The Sun.
London, England, 1842-05-09 00:00:00

LONDON
MONDAY MORNING. MAY 9, 1842.

By a very large majority the House of Commons
has decided that it will not do justice to the people.
By a large majority it has decided, when many of
them are starving, that they mu st now give the land-
owners 13s. a quarter more than their wheat is worth,
or they must go without bread. As that decision, too,
cuts off the trade with a large part of the world, they
are really starved by the decision of Parliament. By
a large majority that House has decided that the
people must give the sugar and coffee planters of the
West India Islands a considerable sum more for their
commodities than they are worth in the common mar-
kets of the world. By a considerable majority, there-
fore, the House of Commoue, has decided that the
people must be taxed to increase the wealth of corn-
growers in England and sugar-growers in the Colo-
nies. By a considerable majority the House has re-
solved to inflict, in spite of remonstrance, continued
injustice on the people.
By a considerable majority, also, that House has
decided that it would not bear what the people had to
say against its own measures. By a very consider-
able majority it decided that the people should not be
heard to state why they should be admitted into the
pale of the Constitution. It has decided, therefore,
by a considerable majority, that it will continue to
injure the people, and will not bear them when they
wish to represent why they should not be . injured.
By that majority, then, it has decided that the people
shall continue to be slaves.

Can the House of Commons, or can the Parlia-
ment, carry this resolve firmly and steadily into exe-
cution ? This question the House of Commons should
be able to answer explicitly, for on its power to do,
or not to do that, will depend the stability of its
policy. It was well observed by Mr. MACAULAY, on
Tuesday evening, one of the foremost and most vehe-
ment opposers of the demands of the people, that
" Governments were supported by the people, and
could only be supported by the people."

" Instead of this, (said the Right Hon. Gentleman) it
was represented that Government had some extraordi-
nary mine of wealth, or a means of relieving the dis-
distress of the people, as though they had a Divine
commission, as if they could send them bread from the
clouds, Avater from the rocks, and multiply loaves and
fishes ten thousand-fold."

Mr. MACAULAY, therefore, is thoroughly sensible
that Governments have no wealth of their own ; that
they cannot give anything to the people, but are
maintained and supported by the people. This is a
very trife;but it Is'a very important statement. But
will Mr. MACAULAY inform the public—and calm the
fears his language is calculated to excite—how
that Government, which is supported by the
people, can long be carried on, when it
has lost the confidence of such a vast body of
the people ? He admits that the Government de-
pends on the people ; he sees by their petition that a
great number of them are • discontented with the
Government, and yet he refused to learn from them
how to remove their grievances and reconcile them to
the Government.

In fact, Mr. MACAULAY has a preformed theory
about property, to which he pedantically sacrifices
the little common sense he possesses. Everybody
knows as well as Mr. MACAULAY that the well-being
of society depends on security of property. The ques-
tion, however, about which the people and the House
of Commons differ, is not the necessity of giving
security to property, but what is property ? Mr.
MACAULAY seems to have no other idea of property
than property in the funds, and landed property,
and railway shares, and machinery, and property settled
by Act of Parliament. But The petitioners, who ap-
peared before the House of Commons on Tuesday, had
none of that kind of property, and they requiredd-that
their industry, 'Which is their property, should be as
well protected as the lord's park and the fundholders
dividends. Their property is not represented in Par-
liament, and therefore they assert that it is made the
prey of those whose property is represented.
The petitioners complained of "being enormously
taxed to pay the national debt ;" they are taxed, they
say, to pay the fundholders. They complain,, in that
instance, and Mr. MACAULAY did not show that.they
complained erroneously that their property is taken
from them by the law. They assert "that taxation, both
general and local, is too enormous to be borne." They
assert that "the wages of the producing millions are
are as nothing compared to the salaries of those whose
usefulness ought to be questioned," and they assert
" that luxury prevails amongst the rulers," who or-
dain and levy the taxes, "and starvation amongst the
ruled." We might quote many other similar pas-
sages from their petition, to show that they consider
their right of property to be continually invaded by
the Legislature. They assert that the Legislature
does not secure their property—that it violates their
right of property ; and to that Mr. MACAULAY re-
plies, thinking apparently only of the store he has
placed in the Funds, and pf the salary he
may again
enjoy as a minister, that society Cannot prosper
unless property be secure.
The potalows fully zveo with hiin, sad they