The Sun.
London, England, 1828-07-17 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

We learn that the conversation on the wee) duties,
which took place in the House of Lords on Tuesday,
has occasioned a great deal o! surprise. If ever
there was a Bear case established, it is that not only
the English manufacturer of wool, but the English
grower also, would be ruined if the itefreelnetkiii of
foreign wool should he impeded. It, is not, as the
Duke of Wellington suggested, that English wool is
of a worse quality than it was 30 years ago, it is in
fact improved instead of being deteriorated, but it
is because, as his Grace remarked in the next sen-
tence of his speech, that the taste of Englishmen will
not now endure so coarse a manufacture as their
forefathers were content to wear. It is a fact
\veil known out of Parliament, and established
beyond the possibility of doubt in tke Committee,
that not only all the cloths worn by men in the
rank of gentlemen, but even the cloths of livery-ser-
vants, are, and must be, made of foreign wool:
Forty years ago even Court-dreases were made of a
material which a second rate farmer would now re-
ject for his Sunda coat. What, then is the result ?
Will English urentlemen—including, of course, Noble
Lords as well as decent farmers—abandon their
taste for 'wearing handsome coats, and be content to
appear in the broad coarse cloth which their respect-
able parents wore ? As well might we ask them to
forego the vintages of Champaigne and Bordeaux
lOr the beverage of Devon and Staffordshire. To
ee consistent, Lords Redesdale and Stanhope should
demand that no liquor should be drunk but British
" Oetober,;" and that English sorrel! should super-
,ede the use of Chinese tea and Jamaica coffee.
We rake this opportunity of expressing our contempt
for those persons who pretend to sneer at our great
manufacturers as theorists. Some of the gentlemen
alluded to are riot enly manufacturers but merchants
on a large scale. They are acquainted with their
business in ail its branches, from the price of the
fleece just washed, to that of the coat ready for the
tvear of the farmer or the Prince. Extensively con-
nected with all the consumers of the habitable globe,
they watch and know the consequences of the least
variation in price, whether influenced by fiscal rept-
laiions or personal demand, from the banks of the
Mississippi to the banks of the Ganges. From this
extensive knowledge, from this constant supply of
facts which the very nature of their traffic compels
them to tbserve with the most accurate care, they
draw deliberate inferences which, thus founded on a
solid basis, and formed with the anxiety of sagacious
and well-informed men, are submitted to Parliament
for their guidance. Against this enlarged aNd en-
lightened experience of these theorists is opposed—
what ? The limited knowledge of some landlord or
fanner who pastures a large or small flock of sheep,
some person who knows indeed the price. at which
he sells his own wool, but who, ignorant of every
market but that of the town nearest to his estate,
knows not the influence of public taste, knows not
the effect of foreign duties or demand ; nay, is, even
ignorant of the striking but well-proved fact that he
would not obtain a Single purchaser for his wool,
except for the chance of making it saleable by an in,
termixture with that foreign material, for the re-
jection of which he maintains so senseless a brawl.
Times.

Lord Holland moved last night for a variety of
papers, calculated to throw light on recent events
in Portugal and Turkey. His Lordship exposed
very happily, in what he said as to the Protocol
signed by the Duke of Wellington at St. Peters-
burgh, the futility of the pretext, that force was not
contemplated by the framers of it. " The advanta-
geous position (said his Lordship) which Mr. Can-
ning had obtained, has not been maintained, cer-
tainly not improved. We had been told that we
were not in a condition to face war. I am one of
those who consider this the greatest of calamities
to any country, and particularly to this ; but there
is one calamity greater, and that would be the loss
of our independence. Anxious as I am to protect
the interests of the fundholdcr, and to attend to the
interests of land, I would seek the sacrifice of these
for the independence of the country." There can
be no question that the maintenance of indepen-
dence demands the greatest sacrifices ; but nothing
but the maintenance of our independence would jus-
tify what might involve us in war at the present
moment e and wg have yet to see that our indepen-
dence is threatened. No nation can doubt that if it
were necessary we should fight, we could command
abundance of resources. But then the necessity
which would justify the sacrifices which war would
call for must be clear and evident. There is such a
thing as danger at home, as well as abroad ; and the
danger front a people forced to make sacrifices for a
war of which the necessity was not obvious to them,
might be more formidable to a Government like ours
than the danger from abroad.—Morning Chronicle.
The rejection of. the Game Bill in the House of
Lords will, we are convinced, be received by the
country with equal surprise and regret, a confident
e:Teetation having been at length entertained that
an experiment would at. least have been tried, to in
some measure diminish the fruitful source of crime
and misery of which the Game Laws, as they at pre-
sent stand, are the acknowledged cause. However,
procrastination, that " thief of time," has again step-
ed in, and snatched the cup from the lip; for that
the proposed alteration in these laws can only be
procrastinated we feel fully persuaded, from the
growing conviction which every where exists of its
absolute and increasing necessity. The extraor-
dinary part of the present case is, that the measure
which has thus been ultimately rejected was the very
same Bill, or neatly such, as that which had origi-
nated in and passed the Upper House only a few
weeks before; but which was of necessity thrown
out in point of form in the Commons, owing to its
inflicting penalties, or rather creating a tax in the
shape of licenses, and in so much, therefore, a Money
Bill. It is competent, of course, for either branch
of the Legislature to change its mind while a mea-
sure is depending; but we wish, for many reasons,
the present change had not occurred, and that the
great landed proprietors, of which the House of
Peers is composed, had had the credit, in the eves
of the country, of giving up some part of a monopoly,
grown too odious in its consequences to be much
; onger retained.—Morning Herald.
It would appear now, that little as we trusted to
the Portuguese Constitutionalists, from the begin-
ning, we gave them more credit for spirit and bravery
than they deserved. All accounts agree in stating that
their conduct was of the most dastardly description,
and that in place of making a stand either at Coimbra
or Oporto, as they might have done, with an army
of ten thousand men (according to their own ac-
count), they fled at the very sight of the Miguelites,
and every one, leaders as well as soldiers, thought
only of his own personal safety. Nothing else could
have been expected ; and it is only astonishing, after
the specimens we have had, within a few years, of
the conduct of Constitutional troops, in countries
where slavery and superstition prevail, that there
should have been so many persons in this country san-
guine of success. The of airof Portugal is only a repeti-
tion of what has already thrice occurred within lessthan
ten years. The Neapolitans dispersed in a similar man-
ner before the Austrians, the Piedmontese followed
their example, and the Constitutional Spaniards be-
trayed the same pusillanimous conduct, when opposed
to the French in lb:n. Such repeated failures, aris-
ing too, front the cowardice of the Constitutionalists,
have no doubt rendered the word " Constitution"
quite ridiculous in those countries, and many years
probably 1611 elapse before it comes again into fa-
vour. We take some credit to ourselves for having
taken this view of the subject from the commence-
ment of our Portuguese expedition ; and we only re-
gret that Government did not see the affair in the
same light, and in place of sending out troops to fa-
vour either of the parties, leave them, as has been
wisely done at last, to fight their own battles. By that
ill-judged interference, England has incurred the
dislike of a great majority of the Portuguese nation,
and been put to the expense of several hundred
thousand pounds, which Portugal never will repay.
The affair, however, may now be said to be over ;
and it only remains to be seen what steps will be

tal,,En by turopcan Courts respecting the new Ge.
Vernment established in that country. Nliguel, has
been recognized as King by the lien ie and the
army; and, though he may not have accomplished
this in the inost holititiVabie or legitimate manner, he
and thb V+.-ht& nation are not, on that account, to be
piViauneed out of the pale of civilized society.—
Don Pedro, whose rig it to the appointment of a
successor was at best doubtful, has given up all
authority over Portugal, the people have pronounced
in favour of his brother; and even if he should wish
to retract his deed of abdication, and attempt to
place his daughter on the throne, how could he do
that but by force of arms ? He has already too
much on his hands in Brazil ; he has neither men
nor money to send to Portugal; and we think the
best advice the Courts of Europe could give him
would be to yield to the wishes of the nation, ac-
knowledge fiis brother as King, and put an end to
the dispute.—lbid.