The Sun.
London, England, 1827-03-14 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

We would rouse, though almost in despair of a beneficial re-
sult, attention to the trickery which is practised on the nation
with respect to the corn bill. What we may call the centre ad-
mission prices of barley and oats have been suddenly and unex-
pectedly raised in the Committee ; and in the same surreptitious
manner have the corresponding import duties upon each of those
articles been raised also, at their centre points. We could hardly
have conceived any thing so severe and cruel upon the manufac-
turing population, as well as so great a deviation from the prin-
ciple of the original bill. First, with respect to barley—it is
well known that bailey forms the chief constituent ingredient in
the bread of the poor throughout the north of England. It is
sold, and even grown, mingled with the wheat, and the whole is
balled netslin ; so that the increase of the tax upon barley is really
'au s increase of the tax upon the bread of the poor : it is also an
intost upon his drink ; and though the brewer may not imme-
diately raise the price of his article, he will lower its strength,
and that at a time when there is, from its low price, so
Itebtig a temptation to drink gin. Oats, too, are also a con-
stituent article in the bread of Scotland ; so that the Corn Bill,
thus metamorphosed, is likely to turn out a most grievous
:opptession on the manufacturing poor, and to place their
";read, coarse as it is, beyond their reach. Better would it
have been, in our mind, to have raised the price of the
bread of the rich, by rendering wheat as far as possible inadmis-
sible, than thus to have dropped down with heavy hand upon the
only necessaries of life which the poor can procure for the sup-
port of nature. However, the cruelty is, we suspect, to be in-
discriminate ; for we have heard that the condition of the Bill's
passing is, that a prohibitory duty, even upon wheat, shall be un-
posed in its progress up to the Royal assent—that is, that foreign
Nirbeat shall not be admitted at all till the home article has mounted
tap to a certain price. Snch an arrangement preserves the mis-
chief of the old system, and amalgamates it with whatever is
noxious and distressing in the new. And do Mr. Canning and
Mr. Huskisson submit to these distortions of their originally be-
nevolent plan ? If so, we ask, who are Ministers ? Where does
the responsibility attach? There is no First Lord of the Trea-
sury ! No President of the Board of Trade ! No Secretary-for
Foreign Affairs ! They are all sick ; and we doubt much whe-
ther the nation will not be sicker still of the measures which are
adopted during their abeyance. At least the Constitution is evi-
dently changing its form, and becoming an Aristocracy. The
King is absent; his responsible Ministers are absent; and we
are governed by the legislative bodies, actuated by that influence
which is known to prevail in them. America is at this moment
as much a monarchy as England.— Times.
Can we wonder that such opposite accounts should be given of
distant countries by travellers, when we find that the same con-
trariety prevails in the accounts of a country within a few miles
of our own coast, and connected with us by language and laws ?
The Ear) of Carnarvo observed last night in the House of Lords,
that " Ireland was, without exception, the most wretched country
of Europe, and its people presented the singular anomaly of being
under the British Constitution, and being the most miserable of
any on the habitable globe. They were like the Greeks under the
Turks." This Noble Lord was followed by the Earl of Roden,
who said, " there was no people more happy, or who enjoyed
more real liberty than the people of Ire'and." Now the Peer
who thus proclaimed to the world the supreme felicity of the Irish,
and the liberty they enjoyed in so eminent a degree, is not a
stranger to Ireland ; but as he tells us himself, resides continually
in that country, and so far from being one of those who, in the
language of Mr. Cobbett, if not carefully looked after, would
thrust their knife and fork into their cheeks, or jump into a chalk-
pit, has actually been selected by his brother Peers, to represent
the wisdom and intelligence of the body in the Imperial Parlia-
ment The people of Ireland are the happiest and freest in
Europe, says Lord Roden, but as their happiness and freedom de-
pend on their having a Protestant Church and a Protestant Legis-
lature, we must, for their own sakes, refuse to them " the right
to legislate for a Protestant State and a Protestant Church."—
Lord Roden is a Saint, and, perhaps, takes a Scriptural view
of happiness, esteeming wealth not merely as dross, but as some-
thing worse, as cutting men oil from all hopes of happiness in
the next world. His Lordship, who has the misfortune to have
large possessions, has, no doubt, often meditated in sorrow all
the interdict pronounced against himself, that " it is as impossible
for a rich man to enter the kingdom of Heaven as it is
for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle. It is, we suppose,
because the excessive exactions of the Aristocracy and Hierarchy
create so much poverty in Ireland, that he is determined to sup-
port most strenuously all the pretensions of both, to preserve to
the Irish the grand distinction of being the poorest, and, conse-
quently, the happiest people in Europe. The Church will not
surely be less generous than Lord Roden, but continue to suffer
all the evils of bloated wealth, for the sake of the people. It is a
generous devotion in Lord Roden and the Church—we hope it
will be appreciated as it ought to be. Happy Irish, and free as
happy !—But we are astonished how Lord Roden can give his
support to a set of Ministers, who, so far from taking a correct
view of the condition of Ireland, have for ears past been doing

nothing but instituting inquiries into the causes of the misery
of the people of Ireland, with a view to a remedy. We have had
one Parliamentary inquiry after another, and the witnesses have
not certainly had the good fortune to see the country through
Lord Roden's spectacles, for they all describe the people as wretch-
ed and miserable in the extreme. This comes of not forming cor-
rect ideas of happiness and freedom I—lreland is destined to be the
scene of constant miracles. In the middle ages, all the learning
of Europe was confieed to that island; nay, so addicted were the
people to learning, that they had not even time to build houses,
for, as Sir John Davies remarks, a building, beyond the dimensions
of a hut, with the exception of one or two Danish towers on the
coast, did not exist till the English invaded the country. And
now, though the people are the happiest and freest in Europe, a
preternatural blindness seems to have fallen on all the rest of man-
hind, so as to prevent them from seeing this, that the honour of
the grand discovery might be reserved for the Earl of Roden.—
r n ing Chronicle.
After the length of time which Ministers have taken to concoct
their measure on the Corn Laws, the public bad a right to ex-
pect that the scheme would have been formed upon such ample
and authentic data, and upon such due and mature deliberation,
as would have rendered the immediate abandonment of any part
of it -unnecessary. This, however, unfortunately turns out not to
he the case ; and t-ie wonder-working proposition, which has
taken nearly a twelvemonth to compose, is no sooner divulged,
than, as it affects two articles, Barley and Oats, it turns out to he
quite erroneous, and is so admitted to be by Mr. Peel, in the name
of Mr. Canning. We, from the first, believed the fact to be so,
and are far from blaming the manly openness with which the
error is avowed. What we contend is, that Ministers ought to
be better served, and better informed, than t 3 fall into such mis-
takes, and thereby render ouch awkward admissions necessary.
The truth, we fear, is, as was hinted in our Paper a few days
ago, that the public men of the present day are too ready to catch
at any proposition which saves them " the trouble of thinking ;"
and that, instead of opening their doors widely to practical men;
they are too easily imposed upon by the ignorant and the inte-
rested persons by whom they are surrounded, and who obtain the
entre of office. It did, to be sure, appear exceedingly absurd,
that the bringing forward of the Corn Question should devolve
upon the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, who, of course, could
have in his office no persons likely to assist him in the details, and
in which it now appears that, from that or some other cause, he
does not seen to have been super-eminently well informed.
Mad the proposition come, as we think it ought to have
done, from the Board of Trade or the Treasury, it is to be
hoped that one or both of these departments possessed the
means of obtaining more accurate information upon the subject
than was likely to be obtained in Downing-street. However,
this affair seems hardly sufficient to justify the violent philippic
of Mr. Hobhouse against the general policy of the Government ;
which we can tell that Honourable Gentleman too might as well
have been dispensed with on another ground—we mean on ac-
count of Mr. Canning's absence. The Hon. Member for ',Vest-
esainster, no doubt, remembers the fable of the Sick Lion. He
remembers, too, some severe blows which he has received from
the lion when in health. And there are those, therefore, who will
he uncharitable enough to suspect that the blow which the Hon.
Gentleman attempted to give the lion in his absence, would not
have been attempted bad the noble animal been present, and in full
possession of his powers. The inhabitants of Westminster expect
something more from their representative, and a higher tone of
fieling than is to be found in these petty, personal, party squabbles.
Such efforts amuse--but they do not edify—they may raise a
laugh, but it is at the expenee of those who cause it. While
upon the subject of the Corn Question, we cannot but regret the
symptoms of impatience which appear to be shown by the landed
gentlemen when any thing unfriendly to their interests is stated in
the House. In some instances this impatience is shown by anti-
cipation. We can tell such persons that this is not the way to
satisfy people out of doors upon the subject. All that the better
and well-judging part of the public require, is that the subject
should be determined by the unerring tests of,truth and justice.
But if clamour and impatience are used to extinguish argument,
those at least who know no better will be led to think that selfish-
ness and not truth is the motive of those who resort to such means
of silencing discussion.— Morning Herald.
On the subject of the statement, " that the Lords of the Trea-
sury have, on being memorialized by the Executors of the Duke
of York, remitted the amount of the Probate Duty on his RoTal

Highness's Will, in consequence of the assets falling short of the
debts," the Times of yesterday has the following remarks :
" We do not know what right the Lords of the Treasury had
to remit that duty which the law imposes upon the personal
property of one defunct ; that is, we do not know whence the
Lords of the Treasury enjoy a dispensing power, in the case of
the most essential right of the House of Commons—in the case
of a Money Bill, converted into an Act of Parliament, by
the approbation of the other House, and the Royal Assent.
However, a more iniquitous law than that upon which their
Lordships are said to have thus exercised their dispensing power,
never existed in a civilized country ! We hope, that as they have
remitted its provisions once, they will remit them always till the
law is repealed."

As the Times does not know what right the Lords of the
Treasury have to remit the Probate Duty, in a case like the one
in question, we will inform it, that the Act of the 55th
Geo. 111. c. 184, sec. 51, authorizes such remission, and that it
is a matter of every day occurrence, for the executors of a de-
funct person to petition for it, where, as in the present case,
the assets are found to fall short of the debts. We are inclined
to devote a few words more to this singularly consistent Jour-
nal. In an article, yesterday, founded upon an analysis of the
Majority and Minority on the Catholic Question, the other night,
the object of which is to chew that " all the wisdom, eloquence,
Parliamentary experience, and historical research," were in the
latter, while, in the former, there was not " one individual of
talent or reputation" (except Mr. Peel and the Master of the
Rolls), the recently-published letter of Dr. Phillpots is charac-
terized as a " pert, abusive pamphlet, addressed to Mr. Can-
ning." Ton days ago (on the 3d instant) this same Dr. Phill-
pots, the author of this same " pert and abusive" pamphlet, was
described, in this same Paper, thus :—" The, ablest champion of
the Anti-Catholic policy (Dr. Phillpots) has just come forth with
a letter to Mr. Canning, the influence of which, the author has,
reserved for the eve of the Parliamentary discussion." Perhaps
(for we like to assist a friend in a dilemma) our contemporary
means to say, that the ablest champion which the Anti-Catholic
party can produce, is one who writes " pert and abusive pain-
phlets"—but we are still puzzled to understand, wherein consists
I the " influence" of such a writer.—New Times.