The Sun.
London, England, 1842-04-26 00:00:00

titg _Sun.

LONDON
TUESDAY MORNING, APRIL 26, 1842.

WC Fee with pleasure that %Ir. Hum' is again in the
House of Commons. He took his seat last night, and
immediately began that career of usefulness which we
hope he will long continue. The Liberal party gains no
vote by substituting Mr. Hum: for Mr. CHALMERS, for
the latter gentleman was a staunch Radical, but it gains
au active, diligent, robust, well-informed Member: for
one whose health did not allow him to be as useful as he
wished. Mr. TIUME also has acquired, by his long and
steady advocacy of Liberal principles, the character of a
leader in that party, and his advice will be listened to
and his example followed. He will do more than
merely bring his own vote and speech to bear in the
right place ; he will influence the votes and the speeches
of a few other Members to support his own. He will
serve as a rallying point for a considerable section of
the Liberal party, and will give consistency and power to
scattered and weak forces. On these grounds, as well as
from the conviction we have that Mr. Hum: will now aga in
turn his financial acquirements to good account, we are
much pleased to see him restored to the House of
Commons, looking as strong and healthy as we ever
knew him.

On Thursday week Lord STANLEY made a remark-
able statement in the House of Commons relative to
emigration, which we noticed in our leader of the fol-
lowing day. The substance of that was, that all our
colonies nearly were overdone with labour, acd that
henceforth, unless capital emigrated as well as labour,
there was little chance of labourers finding immediate
employment. Canada the Noble Lord made an excep-
tion to the general description; but the best he could say
of Canada was, that he thought it likely to become a
scene of profitable employment to the emigrant. At the
same time he admitted that "in many instances the
emigrants had suffered severely." Such being the con-
dition of our colonies, we learn with much regret that
emigration has begun this year with increased activity.
The tide of Emigration, (says the Limerick Reporter) from
the Irish ports has never been remembered to flow so strongly,
so rapidly, and so continuously as during the present season.
The persons quitting their " own loved land of sorrow" are
generally of the better class of farmers—or the more able. bodied
and active labourers—the bone and sinew of a State, and who
uniformly bring sufficient means to enable them to set up inde-
Wpendently in the country of their adoption. A letter from
Waterford, received this morning, assures us that the quantity
of emigrants which has lett that port within the last few weeks
is almost incredible—it is computed that two thousand have
already quitted their native shores in vessels from the Suir, and
that one thousand more at least will leave before the season
closes ! From Wexford, we perceive by the Independent, that
several hundreds have left the port of New Rosa—and from
Limerick, we need only observe that emigration has never been
known to equal what it is at this moment, and what it has been
for the past fortnight. The number entered at the Custom-
house to this day is about eleven hundred, and more are imme-
diately to follow.
In our last publication (says the Glasgow Saturday Post)
we drew the attention of our readers to the extent of emigra.
tion going on amongst the most miserable part of our popula-
tion. Since then, the large ship Renfrewshire, of t:4l tons
burden, has sailed from Port Glasgow for Quebec, with 540
passengers, belonging to the Glasgow and Paisley Emigration
Societies.

It is painful to reflect what is to become of these per-
sons, thus drafted off to countries where their services
are not wanted—where the land is, in fact, already as
completely appropriated by the Government as the land
is appropriated by individuals at home, and where they
can no more squat down on an untenanted common and
supply their own wants by their own industry, without
paying a rent for the use of land, which they have no
means to pay, or without buying it, than they can
squat down in the park at Drayton Manor. If they
were departing to some country which no Government
had seized, carrying with them provisions for a few
weeks, and having a knowledge of agriculture, we
might spare our pity. They could help themselves.
But they go from amidst one aristocracy-ruined people
into the midst of another people and another
land, where the very same aristocracy, and the
very same laws and regulations, will consign
them to only a continuance of the suffering
they have been exposed to here. We feel for them,
therefore, the sincerest pity, and look forward to hear
bitter tales of their calamities.

In the present state of our colonies we much question
the humanity and the justice of any classes in Glasgow
and Paisley relieving themselves, by sending as ay mul-
titudes of persons on the uncertain chance of their ob-
taining employment and subsistence in the colonies. if
they send them to the United States, they can guarantee
them nothing. The people from Ireland appear to go
of their own accord, carrying with them their household
gods; and we can only in their ease blame the Govern-
ment, which, undertaking the superhuman task of beat,
ing all the people who acknowledge its sway, has not in-
formed them that most of the colonies are overstocked
with lit!.;our.

Such is .ts as these disprove a', once the notion
that a want of land is the cause of a want of
employment for the people. •Our community is not
distressed because our nurnber'6_ are too great, for in
all the colonies land abounds, and needs nothing but
human tenants. Such facts overturn the theory, that
nature has not provided sufficient space for man, under
which all modern Governments have sheltered their own
errors. We are not surprised to End, therefore, that
such facts are contributing to carry conviction home to
the gr?.4 multitude, that it is class legislation, that it is
Uiisgovernment, that it is the ignorant, even when well
meaning, mailing of 'selfish legislators which inflict
poverty and misery on the people of new countries, as

Since the Ipswich Election Committee has followed
the example of the Sudbury Election Committee, and re-
commended that the issue of the writ for that notoriously
corrupt borough be suspended, we begin to form a more
favourable opinion of Election Committees. It will now
remain, however, for the House of Commons to do its
duty, and brand itself, elected as it has been by some-
what similar means, by disfranchising the two guilty
boroughs. If it be said that the House of Lords will
not pass Bills disfranchising the boroughs, let the Bills
be sent up to them, and let the responsibility of refusing to
pass them fall on the Lords. It is the business of the House
of Commons to act honestly, boldly, and justly, without
regard to what the House of Lords may do. We call
on the Commons, therefore, to disfranchise the two
boroughs, and to disfranchise every borough and every
place in which bribery is practised.. Let that House
punish those who sell the rights of their brethren as well
as their own, and perhaps the unenfranchised may learn
to bear their undeserved privations with greater patience
when they see thOse deprived of the elective trust who
are totally unworthy to possess it.

When Members of Parliament bring forward motions
on subjects with which they are practically little ac-
quainted, common sense would dictate that at all events
they should obtain instruction from others, or from Re-
ports of Committees, in order to meet the objections of
Members, who from interest or conviction are opposed
to them. Without some preparation of this kind, they
not only make a very awkward exhibition, but injure the
cause in which they are engaged. This result was very
manifest on Friday last, when Mr. HA RDY proposed a clause
in the Railways Bill, for making it imperative on the
Directors to place two or more luggage trucks between
the tender and the passengers' train. The motion was
met by a direct negative on the part of Mr. C. RUSSELL,
who took advantage of the experience he had acquired
as Chairman of the Great Western Railway, and read
the Member for Bradford a severe lecture for interfering
with matters of which he had no practical knowledge.
He then endeavoured to show, or, more properly speak-
ing, he asserted, that the motion was absurd, for if carried
into effect an additional weight of thirty tons would be
made to the light trains, thus increasing it by one-half,
and thereby rendering another engine necessary. This
train of deductions staggered Mr. HARDY, who merely
intimated that he had got a terrible fright on the Brigh-
ton line, and his only object was to provide for the
safety of human life. Now the Member for Reading must
be aware that the greater part of his objections
had no real foundation, that it is no uncommon
practice to place a luggage-waggon, or eves
two, immediately behind the tender, and if the
servants of the Company gave their evidence
correctly on the investigation into the fatal accident near
Reading, it had been adopted, fur a time at least, on the

line with which he is connected. Where there is a will,
there is a way ; and were the managers inclined,
they would soon make arrangements by which a goods'
track could be placed first and last in every train. Men of
practical knowledge have admitted that this is one of the
best securities against fatal acciden ts. The evidence of Cap t
LAWES, given before the Railway Committee last May,
is very decisive on this point, and it carries the more
weight, because this gentleman had been manager of the
Manchester and Leeds Railway from its very commence-
ment. The following are the questions and answers :
Have you not sometimes goods carried with passengers ?
—'To a certain extent we have with nearly all the pas-
sengers' trains. Under those circumstances they travel
as fast as the passengers ?—Yes, but it is not a great
weight, and it is between two buffers. Where do
you generally put those goods upon those pas-
sengers' trains 2—Before and behind. Upon prin-
ciple ?—Yes. As matter of protection ?—Yes. Do
you confine those goods' carriages, that you send to
a particular class of goods ?—No ; that depends
on accident. But you would always be glad to mix in a
passenger-train a certain number of goods' carriages ?
Yes, if the train was not too heavy ; if we had spare
power, we should appropriate it by putting the goods on.
Is it in consequence of your orders that those goods'
trucks are mixed with passenger carriages in the way
you have described ?—Yes ; I have always considered it as
giving safety to passenger trains. Do you feel the object
of safety so much involved in it as to displace trucks and
luggage-waggons, in case of the addition of other pas-
senger carriages for the purpose of putting them still in
the rear ?—Yes, we de that. You look upon them as a
kind of buffer 7—Yes.

In The Sea of yesterday we inserted some inter-
esting particulars respecting one of the numerous publlc
dinners given to 111 r. CHARLES DICKENS, by his ad-
mirers in the United States. According to all the ac -
counts we have received, nothing could surpass the en-
thusiasm with which this gentleman has every where
been welcomed in the New World ; and, indeed, the
speeches made at the Hartford dinner, sufficiently prove
how deep is the sentiment of esteem and admiration he
has excited. We congratulate him on his success, tier
he has richly deserved it by Ms writings, which breathe
the loftiest and purest spirit of humanity, and exhibit in
every page qualities of the heart not less estimable than
those of the head.

The wine-growers of Portugal are exceedingly impa-

ient for the negotiation of a commercial treaty with

Great Britain. They have a large stock of wines on
hand, for which the world offers them no market, and
which they must either find purchasers for, or be
ruined. Letters from Lisbon, of the 18th instant,
state that negotiations about a commercial treaty
were carried on between Lord How Ann DE
WALDEN and the Duke of PALMELLA, and but fur
the slanderous misrepresentations of the Republi-
can Journals of the capital, there is little doubt that
such a treaty would have been long since established,

to the mutual benefit of the two countries. No countries
in Europe would benefit half so much by commercial in-
tercourse with England as Portugal and Spain. The
staples of both countries—wines, fruit, wool, and
mineral products—are in constant demand in Eng-
land and her colonies ; whereas, our manufac-
tures are essential to the comfort of the popula-
tion of Spain and Portugal. Let only such freedom
be given to trade as will allow it, by its own action, to
place itself on a proper basis, and there will be no clash-
ing of international interests. The Spaniards and Por-
tuguese have a right to look forward to the time
when our Corn-laws must be altogether abolished.
Now, in these countries agriculture is in its
infancy. By adopting the English and Scotch systems
of farming, they can easily raise double the quantity of
grain required for their own consumption, and for this
England will in time offer them a profitable market.
The Press of Portugal is profoundly ignorant upon
these questions, being wholly guided by the opi-
nions of the Paris Republican prints. As these
Journals are daily affirming that France would be
ruined by a commercial treaty with England, the
cuckoo note is caught up and re-echoed by the news-
papers of Oporto and Lisbon. They forget, or rather
they know nothing of the fact, that France does not
desire to enrich them at the expense of her own wine
and brandy growers. France has wines and brandies to
sell; so far she has an interest in opening her ports
to England ; but she has also manufactories
of silk, cotton, hardware, hosiery, gloves, &c., and to
their supposed interests her Journals are constantly in
favour of sacrificing the profits of free commercial in-
. tercourse with Great Britain. This is the key to their
clamours against a commercial treaty with England, and
as the Portuguese Journals are without it, they blunder
on in the same strain, to the ruin of the wine and fruit
growers in the Peninsula.

It is only by extending their commerce, by the re-
moval of every impediment upon trade, that Spain and
Portugal can arrive at any great degree of political pros-
PeritY• With trade will come wealth, and knowledge,
1314 toltration, and with these will come power and ex-

well as on the inhabitants of old countries. Thus, Mr.

LOVETT, in a manly and excellent speech which he de-
' livered at the Suffrage Conference of Birmingham,
spoke the sentiments of thousands of his fellow workmen :
Our country, possessing great natural, industrial, and
scientific means of prosperity, and producing wealth beyond
any other nation on the earth,. has, notwithstanding, a pauperised
and over-burthened population. Minions. of our industrious
inhabitants are reduced to a state of physical misery, worse
even than is found in the wigwam of savage life. Numbers
are toiling like slaves, yet pining while they toil ; and those
who can fly the land of their fathers, bless the means which
rescue them from a life of wretchedness.—(Hear, hear.)
Vast numbers of our manufacturers, merchants, and
wealth-distributors, have sunk to rise no more, crushing
thousands in their fall; and the great majority, it
is feared, are fast verging on bankruptcy and ruin. Our
trade, sinking and embarrassed, is fast seeking countries
more congenial to its development and exercise, and, despite
Sir Robert's measure, will get worse and worse so long as mo-
nopoly shall retain its gripe, or monstrous taxation prevent us
from fairly competing with the countries of the world.
( Cheers.) Our political institutions, however lauded by aris..
tocratical writers, so far from promoting the life-giving blessing
of freedom, have generated the vilest despotism in every depart-
ment of the State; for the confining of the franchise to a com-
paratively few has thrown the whole political power of the
count' y into the hands of a profligate and liberty-hating aris-
tocracy—persons who, from the earliest records, have been war-
ring against freedom abroad, or liberty at home, and by whose
acts and efforts our country has been reduced to its present
beggared condition.—(Loud cheers. )
Emigration will not get rid of the mass of discontent
which is here pourtrayed, but it will spread discontent
with suffering through the colonies. Emigration, too,
will not relieve the farmers at home, because that does
not arise from too many people. Emigration will how-
ever remove some of the tax-paying means of the com-
munity, and leave a lesser power to bear that accumulat
ing burden, which the policy of Sir ROBERT PEEL i 3
heaping on the country.