The Sun.
London, England, 1844-11-23 00:00:00

LATE AND IMPORTANT FROM
OTAHEITE.
(From the Shipping Gazette.)
Accounts down to the 11th June have reached us
from Otaheite, when her Majesty's ship Thalia, 42,
and Salamander (steamer), were both off the port of
Papeite, in which harbour the French had the Uranie
frigate of 60 guns, and the Ambuscade, 32, with a
steamer. The atarte, 46, was gone to the Marquesas
for more troops.
The oppressions and cruelties of the French con-
tinued unabated, and their insolence towards the
English was even greater than before. The Thalia,
it appears, called there on her way to Valparaiso, in
consequence of having heard, while at Sydney, of the
uncheßked barbarities which the French were indulging
in at the expense of the poor Queen and the inhabitants
of Otaheite. _ _

" The French had hired one of the traitor chiefs to
go on board the Basilisk to assassinate the Queen
hut the base intention was happily discovered in time
to guard against it."
Captain Hope, of the Thalia, refused to salute the
French flag which had been so unaccountably hoisted
on the island. The French were fortifying in every
direction. _ .

_
From this information it must be supposed that
affairs in the Pacific are likely to become worse before
they can be better, and that disquiet never would
have advanced to its present height had our Admiral
kept the Vindictive at Otaheite, or proceeded thither
himself, with the Dublin. Admiral Thomas evinced
a considerable dislike to the scene of tumult, and kept
ata distrnce, enjoying a peaceful retirement amongst
the shades of Owhyhee.
Admiral Thomas had never been near Otaheite, not-
withstanding the disgraceful conduct of the French,
not only towards the natives, but towards our mer-
chants and other Englishmen there. The absence was
deemed extraordinary, as they were not ignorant that
the Admiral would pass near Otaheite on his passage
to Valparaiso from the Sandwich Islands. This was so
unlike the course which a British Admiral usually pur-
sues as a Commander-in-Chief, and its example bodes
so little good to the navy and to the distant d pen-
dencies of the state, that the Admiral's motives for
neglecting Otaheite should be explained—but no one
can explain them but himself.
Vessels 'with British registers, and laden with British
property, were continually ruinning between Sydney
and the islands while they were undisturbed by the
French. This trade, we presume, is at an end. Col-
lingwood's capkiiii has failed to preserve it. It is for
Coliizg,,,vood to repair the loss. She is on her way
to Otaheite.

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.
Fil‘)3l TAB EVENr.G PAPERS OF YESTERDAY.
GisOßE.—These views which we have steadily
?tit forth for a good many years, as to where the fault
really ihs for the less favourable aspects of our social
systesx, and that it does not really lie with the ma-
ligned, aral alleged merely Mammonite middle class
—we now see put forth in quarters possessed of ma-
chinery, powerful, when worked in a valid cause. The
Times °lasers that, in a country possessed of a vi-
csorons middle class—
,
" The Step: has not to set to work as soon as it fore-
sees an exigdncy, or conceives a design, putting all the
scattered parts of the ,ociai machine together, and dis-
ravering, at the last moment, to its cost, that it is nut
-prepared, for that scmething is missing, some joint has
gaped, or some member his shrunk since the last great
tern-out of the nation. fa such a predicament the re-
sults must always ho precarious and imperfect. But
with a large class, neither very rich nor very poor,
neitiher incapable of 4re at efforts nor above them, always
eneaged in extr.resive and ardeous designs, always aug-
menting and eg the resources of the country
the statesman has three parts of his work done to hand.
Even if lid slept, others worked. fle has only to speak
to a prepared people, and open a well filled magazine."
If the middle classes, adds the Times, " have been
banished from the country to the town, and made
thereby more democratic, whose fault is it? Not
their own." It is not• simply being " banished" from
the country to the town that makes people democratic.
it is very true that a whole population of mere cul•.
tivators is not usually democratic—nor anything else.
It is simply joiterhead. But neither are towns what is
usually under-toed by the epithet democratic (that is
to 5,2,v flivourable to throwing all power into all hands)
so long as towns are thriving-. Such democracy, in art
old country, is de:peration. IF tooting in the country
his been withdrawn, s!ep by step, from the numbers,
and if ihose numbers fled tooting fail them in the
towns also, their temper naturally takes the turn
of denincracy. But towns are loyal while they
thrlivr.:.* Those who lead the opinion of the towns,
in culinary times,. are
.trie class most anxious for
trafiglfillity-becanise tranquillity is the sine qua
nog to commercial confidence. They are ready
'to regard the lords nt:. the soil, or the men of
hereditary isanlc,7 as their leaders, provided they
find Li them ties real energy .of leadership
in the national cause. But the energy of exclusion
—the energy of monopoly—it is not surprising if
these energies excite no wsponding loyalty. Sir
Robert Peel the eider, in 1815, exclaimed against the
injustice of rewarding the steady loyalty of the manu-
facturing towns by restrictive corn-laws. It is true
that he did not exactly foresee, the form of the evils
which have followed. He foresaw rather :Erect decay
than increased concourse, stimulated efibrt, and giant
capitals. But are tot the increased intensity of the
struggle, and the progressive absorption ofsmall capitals,
symptoms of -artificial pressure and agonising exist-
ence ? Are they net attended with the swallowing up of
'he iuslependent middle class ? Is not that the sure
ibrerunner of decay—is it not that we should seek to
Temedy ? For our own part we must confess, it is
with little satisfaction or confidence that we hear of
vast and daring commercial operations—narrowed, as
the base of those operaisions is by restrictive laws.
'We hear, for instance, that our exports to China have
increased from a million to three millions and a half.
If this is accurate, it is superfluous to inquire
-what will come back ? As business is now done,
-the, system of credit, which facilitates vast
speculative enlargements of commercial operations
-in any promising quarter, makes momentary flushes
of prosperity, which can deceive no watchful econo-
mist, and should content no far-seeing states-
man. The sole true foundation for well-being is the
assurance to Labour of the products which Labour
needs. The capitalist builds his house upon sand,
if he builds it on speculation on the indefinite ex-
rent of any market—without reference to the ques-
tion of available returns—and returns available to
sour vents. The coarsest, the most everyday wants
clf Labour are the sole sure basis of commerce.
'Those being first considered, the superstructure of
elegant luxuries can be reared. But the instability
of the base is fatal to all that can be raised above
it ; and fatal, above all, to the existence of the
competent middle class, which depends on labouring
customers, and modestlprofits. To the ruin of this
class Par too much artiflcial and fine-spun legislation
has tended;—and very eminently, much of the legis-
lation with respect to Bankruptcy and Insolvency.
k correspondent, whose views on this subject we have
eviserted on former occasions, observes, " Now is the
time that new law-structures must be reared ; and, if
mot taken in hand seriously by the virtuous and hard-
thinking, the duty will be snatched at by the same sort
of intellect that has destroyed the ancient and rude insti-
tutions, which, though with an eedless cruelty, did keep
out the idle, and extravagant, and dishonest, from the
4easure that frugal men had collected. These pro-
tections have been destroyed, chiefly by the turbu-
lent tongue of a superficial law Lord. New protec-
tions must be devised by more healthy and more
honest intellect. Bad poor-laws have been the de-
struction or deterioration of the whole of the lower
classes ; so will bad insolvency-laws effect the same
sing for the middle classes. And what then ? A
lbw millionaires of the acre, the mill, and the ledger,
will live in the land amidst a whole population, the
victims of unmitigated poverty and demoralisation.
.And what then ? Revolution, with its most hideous
weapons, the brand and the knife 1" Heaven avert it !
But cod helps them who help themselves. We shall
return to this topic.
STANDARD.---A Whig Contemporary yester-
Clay expressed much anxiety at the elevation of Lord
Stanley to the peerage, upon grounds, the ingenious
discovery of which we may admire, but grounds
which we can scarcely understand. The journal in
question first assumes that Lord Stanley has taken
fflikht at the preparations for an invasion of the
Colonial department, made by certain important
I.lembers of the House ot Commons, viz.—
" Some people think that the Baron Bickerstaffe has
out and run from the provoking inquiries threatened
in the Commons next session--by Mr. Buller on emi-
ue.a,tion, by Mr. Hutt on the West Indies, by Mr. Scott,
(ea New South Wales, by Mr. Forster on the west coast
Africa, by Mr. A.,rlionby, Mr. Mangles, and Lord
Jbiwick on New Zealand, and by Mr. Ilarees on volenia.l
representation in the Imperial Parliament. There is
prieoability in the suspicien."
‘• Some people". may perhaps adopt this ingenious
reellition of Lord Stanley's elevation to the. peerage,
,it " other people " will think that the matter may
I e more simply explains-d by the hypothesis that, as
certainly the second in eminence of living Parliamen-
t .ry debaters, Lord Stanley may be placed more
r.sefully for the Administration and the country
le the House of Lords than in the House of Cctri-
rons, where the very first living debater alrew I y leads
e• majcsrAy, and even single-handed, without the
:,fGladstone, Sir if. Graham, &e , would
£ad it an easy matter t( deal ill debate with a five-
f, hi greater force of Pit-1- r;ril,entary ability than Lord
hii Russell and all his t'4o s;n it
c ern,Lord Palmerston
ir:ietniupdliendie,
icitantoartrial;:7-
1-:i
Culonial Secretaries ill
xl e Home of Lords,
to ewe that they would lose formidals2zee.riarioarnitihlisr:;
ti. ou,hha(4l,:ed by Lord Clmrieartle,
ye„;sr:l. Boiler, Hutt Scett, Forster, Aglionb;, Lord
L ewiek, and Mr. reniamin Hawes, or any of them.
7 journal, ho.vever, proceeds :
This 'Clodge' has about it all that super-subtlety for