The Sun.
London, England, 1850-02-22 00:00:00

Until% gilitit

LONDON, FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 1850.

Amusingly enough the Protectionists are actually
pluming themselves on the result of last night's divi-
sion in the Commons. What where the numbers ?
they inquire in a tone of exultation. For Mr.
DISRAELI'S motion, 252. Against it, 273. Majority
for Government, 21. " This," saith the organ of
monopoly, floating over the bottomless gulf of
Oblivion, with the red flag of Protection nailed to the
mast, " this is a virtual majority for Protection.
Deduct the placemen who voted with Ministers, and
to-morrow the Court Circular would have announced
that Lord STANLEY had the honour of an interview
with her MAJESTY yesterday." A. DANIEL! yea, a
very DANIEL come to judgment! "Deduct,"
say we, " from the foregoing declarations
all its gigantic absurdity and impossibility, and within
a fortnight all the journals of Europe would contain
the particulars of a tremendous revolution in this
country." Little do these wiseacres of the Country
Party dream of the terrific powers, the irrepressible
passions, the all-conquering ambition they are now
trifling with. The ground on which they are
performing their grotesque antics is already quicken-
ing with a political
, ityNe,aorutlhdquhaeke.well Before
that itthbeye tsohoolualtde
is a story told by certain travel-
;ms el, e
fboerw at hr
ee
lets cf countries in which the soil is perfo-
rated by the craters of apparently extinct volcanoes,
into which cavities, if a pebble be cast, the abyss
groans, the earth becomes tormented by sudden Con-
vulsione, and at length an eruption of great violence
commences, the mountain vomiting forth as of old
its molten lava and red hot ashes. It may be so
with reference to the frivolous taunts and pertina-
cious provocations of Protection, continually hurled as
they are from county platforms and from the Oppo-
sition benches of the Parliament into the seemingly
extinct volcano of the Anti-Corn-law agitation. Let
these legislative triflers be more cautious, if they
have any regard whatever for the maintenance of na-
tional tranquillity. Let them beware of rousing
that storm which of all tempests is the least easily
allayed—the storm of popular indignation! They
are rubbing away very industriously at the old lamp
of Protection : let them beware, we repeat—or they
may summon up the Destroying Genius of Re-
bellion
We have read descriptions of the hurricanes that
sometimes blow across the level countries of America
—where at the indications of their approach
the inhabitants of a house descend into
its subterraneous cellars, buttoning down the
trap door afterwards. Not unfrequently, when
those hurricanes have passed over, and the people
emerge from their refuge underground, they behold
nothing but the sky overhead—all vestige of their
dwelling•house having disappeared. During 1848, and
many times previously, we have witnessed political
hurricanes quite as destructive—hurricanes sweeping
away like dust the colossal institutions of the dif-
ferent states of Christendom, and clearing the ground
for the erection of new fabrics of a severely Demo-
cratic character. Those men in England who are
now tempting upon themselves their evil des-
tiny should bear in recollection that, in the midst
of these hurricanes of popular wrath, they
will find no crevice in which to creep from the fury
of the prevailing devastation. Before the withering
breath of a revolution men as well as institutions are
liable to perish. They should take these considera-
tions into account, for we tell them plainly, we tell
them boldly, and without any hesitation whatever—
Before you can restore the great wrong of Mono-
poly, before you can cause the law to retrograde
from the present system of unrestricted commerce,
before you can contrive to replace the new scheme of
Free Trade by the old scheme of Protection, you will
lied it necessary to force the country through all the
horrors of a Revolution /

Last evening it was most solemnly and emphati-
cally proclaimed in the British House of Commons

by the late Prime Minister of England—" It is my
firm belief that protection never will and never can be
revived." It assuredly never will be revived, it never
can be revived, except by force of bayonets and gun-
powder.

Nevertheless while we are profoundly eon.