The Sun.
London, England, 1845-01-02 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS. I

FROM THE EVENING PAPERS OP YESTERDAY.
GLOBE.—Another year has been added to British ,
history—and a remarkable one it has been. Our in-
terest in the present is apt at such a time to give way
to a keener interest in the past, and the indications it
may yield of the future—and we willingly obey the ,
impulse. The first glance at the doings of the past ,
year is a satisfactory one. We see an aggregate of
advancement which es gratifying to us as men, and
especially as Englishmen. But how much of this is
due to the people, and how little to their Government !
—the former everywhere using their energies, already
more fettered by legislative restrictions than those of
any other people on the face of the earth, for great
and good purposes ' • the latter looking idly on, or
only adding to the fetters ! The last virtue which it
is permitted to a weak Government to retain is cast
overboard in the effort to magnify its waning
strength. Laissez faire is impossible with a Govern-
ment whose chief desire is to be thought stronger than
it is—so impertinent interference has, at length, be-
come the chief characteristic of British legislation.
Of the more important Acts of an entire session, by
far the greater number are for " regulating " matters
which all political economy, worthy of the name, has
hitherto deemed best left to themselves. We have
stepped into the cotton factories and regulated their
internal arrangements with a minuteness whieh
might even excite the envy of some of our continental
neighbours, and added one or two more (whether
wisely or not, the result will show) to the restric-
tions which already hamper the poor in disposing of
their labour to the greatest advantage. We have
separated the Bank of England, at one stroke, into
two departments, and imposed upon its operations
a check, the effect of which no one pretends to
foresee with any degree of certainty, but which
all allow can only cease to be entirely inopera-
tive by becoming at least highly dangerous. We
have taken all the railways in the kingdom under
the especial charge of the Government ; and dictated
the amount of profit which private enterprise shall
make under free competition. Joint-Stock Compa-
nies and Joint-Stock Banks have shared the same
fate, and now find themselves very much at the mercy
of the Board of Trade—a branch of the Government
once known to the public chiefly by name, but now
apparently intended to wield powers such as the
British people have never yet accorded to any
branch of their Government. The good measures
proposed in the earlier part of the session were
nearly all dropped in succession, for want of power
to carry them through. Where legislation was
most required nothing was done, or the evil was but
tampered with. The only material step taken in a
right direction was taken by stealth. Mr. Gladstone
has yet to explain his views of the Sugar Duties Act.
Two good old causes—the Corn-laws and " the
Church"—have been severely damaged, rather more
by their friends than their enemies. Societies for
the Protection of Agriculture have been got up and
leeiught into a state of activity only to have
their attention directed to the ample means of
natural improvement, which are necessarily
neglected under a protective system ; and their
discussions turned unwillingly from the monopoly
interests of the landlord to the just interests of the
labourer. And at the same time the Church is shaken
to its centre by paltry squabbles about matters of form.
Education, under the auspices of Government, loss
made but little progress ; though the measures of the
late Government have been distinctly adopted by the
present, and have even found an able and energetic ex-
positor and defender in Lord Wharncliffe. And, in il-
lustration of what we have already said, we may observe
that the attempt to introduce the obnoxious educational
clauses into the Factories Regulation Bill bee caused
the people to do more for themselves than they have
ever attempted at any former period. Abroad we
owe much to fortune, something to the ability of
subordinate officers, and nothing to the Ministry.
In conciliating the great Powers of Europe, her
Majesty's hospitality has been substituted for
those great reforms of our international inter-
course which a wise regard to the demands of
our most pressing internal wants, and the safety
of our immense interests abroad, combine to urge
upon the attention of the British statesman with
a force which increases with every year of neglect.
In India, if we have removed a Governor-General
whose policy has done more to endanger the con-
tinuance of our ascendancy in that part of the world
than all the errors and all the misfortunes which have
marked our Indian Government since the days of
Clive, we owe it to the independent spirit of a body
of merchants having triumphed over the endeavours
of the Cabinet to preserve its protege at his post. In
Canada, if the clouds which have so long obscured
the horizon begin to disperse, it is because the'Whig
policy has been adhered to, and the skill and firmness
of Sir Charles Metcalfe have escaped the pervert-
ing influence of a home Government conducted
without any fixed principle. In New Zealand,
the best promises of a rapid and successful colo-
nisation, and the formation of a new and most
important branch of our colonial empire, have
been cheated of their due performance by the blun-
dering obstinacy of a Colonial Secretary whose per-
sonal qualities have recently been well summed up in
the single term, " school-boyish." Unnecessary im-
port duties levied on articles the importation of which
is most necessary to the advancement of the colony,
and the extensive issue, among a scattered and strug-
gling population, of a small and inconvertible paper
currency, sufficiently mark the competency of those
who are at present entrusted with the direction of the
affairs of one of the most valuable colonies we possess.
These are no isolated instances of the policy of the
present Government, at home and abroad. The same
course, and the same results, meet us at every turn; and
we are compelled to see in them the natural fruit of
an attempt to rule this country by the combined
agency of a body of men who can only act together
by a sacrifice of principle to expediency, and who
can only retain power by adopting, as their own,
measures which in other hands have received their
strongest condemnation. The coming session, how-
er, promises a change for the better. The present
Cabinet is evidently not fitted to weather the storm
which must assail it in any attempt to hold on its
present course. The departure of Lord Stanley
from the House of Commons leaves the Premier
without a rival, and his present followers with-
out a leader to rally under, should they abandon
himself. A wide margin of surplus revenue gives
scope for the application of a sweeping measure of
fiscal reform ; and though the attempt to reduce to
practice any large additional modicum of Sir R. Peere
tree-trade theory might result in an extensive seces-
sion from the ranks of his supporters, we have no
reason to believe that the attempt, if judiciously made,
will fail of ultimate success. And whatever else may
arise from such a movement—whatever particular
benefits may accrue from it to the great commercial
interests of the country—will certainly be insigni-
fisant in comparison with those which must spring
from the substitution, for a Ministry like the present,
of one whose principl end conduct will be in accord-
ance, and to whom slaelling and hypocrisy will Le
unnecessary.

STANDARD.—The former appeals in which it
was once the custom of the conductors of news-
papers to address their readers, at the commence-
ment of each new year, have been pretty gene-
rally laid aside, from a sense of the inconvenience
of binding ourselves to speak fully to some topics
when there may be no topics presenting any
very high or very satisfactory interest to treat.
If the custom had not been upon these prudent
grounds abandoned, there would be a great tempta-
tion to resort to it this day—for never in our
hiStory had an English journalist so many and so
solid grounds of congratulation to offer at the
commencement of a year, as we have at this day.
Thanks to the Giver of all Good, the whole of
our political horizon scarcely presents a cloud,
save one or two slight specks that are rapidly
diminishing in distance, and upon the very verge
of sinking altogether from our view. Peat•e
abroad, established upon principles of reciprocal ad-
vantage and reciprocal good-will, that afford the best
pledge for its permanent continuance—peace at home,
resting upon a basis no less firm—the real substantial
union, and concurrence in the same honourable per-
suits of industry, of all classes of the people. Dimi-
nished crime, to be for the first time n o-ticed in the
.i
re-
cords of a nation advancing in populationl and material
wealth, and in refinement. Improved education.
Commercial Commercial prosperity unexamplemd Financial
pr os-
perity never exceeded. The disturbingne influenceslA.
that threatened disorder or evil—the
, thrauTnrdactarian
Associa-
tion, a -
tion, the Anti-Corn-law League
eriall-I,:piceser the
heiesy—all, if not extinct, stagg
death blow. Under such happy
the year which we commence this day. opens
we not, as a nation and as individuals, a
4"
solemn duty to pour out our hearts in thaelt
fulness to Him to whom all this is due
Have we not new cause to cherish the
gi9ue duty of hope—additional reason to abhor tie,
sites of "fearfulness anti unbelief?" The history of
the last few years tells us plainly, as if the truth
vt ere written in characters of light, that our confi -
;Uwe in the mercy of our Creator, andin the practica-
bility of improving the moral and material conditiee
of our fellow creatures, ought to be unbounded.
The numerical diminution of detected crimes in the
last year—a diminution absolutely considerable, but
much more considerable when we take it into ac-
count that every day adds to the amount and effi-
ciency of the means by which crimes are detected—
this single testimony to the change in our social state,
proves all that we claim to have conceded—proves that
if only the Legislature, the Executive, and the more
affluent classes of the nation do their duty—the
people may be indefinitely elevated in the moral scale.
The Legislature, the Executive, and the affluent
classes have begun the work, and they are already
witnesses to its great success ; the current of
crime, which from the beginning up to the present
time had been increasing, has been effectually