The Sun.
London, England, 1844-02-28 00:00:00

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LONDON, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 1844.

The Marquis of LANSDOWNE presented a petition
from the Magistrates of Glasgow, against the impo-
sition of religious tests upon professors in the Univer-
sity of that city, and prayed that those tests might be
abolished. They excepted, however, professors of
theology.

Lord CAMPBELL hoped the Noble Marquis would
bring in a Bill on the subject. The law, in fact, was
obsolete, and some of the most eminent professors of
language and science would not subscribe the Con-
fession of Faith.

Lord BROUGHAM mentioned a number of eminent
men in the University of Edinburgh and Glasgow
who were Episcopalians, and among others, his dis-
tinguished and reverend relative, Professor DALZIEL.
Lord HADDINGTON was favourable to the prayer
of the petition, and there is every probability
therefore, that a Bill will be brought in to make the
law consistent with a practice established by universal

consent.
The House adjourned at Half-past Five o'clock.
In the House of Commons, after the presentation
of petitions, Mr. COBDEN postponed his motion for a
Select Committee to inquire into the effects of the
corn-laws on farmers and farm labourers, for a fort-

night.
-Mr. WYSE gave notice that on Tuesday, the 12th
of March, he would bring forward a motion for the
universal education of the Catholics of Ireland, and

especially of those persons intended for the priest-
hood.
Mr. THOMAS DUNCOMBE gave notice that
on the first supply day he would move for
a return of all the moneys paid to FREDERICK BOND
HUGHES, CHARLES Ross, and JOHN JACKSON, who
had been employed by the Government to take notes
relative to the repeal agitation in Ireland. The men-,
tion of the names of these short-hand writers, and the
papers with -which some of them were connected,
excited .much laughter. . . _
Mr. LEADER moved for numerous returns respect-
ing the expenses incurred in repressing the rebellion
in Canada, the Canada Tenures Act, and a variety of
other matters connected with that colony, which were
agreed to.
In answer to a question from Mr. HUME, Lord
STANLEY said he could not state the exact number of
Canadian exiles now in Van Diemen's Land who
had been pardoned, but he could state generally
that every case not marked by peculiar aggravation
had been mercifully considered by the Crown.
Sir D. NORREYS put several questions to the
Home Secretary relative to the poor-laws in Ireland;
the Hon. Member not considering the answers of Sir
JAMES GRAHAM satisfactory, gave notice that he
would move for a Select Committee on the state of
the law unless the Government took up the subject.
In answer to a question from Mr. W. 0. STAN-
LEY relative to pauper lunatics in Wales, Sir JAMES
GRAHAM said no subject could be more important,
but he was not prepared to say at present that he
would introduce a measure to compel townships to
erect lunatic asylums.
Sir HENRY HARDINGE said, in reference to a
question put to him formerly, and also last evening,
with regard to the collision which had taken place
between some of the inhabitants of Brighton and the
soldiers in garrison, that he wished to impute no
blame to the inhabitants, that the soldiers had re-
ceived-no provocation for the outrage they had com-
mitted, and that the offenders had been justly sen-
tenced to ten months' imprisonment. The Com-
mander-in-Chief had since issued an order that no
soldier should enter the town, unless accompanied
by a non-commissioned officer.
In answer to a question from Mr. HINDLEY, Sir
ROBERT PEEL said he had no reason to doubt that
the announcement published by the Moniteur relative
to Otaheite, which had appeared in the Times, was
authentic, and that the King of the FRENCH and his
Council had acted on the impulse of their own feel-
ings. He believed the act of Admiral DUPETIT
THOUARS was disowned by the French Government.
Mr. TURNER gave notice that, on a future day,
he would move that duelling was immoral in its ten-
dency, and contrary to Divine command. The Hon.
Member tried to elicit from Sir ROBERT PEEL what
was his opinion on the subject, but the Right Hon.
Baronet reserved himself till the question should
be regularly before the House.
Sir ROBERT PEEL, in answer to a question from
Mr. V. STUART, said he was not prepared to give any
information relative to the expulsion of certain Poles
from the Duchy of Posen, by order of the King of
PRUSSIA.

Mr. WALLACE then brought forward his motion re-
lative to judicial establishments in Scotland, and after
pointing out their defects, moved an address to the
Crown, praying that her Majesty would be pleased to
command that the sittings of the Court of Session
shall be extended by two months in each year. No
Member seconded the motion, which of course was
lost.

Lord JOHN MANNEits moved an address to her
MAJESTY, representing that the detention of Don
CARLOS in France is contrary to justice and the ho-
nour of this country, and praying the QUEEN to in-
tercede with Louis PHILIPPE for his deliverance.

Sir R. PEEL opposed the motion, and was sup-
ported by Lord PALMERSTON. Both believed that
Don CARLOS was treated with every kindness and
respect to which he was entitled.
Several Hon. Members followed; eventually the
motion was negatived without a division.
Capt. BERNAL'S motion for a copy of the address
of the Dublin Protestant Operative Association to
the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, was rejected by a
majority of 51.
The third reading of the Horse-racing Penalties
Bill was carried by a majority of 66.
The other Orders of the Day were then disposed
of, and the House adjourned till Thursday.

The question of duelling was incidentally alluded
to last night in the House of Commons by Mr.
TURNER, who asked Sir IL PEEL whether he were
prepared to bring in a Bill for the more effectual
prevention of that practice. In reply the Premier
remarked that Government had had an opportunity
during the recess, of which they had availed them-
selves, of showing their disposition to discourage
duelling, so far as it could be discouraged by the Ex-
ecutive power, and that therefore they were not
prepared to introduce any new legislative
enactment on the subject. He added that it
was impossible not to see that the practice
of duelling was on the decline ; that the influence of
civilisation was producing its necessary effect ; and
that this was another reason why he should deprecate
any active and direct interference on the part of the
House. We think there is much good sense in these
remarks of Sir ROBERT PEEL. Civilisation is, in-
deed, producing "its necessary effects," as regards
the barbarous custom of duelling. The race of fire-
eaters is extinct ; and we no longer have CAMELFORDS
and FITZGERALDS among us, who are ready to re-
sort to the pistol on the slightest provocation. Were
it possible that men of their stamp could re-appear, they
would instantly be scouted from society, which has
for many a year past set its face against the practic
of appealing to the "laws of honour," except in cases
of the most aggravated character. Under these cir-
cumstances, seeing how rare duels are now, compared
with what they used to be—bearing in mind also that
there are occasions, though happily of most unfrequent
occurrence, when a recourse to the pistol becomes a
matter of cruel and stringent necessity, we do think
that the Premier has consulted the dictates of good
sense and discretion in leaving the abolition of the
practice to the progress of civilisation. No legislative
interference could put an immediate stop to the evil ;
for a quick, jealous sense of honour, stung to madness
by some deadly insult or injury, would be pretty
sure to set at naught all the proprieties of Parlia-
ment; and there is just a possibility that by public
Attention being directed too vigilantly to the subject,
the evil of duelling might be increased, instead of di-
minished. At least, history shows us that this
was the case in the days of LOUIS THE
FOURTEENTH. That Illustrious Monarch, it may
be remembered, was always strongly opposed
to the habit, so common in his time, among French
gentlemen of settling their private quarrels by the
sword—the favourite weapon ; and, by way of putting
a stop to such a barbarous practice, he established a
Court of Honour, which was presided over by military
men, chiefly Marshals of France, who were to decide
upon the right or the wrong of every dispute brought
before them, and whose verdict was to be held as final.
But what was the consequence of this interference?
Why just this, that so far from duels being dimi-
nished, they increased in frequency; and what was
worse, instead :of being confined as before, for the
most part, to the military and aristocratic circles,
they spread among the plebeian classes of society ;
and as the Court of Honour, from the nature of its
constitution, could not, and would not, take notice of
the quarrels of the mere canaille—as all men below a
certain station were haughtily styled in those exclu-
sive times—the Court fell gradually into desuetude,
and then, and not till then, did the practice of
duelling begin to decline. Ridicule effected what
the Royal Arbiter of Europe, in the plenitude of
his authority, was unable to effect, oven with the
Bastile at his back ; and the duel was in a great de-
gree laughed out of fashion solely by reason of
its growing frequency among the untitled and un-
distinguished masses. And certainly it is a far
fitter theme for popular contempt and ridicule,
than for the interference of the Executive
power. To interpose formally by Act of Par-
liament is to invest the subjeCt with too much
consequence—to raise it to an, importance that
does not and ought not to belong to it ; for in
nine cases out of ten the duel is an act of sheer folly
and absurdity, and we do not see why such a deli-
berate fool as he is, who has recourse to a pistol on
the slightest provocation, should not be left to the
consequences of his own infatuation, more espe.
cially as the law has still sufficient length of
arm to reach bim. The good taste and good

feeling of modern society repudiates the duellist
who cannot show that he has been Inade one by the
most inexorable necessity; it thinks none the better
of him for having popped at his man at Chalk Farm
or Battersea; and it is to-the gradual spread of this
wholesome social feeling among us, that we look with
confidence, at no distant day, to the utter abolition of
the practice of duelling.

The Anti-Corn-law League has just gained another
signal triumph over agricultural prejudices. At
Glouceiter, on Saturday laSt, a deputation consisting
of Mr. COBDEN, Colonel THOMPSON, and some other
members of this influential confederacy, addressed an
assembly of upwards of four thousand persons, a large
number of whom were farmers, at the Shire-hall ;
and, notwithstanding that the monopolists offered
every opposition in their power, the deputation were
received and listened to with marked respect, and a
resolution in favour of free-trade was proposed and
carried by an overwhelming majority, only about a
dozen hands being heldup against it. Earl Ducts,
who presided, and who is well known to be one of the
most scientific agriculturists in the kingdom, expressed
himself warmly in favour of the League, whose object,
he justly said, was not to injure the farmer, but to
benefit every class of the community, from the peer to
the peasant. The opinions of an intelligent dispas-
sionate observer, like the Noble Lord, who is one of
the largest land-owners in Gloucestershire, and as he
himself told the meeting, has been " upwards of three-
and-twenty years engaged in agricultural pursuits,"
is calculated to have great weight with all thinking
people, and will make a deeper impression on their
minds than a hundred such monopoly-manifestos as
that issued the other day by the Duke of NORTHUM-
BERLAND, who, though a great man by the accident of
birth, is, by the ordination of nature, a very small
logician. Mr. COBDENr who followed Earl DUCIE,
expressed himself with his usual clearness, manliness,
and simplicity. His speech abounded in practical
arguments ; and long before he sat down he had dis-
armed opposition of its force, and made proselytes of
all who had heads to understand and hearts to feel
the acuteness, the cogency, and the healthy, unaf-
fected feeling that characterised his observations.
" Does the price of land rise or fall with the price of
corn ?" inquired the Hon. Member for Stockport, the
unbeloved of Col. SDITHORP, and the bugbear of Mr.
FERRAND. "He would ask, would land let at the same
price when corn was twenty shillings a quarter as
when it was eighty shillings ?—(Cries of No, no.')
Well, then, if it would not, the object in keeping up the
price of corn must be to keep up the price of land, or
in plainer terms, to keep up the rents of the land-
lords. Admitting the proposition to be correct, sup-
posing corn was raised to a hundred shillings a
quarter, the farmers could not possibly, by the re-
motest chance, be one bit better off." Alluding to
the fluctuations in the price of corn, Mr. COBDEN
went on to remark, " This was the injustice to the
tenant-farmer—he rented his land at Act of Par-
liament prices, and sold his corn at market prices;
and so when he went to pay his rent, he found he had
been compelled to sell his corn at ten shillings or
twelve shillings under the price which the landlord
gave for his land." Strong, perspicuous reasoning
like this reminds us of the sledge-hammer logic of
COBBETT in his earlier and better days, against
which there was no making head. Obtuse indeed
must be the capacity, cased in sevenfold ignorance
and prejudice, that cannot feel the full force
of Mr. COBDEN 'S arguments. Well may the
monopolists take fright at his exertions, and strive
their utmost to bear him down by clamour,
for he is indeed a powerful opponent ; and one strong,
transparent, convincing " fact" of his tells more with
the community at large than all the sophistries, how-
ever ingenious, that issue from time to time from the
council chambers of monopoly. The adversaries of
the League are just now in full feather, like geese at
Michaelmas ; loud is their cackle, for they fancy that
they are standing on vantage-ground , and that the
Premier is their determined, albeit reluctant, ally ;
but they are mistaken—cruelly mistaken ; their po-
sition is just as precarious as ever it was; the ground
on which they tread, however apparently solid, is
undermined ; and one fine morning, when they least
expect it, the train will be laid—the torch applied—
the mine sprung—and monopoly, like the Egyptians
at Acre, will be blown to atoms.

In the commendation with which we have felt our-
selves called upon to notice the manifesto, or exposi-
tion of objects, which has been put forth by the Society
for the Emancipation of Industry, we are under no
apprehension of having uttered opinions the expres-
sion of which can be misunderstood. We have borne
testimony to the usefulness and the really national
design of an Association, which proposes to secure for
the industrial community, whose labour produces the
manufactured commodities which are the staple
wealth of our foreign commerce, something like
positive wages for their incessant toil. Instead
of these, it is notorious that, year after
year, they are paid but a miserable week-
ly pittance, which either experiences no in-
crease, corresponding with the admitted extension
and improvement of our trade ; or, when nominally
raised, is still equalised to its former scale of insuffi-
ciency by the increased and destructive demands on
his time, his health and his energies, in the shape of
" overwork hours" and " omitted meal.times." Had
we any party feelings to consult, in the protest we
have so repeatedly made against that vicious system
of monetary legislation which fosters excessive PRO-
merlon, without making any provision for the pro-
portionate DISTRIBUTION, of the profits thus realised
by capital, those feelings would rather prompt us to
carry to their extreme extent the free-trade princi-
ples of non-intervention with capital which we have
always sustained against the advocates of monopoly
protection. But the power of capital is, in itself, the
most grievous and grinding of monopolies, when it is
brought to bear, on the largest scale, and with the
most unfair advantages, or the depreciation of the
wages of domestic industry. It may be a legitimate
object of the capitalist so to deal with the market of
labour as to keep down wages at the very lowest
point to which the unthrifty competition of starving
artisans may reduce it. But we are sure that this is
a course neither politic in the social economy of the
nation, nor advantageous in the long run even to the
individuals who extract from it a temporary and exor-
bitant profit on the capital they expend in
wages. Let the capitalist realise, by all the
honourable means which his wealth, his
ingenuity, his sagacity and his application to busi-
ness can suggest to him, the best return he can get
on his money investments—large as these necessarily
are. But we are not at all disposed to allow him to
take advantage of the necessities of artisans, who are
desperate from intense poverty, to an extent which is
revolting to humanity, a scandal upon the country
and an outrage on the civilization of our times. It
is therefore that, when we see a Society endeavour-
ing, in a legal and constitutional manner, to rectify
that enormous crime in legislation which has led to
these disastrous consequences, by re-establishing the
system of our currency on a more healthful footing,
and one on which it may be again capable of impart-
ing that diffusive energy to British industry, by
which British industry was animated from 1797
down to the first year of the operation of PEEL'S Bill
of 1819—we, without hesitation, give to such views
and such principles our hearty support.
Now the two strongest claims upon public confi-
dence and aid which the Society advances, are, the
propositions it enunciates with regard to the recipro-
cal action of an extended paper circulation and high
prices, and the indispensable necessity and justice of
transferring the ultimate discharge of our onerous
taxation from the shoulders of the industrial com-
munity of the country, upon whom the Bill of 1819
most iniquitously fixed it, to those of the wealthy
consumers. The Society has clearly demonstrated
that, with
has
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," of
which
so much charged,
and was paid, the additional taxation cost of pro-
ducing his commodity,; and he was thus enabled to
pay wages to theopperaaayntaidbvele,
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standard was established by law, prices of course
fell, and fell even in a far greater ratio than econo-
mists could define between the exchangeable value of
the gold and the paper pound. In 1821 the war
taxation may be said to have received its maximum
of permanent reduction, and the scheme of our
present taxation to have been established. No,
what was the difference of operation arising out of
this change of currency as between the case of