The Sun.
London, England, 1844-12-18 00:00:00

O

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER Is, 1844.

We quote the following remarkable passsage from
he Post of this morning :—" Will the landowners of
England still refuse to learn wisdom:from experience?
Will they still support that insane policy which is
undermining their social position, and sweeping away
their natural supporters into the abyss of ruin ?
Landowners are unwilling to break with the Minister
of their choice. The alternative, however, will not
long be left to them. The Minister mill, at no distant
dote, break with them 1 Day by day the farmer-
chosen Minister draws nearer to the ranks of the free-
traders I Very soon will landowners be compelled,
openly, to adopt the principles of the League, or to
look out for new leaders." There is a world of truth
in this prediction of our Contemporary, which is wrung
from him, as it were, in very bitterness of spirit. The
day, indeed, is not distant when Sir ROBERT PEEL,
true to that system of expediency which has always
governed, and will always continue to govern, his
every action, will break fully and completely with
the Conservative landowners, and carry out into prac-
tice those principles of free trade which he has long
since declared to be the principles of common sense.
He sees the direction which the stream of public
opin'on is taking, and though he may for a time make
head against it, he has quite sufficient sagacity to
foresee that it will in the end overwhelm him, unless
he allow himself to be borne quietly onward with the
current. Ile is quite aware that the question of free
trade is one only of time; that it is a great
national necessity which, year by year, is bits•
coming more and more apparent ; that the
Anti-Corn-law League is nothing more than the ex-
pression of this necessity, and is only popular be-
cause it expresses it with emphasis and particularity;
and our chief complaint against Sir ROBERT PEEL is,
that knowing all this—knowing that no party nor
combination of parties can protract much longer the
full and perfect triumph of the free-trade system, he
refuses to make the concession, while yet it is in his
power to concede with grace. He is evidently de
sirous to play over again the old game of the Tes

and Corporation Acts—that is to say, to make a show
of resistance to the last moment, long after conviction
has flashed upon his mind, and yield only to the irre-
sitible pressure of necessity. And wherefore this?

Simply in order that he may for a brief while longer
secure the support of the Conservatives, whom
he cannot find it in his heart to break with, just at
present, notwithstanding that he has no sympathy
with many of their principles and prejudices, and
knows that the hour of his final separation from them
is at hand. There is, to our thinking, something ex-
ceedingly petty in this indecision and temporising.
It is very unworthy of the character of the first Mi-

nister of the first commercial kingdom in the world.
Far better would it be for the Premier's reputation
.....
as a statesman, that he should do at once what must

eventually be done, and do it in a graceful, instead of
a churlish. and reluctant, spirit. But Sir ROBERT
PEEL is not a Minister of an enlarged or generous