The Sun.
London, England, 1845-12-26 00:00:00

349 1
218 19

462 12
1,000 17

1,336 14

1,528 1

MOr•: COUNCIL.

the plunder should be allotted him. But the most
amusing item of all is, that of " the League" news-
paper. Ten thousand pounds and upwards lost by a
paltry weekly paper ! Where now is the pretence
.of
the popularity of the League doctrine ? The pmt's,
in all conscience, as to quantity cheap enough—price
3d. ; yet it seems that so indifferent are the people of
England to the doctrines which it advocates, that the
speculation is a dead loss of upward of 10,0001. per
annum. The ordinary expenses of such a paper are
a mere trifle. The publication contains about half
the matter of the Britannia, and that principally
taken from the pages of the Morning Chronicle and
the provincial papers which favour free-trade ; so that,
in fact, its want of success must have been unex-
ampled, when the weekly journal which we have
named, and which advocates exactly opposite opinions,
is widely circulated and prosperous, while the League
is a loss of more than 10,0001. per annum. The wisest
act in Lord John Russell's life was declining to believe
the pretences of these tricksters, when they said that
they commanded public opinion.
CHRONlCLE.—Superfluous as the admonition
may seem in the present state of national opinion and
feeling, we cannot be satisfied without again most
earnestly and emphatically warning the people, that
they must settle the great and anxious question now
before this country. To themselves and their own
exertions alone must they trust for their deliverance.
Now, more than at any moment since the question
assumed its present shape, is there need of unsleeping
vigilance and unrelaxing effort and determination.
Our statesmen cannot, or will not, help us, further
than as we choose to help ourselves; That section
of our public men who alone have given unequivocal
evidence of the desire to realise national wants and
convictions in a legislative form, have recently de-
clared, after carefully measuring their resources
with the difficulties of the problem, that they do
not possess the power ; and the Minister who pro-
bably does possess the power has, as yet,
given no clear indication of having the will.
We Ere most anxious that the people of England
should quite understand this. We warn them not to
put the slightest faith in anything they may hear,
infer, suppose, or imagine as to Sir Robert Peel's in-
tention to deal plainly and boldly with the corn-law.
Looking merely to the obvious facts and necessities
of the case, there might, indeed, seem every reason
for expecting that the Premier will meet Parliament
with the simple proposal, at once to clear the statute-
book of a law whose principle he has repeatedly con-
demned, and whose egregious failure, as a practical
measure, he has so explicitly confessed. In this he
knows that he would be supported by his opponents,
and by the country ; in anything less than this he
has no definite assurance of being supported by
anybody, except his own official colleagues and sub-
ordinates. It appears, on the face of the matter, a
downright impossibility that Sir Robert Peel should
attempt anything less. If he must, for form's sake,
and from the force of habit, talk of " three courses"
being "open" to him, it can only be, one would think,
to show, all the more pointedly, that two out of the
three are irrevocably closed. As for compromise,
nobody asks for it—everybody repudiates it—there
is nothing to show that any class or party would
accept it. With landlordism, to all appearance, mor-
tally offended, finally alienated, and furiously irate—
and with the heart of the country set on the total and
unqualified abolition of monopoly, as earnestly and
unanimously as it was once set on " the Bill"--it
seems impossible that Sir Robert Peel should dream
of any other course than one being now open to
himself or any other Minister. And perhaps it may
be so. But we warn the country not to believe it
without evidence. These appearances are not to be
trusted for an instant. Looking at the question, not
as it is, but as it may very possibly shape itself in Sir
R. Peel's mind, we tell the people to put no faith what-
ever iu any inferential probability that he will do that
which it seems demonstrablycertain he must do. Nothing
can he more fallacious than this sort of logic, when
Sir Robert Peel is in the case. There is no real
reason whatever for believing—and for our own part
we do not believe--that Sir Robert Peel contemplates,
or ever has contemplated, the simple. repeal of the
corn-law. It is not his way to do anything simply.
Mystification is his element—compromise is the law
of his being. He has never so much as told the
world the specific grounds on which he left office,
and of course there is no knowing with what specific
purpose he returns to it. We can only say, in
general, that the intention which a current rumour
has attributed to him, of buying off the landlords
with " compensation" hush-money, has considerable
antecedent and intrinsic probability. It would be
very much like a stroke of Peel policy. It is not at
all clear that the Premier looks on his quarrel with
landlordism as final and irreconcilable. We are by
no means sure that he does not intend—perha,,s he
has intended all along—to use the terrible " total
and immediate repeal" of his opponents programme,
as a foil to set off, to landlord eyes, the merits of
some half-way expedient of his own. It would be
extremely like Sir Robert Peel to attempt patching up
a reconciliation with landlordism on the basis of a
" consideration"—and it would, beyond all question, he
like landlordism to close with such an overture. Who
knows but we may live to see the squires, after all,
rejoicing in a heaven-born Minister who offers to
rid them of the League and the tax-gatherer at a
stroke ? We do not of course undertake to say that
anything of this sort is in Sir Robert Peel's mind;
but we do say that it behoves the people now, more
than at any time these seven 3 ears past, to be on
their guard—to take nothing for granted—to believe
nothing but what they see—and to trust only to
themselves. We say to the country, do not presume
that the landlords' quarrel with Sir Robert Peel
will last, or that he will he driven into the ranks of
the free traders to find a locus standi ; do not
presume that the landlords will refuse a compro-
mise, merely because they say they will, if the com-
promise is to consist in putting their hands into
the public purse; do not presume that the Pre-
mier will be ashamed of trying another venture in
the lottery of legislation, or of coming down to
the House with a cut and dried estimate of those
" peculiar burdens" on which he could never yet be
got to say a plain word in his place in Parliament :
presume on nothing, except the certainty that he will
do that which, on the whole, under existing circum-
stances, he deems the safest and easiest to be done—
and that it lies with you to create those circumstances
which shall determine his opinion as to the matter of
safety anti easiness. Without absolutely affirming
that Sir Robert Peel intends to insult the country
with so monstrous a proposal as that of charging the
squires' taxes on the Consolidated Fund, and making
the people buy up the landlords' vested rights in their
own wrong—we do most seriously assure the country
that it will do wisely to lose not an hour in marking
the whole ground of compromise " dangerous." This
question is now at a point at which the exertions of
a few weeks may save years of agitation. If it be not
settled now, it will drag on through an indefinite pe-
riod, accumulating at each stage of its course new ele-
ments of social discord and political discontent and ex-
asperation. Are we really to have another quarter of a
million of pounds sterling spent in agitation 7—such
agitation not being confined, as heretofore, to a single
obnoxious statute, but spread over the wide surface
of our entire fiscal system—becoming really and
truly, that which the- leaders of the League have
hitherto, to the utmost of their power, deprecated—
a war of classes. It is for the country, by a decisive
and overpowering expression of its will now, to avert
a result so deplorably mischievous, yet so certain to
ensue in the event which we have supposed. The
Minister who should be madman enough to traesfer
the agitation against monopoly to the subjects of the
incidence of taxation, and the distribution of political
power, would open the door to evils the end of which
no man living could foresee. We fervently trust that
the people of England will not spare nor relax those
exertions which can alone secure them against so
disastrous a possibility. Justice and policy, per-
manent interests and temporary exigencies, the pre-
sent and the future, the earnest Liberalism which
seeks the statutory recognition of sound principle,
and the prudent Conservatism which deprecates ever-
lasting agitation—all demand that this harassing and
perilous question be settled—so settled as that not a
shred of it be left to vex and embitter our politics
with class jealousies and enmities.

ELECTION OF MEMBERS OF COM-

BILLINGSGATE.—Bower, 122; *Phillipps, 120; Curling
119; Rtherti 114; Knill, 112; Johnston, 110; Old, 109;
*Williams, 87; Barnes, 85. This ward returns eight.
BREAD-STREET.—Maughan, 78; Hawtry, 76; Bridge,
72; Duncan, 69; Dignum, 67; Poland, 66; Laurance,
64; Laurie, 62; *Murrie, 39. This ward returns eight.
BROAD-STREET.—Corney, 107; Gadsden, 98; Tupp,
97; Wart: n, 94; Marriott, 91; Foster, 91; White, 87;
*Baker, 10; *Kesterton 36. This ward returns eight.
DOWGATE.—*Kibble, 54 ; Prior, 51 ; Brown, 51 ;
*Harker, 51 ; White, 46 ; Cousins, 40 ; Mortimer, 37 ;
Gandell, 33.

FARRINGDON WlTHOUT.—Bedford, 364 ; Williams,
349 ; Taylor, 321 ; Obbard, 318 ; Anderton, 317 ; Ed-
kics, 316 ; Buckmaster, 310 ; *Lynch, 309 ; Prender-
gast, 307 ; limn, 310 ; Harding, 300 ; Isherivood, 297 ;
Barnard, 293 ; Charles, 290 ; Stokes, 283 ; Hodgson,
258 ; Itamshaw, 248. This ward returns sixteen.

PORTSOKEN.—Wright, 161 ; Christie, 151 ; Par-
ker, 146 ; Keelby, 143 ' • Judson, 138 ; Hayward, 128;
Thompson, 125 ; Durnfo rd, 106 ; *Scoones, 70 ; Vale,
69. This ward returns eight,
QITEENHITHE.—TyIer, 60 ; Curtis, 60 • Gow, 58 ;
Acocks, 57 ; *Rathboue 54 ; Sykes, 42 ; *Simmons, 35.
This ward returns six.

The new members have an asterisk attached to their
names.

FOOT RACE.—On Wednesday the race between the
well-known runners. Inwood and Berry, came off on Wands-
worth-common. The men were matched to run a quarter of
a mile for 101. aside. At the start, the men got away well
together. At one hundred yards Inwood got ahead; Berry
made an ineffectual struggle as his opponent ran in the
winner by several yards. The quarter of a mile of road was
accomplished by the winner in sixty. one seconds