The Sun.
London, England, 1844-08-20 00:00:00

litonting

LONDON, TUESDAY, AUGUST 20, 1844.

The Herald of Saturday, in reply to some stric-
tures of a Whig Morning Journal on the versatile
and fluctuating policy of Government, insists on the
uniform consistency of Ministers and their Conser-
vative supporters, and clinches its arguments by the
oracular declaration' that " Sir ROBERT PEEL, when
Secretary of State under Lord LIVERPOOL, twenty
years since, was as good a Reformer as he is now !"
Were our Contemporary, instead of being of an ar-
gumentative and didactic turn of temperament, at all
addicted to the jocular, we should conclude, by the
above remark, that he was passing off a harmless quiz
on his readers ; but the undeviating staidness and so-
briety of his conduct forbids the hasty hypothesis. He is
evidently impressed with a weighty sense of the truth of
what he writes, and really believes that the PEEL of
1824—the staunch supporter of the LIVERPOOI sys-
tesys-
temof Wien and the recognised leader of that more
bigoted section cif the Tory Cabinet which objected
to Mr. CANNING and his party that they were too
liberal, and were going too far a-head—was just as
vigorous a Reformer as the PEEL of l 844, who, like
Mr. BAKING, the rejected of London, professes him-
self a free-trader " in the abstract;" is regarded
with hope and confidence by Mr. COBDEN and the
Leaguers; and is engaged in a continual squabble
with his Conservative subordinates, who accuse
him of being much too Whiggish in his
views of improvement. Now, for our own part, we
cannot see the slightest resemblance between the
Pam, of the present day and the PEEL of twenty
years since,
except indeed that the same specious,
guarded, evasive course of conduct that in earlier
times characterised the one, still continues to cha-
racterise the other. In 1824 the Home Secretary
was the upholder of Toryisin in its most unmitigated
form. Tie was the sworn opponent of the Dissenters
—the sworn opponent of the Catholics—tile sworn
opponent of Parliamentary Reform, so much so in-
deed, that he could not reconcile it to his political
conscience to grant even so niggardly a boon
as the extension of the forfeited franchise of
Esst Retford to Manchester or Birmingham.
In 1844, .he same man, now Premier, carries
on the Government on principles not one of which
4t . diametrically opposed to those which he main-

tained when acting under Lord LI VERPOOL ! He '
tampers with ecclesiastical Reform, so abhorrent to
the Toryism of his youth and manhood, and which he
would no more have dreamed of meddling with in the
days when he was Home Secretary, than he would dream
of taking the air at midnight on a witch's broomstick;
he repudiates, in theory at least, the darling Tory
doctrine of monopoly ; relaxes the accursed corn-
laws ; alters the tariff to such an extent as to set all
the agriculturists howling like so many furious
wolves ; gives up his Education Bill at the
first frown of the Dissenters, of whom he was so long
the determined enemy ; throws out from time to time
significant intimations to the Whigs that he is by no
means so averse to their policy as they may imagine,
but is merely biding his time to make a move in their
direction that will electrify them ; and, finally, to
complete the metamorphosis—more entire than any
recorded in OVlD—takes into his Cabinet, and to a
certain extent, therefore, into kis confidence, a
man who was once " a Whig and something more,"
who for the earlier and better years of his life was
the uncompromising foe of Toryism, no matter
how latitudinarian might be the complexion it as-
sumed, and who still boasts that he has not changed
his principles, but is just as much devoted to Whig-
gery as ever ! We do not speak of these startling
changes of opinion in Sir ROBERT PEEL in the way
of reprobation ; far otherwise—we merely mention
them, in order to show the utter fallacy of the Herald's
ex-cathedra dogma that he was just as vigorous a Re-
former in 1824, as he is in 1844. The truth is, at both,
periods of his life he has been guided by expediency
and by expediency only, and he will so continue to
be guided to his dying day. Of political principle,
in the earnest, conscientious, pertinacious sense of the
term—in that sense which makes martyrs and patriots
—he has not one atom in his composition ; and, like
Sir ROBERT WALPOLE, whom he resembles in his
cautious and temporising policy, though he lacks the
higher qualities of that most far-sighted of statesmen,
he evinces a strong disposition to doubt their
existence in others. In a word, he is just
what the temper and complexion of the times make
him, and nothing more. His is not the resolute
master-spirit that guides, controls, and bends events to
its will, but the dexterous supple nature that yields to
their force, changes as they change, and adapts its
policy to the caprice or the emergency of the passing
hour. As the cameleon is said to take its hue from
the leaf on which it feeds, so Sir ROBERT PEEL takes
his opinions from the circumstances by which he is
surrounded.

The Government are disposed, we think, to take an
important step, in reference to the great interests of
trade and navigation, in the right direction. We
perceive that the Treasury authorities have called for
returns of the dues and charges, of all kinds, levied
on shipping, " in each port, harbour, or creek in the
United Kingdom, stating the rate of the several dues
levied per ton on each vessel, whether under autho-
rity of Acts of Parliament, and what Acts—by orders
of municipal corporations, and of what date, or by
charter, consent, prescription, or any other autho-
rity, so as to exhibit the entire charges of every kind
on vessels at each of the harbours, ports, and creeks
of the United Kingdom, distinguishing the several
charges upon vessels taking refuge in the harbour
only, from those upon vessels delivering the cargo in
whole or in part ; and also on vessels in the coasting
or in the foreign trade ; distinguishing also the
charges levied for local lights and beacons in each
port (exclusive of those of the Trinity House, the
Irish Ballast Board, and the Commissioners of the
Northern Lights), the charges for pilotage into and
out of each harbour, and the charge for ballast,' and
whether under any and what board the same are
levied." The beneficial scope and tendency of such
minute and necessarily voluminous returns as these
may not be obvious, at first sight, to those who are
accustomed to the common, but very absurd notion
that "harbour dues" can possess but little general
relation to the great interests of commerce. It will
be obvious to a moment's serious reflection, however,
that the numerous, and, in many instances, exorbitant
and oppressive charges which are levied under this
general title, from our own coasting vessels, as well
as from foreign shipping, truol.s , 1...0
a direct tendency to diminish and destroy the profits
-0 -11 .-•,,11-11 intcic,t,• ••• •
verest sufferer by them ; but his liabilities re-act, in
the increased rate of freight, &c., on the merchant
and the producer, and finally, through these, on the
consumer, abroad or at home. Among the many
good services rendered by Mr. HumE in the course of
his long and indefatigable Parliamentary career, in
defianze of all discouragement, and disregard of the
entreaties of friends as well as foes (having a com-
munity of interest in keeping up the destructive pres-
sure of these imports), none have been more earnestly
performed by him, and at one period with so little ap-
parent chance of success, as his periodical motions for
returns connected with the receipts of light-houses,
harbour-lights, &c., by private individuals and cor-
porate bodies at different points of the United Kingdom.
For a long time all such information was steadily re-
fused ; but the Hon. Member returned to the attack
with that " dogged perseverance," as his political an-
tagonists have designated it, which is so characteristic
of his public energy ; and, by degrees, returns oozed
forth, slowly and reluctantly indeed, from the sealed
vessels of a few among those hereditary and mis-
chievous monopolies. The principle once conceded
was sure to be carried out to its legitimate
extent. We hear no more now of " the scandalous
interference with vested proprietory tights," which
used to be the mildest terms applied to any
proposal for ascertaining how much was an-
nually charged upon the trade and shipping of the
country, in the shape of dues for lights inefficiently
maintained, or for impracticable harbours,-the shelter
of which no wise or prudent mariner would dream of
seeking, though the track of his voyage might neces-
sarily compel him to run within their Parliamentary
jurisdiction. Government having taken up the
whole of this extensive and complicated sub-
ject, the most unreasonable cavillers at the
views of the Hon. Gentlemen in past years,
will doubtless discover now, that the institution of
inquries such as these bespeaks, on the part of her
MAJESTY'S Ministers, a vigilant and intelligent atten-
tion to the welfare and the protection of our national
commerce. We have no desire to depreciate the
merits of the Treasury, but we are anxious to re-
claim for Mr. Huata that just proportion of the
praise which is due to him who first pointed out the
direction in which the powers of the Legislature
might be advantageously exercised for the remedy of
a crying evil of almost unsuspected magnitude. In
an early period of the ensuing session we hope that
some Member of Parliament will move for papers
calculated to exhibit an estimate of the probable
amount to which these multifarious imports have di-
minished the sum of that trade which foreign
shipping would, under this partial mitigation or
their removal, have carried on with this country;
Besides numerous other lights, beacons, &c., the
claims of which are imperfectly or not at all
recognised by custom, common law, or Act of Par-
liament, there are forty-two lighthouses of England
(if we remember rightly) that compose the list of
those for which dues are or have been demanded. Of
these, fifteen are ;on the eastern coast of England,
thirteen in the English Channel, and fourteen in the
Irish Channel. On the coasts of Ireland there are
twenty-six lighthouses ; on the Scotch coasts, seven-
teen. But there is a large number of points on our
very dangerous shores where these guides and bea-
cons for the " wanderers On the seas" are still want-
ing, and the deficiency of which is an actual reproach
upon the humanity and policy of the empire—miti-
gated only by the consideration of the pecuniary bur-
den their erection must impose on the country.
In offering these remarks we are so far from
undervaluing the plea asserted on behalf of
vested interests, that we very sincerely hope the
Government:may devise some large scheme of con-
solidation, control, and management, in respect
of lighthouses and harbour dues, which may,
wherever private rights are involved in the title to
these, be based on a sacred principle of compensation ;
but we do hope that: such vested interests may be as
speedily as possible, 'by that process, extinguished.
Where private capital has aided the views of sagacity
or benevolence in constructing these most valuable
public works, which the Government of the country
had either neglected or never been enabled to provide,
it is most fit that the capital so advanced, with an
equivalent for a fair average of all subsequent re-
turns produced by it, should be reimbursed to its
legal representative or owner. But it is- not fitting