The Sun.
London, England, 1845-12-06 00:00:00

LAWS.

"We understand that the following letter has been re-
ceived by a zealous free-trader, who was induced to write to
the Duke of Wellington, expressing his conviction that the
corn-laws must be given up, and regretting that the Duke
should stand in the way of Sir Robert Peel's repealing them.
We go not vouch for the authenticity of the letter, but pub-
lish it as it is sent to us. If genuine, it is a remarkable do-
cument :

" ' Field Marshal the Duke of Wellington presents his
compliments to Mr. -. He has received his letter.
" Mr. - is pleased to say of the corn-laws that the
game is up. Perhaps it is. Perhaps the Duke thinks so.
But that is the Duke's business, and not Mr. -'s.

" The Duke has long made it a rule to do his own busi-
ness, and leave other people to do theirs; and never inter-
feres with other people, except to advise them to do the
same. He does not know how Mr. - found it out ; but it
is quite true that he has told Sir R. Peel, it is not his busi-
ness or the Duke's to repeal the corn-laws, but Lord John
Russell's and Mr. Cobden's. And whatever Mr. - may
be pleased to think, the Duke means to go on giving Sir It.
Peel the same advice.'" _ _ _

The sting Chronicle is quite right not to vouch for the
authenticity of any letter received from " a zealous free-
tradsr ;" for there is nothing in which such persons trade
more freely than forgery and falsehood. However, we can-
not but wonder that our Contemporary could be imposed upon
even to the extent of being made to doubt that the letter
ascribed to the Duke of Wellington is an impudent fabrica-
tion. Such as it is, however, the article is just as trust-
worthy as the article of the Times ; and as the Chronicle de-
clines to vouch for it, neither so impudent nor so likely to
do mischief to dupes as the Times' announcement, which
affirms, with all the gravity of "men of drab," an affirma-
tion of which the " men of drab" will make a very good
thing, if they can only prevail upon extensive holders of
grain to believe it. We do not believe one word of it.
TIMES.—The surprise excited by the announcement in
the Times of yesterday on the subject of the corn-laws has
been nowhere so intensely felt as in the offices of the " twin
journals" which have been for some time under the delusion
that they are the organs of the Government. It has been
the monomania of these two melancholy prints to imagine
that they possessed the confidence of the Treasury, and they
have been babbling about the corn-laws to the very last
under the erroneous impression that they would be the first
to be apprised of any important resolution of the Cabinet.
It was only yesterday that the morning half of these pre-
cicious Gemini indulged in a dreary drivel to prove that the
corn-laws were " no failure," and that therefore the Premier
ought not to be expected to abandon them. The aged
gossip was not aware that the question on which she was
exhausting her garrulity had been already virtually settled.
Having been amused at the blundering ignorance of the
Mrs. Gamp of the press, we looked with some curiosity to
what she would say in the character of Mrs. Harris. The
effect produced upon that female nobody is quite astound-
ing. She " don't believe a word of it," for she has
heard nothing about it from Mrs. Gamp, who is
the only authority for the opinions of Mrs. Harris.
There is something very ridiculous in the position
of these two journals, which, after doing all they could to
win the favour of the Government, are not permitted even
to have the credit of being the first to publish its intentions.
The fact is, that the Cabinet naturally shrinks from the
ridicule to which it would be exposed by accepting the in-
efficient services which the venerable twins are capable of
affording it. Humbly and obsequiously have they been grind-
ing their organs under the windows of Downing-street,
ready to play any tune that might be most pleasing to the
Premier, but he has turned a deaf ear to their strains, and not
even allowed his underlings an opportunity of throwing out
an occasional morsel by way of encouragement. In vain
have they looked imploringly up towards the garrets, or en-
treatingly down towards the kitchens ; not even the con-
genial flunkies have been allowed to show compassion to
these miserable mendicants. The vigilance of the master or
the fidelity of the servants has baffled the efforts of the per-
severing pair. They have not succeeded in getting hold of
even a scrap of truth that they could turn to profit. The
reason is obvious. The repeal of the corn-laws is a thing
for statesmen to do, and not for old women to maunder about.
CHRONICLE.—The Times of yesterday startled its
readers by announcing that it had received intimation of the
result of the recent Cabinet Councils, and that that result
was nothing less than that. Ministers had made up their
minds to call Parliament together early in January, with a
view of proposing the repeal of the corn-laws. It was added,
that this might be regarded as the almost unanimous decision
of the Cabinet, the exceptions being insignificant; by which
all the world understood that the Duke having given way,
no one but Lord Stanley, and perhaps one or two others,
were opposed to the general sense of their colleagues. We
cannot wonder that the intelligence thus conveyed was re-
ceived with some incredulity. Many innocent people still
believe that it is impossible tor the present Ministry so com-
pletely to throw over the monopolists, who placed them in
power. Many even who, on the contrary, regarded that re-
sult as certain, had never conceived that it could be brought
about so soon. Rumour has for some time pointed rather
to an opposite termination of the discussions of the
Cabinet. Eyen so late as the day before yesterday, it
was very generally and confidently asserted that Lord
Aberdeen had resigned ; which, as he is understood to have
been the most active partisan of free- trade in these discus-
sions, was naturally regarded as indicatingthat,his colleagues
had determined on making a fight to maintain the corn-laws
for another year. Everybody was, therefore, more or less
startled at suddenly being informed, not merely that things
were taking a turn in the Cabinet towards free trade, but
that a decision in favour of "total and immediate" repeal
had actually been adopted, was to be acted upon in January,
and was to be enforced in one House by Sir Robert Peel, and
in the other by the Duke of Wellington. And some, too,
were a little surprised and perplexed at the circumstance of
this important change of policy on the part of Ministers
being communicated to the world through the medium of
the paper most personally and bitterly hostile to the greater
number of them. On the other hand, it seemed inconceiv-
able that if the Times bad not ve,authority for its
assertion, it should venture to trir4 good
with its readers on a
question of such importance, and especially on one about
which any misinformation must so materially affect commer-
cial
transactions. It was a case, too, on which it seemed hardly
possible for a paper to trust to any but the best authority.
Com-
paring the probabilities of the case, it seemed to be the
general impression that the story told by the Times was true
in the main : that the details given might not have been yet
determined on; but that it was pretty well settled by the
majority of the Cabinet that the corn-laws were to be mate-
rially modified, if not, as was deemed more probable, repealed
at once, and effectually. We must say that the contradic-
tion in last night's Standard has the effect of a very strong
corroboration of the Times. The Standard, after beginning

with a few general remarks on newspaper lying, goes on to
comment upon the difficulty of getting information from Ca- 1
binet Ministers with respect to the secrets of their delibera-
tions; and then, after running into a grave refutation of a
squib in the Chronicle, drops the article of the Times, with a
mere assurance to its readers that it does not believe a word
of it. But the article in the Times if not true, should have
been contradicted on authority. Five words—" We are u-
thorised to contradict," would have disposed of the whole
falsehood—if falsehood it were. All the argumentation of
the Standard will fail to produce this effect. In the first
place, Cabinet Ministers, though they are sometimes scrupu-
lous about mentioning what has actually passed in
Cabinet, do not think themselves restrained from stating
the course which the Government mean to take on any
question. If they meant to repeal the corn-laws, they would
not scruple to communicate their policy wherever such com-
munications might be deemed advisable ; and intentions
talked of among their friends might very probably get re-
ported to the Times. The Standard says it cannot contra-
dict the Times, because it knows not how to approach a Ca-
binet Minister to ask him to violate his oath, by telling the
intentions of the Cabinet. Depend upon it, if Ministers could
with trnth have contradicted the Times, they would have
deemed it advisable to relieve the " agricultural mind " from
the terrible agitation in which it will be tossed about for the
next month ; and to spare themselves the obloquy to which
they will be subjected on account of the intentions ascribed
to them. And depend upon it that, had they desired to set
the public right, they would have found some means of
doing so without violating any oath, and would not have
lost a single post in doing so. the Standard would have the
greatest pleasure in giving an authoritative contradiction to
the Times. Its not being allowed to do so goes a great way
to prove the statement in question to be true. We must say,
too, that our strongest reason for inclining to believe that
there is much truth in the report is the opinion which we
have long since formed, that a repeal of the corn-laws by
the present Government was the result to which we are
inevitably advancing. Oddly as the phrase may sound, we
are convinced that the thing which Sir Robert Peel would
do most to avoid is the necessity of breaking with the Liberal
opinions of his countrymen. throughout life, no doubt, he
has been opposed to the Liberal party. His inclination has
been to retard, but it has not been to prevent the progress
sf improvement. His great aim in life has, as he told us,
been to acquire posthumous fame—to transmit his name to
posterity in connexion with great measures and a great
policy. Such fame as this he knows that he can never ac-
quire as the upholder of ancient abuses, and the champion of
aristocratic injustice. He knows full well that it is only
from the liberal opinion of his time that he can acquire the
claim on posterity which he hopes to establish. That
opinion, therefore, it is that he really wishes to conciliate.
His whole conduct, since he has been in office, shows
that it is that opinion alone which he values. He
braves it sometimes, he tries to trick it at
others ; but embark in a career of systematic,
avowed, and hopeless opposition to it is what lie has
never done, and never will do. All his past measures have
been directed to staving off the moment in which he must
either frankly adopt that course, with respect to free trade,
which public opinion favours, or risk his future fame in un-
compromising resistance to the public feeling. How long he
would have gone on without taking either side, giving hopes
to both parties, and committing himself. irrevocably to
neither, there is no saying. But Lord John Russell's decla
ration has put an end to his indecision. Far though it did
not create the necessity, nor the general feeling, for free trade,
that declaration has brought things to a crisis, in which every
one must take his part definitively on the question of the
aorn-laws. That letter put an end to all divisions in the Libe-
ral party, and rallied the whole body in one concentrated and
vigorous opposition. It roused the Liberal feeling from
one end of the country -to the-other; it forced into the
movement against the cortishisee os4en'' those whose play'
feelings' kept tiled' idoberiom' that litisaWe'
'until the moerent us which Fit 'wail- to 'lie' decidetilfor
Sir .Robert Peel.'fmist have seed &at- wduld'tidiv have
struggle against the whdle force of tlfdEibeal 'Party, batkell '
by an out-of-doors agitation, extending far beyond any one
party. He must have felt that the moment was at length
arrived in which he must either lead a great movement of
public opinion, or commit himself to the desperate defence
of follies and iniquities over which it was clear that that
public opinion would speedily triumph. In such a state of
things we cannot doubt which side he would choose. And
we cannot, therefore, hesitate to believe that his decision
would be in accordance with the statement of the Times. Be
this as it may, it makes no difference in the course
which it is incumbent on the people to pursue.
If the Ministry are still to be ranked among the
upholders of monopoly, we must do our best to
beat them ; and we shall beat them. If the news
be true, and they undertake the cause of free trade,
they will want all our aid, 'and that aid we must give them,
as cordially as we would give it to the best and earliest of
our friends. Even with Ministers on our side, and with all
the influence of the Duke and Sir Robert Peel, we shall have
a tierce struggle to go through. Nothing but the most une-
quivocal expression of the most determined popular will can
bend the majority of the House of Lords. In order to over-
come that resistance we must throw aside every considera-
tion of party, and avail ourselves of every aid offered to us
for the great end of ensuring subsistence and employment to
the people, freedom to trade,' stability to agricultural indus-
try, and relief to the great body of the people from the most
insolent injustice by which any aristocracy, in the present
day, has ventured to promote its selfish interests at the ex-
pense of the community. If Sir Robert Peel will give us
the aid of his Ministerial influence, and lead us on to com-
bat in our own cause, we shall be rejoiced to fight under his
guidance and name. We shall leave to a future day to vin-
dicate the just claims of those to whom the victory of free
trade is really due.
POST.—Forty-one persons, who call themselves merchants
and bankers of the city of London, have published a declara-
tion on the subject of the corn-laws. We should be over-
rating the importance of this paper if we regarded it as any-
thing else than:the declaration of a very:small, and (compara-
tively) a very insignificant portion of the bankers and
merchants of London. We do not dispute, however, that
several of the names appended to it are those of men of
wealth and eminence; they are.also, however, men of noto-
rious political bigotry—men for whose calm impartiality of
judgment in any matter subject to the influence of political
or party feeliag, no person of good sense has the least respect:
They assert that " supplies of foreign corn destined for the
relief of the people of this country, have been excluded from
our ports by the high duty which, under our present sliding-
scale, is the inevitable consequence of the defective quality
of our own harvest." It is very little to the credit of British
merchants to indulge in such mere rhodomontade as this upon
an important matter. What is the real meaning of such words
as "destined for the relief of the people of this country ?"
Where is the proof of any distress for food among the people
of this country ? Is it prudent, or decent, or anything but
most inconsistent with the discretion which ought to belong
to British merchants, to come forward in this
way, the retailers of vague rumours, as mischievous as vague,
which even the common rules of mercantile information con-
tradict ? Why should these men assume a probability of
scarcity, and need of relief, when the prices of corn in the
markets indicate nothing of the kind ? It seems to us per-
fectly clear, from the evidence of positive facts, that these
forty-one persons—happily a very small and insignificant
fraction of the mercantile body of London—are descending
to the position of tools of a faction. For what is there in
the circumstances of the present time to lead to such a decla-
ration more than at other times, when no such demonstra-
tion was made? What but the unusual stir of a busy, tur-
bulent faction, which thinks it may make an impression
now, by urging matters of a far less pressing character than
those of former years, when no such urency was attempted?
How can these forty-one persons justify to themselves the
attempt to make an alarm now, when circumstances, as in-
dicated by the markets, are much more in favour of an ade-
quate supply of food than they were in former years, and
when the duties on importation are very much lower than
they were in those years ? And we must say that these
forty-one persons, however well-informed they may be upon
some branches of mercantile or monetary business, appear
to be quite ignorant of the truth in regard to the
foreign corn trade. It costs them little trouble, and it would
seem very little thought, to put their names to a paper de-
claring that high import duties have of late excluded foreign
corn from our ports, but in doing so they have only testified
their ignorance of the subject upon which they express them-
selves so confidently. If they had taken the trouble to in-
quire among men acquainted with the business of importing
corn, they would have learned that the only impediment to
the acquisition of foreign corn for English use which has
been felt this season, was the rumour that our ports were
going to be opened for the receipt of foreign corn free of
duty. So long as that rumour was believed on the Continent,
it was naturally supposed that our necessity for supplies
from abroad must be very great, and that we should be
willing to pay a very high price rather than be without
the supply. It, therefore, became difficult to buy fo-
reign corn except at a very large advanee. But as soon
as the rumour was discovered to be groundless, then
foreign corn again became purchaseable at a considerably
lower price, and was accordingly purchased for the British
market. We must affirm, then, that the forty-one decla-
rants, however well informed they may be upon other
matters, are exceedingly ignorant upon the subject of ac-
quiring foreign corn for the English market; or, if not ig-
norant, they are something worse—that is, they are wilful
'promulgators of that which is not true, for the purpose of
producing an excitement favourable to the views of a faction.
The forty-one declarants use the hackneyed phrase of " tam-
pering with the food of the people," as applicable to those
laws which have for their object the protection of British
cultivation from undue foreign competition, and thus the se-
curing to the people a far larger supply from the English
soil than they would have if no such protective law existed.
The use of such language is, in our judgment, a further proof
either that the declarants are unacquainted with the subject
on which they presume to offer their opinion, or that they
prefer serving the cause of a faction to serving the cause of
truth. The protection of British cultivation is no more a
tampering with the food of the people than the protection af-
forded by the police is a tampering with the liberty of the
people. It ought not to be called tampering. It is an inter-
ference of the law in the people's behalf. It is a policy which
has for its object the guardianship of these two things—the
productive industry of a very large body of the working
class, and of the whole nation, from that danger which would
beset it if it were habitually dependent for a considerable
portion of its supply of food upon foreign kingdoms, whose
governments might interdictj that supply from a policy
of their own. A more gross and glaring instance of
unbounded self-sufficiency, egregious vanity, and ridiculous
prejudice than that afforded by the last paragraph of the
"Declaration," we do not remember to have seen. Here
it is :

" We declare our deliberate conviction that no necessity
can justify the Legislature in tampering with the food of
the people, or impeding the free purchase of that article on
which depends the existence of a large portion of the com-
munity ; that the removal, therefore, of all restriction-,
upon the import of articles of food is essential to the general
prosperity, as well as to the social peace of this country ;
that it is a measure dictated by all sound principles; con-
firmed by a long and fatal experience of the effects of an op-
posite course; that it is demanded by the want and pressing
necessities of the labouring classes; that it is sanctioned by
the judgment of the educated part of the community ; that
the present condition of the country renders it a measure of
immediate necessity, the delay of which must inflict cruel
hardships on the labouring classes, must seriously interfere
with all industrious pursuits, and by pertinaciously repudiat-
ing the obvious and iatural means by which the sufferings
attendant on a bad harvest might be alleviated, must create
an universal feeling of dissatisfaction and ill-will dangerous to
the peace of society and to the safety of the empire:"
Do these persons really mean to say that there is any re-
striction upon the freedom of purchasing foreign corn ? Surely
there is none, more than upon the purchase of sugar, or
French silks, or brandy. These people frame their declara-
tion as if it were against prohibition they were contending.
There is no impediment save the payment of import duties,
and that impediment applies to hundreds of articles of mer-
chandise as well as corn. But thri taking off the duties is
" essential to the general prosperity and social peace of the
country." Do these forty-one persons think that they are
qualified to dictate upon that matter? Do they suppose
that the welfare of the agricultural population goes for
nothing, and that social peace is altogether connected with
the gratifying of their prejudices or the legislating for their
interests ? Are we to believe them, that the necessities of
the labouring classes would be relieved by a change of policy,
which, if it should affect anything at all, must transfer to
foreign labourers the production of that commodity which

hitherto British labourers have produced ? Would these
bankers and merchants think it for their interest if their
customers entered into arrangements for the employment rf
the capitalists of Hamburgh or Amsterdam, instead of con-
tinuing to deal with them? We are surprised that men who
have bad some experience of business should put their signa-
tures to such folly. But their views, they assure us, are " sanc-
tioned by the educated part of the community." How very
modest! What do they mean by the " educated part of the
community?" Perhaps the "enlightened audiences" that
attend Covent. garden Theatre when the Anti-Corn-law
Leaguers perform on that stage. If they meant the thought-
ful and studious part of the community, let them try any one
of the learned professions, and see what majority they will
get to endorse their very modest appreciation of their own
intellectual superiority. Certainly, if enormous self-suffi-
ciency and inordinate presumption be qualities which entitle
men to respect and influence upon important public ques-
tions, these forty-one declarants have an undoubted right to
be listened to. But if this be not so,lwe can discover nothing
either in the matter or in the manner of their declaration,
which should induce any man who loves his country and
wishes well to its honest industry, to be affected otherwise
than by disgust in reading what they have put forward for
public attention.

LAW INTELLIGENCE.

ROLLS' COURT, Dec. 5.

The greater portion of the day was occupied in bearing
petitions praying for the transfer of money in the Master's
hands to the credit of the parties in the causes, and for the
appointment of guardians to infants, those appointed by the
Court' having died.