The Sun.
London, England, 1845-11-15 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.

FROM THE monanste PAPERS OF THIS DAY.
TIMES.—Sir Robert Peel certainly is a man for a glow.
He is a very presentable Premier. Whenever the public
drama supplies the opportunity of an effective scene, there he
is at his post, " property" and all, in high spirits, and good
working condition. He has never the least objection to take
his part in a tableau representing the national history, even it
the reality should have had time to get rather stale. Tam-
worth is the place where he comes out moat freely. In that
provincial
firmament he stars it with an overpowering pro-
digality of splendour. The character in which he is just
now astonishing the natives is that of the Prince of naviga-
tors. So well does he act the part, that if one did not hap-
pen to know the contrary, one would certainly conclude that
the Trent Valley was the very first railway in the world,
and Sir Robert the Columbus who had first suggested the
bold adventure. The spirit pervades the scene. Every-
thing around expands into heroic dimensions. Tam-
worth becomes the pole-star Of our earth's admiration,
the very pivot of human affairs. All England and
Ireland, from Manchester to London, from Dover
to Dublin, from Glasgow to Southampton, converges to the
;rest centre ; railroads and post-office direct thither their
streams; the metropolis of government on the one side, and
the metropolis of trade on the other, make their dutiful sp-
proaches; the Trent spreads its riches around ; and in the
middle of all things, culminating over the whole civilized
world, stands Sir Robert Peel. We will secure our seats in
the great amphitheatre, and take carat() miss nothing of the
show. The railroad itself is a good one. It is a natural line.
It does for those two great lines, the London and Birming-
ham, and the Grand Junction, exactly the same service that
Oxford-street East (if that is its name) does for old Oxford-
street and Holborn. It makes them one. It also follows the
natural valley of the Trent; and rivers, which have lost the
only use which Brindley could discover in them, have now
nothing to do but to indicate lines for railways. But the
railroad is a very third-rate character in the present perform-
ance—no more than "Wall," or the Moon, in Pyramus and
Thisbe. It is only part of the " property." So we will
confine our attention to the principal character. The
Premier decends, not from the clouds, but from
the steps of his carriage, and treads the favoured soil
which, under his auspices, is to become the world's new
centre. It is with real concern that we discover lie is lame.
SoMe people offer the vulgar solution that it is the gout. We
cannot believe it. The grandeur of the occasion suggests a
more ; mysterious cause. The corn-laws and "
.political
friends" are at the root of that sore. That is the fatal sting.
There is the serpent which has bitten the Philoctetes, who,
helpless as he is himself, yet holds the fated irstruments of
our common deliverance. However, to what's before us.
Next to Sir Robert Peel, the most remarkable object in the
field is a wheelbarrow, bearing of course the same propor-
tion to the common specimen as the Premier does to com-
mon men.
" A very handsome mahogany navigator's wheelbarrow
was prepared fur receiving the turf; which was to be dug by
the Right Hon. Baronet; it was designed by Mr. Holmes,
of Liverpool, and was richly carved; it bore on each aide
of it the arms of Sir R. Peel, with his motto—" Industries."
The spade appears to have been still more idealized. It
was fitting sceptre for a railway king. So great an anxiety
was felt that it should be worthy of the occasion that the ar-
ticle first made was rejected. 'We should like to know why
It is not usual for Sheffield to yield to its Warwickshire
rival in matters of taster Did the original spade contain
any offensive emblems—one of those mystic wheat-sheaves
which procured the summary rejection of a splendid
velvet waistcoat after it had actually adorned and com-
forted the Premier's bosom? However that may be, Bir-
mingham was more successful, and supplied a beautiful fabric,
representing the conversion of the shield of war into the
-pade of peace, and modern industry crowning ancestral
honours.
4. The spade originally intended for use on the occasion was
manufactured expressly for the purpose in Sheffield, but upon
being inspected by the Committee appointed to attend to the
arrangements, it was not approved by them, and at a very
late period Messrs. Elkington and Co., of Birmingham, were
requested to make one in electro silver plate, which they
succeeded in finishing in time. The metallic part of the
spade is in electro-silver, and shaped somewhat in the form
of a heraldic shield, still preserving the characteristics of a
spade. On the front are engraved the arms, crest, and
motto of the Right Hon. Baronet, with the following in-
scription underneath:—'The works of the Trent Valley Rail-
way from Stafford to Rugby were commenced on the 13th
day of November, 1845, on which occasion the first sod was
turned by the Right Han. Sir Robert Peel, Bart., M.P., upon
lands in the parish of Tamworth, and county of Stafford,'
and on the reverse the official seal of the Trent Valley Rail-
way Company, together with the names of the Chairman,
Mr. Edmund Peel, the Directors, Engineers, Solicitor, and
Secretary, &c. The shaft or tree of the spade was formed
from a piece of old English oak, the upper part divid;ne into
two branches, forming the handle, appropriately carved with
oak leaves, acorns. &c., and highly polish, d."
The Chairman of the Company, Mr. Edmund Peel, is quite
alive to the importance both of his railway and of his illus-
trious relative. "The nation," be said, "was now looking
to him (Sir Robert) with the utmost anxiety, but with the
utmost confidence "—an —an amalgamation of alarm and re-
pose which will pass the fusing powers of Hudson him-
self, or even of the ingenious compounder of her Ma-
jesty's Ministry. The confidence Mr. Edmund Peel feels
in his railroad, happily for the shareholders, is considerably
less alloyed with anxiety. On this point he speaks with a
very comfortable degree of assurance. In fact, we must con-
fess he goes a little beyond us ; he says, " I believe that
there is little doubt that Tamworth will be the centrical sta-
tion of England, and I have reason to expect that the post-
office will be placed in this town." As for Sir Robert, it is
quite delightful to see him with his spade and his wheelbar-
row. If he does not handle them very dexterously, his mind
is in the work. He is to have the toys for his private amuse-
ment, and evidently appropriates the railway into the bar-
gain. It is the Premier's own. " I have given," he says,
" a cordial support to this undertaking."
" I gave it that support from a sincere belief that it was
calculated to be beneficial to this district, in the interests of
which I must take naturally a warm concern; but I sup-
ported it also from a conviction that the success of this
undertaking would be condicive to the public welfare. I
thought th public welfare would be promoted by establish-
ing a more direct and immediate communication between the
metropolis on the one hand, and Dublin and a great part of
Ireland on the other; between the metropolis and the west
of Scotland; between the metropolis and that great com-
mercial and manufacturing district, of which Liverpool and
Manchester are the capitals. It is probable that on the com-
pletion of this railway, Dublin will be brought within, in
point of time, 14 or 15 hours of London—that a letter posted
in London in the evening of this day can be answered from
Dublin on the morning of the day but one after—that is to
say, that Dublin in respect to post-office communication will
stand exactly on the same footing as this town stands on at
present. There is every reason to believe that Manchester
will be brought within six or seven hours of London. I said
on a former occasion that it would be brought within eight
hours, and that statement was received with incredulity. I
am sure I am not guilty of any exaggeration when I say
that Liverpool and Manchester, at probably no remote
period, will be brought within six or seven hours of London.
It was in the conviction, therefore, that great public benefit
would result from this undertaking that I gave it my warm
and unremitting support."
For our own part, we think Sir Robert might prophecy'
more very safely. That London and Manchester are not al-
ready within five hours is owing to the disgraceful bungling
of our railway- system in that very part of the country where
it ought to have been the best. We are involved in a laby-
rinth of railroads, and it is as much the Premier's fault as any
other man's that we have not more direct lines. The lines
between London and Manchester are only of the same mile-
age as the very circuitous line between London and Exeter.
The latter journey is performed every day in four hours and a
half. We may safely, therefore, go beyond the Premier, and
prophecy that Liverpool and Manchester will be brought
within four or five hours of the metropolis. The
rest of Sir Robert's egotism—and there is quite
the usual amount—is of a more venial, because
more sentimental, character. We pass it, and can
only notice with sincere approbation his advice
to the directors to make their carriages, especially the devoted
third class, more comfortable and humane. The comfort of
the public will, at last, we hope, become a condition of rail-
way monopoly, or an item of railway competition. One good
thing the Premier did say, and as the air of Tamworth seems
favourable to boldness of thought, and to candour of expres-
sion, we quote it for the benefit of those free trade allies with
whom the speaker must before long stand or fall :
" We must always admit that the passage of a railway
may be productive of some individual and partial disadvan-
tage—that some inns may have reason to complain of the
loss of their traffic, and some retail dealers of the diminution
of their trade. It is impossible to deny it—it is impossible
not to regret that that is the case; but what is it but saying
that for the great body of the community you have substi-
tuted a cheaper and better mode of communication, and
given them access to wider markets."
If Sir Robert does not perceive the obvious application of
this sentiment to the most important problem of the day, he
is, to use a a poetic license, the dullest of his hearers.
CHRONICLE.—In our notice of the Birmingham dinner
yesterday, we could only refer to one or two of the many
striking points in Mr. Cobden's admirable speech, but it was
a speech abounding with matter of the most stirring kind,
and one which will assuredly awaken a response in the heart
and mind of England. Mr. Cobden's oratory may be said to
be all bone and sinew. There is no waste or surplus matter
about it. It is pervaded by a spirit of life and energy which
imparts freshness and interest to the mast familiar things.
Mr. Cobden disclaimed argumentation on the merits of the
general question, and in doing so expressed the sentiment of
the nation. The reasons for and against the corn-laws have
done their work, and may be laid on the shelf. They are,
like arguments on the question of religious toleration, of his-
torical interest merely. Opinion is settled as generally' and
as decidedly as it ever can be by mere discussion. All that
remains is to bring legislation into harmony with it, and th's
is a mere question of time, and of the strength and tactics
of adverse parties. For a brief space within the last
month, Mr. Cobden, like all the world, cherished the
delusion that the end was at length ce me.
He, too, suffered himself to imagine that "Peel was the
man." But that dream is over. Sir Robert is the same
man he always was—great on small occasions, and small on
great ones; oracular and decisive upon a question of com-
peting railways, but dubious and procrastinating in the
presence of a great conflict between opinion and institutions,
and without a particle of that resolute temper which might
settle all by one bold and skilful stroke. Peel, it is clear,
is not " the man." Fortune opened to him a splendid pros-
pect, a little dangerous and difficult perhaps, as the openings
to great things are apt to be. He surveyed the perils and his
heart failed him. It is not of such stuff that heroes and
deliverers are made. The man who would liberate the
commerce, and sweep away the nefarious impost from the
bread of England, must be ready to tell the Duke of Wel-
lington and Lord Stanley to do their worst, and to trust him-
self, with entire reliance, to the indomitable spirit of that peo-
ple with whom, as Mr. Cobden truly said, the Duke of Wel-
lington " never yet entered into a contest in which he was
not beaten." The great work which Sir Robert Peel
shrinks from doing is one that he will be obliged, before long,
to see done. " Some one else will have to do it," and the
man will not be wanting when the time arrives. That time
will be when the intelligent middle classes of England show
themselves resolved to carry out their own principles. The
contest has become a mere trial of strength between them
and a portion of the landed aristocracy ; and it continues
only so long as the overwhelming powers of one of the
parties are suffered to lie dormant. The upholders of corn-
laws now hold their ground through the forbearance or the
inertness of their opponents. They are like a spaniel snatch-
ing a bone from a lazy mastiff ; the prey will not bedropped
until the saucy robber feels the teeth of the plundered owner
in his flanks. Mr. Cobden is right in saying that theprotection-
supporting aristocracy will not give up their privileges without a
struggle. Every hour of the struggle maydo them mischief, and in
the tight for the bread-tax far more precious advantages will
be endangered if not sacrificed; but still the struggle will go
on. The people will have to manifest their strength in order
to bring it to a conclusion. Mr. Cobden, therefore, and the
League are right in concentrating their attention and their
efforts upon the Parliamentary franchise. The counties in
which our great towns are situated may all be won, and
their accession to the principle of free trade would be deci-
sive in Parliament. The divisions of counties, for instance,
which surround London, Manchester, and Birmingham
might, by the process which Mr. Cobden describes, be ren-
dered strongholds for free trade. The law annezea the right

of voting in counties to the possession of a forty-shilling free-
hold, which any one who can invest a sum of fifty or sixty
pounds may purchase. Such a purchaser becomes, in
every point of view, moral as well as legal, as
fully entitled to the franchise as the purchaser ref
an estate of ten thousand a-year. It is the mere rav-
ing of disappointed faction to call such a franchise
a faggot or fictitious vote. It is no such thing. The
real possession of a certain property is the sole condition
prescribed and contemplated by the law for the enjoyment
of the right of voting. A hundred pound rent-charge from
a landed proprietor to his son or,dependent, when the transfer
is merely nominal, is a fictitious andfraudulent qualification.
A fifty-pound tenantcy-at-will, where the occupier dares not
call his soul his own, is a good qualification in point of law,
though it is destitute of every characteristic which proves
property to be a test for choosing legislators. But the forty-
Shilling freehold, which the industrious tradesman or mechanic
may purchase with his savings, is a gored and honest qualifi-
cation. It marks, as far as any such qualification can, the
presence of independence, frugality, and intelligence, and the
right of voting which it confers is a legitimate reward and
useful stimulus to the efforts of men who possess those quali-
ties. We trust, therefore, that wherever there is a great
town population it will use the means at its disposal to re-
dress its own grievances. The method pointed out by Mr.
Cobden is •simple, practical, and unobjectionable, and the
alarm which it has already excited in the ranks of the Pro-
tection party should encourage us to adopt it as rapidly and
completely as possible.
POST.—It is very satisfactory to find that in one im-
portant agricultural county no grounds exist for alarm with
respect either to the grain or rotato crop. We have on more
than one occasion stated our impression that on both these
subjects there had been much of exaggeration ; and we re-
joice to find, on the authority of practical men, that in Essex
the crop of wheat and other grain (with the exception of
oats) is an average one, and that the produce has been well
got in; whilst as a set-off against the partial failure of the
potatoes we have the fact that so much larger a breadth of
land than usual was planted this year, as to go far in the way
of compensation for the falling off occasioned by disease.
We feel little doubt that the state of things ascertained to
exist in Essex will be found much more general throughout
the country than has lately been supposed; at all events it
would be well to know what are really our prospects of a
supply of food, and we think that other counties ought to
follow the example of Essex in this as in other matters re-
lating to agricultural questions. Reports from committees
of the various agricultural protection societies might very
easily be drawn up ; and we feel assured that the effect
would he to remove from the public mind a great deal of un-
necessary anxiety. The Essex report to which we have
alluded is in these words:—
" Your Committee, finding the enemies of British agricul-
ture were anxiously propagating a report that the country
was on the very verge of a famine, have instituted inquiries,
in order to ascertain the probable produce of the late harvest,
and the state of the potato crop in the county of Essex, and
they confidently express their belief that in the county of
Essex an average crop of wheat and other grain (with the
exception of oats), has been produced and well secured ; that,
consequently there is no ground to apprehend any scarcity of
food for the sustenance of the people. In addition to this
gratifying result of their inquiries, they would also add that
from the lateness of the harvest not more than eleVen months'
consumption will be required from the present crop.
" Your Committee are of opinion that the potatoes will giVe
about half the usual yield per acre, but this will in a great
measure be compensated by . a larger breadth of land than
usual having this year been planted, and an extra quantity
of turnips and other vegetables grown.
" Your Committee beg to observe that the present price of
wheat barely exceeds the average of the seven years preceding
the year 1835, upon which the Tithe Commutation Act was
based ; and that, notwithstanding the clamour that has been
raised, the price scarcely exceeds the average avowedly con-
templated by the framers of the existing Act that governs
importation.
" Your Committee, taking all these circumstances into con •
sideration, cannot but congratulate themselves that their
efforts, in conjunction with those of other societies, have not
been exerted without a corresponding benefit, as from the
returns that have been made, it will be found that this coun-
try, under the system of protection and encouragement given
to agriculture, is at the present time, by the blessing of Pro-
vidence, less liable to suffer from scarcity than any of the
Continental States; and your Committee are satisfied that
the advance that has taken place in several descriptions of
grain since last harvest has arisen more from the demands of
those Continental States than from any deficiency of our
growth.
"Your Committee ha'7e the fullest reliance that the
framers and promoters of the present corn-law will not be
intimidated into measures that would produce effects so
ruinous that they cannot be contemplated without the
deepest apprehension; for, if confidence should at this time
be destroyed amongst the cultivators of the soil, the inevitable
result would be to deprive the agricultural labourers of em-
ployment, and to inflict distress and suffering on every class
of the community."
In the latter part of this document we have a remarkable
practical commentary on the senseless cry that has lately
prevailed in favour of opening our ports for the admission of
foreign grain. What supply could possibly be looked for
from people who are, at the present moment, supplying in our
markets the deficiency of their own harvest ?
Ii ERALD.—Some of our Contemporaries, in default of
other grievances, have been complaining of the metropolitan
improvements, wide streets, fine shops, plate-glass windows,
&c., &c., &c. Now we can see no great harm in all these.
It costs little more to build a handsome house than an ugly
ore, or to build houses regularly than to huddle them to-
gether in disorder • and as to wide and straight streets, they
must he acknowledged a general convenience. Laudatores
temporis acti as in some sense we are, we must defend from
the charge of innovation the taste for building handsome com-
mercial houses. There yet remain some' noble mansions in
the most mercantile part of the City, and err n in the desola-
tion of Bethnal-green and Spitalfields there stand the re-
mains of dwellings that might well have accommodated a
peer, though it is plain they must have been occupied by
persons engaged in trade. In proportion to the extent and
wealth of the metropolis it probably has now a smaller num-
ber of fine shops and fine counting-houses than it bad two
centuries ago ; for, after all, how few are the fine streets
compared with the extent of this overgrown city ? They
are the more noted, because, being the principal thorough-
fares, they present the strongest motive for decoration, and
are most frequently traversed. The denouncers of fine streets
and fine shops, however, take a line of argument that requires
to be considered with a little attention. The fine wide
streets, say they, are made at the expense of the dwellings
of the poor, for whom no other place is provided. This is,
to some extent true, though not to any very great extent,
for probably the number of the dislocated poor does not ex-
ceed a few thousands, and the evil—for though a small and
transitory evil, still an evil it is—has some compensating
advantages; among these advantages we must count the
breaking up of severalfionites of disease and vice. For our
part, though we do not agree with the Times that distemper,
demoralisation, and death, are the proper and desirable drains
of a metropolitan population, or, rather, because we do not
agree with the Times in this respect, we cannot weep over
the exenteration of St. Giles's, ors sigh at the threatened fall
of Field-lane and Saffron-hill. To remove the poor from
such styes, even at the cost of a little inconvenience to the
poor themselves, can be hardly regarded as a serious injury.
One of our Contemporaries calls upon the Government to
interpose in this matter. But what can any Government do
in such a case ? Here we have two" millions of human
beings compressed within five or six square miles
built over with bricks : is a Government to say—.
" You must not let in light and air upon this living fur-
nace. You must continue to preserve your
-foetid ac-
cumulations of wretched dwellings until they shall create a
pestilence that will soon provide house-room enough for you
all ?" This no Government will dare to say, or be wicked
enough to meditate. The metropolis must be permitted to
expand as it has been expanding; and within the last twenty
years the metropolis has extendd locally in a ratio far be-
yond the increase of population, enormous as that has been.
Still comes bask the question of the dwellings of the poor.
It is quite true, as stated by the complainants to whom we
refer, that the labouring poor cannot, without great expense
of time and labour on the part of many of them, take up
their abode in the remoter suburbs. It will not answer for
a labouring man to lodge at a distance of from four or five
miles from the proper place of his, labour. Upon this con-
sideration we have long suggested the erection of what we
called" labourers' barracks" in the central part of the City.
And we have shown that the erection of such barracks might
be made a profitable speculation, though estimating the rent
of a single room at no more than one shilling andpixpence
a week. Such barracks we have little doubt will arise,
sooner or later. Meanwhile, we see other elements
of improvement approaching, that will, we think, go
a great way to make room for the poor of the metropolis.
Take the range, north about, from the West India Docks to
Chelsea, andj survey the myriads of neat streets of small
houses that have grown up within a few years along the line
of the Blackwell Railway, at Hoxton, Islington, Somers
Town, Camdenyown;Portland Town, Paddington, Bayswater,
Kensington, &c. &c. Make a corresponding circuit on the
south side, and you will find a proportionate amount of neat
small houses in neat streets. Within the entire circuit are
many such streets and many such houses of a little older
standing. Now here, we predict, will in a few years be found
ample accommodation for the labouring poor, not by re-
moving them from, but by even bringing them nearer to the
scene of their labours. The process by wich this prediction is to
be fulfilled is simple, and, in ouropinion, certain. All men love
the fields better than the streets, and to occupy a cottage and
garden rather than a numbered house in a small street. It is
the economy of time necessary to a close attendance upon
business which determines a great proportion of the present
inhabitants of London to remain where they are. But let
us suppose the termini of all the railroads to have found
their way into the heart of the City, and the clerk or manu-
facturer at his own home, who now has his residence in
Walworth, Hoxton, or Clerkenwell, will be just as near his
place of business, as regards time and convenience, anywhere
at this side of Edgeware, Barnet, Croydon, or Richmond. This
will cause an immense emigration of the humbler middle class
—just that class whose retirement will make room for the la-
bouring poor. There is one order of the community whom we
have not enumerated among those whose emigration we antici-
pate. We speak of shopmen and shopwomen. -Whenever good
sense and humanity, nevertheless, shall be so far successful
as to enforce a' much earlier termination of the hours of
shop business, these, too, will be among the emigrants, and
not the least interesting or the least happy of the retiring
body. At present the only railroad which approaches the
centre of the City is that which debouches at London-bridge,
and from the vast population that has accumulated upon
Blackheath and its neighbourhood, and in the direction of
Croydon, one can calculate with some- approach to certainty
the prodigious drainage of people from every part of the
metropolis when all the railroads east, west, north, and
south, shall have found their way- to its centre. We must
exaggerate extravagantly indeed if the removals do not
exceed four or five fold the number of persons displaced by
those improvements that add so much to the beauty, com-
fort, and health of the metropolis.
ADVERESER.—The tribute paid the other day to the
Member for Wolverhampton, was one which that gentleman
most justly deserved. There is not to be found in the ranks
of the corn-law repealers, a single individual who has
laboured more zealously or unremittingly in the cause of
cheap bread and free trade, and assuredly no one surpasses
him in the consistency with which he has advocated that
cause. Ever since he identified himself with the anti-mono-
polist principle, Mr. Villiers has boldlyand uncompromisingly
maintained his views. Opposition did not daunt him, ner
did the still more discouraging circumstance of the apathy
of pretended friends, divert him from his purpose. For seve-
ral years he stood almost alone in his championship of the
anti-corn-law cause. To his annual motions and speeches
in opposition to the corn monopoly, is in a great
measure to be ascribed the encouraging aspect which
the cause of corn-law repeal now presents. It is fitting,
therefore, that the services of such a man, now that the
question is evidently on the eve of being carried, should re-
ceive some acknowledgement from the country generally.
The demonstration which took place at Birmingham, on
Thursday, must have feen highly gratifying to Mr, Villiers.
The expression of the sense which those present entertain of
his services in the cause of corn-law repeal, was not, like
many votes, of a complimentary kind, passed at public meet-
ings, a mere matter of form. It was honest and sincere.
assemblage felt what they expressed. And, it is r;'-' e!le
they but expressed the prevailing feel;-,6ut to acid'
country respecting the services ee. _throughout the
verhasofton 44 and.— web the Fember for. Tirol:
• to CAM unrestricted an