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

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.
TROD[ THE EVENING PAPERS Or 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 eollapse. Having visited the provinces,
and aided is " 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
4 monster meetings" Covent-garden Theatre ;
which they have for the season, 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 Om of protective duties. The light which
the League has cast upon this important subject has
penetrated many of the dark places of the kingdom.
Publtc 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
net affected by a temporary suspension of the conse-
quences which result from the artificial restrictions
alder 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
ia 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 menu-
thetures of Amerlea—the representative of which had
concluded a treaty with the Chinese Govsrnment —were
in increased demand. Had some demon been employed '
to preside in the councils of this country, and to
prompt her rulers to measurea 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 public testimony against
the system of monopoly; 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 interest in
the country, and with inhumanity and misery to the
most dependent and numerous classes of the popula-
tion. The statements made by the Chairman of the
meeting as to what the League had effected in the
Registration Courts, and the prospects thus opened
to the cause of free trade at the next election, will be
a significant warning to the party in power to " set
their houses in order."
STANDARD.— The neglect of the commander of
the Basilisk to answer the salutes offered by the
French authorities in Otaheite upon the Queen's
birth-day, cannot be explained with certainty until
we are in possession of the gallant officer's own ac-
eoant of his motives. It is, however, surely unneces-
sary to assume that any offence was intended by the
simple quiescence ascribed to Mr. Hunt. Many good
reasons, wholly unconnected with unfriendly feeling
to France, might have determined that gentleman to
pursue the line that he did pursue; some of them
so cogent that we think the presumption would be
against him, had he taken a different course. Queen
Pomare was, we believe, on board the Basilisk—a
deposed Sovereign, a fugitive from her enemies ;
we will not say persecutors—certainly an unfortu-
nate exile, almost a prisoner. Now, as a mere
question of feeling, it was hardly free to the officer
with whom the fugitive had sought and found an
asylum to ostentatiously exchange compliments,
from the ship that carried her Majesty, with the
enemies from whom she was flying—more especially
as their compliments were commenced in a manner
altogether unusual, for it is not, as we are aware, the
practice in the French or any other service—it cer-
tainly is net the practice of our own service—to cele-
brate, by salutes, the birthday of a foreign Sovereign.
lire have all shown our sincere respect for Louis
Philippe, yet we believe that the public would be
4 little surprised to hear the Park and Tower
guns fired on the 6th of next October in cele-
bration even of that good and great Prince's birth-
day. The question of feeling (which, however, we
should be sorry to see excluded from the breasts of
British officers) put on one side, Mr. Hunt might
have some apprehension of committing his Govern-
ment, or committing himself with his superiors, by
any proceeding not strictly warranted by established
usage or his written orders. There has been a great
deal of negotiation about the protectorate of Otaheite,
and we, though so much nearer the scene of the nego-
Uation, and professional observers of political events,
are at this moment unable to say in what
position the question stands. The French may have
stn acknowledged right to occupy Otaheite with an
armed force, or they may have renounced that right ;
but however this may be, it is plain that half a year
ago Mr. Hunt could know nothing upon the point
beyond this, that the matter was in dispute, and,
therefore, when challenged by a display which, under
fhe circumstances, was suspicious, because it was
unprecedented, he merely acted with prudence in
quietly declining to answer the challenge. If his
disposition had been hostile he would not lose the
opportunity of showing that it was so by some prac-
Liget protest. After all that the war journals can say
of each prudent reserve, they will scarcely succeed in
inflaming it into a ground of quarrel.

THE ANTI-CORN-LAW LEAGUE.
Manchester is the centre of the Anti-Corn-law, as
Birmingham is of the Universal Suffrage, agitation.
At Manchester are held the general meetings of the
Anti-Corn-law League, and here it is that the Com-
mittee of the League constantly sits. The kindness
of a friend premixed me admission to the great esta-
blishmeut of the League at Manchester, where I had
the satisfaction of seeing and hearing much that sur-
prised and interested me. George Wilson and other
well-known leaders of the League, who were as-
sembled in the Committee-room, received me as a
stranger, with much kindness and hospitality, readily
answering all my questions, and making, me acquainted
with the details of their operations. I could not help
asking myself whether in Germany, men, who at-
tacked, with such talent and energy, the fundamental
laws of the State, would not have been long ago shut
tip in some gloomy prison as conspirators and traitors,
instead of being permitted to carry on their operations
thus freely and boldly in the broad light of day; and,
secondly, whether in Germany such .men would ever
have ventured to admit a stranger into all their
secrets with such frank and open cordiality. I was
astonished to observe how the Leaguers, all private
persons, mostly merchants, manufacturers, and men
of letters, conducted political business, like statesmen
and ministers. A talent for public business seems an
innate faculty in the English. Whilst I was in the
Committee-room immense numbers of letters were
brought in, opened, read, and answered, without a
moment's delay, These letters, pouring in from all
parts of the United Kingdom, were of the most
various oontents, some trivial, some important, but all
connected with the objects of the party. Some
brought news of the movements of eminent Leaguers,
or of their opponents ; for the eye of the League is
ever fixed open the doings both of friend and enemy.
Others contained pecuniary contributions from well-
wishers of the cause ; for each of whom the president
Immediately dictated an appropriate letter of thanks.
Other letter related anecdotes, showing the progress
of the cause, and the gradual defection of the farmers,
the most resolute supporters of Peel.—Kohl's Travels
in Ekeland.
Bar

:SI or RasTs.--The English farmers are com-
plaining lou
seem neither dly of high rents and low markets, but ours
to feel nor to apprehend anything of' the
kind ; witness thefollowing fact:—" Three farms, whose
aggregate rents under the expiring leases were 1,2951.,
were et by Mr. Be.illie„ of l,7Ro.—Scv±smax. ek Mollerstane, last w, for
On Monday and Tuesday there was sold the un •
preoedented number of 2,000 firkins of butter, of 701bs.
tlitelip St Enniskillen market —Cork Examine:

THE W.