The Sun.
London, England, 1844-06-28 00:00:00

FROM THE EVENING PAPERS OF YESTERDAY.
GLOBE.—With the best will in the world, we have
extreme difficulty in understanding what our friends, the
nothing-but-free traders, rnk- an by their distinguishing
" principle." We are as much enemies as they of the.
Peel corn-law--and, if possible, still more of the Peel
sugar-law. In our opinion all just principles of na-
tional commerce are by both of these laws violated—and
by the latter violated by similar anti-commercial devices
to the former—only with additional aggravations by the
abuse of moral sentiments and criteria. The sugar
sliding-scale is so far worse than the corn one, as it not
only purpoaely obstructs commerce, but brings in fraud,
and perjury, and offence to hitherto friendly Powers.
It is here that occurs our difficulty in understanding
the distinctive " principle" of our anti-corn-law gentle-
men. They tell us (and we hear the announcement
with perfect good humour, but profound mystification)
that this same " principle," whatever it is, renders it
necessary that, on the one hand, they should accept no
assistance from any one who maintains any duty on
corn, and on the other hand that they should support a
sugar-duty even worse, in principle, than the corn sliding
scale. We do not understand so much strictness—and
so much laxness. The one makes the other inconceivable.
Or, rather, perhaps, when we look closer, it is the one that
explains the other. There is in both the desire to dis-
tinguish themselves as a separate body, natural to new
sects. Sydney Smith once talked of the patent Christianity
of Clapham-common. There is something of a similar
desire to stand forth as patentees of orthodox commer-
cial doctrine. But all exclusive protections are exceed.
ingly misleading in public conduct. In these very two
last discussions, they have given a Ministry brought in
by betrayed class interests, two decisive divisions— the
one essential to its existence, the other to its perma-
nence. Sir R. Peel, on Monday last, declared the
question to be a question of a vote of confidence in his
Ministry. That vote was carried by our exclusive
friends of free trade—and carried by voting for a scale
of sugar duties, framed on still worse principles than the
sliding-scale on corn. We should scarcely have recurred
to this vote, but for the extraordinary contrast to it
presented by the rigid terms of Mr. Cobden's declaration
of last evening If any man tells me that he is for a
free trade in earn, and not in silk, I repudiate his co-
operation ; and we put out our proclamation distinctly •
to say that we do not ask a shilling from anybody
who is not ready to abolish all protections."
This language (and much other language which has
been used about the inadmissibleness of all terms of
compromise) would appear to evince a determination
to obtain everything, or accept nothing. But how
does it tally with the fact of stepping in to support a
falling Minister—and giving him co-operation on the
plea that what he proposed, though defying all princi-
ple, was some shadow of a shade better than Mr.
Miles would thereupon propose to substitute ? Bow
does it happen that gentlemen who refuse co-operation
from all whose views come short of their own, should
give it to Ministers, on the strength of acme impercep-
tible colour for preference between the violation of
commereial principles they proposed, and some other
violation, which, with every deference to our friends,
we must say they had nothing whatever to do with.
If Ministers were proposing a glaring departure from
all principle, a " great moral lesson " would have been
afforded by leaving them in a second minority on their
sugar duties. From this the " thirteen " saved them ;
and it was quite in character with that remarkable
incident that the two companies should last night
combine their forces, as Sir Robert Peel said,
for " the benefit" of the League, and that the
latter should take its benefit at St. Stephen's instead
of Covent-garden. In sober sadness, we are convinced
that what we may term the bigotry of free trade will
only defer the attainment of its practical benefits, as
regards the articles most important. Such is our opi-
nion ; which any of our friends are entitled, of course,
to " repudiate." Their " principle " is safe, at present, '
from our reprisals; for we do not at present understand it.

STANDARD.—The debate upon Mr. Villiers's mo-
tion terminated a little before two o'clock this morning,
in a division of 328 to 124, against the motion of the
Hon. Member for Wolverhampton, Mr. Ferrand having
by consent withdrawn his amendment, We have not at
hand the sad register of the anti-corn-law defeats,
but this, we believe, is the most signal discom-
fiture that the free traders have sustained during
some years, and it cannot be accounted for by
anything but the melancholy retrogradation of
their cause. The general Conservative ascendancy
in the 'louse of Commons will not supply the solution,
for the Conservative majority is but 100, or thereabout ;
but here there was a clear majority of 204 against the
League--in a House of 457 Members, Speaker and
tellers included—a full House for the 26th of June. Nor
can it be pretended by the Leaguers—that the
free trade men had not all the help which
their services to the ousted Whig-Radical faction en-
titled them to claim ; as, for example, Lord Howl&
a protectionist, unmindful of the paternal pledge to
stand by " the order" of landlords, voted with Mr.
Villiers ; and Lord John Russell, another avowed pro-
tectionist, after making a speech, slunk away from the
division, to prove, we suppose, the manly decision c,f
character becoming one whose ambition aspires even to
the station of Prime Minister. It is for the persons who
have collected from among the more particularly
stupid gulls of the population 100,000 L sterling,
to show that this result is a sufficient equivalent for the
money paid to them, and to explain why they could
not be so handsomely beaten at less cost. Defeat and
disgrace must be expensive luxuries if last night's
11 overthrow—an overthrow which it is impossible to

palliate in any way—was not dear at 100,0001. This
is, however, an affair between the League and its
subscribers. We have nothing to do with the
adjustment of the account between the League
and its tributaries ; for the excisemen of Water-lane
never had a penny from us, notwithstanding that we,
like every one else, have had a plenty of their applications
—models in the begging letter line—to which we would
direct the attention of the Mendicity Society's officers.
By the way, aro not the sums extorted by the League,
as it now plainly appears, upon a false pretence,
recoverable by a simple legal process ? We think
they are, and we hope that the experiment will he
tried. It would be, if our view be correct, an excel-
lent precedent as regards the Irish repealers. Wo
have a great preference for those laws that
in some measure execute themselves, and a law
which should compel traders in sedition to re-
fund the profits of their execrable trade to those
whom they had cheated, would certainly sooner
or later execute itself, and thus more effectually extin-
guish the sedition trade than any number of state pro-
secutions or.coercion acts. Let us but fancy an agita-
tor, for money, treated one year with as many writs of
summons as he had wheedled or extorted subscriptions
the year before. With such a prospect before them
men would be a little slower than they have been
to accept commissions as " repeal wardens" or " collec-
tors for the League." As to the Leaguers, however, if
they have conscience or honour, they are bound to refund
the money in hand after last night's, or rather this morn-
ing's, solemn and final decision against their project.
We must, however, return to the debate for a few ini
nutes. The discussion, as always happens with the nine•
teenth or twentieth discussion of the same subject, was,
for the most part, pretty wide of the question proposed,
being generally directed to former discussions and their
incidents ; somewhat according to the maxim of the
moral poet, to
" Make each day a critique on the past."
On questions like the corn•laws men forget the merits,
and make

Each debate a critique on the last."
The first day's debate was insufferably dull, but for the
slight interval of sunshine during Mr. Gladstone's grace-
ful and' conclusive argument. Mr. Villiers' opening
speech otnearly four hours would " sink a navy," or,
to speak less figurately, would swamp a session. Be-
sides loading his discourse with copious extracts
from newspapers, Mr. Villiers raked up the old
Malthusian scare-crow, to prove that the country
ought to be made to produce less food because it
is producing more people—a not very logical conclusion.
We are not disposed to deal seriously with such non-
sense, but we beg te ask Mr. Villiers for the proofs of a
redundant :population. Are these proofs to be found in
the arguments of the millowners upon the Factory Bill ?
Is it a proof that there are too many hands, that the peo-
ple are (for the safety of the country, as we are told) under
a necessity of working a greater number of hours than is
consistent with health and moral improvement ? and
that they must begin to work at an age, and in a con-
dition, when, according to the order of Providence, they
ought not to be labourers ? If the excess of population
is such as Mr. Villiers describes, the remedy would
seem to lie in distributing labour among the many,
not in accumulating it upon the few ; the former
is, at least, the way in which a ship or a gar-
rison, when its population is too great for its resources,
ekes out its supplies, by putting all upon a short allow-
ance. But, overlooking this more obvious and simple
remedy, Mr. Villiers says, employ more people in
manufactures by repealing the corn-laws. Now, we
have grave doubts that a repeal of the corn-
laws would employ more people in manufactures.
As regards the home market, we know that the
measure would diminish, to an enormous extent, the
number of persons employed in manufactures, and
we do not see abroad the elasticity of wealth that
would speedily supply the void. Referring again to
the Factory Bill debates, we seem to ourselves to re-
member tales of people working in the United States,
in France, in Switzerland, and in Germany 16 and
18 hours a day. Now, the countries in which the popu-
lation must work 16 or 18 hours a day for a living are
surely not in a state which promises much from their
custom as purchasers ; and let it be remembered that it
is always to the mass of the Population—to the workers
for 18 hours a day—in the particular case we must look
for purchasers.

ARTILLERT.—We read in a letter from Vienna,
June 14:—" An iron cannon, loaded by the breach, invented
by.M. Wahrensdorfl; the owner of iron works in Sweden, has
just been submitted to a trial, in presence of the chief of ar-
tillery, the Archduke Louis, and the result has been satisfac-
tory. The mechanism consists of a cylinder, which, after
being charged, shuts the opening of the breach, and is fitted
to it by a transversal cylinder. The mark was placed 400
paces off, and 50 shots were tired at, ifis rapidly as poisible.
The piece was an 18-pounder, and, from the total abst nce of
inconvenience and danger, it, will, it is supposed, serve excel-
lently for fortresses or ships.
STRANGE, it TRUE.—However incredible %,t may
appear, we are assured by parties who were wanes/ 3 to the
fact, that during the heavy rain which fell on Bloni lay last,
an immense number of pebbles descended upon the g.xchange
flags, and some eels in Castle-street. The pebbles' were all
small in size, but of different colours and shapes.
,'One was a
beautiful white, and was picked up by a mer chant, who
valued it so highly that he refused to part witb it, and took
it home. The inspector on duty at the Exchat ige gathered a
large number of the pebbles and deposited that,' in one of the.
RelghbOUring offices, where they have since bet 3n very gene.
rally admired. Couriers ere about two incikes find a half
leagth—Liverool