The Sun.
London, England, 1844-03-26 00:00:00

iin

LONDON, TUESDAY, MARCH 26, 13-14.

Lord BROUGHAM presented a petition from SHORT'S
ironworks, Lanarkshire, praying that females might
be allowed to resume their labour in the iron and
stone works in Scotland. He at the same time ad-
verted to the Factory Bill before the other House
and condemned the conduct of those parties who
wished to restrict the industry of the poor. Men,
he said, who would legislate so as to give twelve
hours' wages for ten hours' work, did not know what
they were talking about.
The Bishop of EXETER moved for copies of all
correspondence from the Poor-law Commissioners
relative to the case of MARY MILLER, who com-
mitted suicide in the Penzance union. After a few
remarks from Lord WIIARNCLIFEE, the motion was
withdrawn, and the House adjourned.
In the House of Commons, a division took place
on the second reading of.the Harrowgate and Knares-
borough Railway. Mr. LAwsos moved the second
reading, and Mr. B. DENISON opposed it in the
usual form. The second reading was carried by a
majority of seven.
After the presentation of petitions, Mr. MACAULAY
gave notice that, soon after Easter, he should submit
resolutions to the House, relative to the late trans-
actions in Gwalior.
Mr. HUME gave notice that, before the Commons
InclOsure Bill went into Committee, he should move
that it be read that day six months.
In answer to a question from Mr. FERRAND, Sir
JAMES GuattAm said he would postpone the further
consideration' of the Poor-law Amendment Bill
after Easter.

Lord PALMERSTON, in answer to a question from
Sir ROBERT PEEL, said, if he could not get prece-
dence on an early day after Easter for his motion on
the slave-trade, he would bring it on next Thursday,
the day for which it was appointed.
Sir ROBERT .PEEL gave notice that, on Wednesday
week, he should move that the House should adjourn
for the usual period during the Easter holidays.
Sir JAMES GRAHAM moved the Order of the Day
for going into Committee on the Factories Bill, and,
after adverting at great length to the anomalous po-
sition of the House of Commons on this question,
and stating the
_views of the Government, moved
that the order be postponed till Friday, for the pur-
pose 9.f giving the House time to consider what course
it might judge advisable to pursue. He at the same
time stated that the Government were determined to
resist any departure from the limit of twelve hours.
Lord- ASHLEY consented to the postponement. A
great: number of speakers followed, and no little
altercation took place in the Tory camp, Sir ROBERT
INoLts demanded an explanation from Sir JAMES
GRAHAM, or rather from Sir ROBERT PEEL,
whether the words " Jack Cade legislation" were
recognised as an expression of the sentiments of the
Government. Sir ROBERT PEEL kept his seat, and
Sir JAMES GRAHAM made the best apology he could.
The discussion altogether was too interesting to be
abridged, and we therefore refer the reader to the
report. The motion was then agreed to.
After some discussion as to Poor-laws in Ireland,
the Muse went into Committee on the Mutiny Bill.
On resuming, it forwarded several Bills a stage. Sir
R. PEEL then nominated the Committee on Contro-
verted Elections, and at Eleven o'Clock the House
adjoutned.

This Factory Bill has caused a complete revolution
in the House of Commons. The motion of Lord
ASH4Y has come upon Ministers like an earthquake.
They did not su.g>pect the fidelity of their Tory friends,
nor expect the 'ussistance of their Whig opponents, who
have saved, them from all but utter discomfiture.
What is the more remarkable still, however, is the
angry war which has sprung up in the Tory camp,
and the change of principles which the speeches of the
leading Tory Members- have brought to light. Sir
JAMES GRAHAM, once a Radical Reformer, the au-
thor of a pamplet for sponging out the national debt,
and for doing a great many things which he
now regards with inexpressible horror, last night
denounced Lord ASHLEY, the Tory Member
for Dorsetshire,, as a second JACK CADE. In
adverting to the motion of the Noble
.Lord he
emphatically said, "I do not think it too mtich to
state that, on the whole, this is the commencement of
a Jack CADE system of. legislation." This remark,
from such a speaker, naturally called forth loud
cheers froin all parts of the House, the Opposition
cheering the words as coming from an ex-Radical, and
the Tories re-echoing the shout to denounce the
Radical principles of Lord ASHLEY. And the noble
scion of nobility did not refuse the challenge. He
honestly proclaimed his principles, and recognised
JACK CADE as a brother. " I regret," said he,
" that my Right lion. Friend has introduced obser-
vations on proceedings which, but for him, would
never- have been thought of, and were forgotten.
I deplore that he should have said that
this is the beginning of a JACK CADE legis-
lation. I will not repudiate nor be ashamed of the
title, but at the same time I ask what gave birth to
JACK CADE ? Was it not that the people were
writhing under oppressions which they were not
able
.to bear, and, when smarting under these op-
pressions, they resolved to take the law into their own
hands; and if, for this, they were to be told that they
were rebels like JACK CADE, the Government were
only adding insult to injury." This language from
the son of a Peer, from a-supporter of The "'strong-
Ministry," the elect of the landlords, the tenant-
farmers, and the Church, must have made an awful ,

reason so many meetings have cately been held." To
say nothing of the sheer absurdity of his Lordship
taunting the League with being ignorant of the
nature and working of the corn-laws--just as if
those were not most likely to be best acquainted
with the extent and character of an evil who have
been among the deepest sufferers by it !—with what
justice and propriety can his Lordship deny the fact,
that the strong practical arguments of the League
have made, within the last year, numerous proselytes
among the English tenantry ? Have not Messrs. Con-

(DEN and BRIGHT, in the course of their recent visits to
the agricultural provinces, found some of their warmest
admirers among the farmQrs ? Have they not made eager
converts even in Duke-ridden Bucks ; and even in
Dorsetshire, under the very nose of Mr. BANKS,
found many of the tenantry reading their pamphlets
and circulars with the most diligent and respectful
attention ? These things admit of no doubt--they
are matters of public notoriety; and equally indis-
putable is it—whatever the Monopolists, for obvious

reasons, may choose to allege to the contrary—that
many of our most enlightened farmers are daily be-
coining more and more convinced of the injustice and
impolicy of the corn-laws.

We redeem our promise to-day, of examining the
statements comprised in Mr. JOHN GLADSTONE'S
letter, entitled " Considerations connected with the
Renewal of the Charter of the Bank of England."
In conformity with the example set him by his right
honourable leader, the. Premier, we apprehend the
sentiments of the President of the Board of Trade,
on the most important questions connected with the
present condition of our currency, are very strongly
opposed to those of his father. Nor are these soli-
' tart' examples—we believe—of similar remarkable
conflicts of opinion between the heads and the " heirs"
of leading families in Liverpool and Manchester.
But we notice the circumstance only to found upon
it an argument that the measures adopted by the
Government of that day, in the attempt to confirm the
currency to a standard price of gold, as determined
by the Act of 1819, had not the concurrerce of
many among the very highest practical authorities in
the kingdom, who then protested, and still live to de-
nounce it.
The opinions of a man like the senior member of
the house of GLADSTONE—the Cosmo " Priscus," as
it were, of his age and country—are entitled, of
course, to the most profound attention. From small
beginnings he has risen, by his own strong intellect,
intuitive sagacity, and unwearied energy (all ani-
mated by the most intrepid spirit of mercantile enter-
prise that could found and amass a princely fortune)
to the very highest rank in his profession—a pro-
fession assuredly foremost among the institutions
which social civilization has yet devised for the benefit
of all mankind. He has conferred honour and dis-
tinction, in his own person and by his own eminent
talents for private and public business, on that great
seat of commercial opulence and adventure, already
illustrious by the fame of its ROSCOE ; and he has
recorded his own name, influence, and connexions,
side by side with those other British establishments
whose wealth, liberality, and honour are to
be heard of even in the remotest regions
in every quarter of the globe, to which
our flag has ever been carried. It is not, therefore,
without diffidence that we shall venture to record our
dissent from some of the views which are announced
by such authority ; and we may feel the greater diffi-
culty in doing so because we are not permitted to
assume that these views are modified to any extent,
by the accident of his son's high and important con-
'lexicon with her MAJESTY'S Government, at the head
of which we find the right honourable sponsor for
the Bill of 1819. In a lettel from the gentleman of
whom we are writing,—Mr. GLADSTONE,
published in Monday's. Times, we extract, in fairness,
a passage that sets at rest all doubt about his own in-
dividual responsibility for the views in question :
"I think it my duty. thus to declare that I had no
communication on the subject of them with my son or
with any Member of the Government, directly or indi-
rectly, or indeed with any other person previous to doing
so ; they are the fruits of the experience of a long com-
mercial life; and under impressions of the importance of
their object, I ventured to submit them to the public
under my sole responsibility, however underserving of
confidence they probably may appear to many. I ought
also to add, that I am wholly unacquainted with the
views and intentions of the Government in connection
with this subject."

We therefore take the proposition as Mr. JOHN
CrILADSTONE'S Only ; and truth and conviction compel
us to repudiate some of them. Mr. JOHN GLAD_
STONE sets out (in his letter of the 22d instant) by
suggesting that—

" Experience seems to have decided that the existing
law—restricting the paper simulation to notes-of the value
of 5L and upwards, making those of the Bank of England
convertible into cash at the will of the holders, and those
of all other banking establishments so convertible either

' impression on the Treasury benches, and could not
fail to remind Sir JAMES GRAHAM of a venerable
proverb, which, in his fit of Tory enthusiasm, he had
utterly forgotten. All good men will rejoice in this
display, and will honour Lord ASHLEY for casting
to the winds political ties, when they interfere with
the wrongs of tl e oppressed. Let him pursue the
same honourable course, and he will compel even the
RICHMONDS and BUCKING HAMS to do justice to the
ogle.

The Monopolists still continue to hold their pro-
corn-law meetings, but they excite little or no public
interest—they attract no crowds—they collect no
vast public subscriptions—and they adduce no new
arguments that will bear the test of even an ordinary
examination. Though we hear of them haranguing
their dependents and tenant-farmers, now in this
county, and now in that, yet few, even of their own
organs, pay much attention to what they say ; and
their most indignant bursts of eloquence against their
powerful adversaries may be said, without exaggera-
tion, to make as little impression on the public mind
as if they were so many direct arguments in
favour of the five points of the Charter. How
different is the case when the League hold their
meetings at -Covent-garden Theatre ! Though
these meetings occur once in every seven days'
yet so far are they from becoming stale and weari-
some by such frequent repetition, that the public in-
terest attached to them grows more lively every week;
and vast crowds are constantly turned away from the
doors of the theatre wherein they are held, disap-
pointed in their hopes of obtaining admission. While
the Monopolists, with Dukes and Lords, and Heaven
knows how many wealthy landowners in their train,
can scarcely find an audience in the provinces—ex-
cept, indeed, among their own immediate dependents,
who dare not, however they might desire it, absent
themselves the League cannot find the means
of accommodating the hundreds who desire to
attend their meetings, notwithstanding that
those meetings are held weeklf for the Express pur-
pose of giving as many as possible an opportunity of
hearing the arguments in favour of a system of free,
unrestricted trade. We have been led to these re-
marks by the circumstance of a county meeting
haying just taken place in Roxburghshire, at which,
though the Monopolists appear to have mustered in
larger force than is usual with them, yet, so far as
we can: learn, infinitely fewer people were present
than have attended any one meeting of the League
at Covent Garden since the commencement of the
session. The tone held at this gathering of the
Roxburgh Monopolists was a singularly tame and
subdued one, clearly indicating that the party feel
by no means secure of their position, notwithstanding
the recent declaration of the GOvernment in their
behalf. To be sue Sir Jowl.; PRINGLE congra-
tuiated his he.* Arthe manner in which Ministers
had lately pen out on the corn• law question; but
there was not the slightest earnestness or exultation
in his language, nor did the meeting seem to evince—
if we may judge from the reports—the slightest feel-
ing on the subject. Lord POLWARTH, who followed
the worthy Baronet, observed, by way of explaining
the reasons why so many Monopolist gather-
ings have recently been got up—" it may
be necessary to reflect upon the circum-
stances now affecting the agricultural interest
throughout the country at large. It is not that there
is the slightest want of confidence in the people to-
wards the Government at the head of affairs ; but it
is because there is a body who have united for dis-
seminating their own views—a body who are actuated
by views which, if not purely selfish, are certainly
dictated by ignorance, and arise from those who hold
them not being aware of the extent of mischief they
are inculcating. But it is not only that they wish to
spread that view throughout the country,but it is because
they have openly promulgated that you, the tenantry,
have coincided with them in opinion. It is for that