in regard to the
sale of groceries on Sunday, as in that expressed
in regard to " chops end tomatta sauce" in the great
case of BARDELL versus PicKwicK. But this is not
all. It is to be seriously decided by Parliament that
shaving and hairdressing are lawful operations before
ten o'clock, and unlawful operations after ten o'clock
henceforth upon all Sundays ! And are these deplo-
rable little absurdities viewed by any persons with sane
intellects as calculated to affect prejudicially or other-
wise the moral condition of humanity ? We must ac-
knowledge that we are depressed by proceedings tend-
ing so manifestly to bring reasonable sobriety into
disrepute, and to cover with contempt and derision the
divine and majestic lineaments of Christianity.
In illustration of the frivolity of the whole scheme
of the proposed enactment, Lord BROUGHAM re-
marked very emphatically upon the circumstance
that people will be permitted to purchase newspapers
on Sundays without any limitation whatever,
but that it will not be allowable on any
account to buy on those days either Prayer-
books or Bibles. So that, .continued the
Noble and Learned Lord, a sporting journal might be
bought and people might read to their great edification
the betting on the Derby, and the course of Voltz' geur
at Tattenham Corner : people might buy or read all
that and welcome—" but if they were to buy a Bible
or a Prayer-book to go to church with they were pro-
hibited." So much for the very decent consistency of
the projected measure. No wonder Lord BROUGHAM
dreaded the possibility of seeing the Sunday Trading
Bill followed up speedily enough by a measure in
accordance with the spirit of that address, which on
Thursday evening had been voted in the Commons
House of Parliament, an address which he denounced
as at once " montrous and outrageous." No wonder,
when he was informed last evening by one of
the Members of the Upper House that the stop-
page of the Sunday trains and of Sunday labours
in the Post-office department formed no part of the
Bill then under consideration in Committee,
the Noble and Learned Lord exclaimed with
characteristic indignation, " Does the Noble Lord
suppose lam such an idiot as not to know that ? I
wonder what may be the measure which the Noble
Lord takes of my understanding when he supposes I
do not know that ! I know that such is not in this
Bill : but my fear is that a Bill to that effect will
follow the Bill now before Parliament." Thoroughly
and heartily do we enter into these indignant anti-
cipations, and thoroughly and heartily are we rejoiced
to find in the Upper House such a man as Lord
BROUGHAM the strenuous antagonist of the Sab.
batarians.

After a prolonged and interesting discussion, during
which the views of the different parties with respect
to the West India question were fully and com-
pletely developed, it was last night decided by the
House of Commons that free-trade principles should
not be abandoned—that monopoly should not be
sanctioned in the " corn of the tropics" any more
than in our home-grown produce. It was vainly
attemptedto disguise the real question, to persuade
the representatives of the people that the point
was not one of protection merely, but that
' the only object to be attained was to inflict a " heavy
blow and great discouragement" upon the odious in-
stitution of slavery, which had been long discouraged
and eventually supressed throughout the British
wernespiprleauausidbleit, some its
and numerouse colonies. The argument
enthusiastic Free-traders
fallacies
were seduced by the freelypu t
forward
number,to
however,vote in s favourtuekofif
firmly
the
y t
n resolution.
tha. Asufficient
colours, and the motion
a majority of 41, there
the.
i resolution
was ultimately negatived by
being 234 in its favour and 275 against
The question was debated
supported on perfectly distinct and separate grounds.
One class would give a perfect monopoly to the colo-
nies, and enable them to insist upon anyprices,
however exorbitant, by excluding all slave-grown
sugar from our markets. Others, more moderate,
would be contented with the imposition of a dif-
ferential duty sufficient to ensure remunerative
prices to the West Indian producer, although he
should still persist in the careless and slovenly
system of cultivation for which he is, un-
fortunately, but too notorious ; while a third
party, infinitely more rational than their co-
adjutors, would content themselves with removing
the restrictions and disabilities by which the colonial
producers are encumbered, and which, to a certain
extent, at least, prevent them from fairly competing
with their most formidable adversaries the slave-
' holding states. The two former classes would

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