The Sun.
London, England, 1842-02-14 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.
GLOBE.—Those who have hoped, against hope, for a good
Corn-law from the Peel Cabinet may now see they have
"expected," as Mr. Cobden said, "grapes from thorns, and
figs from thistles." " None can compass more than they
intend ;" and if Sir Robert Peel has not compassed a
satisfactory Corn-law reform, it is because he did not intend
such a reform. Everything must depend on the view which
a statesman takes of the situation which he seeks to im-
prove. Now, there are two opposite views which are taken of
the present situation of things. The Liberal party regard it
as an " awful" crisis of our finance and commerce—as the
turning p-int of our future destinies which must decide the
extension or decline of our wealth and well-being. They
trace mainly and distinctly to the Corn-laws a commencement
of decline, which has most decidedly, whether permanently
or not, taken place during these three or four years.
They ask whether these acute fits of distress are to recur
periodically—whether the malady (rooted in the precarious-
ness and insufficiency of the home supply of the neces-
saries of life) is to become chronic—whether the waste of
national capital on improvidence-prices, for mere food is
periodically to derange our commerce, and dry up our
financial resources? Most clearly and demonstrably it
has done so, during these four years last past. The Con-
servative Minister cannot deny the facts, but refuses to trace
them to their source. Refusing to trace, in any great degree,
to the Corn-law's the commercial and financial symptoms
so fearfully developed and aggravated, he refuses (consistently)
to seek the remedy in a thorough reform of those laws.
The party in power have had ample warning both from
the errors of their predecessors, and their, however
tardy, perception and abandonmedi of those error. If Sir
R. Peel had been free to act, he has had full experience to
guide action—the experience of faults and embarrassments
incurred by others for his instruction. The Whig ministers
had tried expedients, before they threw themselves upon prin-
ciples ; had tried them with that signal ill-success which should
have been a warning to their successors. It appears to be a
settled routine in .hnglish statesmanship that every variation
of vulgar policy shall be exhausted first, before it will
be permitted to statesmen to strike into any new track. We
certainly think the late Ministers ought to have taken new
measureg stoner; because it would have prevented the imputa
tion of moving without hope of carrying them. They are
accused of having proposed those measures, because they had
forfeited their tenure of office. It would be more correct to
say they proposed them, because they had spent their stock of
expedients. When new taxes proved unproductive, new prin-
ciples of taxation became imperative.
STANDARD.—The Right Hon. Baronet, while, he does
full justice to the claims of the agriculturists, puts .their
case upon much higher and much stronger grouna than the
claims of any class; he demonstrates that it is the in-
terest of the whole he consults in defending the landed
and agricultural interest, and proves by irresistible ar-
gument the utter fallacy of all the pretences of the
anti-agricultural party. Without in the least courting
the manufacturing body, he disarms of the topics of agitation
all who would excite discontent among them. The new scald
will give corn cheaper—muck cheaper—in all seasons
approaching to scarcity, than the fixed duty of the
late Ministers. There is not much novelty in the reason-
ing of Sir Robert Peel's speech ; there never can be
in the speech of one who reasons with truth and can-
dour, and without affectation, upon a well-worn subject.
The highest merit of a speech in such cases is clearness of ar-
rangement, happiness of combination, and force of sxpreasion ;
and by these last night's speech was eminently distinguished.
There is one observation of the Right Hon. Baronet, howevet,
which we do not remember to have met with before—at least in
connect ion with the Corn.lavr question—although the fact referred
to is fully warranted by experience, and although it has a most
important bearing upon the question referred to. We allude to
the fact that unfavourable seasons commonly come in periods of
successive years, and not singly. But whoever suffers by an
unfavourable season, the farmer is sure to suffer more
than others one bad harvest discourages, if it does not
disable, him from cultivating to the highest point in the next;
and two or three bad seasons following each other without
interruption, must utterly exhaust his resources, if, in addition
to the evil of a deficient crop, he has to encounter a free
foreign competition. Thus, the fields would, in a little time, be
left desolate—the home market, for all manufactured
goods, extinguished—and the country reduced to a state of ab •
solute dependence upon strangers for necessary food. As'
may easily be supposed, the organs of the Opposition
are extumely angry with last night's exposition. It
wounds them as fatal to the hopes of the money-
jobbers by whom they are prompted, and as belying
their confident predictions that Sir Robert Pecl would
desert the agricultural interest. Lord John Russell last
night seemed disposed to cavil at the extension of the
field from which the averages are to be taken, and
Mr. Cobden unleaded his bile in a fierce expression of
mock amazement ; but the other Members of the Opposition
were generally silent and sullen. As to Mr. Cobden, if he is,
indeed, taken by surprise, he has to blame those journals of
his own party that have taken so much pains to lull him in a
." fool's paradise."

COURIER.--We can only briefly advert to the admirable
style in which Sir Robert demolished the -fallacy that
the well-being of the people must be measured in any
country or at any period solely, or at all, by the compara-
tive cheapness of bread and provision stuffs. The only true
barometer by which the .healthy state of a people can be
ascertained must ever be the relative extent of command over
the necessaries of life, which result from the advantages of
a larger field of constant employment at more remu-
nerating rates of wages. The First Lord of the
Treasury tested these important considerations by this only
infallible standard, so far as such a standard can be termed infal-
lible, whose construction is the handy-work" of such impure
hands as those of Dr. Bowring. That person, as our readers
,know, was engaged and paid to make out a one-sided case against
the Core-laws, eoute qui coute, in respect of exaggeration
in one sense, and depreciation in the other. He performed
his task to admiration, as all the Anti-Corn-law faction
have testified by unanimous acclaim. His object was to
elevate above reality the social position and the material
condition of the foreign operative class, and contemporaneously
to understate that of the labouring classes here. With these
objects his statistical figures, where not actually reposing on
official authority beyond suspicion, were collected and constructed.
Well it is on the partial, and on both sides highly coloured or trea-
'chereus statements of this semi-official tourist, that Sir Robert
proceeded to establish his case, and establish it he did to the
satisfaction of every one who heard him, or who shall read at-
tentively this most interesting portion of his speech. He este-
lished beyond all question that the general condition of the British
operative is, as we trust it may ever be, and as it ever will be,
whilst home industry is promoted by Corn-law protection,
greatly superior in al! regards to that of the same continental
class. He established it, under the disadvantage of reason-
ing, from materials fabricated, tortured, or furnished from
a hostile quarter, incontrovertibly and irrevocably. Let those
who doubt compare the amounts of wages, the prices of food,
and the several rates per head and per people of the consump-
tion necessaries or comforts in Prussia or Belgium, with
those of this country.

MONEY MARKET i.nd CITY NEWS.

FROM THE EVENING PAPERS OF SATURDAY.
TIM ES.—The letters from India by the Oriental were
del:vercd this morning, and being of no later date than those
received by the • Marseilles expresses of this journal and the
Overland Mail, are not generally to be referred to for news.
There is one letter, however, which contains a statement of
very great importance. It is dated on the 10th of De-
cember, from the camp at Dadur, in UK er Scinde,
from a military officer, who says, " Major Outrun,
the political agent here, has received a private ac •
count of the total destruction of Cabul on the 13th ult.,
with 20,000 rebels.' Such an account must of course be held
to require confirmation, but the hope of its proving true is
greatly strengthened by the accounts already published, which
come down to the 11th of November, two days previous to the
above date, and advert to the possession of the citadel by our
troops, who had then gained some partial successes over their
assailants, to which this therefore is likely enough to have
been the sequel. As to the position of General Sale at Jel-
lalabad there is no encouragement in these letters to believe
the first accounts exaggerated ; it was as desperate as it well
could be.

The resolutions proposed by Mr. Gladstone, which have
been issued this morning ameng the Parliamentary papers,
have furnished an interesting theme of discussion to the mer-
chants in the city. Not only arc they regarded as affording a
valuable relief to our West Indian and North American Colo-
nies, but theduty for the admission of corn into these colonies
(3s. on the quarter of wheat, and 2s. on the barrel of wheat flour)
is looked upon as an important auxiliary to the proposed modi-
fication of the Corn-laws, and an opening for the admission
of United States' corn into this country at what may
be almost considered a fixed duty. For at this low rate, the
United States, which are now growing corn in great abund-
ance, would import their wheat into Canada, whence, though
it could not be imported here as wheat at the comparatively
low rate charged on corn from the British possessions, on ac-
count of the requisition of a certificate e produce, it could be
brought in the shape of flour, as corn ground in the colonies
can be certified as a production of those colonies. Reckoning,
therefore, that the duty on flour follows in proportion to the
duty on wheat, it w.ll be found that wheat which will be im-
por:ed into Canada at 3s. per quarter would, even at the highest
rate, only pay ss. more to be received into the United King-
dom—that is, that the maximum of duty on United States'
corn admitted here will be only 6s. In the northern* parts
of the American Union a great eagerness is shown to collect
corn, and those merchants in London who are interested in the
prosperity of the States look upon the resolutions with
much gratification. The advantage to the United States
is, indeed, admitted on all hands, and some are of opinion
that too much is conceded to a country which, it is thought,
will not be too willing to make concessions in return, and the
returns for the trade with which have for many years past
been of a very questionable nature. These consi ter that some
favour should be shown to British shipping, and that some
modification should be introduced which would not give the
United States such an unqualified advantage. There
is a reservation with respect to certain goods which shall be
imported into the colonies through the United Kingdom,
which seems to have been mule for the encouragement of Bri-
tish navigation, but this, of course, could not apply to the trade
between the United States and the West India possessions,
which is the most important trade affected by the measure.
PADDINGTON ANTI-CORN-LA W