The Sun.
London, England, 1844-07-31 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.
FROM THE EVENING PAPERS OF YESTERDAY.
GLOBE.—Mr. Baron Alderson observed, in the
course of one of the late trials in Suffolk, when he
hee.th that the prisoner Lankester, who stood before
him at the bar charged with burning a stack of wheat,
had justified such an act, by saying, it would make corn
dearer and wages higher, " This is certainly a new
and very strange application of the doctrines of po-
litical economy." This remark of the Learned
Judges convinces us that he is not in the habit
of reading the doctrines of political economy put
forth by certain organs of landed " protection."
We do not know whether those journals are fa-
vourites in the beer-shops of Suffolk, as well as on
the breakfast-tables of Mayfair. Indeed, we must in
candour say we are disposed to imagine they are not.
Otherwise we should be compelled, however reluc-
tantly, to trace a moral complicity between their pre-
cepts and Lankester's practices. There is no doc-
trine which the public instructors in question have
been more anxious to propagate than the doctrine
that farmers ought not to look to increased powers
of production for profit ; and indeed that the more
they produce, the worse it is likely to be for them-
selves. They have disdainfully scouted the notion that
the native agriculturists should feel themselves bound to
create abundance, in consideration of such protection
as they enjoy. They opine that the farmers should by
no means give ear to Liebig ; that they should by
no means study to increase their products and thereby
lower prices ; that, in fact, the latter aro exclusively
what they ought to consider their Palladium ; and that
a rate of prices satisfactory to themselves it is the whole
duty of the Legislature to secure them. How far be-
yond this doctrine are the deductions from it for which
Lankester was convicted ? The most consistent organs
of monopoly think abundance, entailing cheapness,
the great evil to be discouraged and deprecated.
So thinks Lankester ; so he expressed to his ad-
miring associates on the treadwheel. " While on the
treadwheel (says the Chronicle Suffolk correspondent),
Lankester made such disclosures to some new friends
whom he met there, as led to his being accused
of incendiarism. The superintendent of the treadwheel
was sitting, as they thought, fast asleep. But, if his
eyes were shut, his ears were open, and he heard the
jokes which were perpetrated at his expense, together
with the doctrines of political economy promulgated by
Lankester, as also an account of the practical applica-
tion of those doctrines. Lankester had not only
been able to trace much of the misery of the
present times to the introduction of machinery ;
he was convinced, and tried to convince others,
that cheap corn was the greatest of curses to
the English labourers. He knew of no means, he
said, of raising the wages of the labourers, but by rais-
ing the price of corn ; he knew of no way of raising the
price of corn but by making it scarce ; and he knew of
no way of making it scarce so readily as to burn the
stack-yards. He was therefore in favour of burning
stacks, though greatly opposed to those who set fire to
barns and houses ; and if the witnesses and jury are
right in what they have said and done, he, to carry out
his principles of encouragement to native industry,' and
thorough out-and-out ' protection to agriculture,'
set fire to at least one stack with his own hand."
It is not every one that, like Lankester, has the
noble daring to work out principles to their conse-
quences. The Times has suggested the New Poor-law
as the raison sufftsante to the Suffolk incendiaries. This
is ingenious and plausible, and lesser minds than Lan-
kester's might be satisfied with the hint. But that com-
prehensive intellect was not to be limited in its range to
aught narrower than the scope of the whole theory of
spricultural protection.
To him hsA geaven with bounteous care assigned
Energetic nature, and a shaping mind.
The shape taken by Lankester's speculations was
not haranguing at county meetings, nor subscribing to
protection societies—bet limiting agricultural " over-
. production" by lucifer matches. The impulse of the
gentlemen of the Eastern counties (according to Mr.
Wodehouse), when they can't stand attacks on their
interest any longer,—is to charge somebody else with
incendiarism. Lankester's impulse, in the same
region, has at least greater directness and dash about
it. It is, namely, to commit incendiarism himself.
But a prophet has no honour in his own county: The
presentment of the grand jury described Lankester's act
of incendiarism as " malicious." They should have de-
scribed it as mistakenly protective ; and with that fel-
low-feeling which marks class-interests, they should
have recommended to mercy the practical enthusiast for
their own economical doctrines. At least some token of
sympathy, surely, 0 Suffolk squirearchy, might have
been afforded to the ill-fated translator of artificial-price
doctrine into fact—
Doom'd the long isles of Sydney Cove to see—
A martyr to his crime—but true to thee.
STANDARD.—The debate in the House of Com-
mons last night upon the Irish Charitable Bequests Bill
presents new proof, if new proof were wanted, of the im-
possibility of satisfying the demands of the Irish po-
litical Roman Catholics by any concession short of abso-
lute dominion. The purpose of the Bill is to facilitate
Roman Catholic endowments by certain changes in the
law of charitable devises ; and by the appointment of
a Commission, of whom five Commissioners are to be
Roman Catholics. Whether this change in the law is
such as Protestants ought to approve of is a question
open to debate; but that it ought to be gratefully
accepted by Roman Catholics, no rational man will
dispute ; nevertheless, Mr. O'Ferrall, Mr. Shed, Mr.
Wyse, Mr. Bellew, Mr. M. J. O'Connell, and Mr. Dillon
Browne made a great outcry, because, forsooth, the
titular bishops—whom Mr. Wyse indecently and ille-
gally called the prelates of " the Church of Ireland"
—had not been consulted, and because none of
these persons are to be ex officio Commissioners.
Now what has that to say to the law ? If the law is
otherwise a good law, what matter who was consulted in
forming it, or by whom, supposing them honest men,
it is to be administered ? The Commission is to be
a tribunal for the determination of questions of title
to property. And are we to be told that tribunals
are to be constituted by popular or by party election ?
If this principle is once admitted, we can hardly
quarrel with Mr. O'Connell's arbitration courts.
toes of Roman Catholic property of all kinds,
testamentary as well as other cases, come before the
Protestant judges of her Majesty's courts of equity and
of civil law. Yet it is not denied that justice is impar-
daily administered by these Protestant judges. What
possible objection, then, to a Commission of charitable
bequests, if it were exclusively Protestant ; above
all, what objection to such a Commission when
five of its members are to be Roman Catho-
lics ? But, says Mr. Sheil, we object to the
Commissioners, whether Protestant or Roman Ca-
tholic, being laymen. Here the cloven foot peeps out.
The Romanist Bishops want to establish themselves
somewhere as a legalised tribunal, an authorised corpo-
ration, well knowing that if they obtain that footing
they will soon make good more ground. It is upon
this consideration they make a complaint of not
being consulted ; and upon this consideration
they demand to be placed, ex officio, in the admi-
nistration of the law. These persons forget, however,
that though the State recognises their orders from their
church (in which we think the State very wrong),
wherever they may happen to be found, the " security"
law of 1829 distinctly forbids them, under a penalty,
to claim a local jurisdiction, even in things
spiritual, anywhere within her Majesty's domi-
mons. The Legislature, in granting them local
jurisdiction in matters merely temporal, would therefore
act in direct violation of its own ordinances. It is
worthy of observation that none of the British Members
who usually support the Romanist party could find
front to vote with them last night, and even Mr. Joseph
Hume both spoke and voted against them. Considering
the Bill as one of mere temporal arrangement, and not
unjust in principle, we have no objection to offer to it,
and we certainly rejoice at the manner in which it has
been introduced.

MARKET INTELLIGENCE.

(From the London New Price Current of July 30.)
SUGAR.—Since Tuesday last the demand has been limited
for brown, common grey and yellow sorts of West India
Sugar, still former rates are generally sustained, but for
strong grey and bright yellow kinds a good demand has pre-
vailed, and merchants have obtained fully former prices.
To-day the market was in a quiet state for British Plantation
Sugar ; the demand was limited for the scale and pan, and
the rates accepted were rather under those of Friday for
inferior yellow and brown sorts, but good and fine yellow kinds,
of which the supply is small, maintained the former currency,
and are held with firmness : at public sale 144 hhds
6 tres Barbadoes were offered ; the better qualities fetched
full rates, but mid and low went heavily 6d to Is under the
prices of the last auction; fine yellow fetched 64s to 675,
good mid and good 60s to 635, mid 58s to 59s Gd, low dingy
37s to 57s 6d, and strong grainy 65s per cwt. The total pur-
chases are only 450 lihds and tics.
REMED.—Prices cannot again be quoted higher for
Refined Sugar, but the demand has been good from the
home trade, and the supply is by no means large. To-day
Refined Sugar was in good request by the home trade ;
brown Lumps at 74s 6d to 755, and standard Lumps 76s to
to 76s 6d per cwt. The supply is small, especially of the
low and middling qualities. For bonded Crushed Sugar
prices are again higher, sales made at 26s 3d to to 26s Gd per
cwt. The market is still scantily supplied. In Loaves there
has been a good deal doing.
MACRITIUS.—A. decline in prices of 6d has taken place for
good and tine yellow, and is per cwt for all other sorts. The
principal part of the Sugar offered since Tuesday last has
consisted of common and middling qualities.
Bass' INDlA.—There has been a falling off in the demand
for Bengal Sugar, at a decline of 6d per cwt. 'The market
•b as a firm appearance for Foreign East India Sugar. This
afternoon Bengal Sugar met with little attention. Fine
white at 653 to 65s 6d, good 625, middling 60s to Gls, low
yellowish white 598, middling yellow 58s, ordinary 55s to 565,
damp brown 50s to 52s 6d, yellow ditto 538 to 575, and white
ditto 57s 6d to 65s per cwt.
FOREIGN.—To-day the market_ presented a firm appear-
ance for Foreign Sugar. Yellow Havannah was disposed of
to a fair extent privately at 19s to 2ls per cwt. Brown Bahia
in small parcels fetched 18s 6d to 19s per cwt for good and
tine quality.
MOLASSES.—West India at 20s to 24s per cwt for low to
good quality. St. Lucia taken in at 225. Bengal Molasses
sold at 15s to 17s per cwt.
COCOA.—Foreign at rather lower rates. Trinidad sold at
40s to 42s for mid to good sound red, 38s 6d for ord, and
Dominica at 36s per cwt. This afternoon Trinidad Cocoa
at 36s to 37s per cwt.
COFFEE.—There has been less inclination manifested on
the part of holders of West India Coffee to realise, and they
have refrained from offering any at auction ; by private
treaty some parcels of clean quality were_ disposed of at
fully former rates, but unclean sorts are dull of sale and are
offered at comparatively low terms. Mocha has been in
I much better request, and in some cases the rates
P'ss paid are rather above those of this day week.
• This afternoon Ceylon real good ordinary fetched 54s 6d to
-• •
O.IV 555, good ord 53s 6d to 545, ordinary 535, fine ordinary 56s
6d to 58a 6d, sea damaged 41s 6d to 68s 6d, triage 33s to 46s
6d, sound pea berry 70s to 83s, fine fine ordinary coloury
grey Demerara sort 62s 6d to 695. Of„emerara unclean at
67s 6d to 608 for low middling, 65s to 75s for middling, and
325 to 55s Gd for very low to good ord, being cheaper.
RUM, BRANDY, AND HOLLANDs.—For Jamaica Rum 32
t 34 per cent oyerproof fair dm quality at 3e 3d W 36 4d,