The Sun.
London, England, 1842-02-05 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.
FROM THE MORNING PAPERS OF THIS DAY.

TIMES.—One thing is certain with respect to the most
contested point of the Queen's Speech ; and that is, that how-
ever taunted Sir Robert Peel may have been for the (what we
think salutary) delay which he resolutely interposed in making
any declaration of his intentions, he now amply compensates
by the promptitude with which he is disposed to proceed. He
is ready with his finances ; " he does not even intend to post-
pone the announcement of the budget to that period of the year
at which it is usually brought forward :" and the corn question,
the great and important corn question, is announced for Wed-
nesday next. The departure of the Duke of Buckingham
from the Administration, of which he had just become
a Member, is as yet the only outward sign from which
we can judge—a sign which, though it betokens im-
portant modifications in the sliding scale, gives no
reason to suppose that the Government are prepared
to withdraw their expressed determination to support it. If
that were a resolution that were to continue for ever, as mortals
speak, or even for a long time, we should be sorry for it. But
Sir Robert Peel is an enemy, and so are all prudent states-
men, to harsh changes ; and he may Perhaps consider that a
recurrence ftom a variable scale of the most complicated cha-
racter, perplexing alike both venders and purchasers, to a
simple and single calculation of so much par quarter, would be
like taking horses out of the most confining and stringent har-
ness, and letting them run with a single rein and snaffle-bit.
That he will simplify the present scale, however, we entertain
no doubt. There will neither be so many variations of duty,
nor so many positions assumed at which a fresh duty is to
apply. But what, we would beg to ask, will be the result
of all this simplification? It may probably be beneficial
when compared with the present complicated Act. It
may, we hope, also prevent corn from being kept back till the
market can be flooded by a certain influx at a very low duty ;
but still, such a simplification is obviously neither more nor less
than an approximation to the fixed duty. And that, we should
suspect, will be the final result—not this year, nor the next,
perhaps, but still the final result—of all legislation upon the ad-
mission of foreign corn. If we come to it gradually, it may
occasion less shock in the market ; but come to it, we verily
believe, we shall. In fact, what was the ground of our opposi•
tion to the late Ministry upon this point? Not that they ad-
vocated a fixed duty ; but that, in truth, finding themselves
beaten in an important election, they tossed up the whole finan-
ces of the country, simply with a view to create mischief and
confusion. Then did they blazon, also, with merely injurious
clamour, their notion—never till then entertained—of a
fixed duty. Had they never been defeated in the Not-
tingham election, and had they never, in consequence,
found themselves in a minority of the House of
Commons, we should have heard no more of a fixed
duty from them, than of a fresh edition of the Koran
or Talmud. They then took a useful measure, which
till then they had never contemplated—made it the subject of a
popular outcry—and now mean to avail themselves of it against
the more cautious, perhaps timid, procedure of their political
adversary. This is the history of the moveable scale and the
fixed duty, as evinced in the conduct of the two parties : the
one does not proceed so far, perhaps, as he might ; the other
embraces the popular and useful act, but only as a pretext—
only to blacken and defame his adversary. The one proposes
what he can carry, in order to carry it : the other proposes
what he cannot carry, in order to make a dust, and set two
interests by the ears. However, therefore, we may approve,
and however we may continue to advocate, a fixed duty, we feel
we are in no degree approximating to those who are crying it
up to excite clamour, and to raise an opposition to their politi-
cal opponents ,—a suicidal opposition, since by those opponents
a more real approach to their own measure will probably be
made in three months, than has been, or is likely to be, by
themselves in ten years.
ADVERTISER.—The position assumed by her Majesty's
Government serves to prove that the several matters of policy
now pending, rest exclusively between the people and the agri-
cultural monopolists; consequently that the Whig faction, or
middle region of opinion between right and wrong, is extinct;
and that the political struggle now in progress is strictly be-
tween the two extremes—of commercial and general freedom,
and feudal and universal despotism. The people have reason
to acknowledge a consciousness of their power even in the
mere allusion to the Corn-laws in the Royal Speech. How
comes it that a Tory Cabinet barely refers to their modification ?
But last Session, in the mouths of Tories, ay, and of Whigs
too, those laws were perfection. How is it the Tamworth
Baronet appoints the ensuing Wednesday to introduce a motion
concerning them in the Commons? Is it from his own benig-
nity to the cause of the people? Folly. But let the answer
be broad and plain enough—it iS—THE POWER or Tam
PEOPLE ! ! Here, then, is the country in a proud attitude.
It is not only exacting, but enforcing justice from its
head opponents. It is from the Tories--a very Government
composed of Tories—it is wringing acknowledgment of its ma-
nufacturing distress, and accomplishing a Reform of the Corn-
laws ! But to refer to the subject merely as the exultation
of comparative ascendency, were beneath and short of the
popular sentiment and exigencies. The utility in adverting to
it is to show how completely, on the exercise of that power,
hangs the country's security. To parallel the present immi-
nency of the national interests were impossible in the annals
of this kingdom's history. The balance is so critical, that
either all shall be with, or all against the
.popular cause. Of
an approach to a medium condition there is now not even the
pretence. Either Conservatism shall yield in its intimidation
to the wants of the country, or popular exigencies, in the pu-
sillanimity of their advocates, tremble on the brink of lasting
overthrow. In itself nothing were more ignominious than
the position of the existing Cabinet. The very measures
to which its members are on the eve of giving assent,
are the identical grounds on which they founded
their Opposition to the Government of their predecessors.
The very slightest concession on the Corn-laws they ran-
corously opposed up to the last second of the Melbourne Ad-
ministration ; and now, forsooth, "the Corn-laws are to be
altered," even as the Tory organ expresses it, " the earliest
possible day has been fixed for the development of the Govern-
ment measure for the alteration of the Corn-laws, so that this
absorbing question will be settled without loss of time." Of
all bitter commentaries on the principles of the men new
in office, none we are aware of ever exceeded this. But
to point it out, to enable the people to judge how much of
real concern towards their condition is comprised inthe tactics
of their Conservative rulers, is the object in our exposing, and
the goal at which we leave it. For, unless to that effect, it is
with the acts, not the motives,of Sir R. Peel and his colleagues,
as a party, in the country, we have to do. The measures which,
out of the extremity of terror, may be dragged from them, w e
shall support if really of beneficial tendency to the nation.
We shall look purely to the measures, and forget the men.
We shall remember that to bring into operation plans of essen-
tial benefit to the kingdom, will be to overthrow even the per-
nicious influences of Conservatism ; and, encouraged by this
recollection, we shall consequently ever be at the post to sign
enactments of worth with our approval. As to the counte-
nance or condemnation of their regularly quashed quondam
rivals the Whigs, it must form a topic they will scarcely, we
should think, be at much trouble of inquiring into. The advo-
cacy of good measures, by that blighted faction, unfortunately,
to ensure for their opinions now any. respect, come too late.
As we have observed, the partisans in the country at the
existing crisis are two—the people and their enemies. Those
who had not formerly sided with the Whigs are the men
now the most probable to be of assistance to the popular
cause. And for ourselves, we are of the opinion of
Lord Brougham, when he said that " the best thing
to be done with the Corn-laws was to repeal them—
gradual, indeed, in progress, but total in result.' This posi-
tion is clearly also our own; and, when it is considered that,
as the country has swayed the power of forcing a Tory Cabinet
down to the Lower House, with propositions affecting those
very feudal tenures described but so few months back as unap-
proachable to any forms of mutation, it may be owned it would
be derogatory and abject, indeed; to suppose that the same om-
nipotence were not still capable of being exercised to an exten-
sion of the same essential and salutary purpose. At all events,
one observation strikes intuitively, to the effect of Sir Robert's
Government being founded on the principle of confederacy,
whether, like Mr. Fox, in justification of the anomalous posi-
tion he himself stepped into with Lord North, Sir Robert,
too, had not wisely be on the same side in exclaiming, " Ought
we not, then, to confederate with him who can give us the
greatest strength?"

FROM THE EVENING PAPERS OF YESTERDAY.
GLOBE.—The Speech from the Throne contains no
single topic of national interest—beyond those which
incidentally arose out of the event that has given an Heir
Apparent to the Throne—which was not found in the
Speech with which her Majesty opened the last Session.
The recommendations are precisely the same : the rea-
sons which are assigned for such recommendations from
the Sovereign to the Parliament are precisely the same
—the language scarcely varied. The Speech is, in all
its material parts a plagiarism. The " distress of the
manufacturing districts of the country," the " continu-
ance" of which her Majesty is, in the present Speech,
made to " regret," was in a state of fearful progress
last year, and was by the late Government recog-
nized and referred to as demanding immediate at-
tention from the Legislature, and especially its taking
into consideration the laws which, by restricting impor-
tation of corn and other articles of general con-
sumption, at once obstructcommerce, diminish trade, and
thus enhance the price of food while they diminish the
rate of labour wages. Sir R. Peel, rejoicing in the ma-
jority which the combined monopolists placed at his dis-
posal, on condition that he would uphold their monopolies,
refused to comply with the recommendations of the Sove-
reign—repudiated the proposed plans of the existing
ministration, as false in principle and destructive in ope-
ration—seized on the Government by dint of the mono-
polist majority—prorogued the Parliament without deign-
ing so much as to notice the frightful and daily-increasing
distress of the country—asked for " tinto" to prepare his
"measures"—and now comes down to Parliament with an
intimation that the measures he designs to propose for
relieving the commercial and trading interests of the
country from the fearful pressure they have long
sustained, and the labouring classes of the community
from the privations they have suffered, as the natural
consequence of that pressure upon their employers, are,
in the general objects they will embrace, those which
the late Government announced, and which Sir Robert
Peel and his colleagues then denounced as false
in theory and mischievous in their operation —at
once chimerical and destructive ! Her Majesty
was yesterday made to say, " I recommend to your
consideration the state of the laws which affect
the importation of corn and of other articles the
produce of foreign countries." Why was this "recom-
mendation" introduced into the Royal Speech ? Be-
cause it goes on to say—" I have observed with deep
regret the continued distress of the manufacturing dis
tracts of the country"—and further, that their "suffer-
ings and privations have," as a natural consequence,
" resulted" from this " continued distress." Let any
one read the language of the rromier-prompted speeches
of the movers and 400nders of the Address in their re-
spective Houses last night, and compare it with that
used by the impatient aspirants to office on these subjects
on the first night of the last session, and say, was there
ever so heartless and unprincipled' a postponement cf
the public interests to party objects as is supplied by the
comparison !
STANDARD,—It will be seen that Lord Melbourne
and Lord 4- Oin Russell, while acknowledging that the
Addrvas was faultless in all respects, insidiously in-
sinuated that the new Government had adopted the prin-
ciples of the last. The falsehood a this insinuation
will be seen on Wednesdab in the House of Lords
Lord Brougham A 14430 one of his peculiar and charac-
teristic TeerUs, His Lordship's wayward display was,
hoWiaVez, rendered graceful and valuable by the following
just tribute to the Royal guest of England, who has
so much gratified the nation by his visit
" There was not in Europe At 11).4 time-..he (Lord
Brougham) believed tel‘e iketrer WaS—S, more philan-
thropic, Otspowct Prince upon any of the
thnorin 04,14*—:a Aim) of large and liberal views—
a Prince universally beloved by his own people, univer-
sally rtispeoted abroad, and, unlike many Princes (at
least in -Former times) of him it might be said WO he was
the more beloved and the more respeOca os he was better
known.—{Hear, hear.)"
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