The Sun.
London, England, 1844-12-13 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.
FROM THE EVENING PAPERS OF YESTERDAY.
GLOBE.—Those who placed credit in the state-
ments put forth by the journals of monopoly will be
somewhat surprised at finding the Anti-Corn-law
League in health and vigour. Notwithstanding
the repeated assurances of these venerable and verit-
able authorities, the League is neither dead, nor in a
state of collapse. Haring visited the provinces,
and aided in " fighting the battle of the Constitu-
tion in the Registration Courts," its leaders have
returned to, and resumed their position In, the
metropolis. They last evening commenced their
" monster meetings" in Covent-garden Theatre ;
wbich they have hired for the seasons and where
various modes of carrying out the objects of the
Association, and of aiding its funds, will be put
in execution. A condensed report of the proceed-
ings will be found in another part of our paper,
Although we think it inexpedient to push the prin-
ciple of abolition to the full extent to which the
League is pledged, considerable benefits cannot fail to
accrue to the cause of free trade from constantly keep-
ing before the public mind the mischiefs inflicted on
the manufactures and commerce of the country by the
existing sytem of protective duties. The light which
the League has cast upon this important subject has
penetrated many of the dark places of the kingdom.
Public opinion on the subject has been influenced to a
degree which must in the end prove fatal to restrictions
upon the importation of human food. Opposition to
monopoly is no longer a passion ; it has become a
principle with the great body of the people. It is
not affected by a temporary suspension of the conse-
quences which result from the artificial restrictions
under which our statesmen, with a lamentable
" blindness to the future," place the means of em-
ploying and sustaining the great mass of the popula-
tion. The people have been taught to look to
the natural results of a pernicious system.
Thousands, wiser than their fathers, are now
able to distinguish between the natural opera-
tions of that system, and its accidental interruptions,
by circumstances which intervene to stay, for a
time, its baneful progress. Hence though the dis-
tress, which for several successive years had grown
and spread in the manufacturing districts, has been
greatly mitigated by the late good harvests, and
the openings for our manufactures which the recent
events in China have produced, it is plain that
through the existing system of high duties
this impulse to trade will prove but tempo-
rary. The drain of Chinese silver to pay the amount of
compensation to this country for the expenses of the
war ; and the necessity which compels the payment in
specie for the opium—which, though prohibited by the
Chinese Government is still smuggled into the country
in large quantities—necessarily limit the means of
purchase of British commodities by the Chinese.
Were it not for our heavy import duties upon tea,
and other articles, the produce of the country, the
Chinese would exchange their goods for the fabrics
of this country; and trade, upon the principle of reci-
procity, would flow without impediment in the
natural channels. Foreigners are availing themselves
of the errors of our commercial code. The last ac-
counts from China state that while the trade in many
descriptions of British goods was declining, the manu-
factures of America—the representative of which had
concluded a treaty with the Chinese Governinent--,were
in increased demand. Had some demon been employed
to preside in the councils of this country, and to
prompt her rulers to measureS for obscuring her
glory and crippling her energies, the end could not
have been more securely effected than by the system
which, as in mockery of the mischievous results it
works, is designated" Protection to British interests."
No wonder that Covent-garden Theatre—capacious
as that building is—was last night crowded to the
ceiling by an attentive and highly respectable audi-
ence. It was not the attraction of mere novelty
which brought the multitude together. Many of
them had heard the same speakers expound the
same doctrines, and demonstrate the same results,
again and again. It was a pubic tektimopy against
the system" of monnpoly ;• an embodiment of the
abiding conviction which pervades the public
mind, that the commercial policy of our Legisla-
ture is a false and ruinous policy, pregnant with folly,
and fraught with eventual ruin to every interestthe country, and with inhumanityand Misery to the
most dependent and numerous classes of' the popula-
tion. The statements made by the Chairman of the
meeting a to what the League had eft'ected in the
Registration Courts, and the prospects thus opened
to the cause of free trade at the next election will be