The Sun.
London, England, 1844-08-08 00:00:00

((i betnills

LONDON, THURSDAY, AUGUST 8, 1844.

The Lords met at Half-past Four o'clock, when
several Bills brought up from the Commons were
agreed to, and others were hurried through the first,
second, or third reading. The House adjourned at a
Quarter-past Seven.
The Commons met at Twelve o'clock, when Sir
ROBERT PEEL gave notice, that on this day he
should move that the House adjourn till Saturday,
when he would propose that the House should ad-
journ to some future day. This announcement evi-
dently refers to the decision of the Judges on the
Irish State Trials. Sir J. GRAHAM subsequently said
that Sir R. PEEL would make the announcement on
Friday.
A brief discussion took place relative to the contest
between France and Morocco, and the affair of Mr.
PRITCHARD, but it led to no result. The Govern-
ment, we think wisely, gave no information. They
must be guided by the course of events, and at pre-
rent events are so dubioua:that no statesman could
give any satisfactory explanation.
The report of the Roman Catholic Penal Repeal
Bill was received, and the Bill was ordered to be
read a third time this day at three o'clock.
The Insolvent Debtors Bill was read a third time
and passed.
Sir J. GRAHAM obtained leave to bring in a Bill
for the better regulation of medical practice through-
out the United Kingdom.
The House adjourned at Eight o'clock.

In utter disregard of all the funereal laments of the
Morning Herald, which has, over and over again,
announced to its readers the fact of the Anti-Corn-
law League's demise—affecting, even, with a Phari-
saical affectation of sympathy (worthy of the Bishop of
LONDON himself), to celebrate its obsequies—this
idomitable body is still alive and in the flesh. It
still survives in all the vigour of its organisation, to
shock the conventional prudery of our Contemporary's
politics by the liberal tone of its principles, and its
open addiction to the scandalous facilities of free-trad-
ing ! What will be thought, in Shoe-lane, of the li-
cense which Mr. COBDEN allows himself in Covent-
garden Theatre, in toying with such disreputable topics
as political economy, and in irreverently insisting on
the duty of increasing the number of mouths fed, as
prior and paramount to that of devising new churches
to be built; we dare not trust ourselves to anticipate.
Enough for us, that the League, last night, held its
four-and-twentieth meeting, being the last for the
season, in the noble edifice whose walls have been.so
often thronged by thousands of eager auditors of both
sexes, assembled to hear the views of the League
developed and illustrated ; and perhaps on no former
occasion were greater numbers ever congregated at
these remarkable reunions, with more impressive
effect. For the interesting details connected with the
composition and aspect of the meeting, and its im-
portant proceedings, we must refer the reader
to the careful report we have given in another part of
our impression. No one can peruse that report with-
out the conviction that the power of the League—
whether for good or evil—has become an enormous
one. If this conviction should operate, as we think
it almost certainly will do, to prompt the public
at large to a serious examination of the causes
which can have given birth to so formidable
a creation—this Earth-born Myrmidon," as
we may well term it, from its connection with
the soil—the 14 eague—will have accomplished the
most important end and the most legitimate
object of its existence. It will have aroused that
spirit of inquiry, and ensured that elimination of
truth to which it has devoted its marvellous energies,
its untiring industry, and its still unfailing means.
The ultimate and not distant result will doubtless be,
to secure the concurrence of the nation and the fiat
of the Legislature in favour of the views it has so
forcibly advocated and so widely diffused.
Mr. G. WILSON, the Chairman, aptly illustrated
these three points—the energy, the unwearied
exertions, and the increasing influence of the
League—by showing that in the interval which
had elapsed since its last public meeting, it had been
addressing itself, almost exclusively, to the important
object of watching and stimulating the electoral
registration. He showed that their able agents had
been dispatched for this purpose to no less than 140
boroughs, " in which they thought there was a reason-
able expectation that an impression might be made,"
prior to the advent of a general Parliamentary
election. And, he instanced the City of London
and the Southern Division of the county of Lancaster
as localities in which these efforts had been already
attended with gratifying indications of success
Seeing that the House of Commons, as at present
constituted, presents, according to the observation
of Mr. VILLIERS, on a former occasion, no re-
flection of the public mind on this question of
corn-law monopoly, he justly argued that it
devolved upon the Council of the League to
adopt all possible measures that might prepare
the electoral body, in due time, for a wise and
discriminating exercise of their franchise in return-
ing, when the occasion should offer,, such representa-
tives only as would carry out the two main ob-
jects of abolishing the corn-law restrictions in parti-
cular, and of establishing a system of free trade in
general.
The principal speeches of the evening were those of
Mr. M. GIBSON, M.P. (whose improvement, in all
respects, of matter and manner, forces itself upon our
observation with every fresh address which he de-
livers), and Mr. COBDEN, M.P. Mr. GIBSON rallied
the Protection people very happily on the magniloquent
failures of the British Agricultural Protection So-
ciecty, and the still more unfortunate break dOwn of
the Council of the Society for the Protection of,
British Agriculture. He contrasted their progress of
retrogression with the advance of the League; and
the backwardness of their supporters with the fervour
that had induced upwards of 1,200 freeholders of
Northamptonshire, supporters of the League, to sign
a requisition to Mr. COBDEN to come among
than to discuss these monopoly questions in an open-
air meeting. But no proposition was enforced with
more vigour or effect by Mr. Ginsox than that which
we ourselves have always desired to keep before the
public in its true light—namely, that the relief and
supply of physical wants must precede all attempts to
establish any extensive and efficacious system of moral
instruction or religious education. All experience of
human nature—all the deductions of common sense
—show that this is an- immutable truth. The
mind is in no condition to be disciplined, or
informed, or expanded, whilst the physical
machine is suffering under privation, and dis-
ease, and all their consequent derangements. Now
laws which make bread artificially dear are at the
very root of these evils of physical disorganisation.
That the' landowner, whose exorbitant rentals are
identified with the maintenance of monopoly restric-
tions, or the importation of cheap grown corn of
foreign soils, should keep up the scale of tkeir incomes;
it is now,by an imperative statute, required, that the:poor,
whose health of body and consequent powers ofintellect
are dependent on an adequate and economic supply
of wholesome bread, should be kepi down to a
minimum, insufficient, proportion of the first necessary
of human subsistence, and abandoned in the mean-
time to the misery, the suffering and feebleness, and
moral degradation and torpor, which are the inevit-
able adjuncts of such privations. In this fact consists
the first and greatest of the many crimes chargeable
on the existing corn-laws. But this is the solemn lesson
which the League (whether in a rough or an accep-
table manner—a tone of conciliation or a language of
defiance—no matter) has persisted in teaching, by the
common confession of its enemies and its friends. The
lesson is one worthy to be written in letters of gold