The Sun.
London, England, 1845-12-05 00:00:00

RIDAY MORNJ N

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS,

FROM THE MORNING PAPERS OF YESTERDAY.
TIMES—The decision of the Cabinet is no longer a
secret. Parliament, it is confidently reported, is to be
summoned for the first week in January ; and the Royal
Speech will, it is added, recommend an immediate con-
sideration of the corn-laws, preparatory to their total
repeal. Sir Robert Peel in one house, and the Duke Of
Wellington in the other, will, we are told, be prepared
to give immediate effect tu the recommendation thus
conveyed. An announcement of such immeasurable im-
portance, and to the larger portion of the community so
unspeakably gratifying, almost precludes the possibility
of comment. No pen can keep pace with the reflecions
which must spontaneously crowd upon every thoughtful
and sensitive mind. They who have long desired this
change, and have long traced its manifeld bearings on
the welfare and happiness of the world, Rill in one mo-
ment see the realisation of that fair prospect, and will
hardly endure to be informed of what they already be-
hold. The approaching event, therefore, which we this
day communicate to our readers, must be left to speak for
itself. It is understood that until Parliament meets
nothing is to be done. For the Legislature will be 1
resersed the responsibility and the glory of opening
the ports. We presume that none will quarrel with
this brief appearance of delay, now that the resolution
of the Cabinet is known. The moral certainty of an
early opaline will be equivalent in its operation to an
immediate order in council. It is enough for the mer-
chant and the capitalist to know that by the end of
January at the latest, the produce of all countries will
enter the British market on an absolute equality with
our own, excepting only those disadvantages which
Nature itself has made, and which man cannot entirely
remove. Any unnecessary appearance of haste would
only create alarm, and might thus defeat, for a time at
least, the very object of the measure. Happily there is
no occasion for `haste, even if haste were not almost
certain to interfere with speed. It is said that the deci-
sion has been made with that unanimity which perhaps
the compulsion of circumstances alone can inspire.
The reported exceptions are both insignificant and
doubtful, and not of a sort to interfere with the construc-
tion of the Cabinet. There is, of course, one man who had
it in his power to offer an enormous impediment
and create a frightful collision ; but experience com-
ing to the aid of his own intuitive sagacity, has,
we are told, taught him to retire from an eventually
fruitless opposition, and to husband his strength for
more attainable objects. Fortunately for the present
peace, if not for the ultimate prosperity of the nation, he
has long exemplified that which the chief writer on the
British Constitution has declared to be the most decisive
and triumphant test of its soundness—viz., the abso-
lute impotence of military greatness against the con-
stitutional movements of the popular will. It is
scarcely fair to imagine a contingency from which the
possible author has himself most judiciously recoiled;
but we feel very sure that the Upper House will
be only too thnkful to be spared an unequal and, per-
haps, a disastrous conflict with the Ministers of the
Crown and the representatives of the people. It is
evident that this is the only quarter from which the
Premier's position has been seriously threatened.
From that quarter he might have been over-
thrown if his assailants felt sufficient interest in
their cause to wish to be buried in its ruins; but the
British aristocracy feels no such injurious and sui-
cidal ambition. It is either too good or too wise to
strike wiih such force that its own life is spent in the
blow. The Premier has not been blind to the security
afforded by the alternative of a common destruction. He
has set his political existence against the Lords, and
won the stake. Our traditionary reverence for the first
estate of the realm may lead us to regret that it should
ever be thrown into a position involving defeat by so
unequal a combatant. We may justly regret that it
has not lately been more accustomed to draw on the
known resources of hereditary wisdom—that it has
allowed itself to be represented by a few, and has thus
changed its broad, aristocratical basis, for the more
manageable, and, therefore, less enduring, form of an
oligarchy—and, above all, that it has delegated its credit
and authority to leaders who are kind only in flattering
its foibles, bold only in committing it to errors, and
wise only in consenting to defeat. The other parties
with whom Sir Robert Peel might have been called
upon to measure his strength really, like some
countries we see on the maps, have, at the pre-
sent moment, rather a geographical than a political
existence. In whatever way it has come to
pass, so it is, the agriculturists have just now no
more power than the animals they are industriously
bringing to such ,magnificent proportions. What they
wish, or hate, or fear, their interests and their
grievances, have literally been dropped out of the calcu-
lation. The Premier, who has enjoyed their support,
has a just sense of its value, and is at no pains to conceal
that be can do without it. Whether his is the case of
the steward who grows rich himself while his employer
decays, we will noz now inquire, but the result is the
same. From this quarter nothing was to be feared, and
to imagine a danger would have been simply a mistake.
They, however, who expect to see us a nation of heroes
and martyrs would probably have desired that the pre-
sent patriotic surrender should have been the voluntary
and gratuitous act of those at whose risk, if not at whose
loss, it is done. But if the Conservatives should be
broken up, the Whigs would come in. Here wss a sub-
stantial, a political, an historical foe, whom Sir
Robert might remember and fear ! Truly they are
an historical foe —magni nominis umbra. The members,
of the party may survive and reign in another form ;
but the party itself is scattered and overthrown. It is
an unfortunate circumstance that so good a deed should
literally go a-begging for an author. The nation has"
done it, but who is the instrument ? It is in Sir Robert
Peel's hand, but is it his property ? Nor have the
Whigs much more claim to it. They only proposed to
give up the corn-laws when it was evident the peril of
the experiment would be the inheritance of their succes-
sors. Shall we, again, call the League the true hero of
the crisis—the real Simon l'ure of free trade ? Truth
compels us to answer in the affirmative ; but the idea is
still somewhat distasteful, and human nature itself will
cavil at a patriotism, the virtues of which were so closely
allied with its interests. The Premier appeals to the
good sense and the growing intelligence of the nation.
We are flattered by an appeal which assures us that we
are wiser than our forefathers. Still, it is unusual to see
those mutations of opinion which are usually spread over
ages, and divided by successive generations, concentrated
in one man. Grant that it is a piece of good sense,
and wisdom, and intelligence, it is distressing to reflect
how long we have been denied it. The appeal is
next made to our experience. The sliding-scale has
been tried in every form, and every form has required
a change. The last change has not been the most suc-
cessful. Never since it began has it done any good to
the farmer, till just now, when the country will not bear
it. Grant that the experiment is a failure ; but whose
experiment was it ? Some, perhaps, will not trust the
same experimentalist again. The appeal to our condo •
nation is the next resort. The nation is merciful, and
Sir Robert has had too many proofs of its forgiving
temper not to confide once more in that amiable ele-
ment. But why are people to forgive when there is no
help for it ? It is mockery to carry a matter against
a person's will and then ask his pardon. The truth is
that it must be done. Necessity knows no laws. The
sliding-scale cannot and will not stand. Protection can-
not be maintained. The country cannot be kept in a
state of civil war, with the most fearful jealousies daily
ripening and coming to a head. The thing must be
done, and it is Sir Robert Peel's common sense and con-
venient view of the case that he is the actual Premier,
and therefore bound to do it.
ADVERTISER.--A rumour of
great importance
reached us yesterday, namely, that Sir Robert Peel had,
at the Cabinet Council of Tuesday, threatened his resig-
nation. We are bound to say that subsequent inquiries
have not tended to confirm this rumour. From the par-
ticular circle to which it may be traced, the wish may be
expected to be " father to the thought." Hence, while
we give it currency, we deny it credit. Not that we
should be very much astonished at such a result, come
when it may, but at present it appears premature,
and would affix a most mortifying importance to the let-
ters of political rivals. Sir Robert Peel is much more
sensitive to the opinions of a party than a nation. His
arguments in the House are directed to " the Noble
Lord" with much greater frequency than to the coun-
try. He seems to consider, that if he fall there is none
to replace him but the party in opposition ; hence his
constant endeavours to damage or silence them,
rather than satisfy the millions outside. To resign
just now would be the greatest homage that could
be paid to Lords Russell and Morpeth, as nothing of im-
portance has occurred since the preceding Cabinet
Council save the publication of their letters. The letter
of Lord John Russell seems to shut the door to the pos-
sibility of a coalition Ministry, whatever may be the
similarity of sentiments between the great h tilers. Al-
most every point that is made is a personal one, and is
the more biting from the quiet language in which it is
expressed. An air of the most mortifying triumph runs
through the whole, and the instances of vacillation and
ster of a , and on the
mtergiversationa
la at t
int
eae s
umr
eoss t coriticala
spt eqr
ui oadr
cen-
tury, must be gall and wormwood to the present Premier.
We are for " measures, not men." Nevertheless, we
do not shut our eyes to the philosophy of Bacon's obser-
vation, that " measures without men are dead images."
Catholic Emancipation was extorted by fear, not pro-
moted by love. It was the result of a certain letter from
a certain Commander-in-Chief in Ireland,
of w
rather than
• n i
nyg toa Dnd h
alteredasazc
welloard n vas of a national Peel,
convictions.
Sirions At 1 timeaowtuatsb rneoat insensible to the
evils the Duke These
states-
men granted emancipation in appearance• to quiet Ire-
land, determined to deny it in fact as much as they could.
They enabled Roman Catholics to fill thirty-three situa-
tions, from which religion had previously excluded them,
B.
but they took especial care that not one of those situa-
tions should a Roman Catholic actually fill. That no
Peel-faith or punic-faith could prevent the people en-
joying free-trade if they once got it on the Statute-book,
we can readily believe ; nevertheless there are many
things a friendly Administration might do to promote it,
which a hostile one would not. Hence we would rather
have it from those who agree with it in principle, than
from those who concede it as a necessity. Lord John
Russell and Lord Morpeth are now as much pledged to it ,
from conviction as Messrs. Cobden, Bright, and Villiers;
while to hammer it into the heads of any set of men, or
any party with whom Sir Robert could now connect him-
self, would be a work of great delay and difficulty.
POST.—Constituted as society is at present in this
country, with habits of political discussion so generally
diffused, and with habits of assertion regarding public
matters so little guarded, there appears to be a great
want of some more regular and constant mode of
authentic communication between the Government and
the public. For some weeks past, in certain widely -
circulated newspapers, and at public meetings convened
for the purposes of political agitation, assertions hav
been made, producing an effect on the public mind of
the most sericus importance. In short, impressions of
the probability of approaching scarcity—perhaps of
famine—have been produced by.these imsertons. And