The Sun.
London, England, 1844-03-18 00:00:00

Otte-31in

LONDON, MONDAY, MARCH IS, 1844,

What a' Quixotic age, is the one in which we
live—how full of philanthropy, and desire to remedy
evils that afflict our fellow-beings--and yet how
curiously does this Quixotic spirit, this philanthropic
longing, show itself ; each man appears to take care
of that with which he has no natural concern, and to
meddle with that which ought, of right, to be looked
to by others. Lord ASHLEY legislates for factories,
Mr. COBDEN exhibits the condition of the farm-
labourers ; and the House of Commons, during the
past week, has witnessed the Member for an agri-
cultural county decrying the unjust labour which the
manufacturing poor have to undergo, whilst the Mem-
ber for a commercial town has been seen exposing the
misery, the wretchedness, and the deplorable condi-
tion of the agricultural population. The Honourable
Member for Dorsetshire quotes Stockport as his
authority, whilst the Member for Stockport esta-
blishes his assertions by reference to Dorsetshire.
This is, after all, not a natural state of things. It
would be a far more rational and just pursuit for my
Lord ASHLEY to improve; or labour to improve, the
moodition of the farm-labourer on his own estates and
14'4,3 own neighbourhood, than to ramble abroad to
exercise that benevolence of disposition which cannot
rest, which must in any case be attempting to do
good, but which might be so beneficially exercised
un his own neighbours, and in his own locality. Ile
reverses the old adage " that charity begins at home,"
and his charity goes far a field, before it can find
objects upon which to exercise its benign in-
fluence. Now, in point of comfort, of intelligence,
of social condition in every possible way, the mann-
fatlturing population of this country stands immea-
sufAbly beyond the agricultural population. Go into
their houses, compare their habitations, and you will
at once admit, that the manufacturing labourer is
better housed. Look at their clothes, their house-
hold furniture, and the appurtenances to their houses.
Text their ability to read and write, their moral and
ioteliectual capacities, and then you will indeed
wander that Lord ASHLEY did not at once devote
himself to the worst fed, the worst provided for, and
the least enlightened class of society, rather than to
one which stands pre-eminently forward in com-
parison with the farm-labourers.
Why is Mr. COBDEN compelled to detail to the
country, by means of the House of Commons, and
through the Press, the condition of the poor farm la-
bourer, which is to be round in the reports of the
very Government Commissioners, and which he proves
by reference to books published by the House of
Commons, and whose authority is indisputable ?
Wby is he, not in self-vindication, for he has all
:Along challenged inquiry, and has avoided all conceal-
ment, but in order to rend the film asunder, which
those who support the corn-laws have thrown around
the agriculturist population, compelled to expose a far
worse state of society, than any which the manufac-
turing districts can show ? Solely and simply, because
the landowners wish to gain credit for a humanity they
do not possess, to obtain favour with the manufacturers
by making :some of them believe that by Time Bills,
they will gain the same wages for ten hours' labour,
that they now get for twelve; and thus they seek to
divert the attention of the working man from the
:fact, that the high price he is compelled to pay for
'glis daily bread,. is the real secret of the long-conti-
nued labour which they affect to deplore. If bread
was cheaper, less length of labour would be required
to earn the money to buy it, and thus a repeal
of the
scorn-laws would be the simplest and most effectual
short Time Bill. This the monopolists full well know,
but the knowledge is inconvenient, and the op/Aka_
lion awkward; they wish to keep up the price of
bread ; and so, without regard to the condition of the
Agricultural labourers, their serfs of the soil, they
try to get the manufacturers' wages kept
up by artificial means, whilst they leave
the natural means, a reduction in the price of food,
untried, Wages have no relation to the price of
bread ; that fallacy has long since been exploded ;
but, if the labourer has to earn a loaf of bread by
time work, the dearer the price of bread the longer
he must work. Thus corn-laws are to the labourer
_Long Time Bills, and legislation to abridge the hours
ot. labour, unaccompanied by legislation to lower the
prlo,e of bread, is all a farce.
Since Mr. COBDEN entered the House of Commons
facts huwe not been allowed to be kept back, and fic.
tions put forth as truths in the way they formerly used
to be. The principles of free trade are beginning to be
felt and • understood, and the condition of the farm la-
bourer is now in vain attempted to be identified either
with the corn-laws or with the interests of their sup-
porters, for if cheap bread be of importance to the
manufacturing labourer, it is still more so to the
ploughman, the peasant, and the farm labourer.
We shall pursue this subject in our next.

The union which happily exists between England
and France ought to be a subject of no ordinary con-
gratulation to all the friends of liberal institutions.
Never was such a union more desirable than at the
present remarkable epoch of constitutional govern- I

Our intelligence from America, and especially the
Philadelphia correspondence of a Morning Contem-
porary, continue to present the Oregon question as
the engrossing subject of political speculation in the
United States. It had formed the prominent topic of
discussion in Congress, during some days past, on the
28th ultimo, and the shape in which it was then in-
troduced before that body, was a resolution, moved
by a Mr. SEMPLE, "to give notice to Great Britain
to abrogate that portion of the treaty of 1818 which
provides for a joint occupation of the Oregon." This
resolution, if correctly reported, is very strangely
worded; but grammatical precision is, probably, un-
worthy of statesmen who are committed to the " go-
a-head " policy, so popular in the States at this mo-
ment. It may be presumed, however, that Congress
is not meant to be called upon to desire us to abrogate
the stipulations of a treaty (as Mr. SEMPLE'S words
might lead one to infer), but that it is to instruct
their Government to intimate to our's their own in-
tention of adopting that course. The account me
quote from presents an amusing picture of that cre-
dulous excitability, and that big talking, which to
subjects of old-established Powers of the first rank
and power, sound so oddly, that the momentary dis-
position to feel indignant is merged in enjoyment
at the absurdity of the language. The original mover
of the resolutions was also the leader in a career of
extravagant vaunting, and of garbled statements of
facts,—wherever these would have told, if fairly stated,
against the territorial claim of the States, through which
career it seems impossible to prevent our western
" brother" from running, when anybody has pre-
viously entered upon it. This political temperament
renders him in many respects like his own high-
pressure engines. He cannot be content with the
legitimate working of his own energy and powers.
These can do so much, that, without any more substantial
reason or necessity—he will compel them to do more.
He increases the pressure, and steams along at "an
awful rate" to the well-beloved music of his own
incessant paddling. He puts on a further pressure
still. From a just and manly confidence in the re-
sources of his country and his own personal powers,
he expands into vain-glorious boasting; from ear-
nestness he rises into arrogance ; from arrogance into
insolence; and when he finds he makes "strange way"
by exalting the pretensions of the Republic and its
citizens, he betakes himself to disparaging those of
every other nation and its subjects. At length, he is
apt to overdo the thing, and an explosion takes place,
which is likely to be more harmful to his own craft
than to those of his neighbours.
A Mr. ATCHESON, in supporting the resolution in
question, declared that " the whole of the 'Western
States were unanimous in not relinquishing one inch
of Oregon." It will be time enough to prove this de.
termination when they have got the territory. He said
" the question was one of national honour." For
that very reason, we have already shown, the States
should feel themselves precluded from claiming what
is not their own ; and what, being our's, upon the same
principle, we never can concede. He complained,
first, "that in the Oregon, subjects of the United States
were dragged before British tribunal; and second, that,
"British laws now extend over the whole region.,
A man of calmer judgment could scarcely have sug-
gested so strong a case of presumption against any
possessory or paramount rights on the part of the
States,—so much in favour both of the one and
the other, on the part of Great Britain,—as these
two facts to which he has helped us. This gentleman
felt the weakness of his case, and therefore changed
the ground on which he supported the resolution into
this plan for a war with England : " The West has
no more reason to desire war than the East or the
South. But if ever war do come, it had better be with
England than any other country, ' as a remembrance of
former wrongs would only make us strike the harder.' "
This is artless in an orator, who should better conceal
the animus of his tirade ; but here comes the high pres-
sure, and the explosion of his accumulated folly :
" He thought a war would result to England in the
loss of Canada and the West Indies. Let but one
drop of American blood be spilt in Oregon, and you
will have have war to the knife, and pin knife
to the han4le." " The two steam-frigates, and

the one building; And the two small *Arne Ts," (we

The case of the Reverend Mr. MARSH was again
ncidentally referred to in the House of Lords on
Friday night by Lord CAMPBELL, on which occasion
the Bishop of PETERBOROUGH "frankly admitted that
he had felt something like an unwillingness to pro-
ceed against a clergyman, when he was accused by a
person of ill-fame of an act committed four years
ago. The fact of the accusation was all he knew of
the case at first, and when further inquiries were
made, he was told that Mr. MARSH had paid a visit
to this unhappy female at Paris four years ago.
Under these circumstances, while there was living in
the parsonage an aged and excellent mother, in a very
precarious state of health, to whom any agitation
might have been fatal, he had felt thankful, and he
was sure their Lordships would enter into his feel-
ings—he had felt thankful that there was an oppor-
tunity given him to be backward in this case, until
something more came to light which would justify
him in proceeding." We cannot at all sympathise
with the Rev. Prelate's expression of thankfulness for
having been furnished with an excuse for being
" backward" in investigating such an aggravated case
as that of the Rev. Mr. MARSH, in consequence of
his aged mother's delicate state of health. He should
have borne in mind—to the exclusion of all inferior
considerations—that he was a high and responsible
dignitary of the Established Church, and as such,
that it was his bounden, his sacred duty to probe
the matter to the quick, the instant the crying scandal
was first made known to him. " Fiat justitia,' ruat
ccelum," should have been the stern and wholesome
principle he should have taken as his rule of action.
In criminal cases, the law makes no attempt to shield
the delinquent or let him off easily, out of a tender
compassion for the feelings of those members of his
family who may be heart-broken by his exposure and
and his punishment, but adopts a lofty, uncompro-
mising course of proceeding without favour or affec-
tion. If such be the stern, moral course pursued by
the Law, surely it is still more incumbent on the
Church to take an unfaltering, impartial view of such
cases of clerical delinquency as maychance to fall
under its cognizance ; for the Law derives its autho-

rity merely from man, but the Church derives it--or
professes to derive it—direct from the DEITY, and
riowher do we find it ordained in Holy Writ that

f fialltishajl have the shield of protection thrown