The Sun.
London, England, 1850-10-09 00:00:00

with conjectures. Nevertheless, in spite of the cir-
cumstance that his views are thereby rendered occa-
sionally superficial, the opinions entertained of us
by a foreigner, especially when he happens to be
gifted with impartiality as well as intelligence, is in-
variably worthy of our curiosity and consideration.
Such a commentator on her social aspect and her
political attitude, England has recently found in M.
DE LAMARTINE. That illustrious statesman having
very recently been called by private transactions to visit
this island, has, immediately on his return to France,
published his impressions upon the condition of the
British community in the pages of his journal, the
Conseiller du Peuple. From the fragmentary pas.
sages already issued in that periodical, it becomes ma-
nifest that the great champion of French democracy
has been fairly surprised into admiration. Insomuch
that, in spite of a certain unconquerable pique against
some of our aristocratic institutions, his panegyrics
are uttered at once with fervour and spontaneity. Al-
ready, as he himself observes, he had twice before visited
the shores of England. Once in 1822, when our
Government was acting a part little nobler than that
of " the seide of despotism." Once in 1830, when
our energies were palsied by the sufferings of Ireland,
then "literally dying of inanition." Upon both
occasions he had witnessed only the most ghastly and
lugubrious spectacles, tokens of the popular hatred
for their administrators, or of the ruinous cessation of
employment. In 1822, he had felt " the ground trem-
bling under the steps of the discontented multitude*
who assembled at the slightest appeal or opportunity.*
In 2830, he had "seen the armies of workmen without
bread dismissed by the manufacturers," he had seen
" those black columns, with their mud-coloured
jackets, dotting the avenues and streets of London,
like columns of insects, whose nests had been upset,
and who blackened the soil under their footsteps." He
returns to England in the September of 1850, after
the rest of the European world has been ravaged by
revolutions, and the contrast presented by every-
thing which meets his observation among ourselves
is sufficiently admirable and surprising to extort
from him words of the most eulogistic amazement.
He finds no longer amongst us a wide-spread discon-
tent, a calamitous insufficiency of occupation, a loathing
for our rulers, or a predisposition for insurrection—
"sinister symptoms" which twice before, namely, in
the years already mentioned, 1822 and 1830, had in-
duced him to "prognosticate the approaching decline
and fall of this great and mysterious country." In lieu of
all these sombre and melancholy portents ofdisaster, M,
DE LAMARTINE discovers England in 1850 to be thriving
throughout. He confesses that he finds it impossible
not to be dazzled by the immense progress made
in these islands during the last twenty
years in almost everything that at all ad-
mitted of development. He finds the population
strangely multiplied, the general wealth marvellously
increased, industry protected, navigation improved,
railroads threading the whole land in a complicated
iron network, our principal cities and our metropolis
adorned with costly edifices and with a variety of
splendid embellishments. What, however, especially
arrests his observation is the astonishing increase
in the number of our fraternal associations and
charitable establishments. In all this he recognizes
the evidences of common sense and of egotism, but
through this egotism and common sense he re-
cognizes also virtue. " Old England," he says in
solution of the change, " Old England, the veritable
patrician republic, under her frontispiece of mo-
narchy, feels, without doubt, that the stones of her
feodal edifice are becoming disjoined, and might
tumble under the blast of the age, if
she did not bind them together every day
by the cement of her institutions in favour
of her people." Her prudence in acting thus bene-
ficently he designates by a magnificent phrase, " the
Machiavelism of Virtue To say that such a genial
and flattering estimate of our condition is in no
respect exhilarating, would be to talk in a manner
altogether nonsensical—what though a familiarity
with the many unsatisfied wants of the epoch pre-
vents us, while recognizing the veracity of the picture,
from acknowledging its completeness. flaying
celebrated the astonishing increase in all di-
rections of. the English capital, " that city
of two millions six hundred thousand inhabitants,"
having scanned its improvement in its centre and in
its extremities, in the City itself, which he terms
" the furnace, at the same time blackened and
infect, of this human ebullition," or in Hamp-
stead, which he christens the St. Cloud of Lon-
don—M. DE LIMARTINS observes generally,
of the surrounding country, " Everything,
is being built ; and everything is smoking, hurrying
on, so perfectly alive is this soil ; one feels that the
people are eager to seize o❑ the new sense of circula-
tion which PROVIDENCE has bestowed on man." Such
is the ♦ivid and encouraging picture, drawn by a
master- hand, of the aspect at the present period pre-
sented to the eye of a stranger by Great Britain. It
is a noble tribute of regard paid to this " patrician
republic " by a great Democrat, the homage offered
to England by LAMARTINE.

" What shall we do? whither shall we turn ? what
course shall we now pursue ?" are the questions by
which the discomfited Protectionists now address each
other throughout the length and breadth of the land !
" Deprived of the formidable weapon by which we
have hitherto assailed the Legislature, what hope
remains of the re-imposition of a tax on food, the
restoration of that dearly loved and highly prized
monopoly for which we have struggled with such
desperate energy, such unflinching courage ?"
Alas ! we are not ruined ; there is still
room for agricultural improvement. Farmers
may expend their capital on the proper cultivation of
the soil. They may apply their labour to its per •
manent amelioration, with a reasonable hope of re-
ceiving a fair remuneration for their outlay. They
are actually encouraged to drain it—to manure it—
to level fences—in fact, to proceed as in days of yore,
when the corn-laws prevented the possibility of fo-
reign competition ; and where there is " a tenant of
capital, skill, and industry," let him receive " the
ample and full security of a lease," provided always
that " he be a man able to make use of the advantage
of his lease, that as he obtains security for his outlay, he
shall be able and willing to make profit of that outlay--
that he shall be willing to improve his land, if he has
the s ecurity that he shall not be deprived of the ad-
vantages he may expect from his expenditure."

These are startling recommendations proceeding
from the acknowledged leader of the Protectionists,
from the modern Roland, on whose .indomitable
prowess the agriculturists relied for the retrieval of
past defeats, and the restoration of those palmy
days when the entire community paid tribute
to the farmer. It was no reckless Free-trader,
no doubtful politician who acknowledged that there
is yet " room for the profitable investment of capital
in wheat cultivation," and who exhorted the tenant-
farmers to "go on boldly, notwithstanding the dis-
couraging position of agricultural affairs generally,
and improve the land." No, it was the noble heir of ,
Derby—the future Prime Minister, who is to preside
over the Cabinet—whose voice will be paramount in
Downing-street and in the Ministerial Councils when
the Whigs shall be ejected from office, and place and
power be in the hands of the reactionaries. The long.
continued silence of DISRAELI was sufficiently
ominous, and conveyed impressions of sinister import
to the bucolic heart. But what was even that
quiescence to the well-considered and deliberate pro-
clamation of the recognised chief, the startling ac-
tivity of STANLEY ?

Some other topic must now be agitated, a new
champ de battaille must be selected, on -which
they can enter with a reasonable prospect of success,
if they are not willing to surrender their arms and
march out from the captured citadel without the ho..
noura of war, to relinquish their former trophies, and
henceforward to spend their days in inglorious ease,
and to convert their political swords and shields into
ploughshares and reaping-hooks. But what i 3 that
topic which affords a chance of retrieving their former
fortunes, and obtaining the support of the industrious
population of the British empire ? That is the question.
Only indicate the direction, and they will fearlessly
pursue the path. We will inform them. Our coun -
eels shall be honest and straightforward, involving no
departure from principle on their part, no fighting
under new banners. Let them take up the great and
all-important question cf the currency, which, al-
though it has long remained in abeyance, has never
been formally abandoned—which has been sup-
ported_ by STANLEY, by DISRAELI, by 1161 - _