The Sun.
London, England, 1845-11-04 00:00:00

FROM THE MOREDVG PAPERS or THIS DAY.
CHRONICLE.—" It is impossible," as Sir Robert Peel
has long ago taught the world, both by word and dded, " to
say what constitutes an impossibility;-' but surely we
must be safe in assuming it to be impossible, that a Minister
who has charged himself with the task of regulating the
supply of food to the British people should, under the pre-
sent circumstances of the country, remain quiescent until
next February'. Either by prerogative or by legislation—
by order in Council, Or by au early and special summons of
Parliament—we must belive that some effort will be made
to avert or mitigate a calamity, any near prospect of
which were enough to daunt the boldest and most reckless
of rulers—a remote probability of which, to a Minister
so sensitive as Sir Robert Peel on the point of re-
sponsibility, must be sufficiently painful. That Sir
Robert Peel has made up his mind to the martyr-
dom. of waiting to see his own corn. law take its
course during the next three us nths, is too extrava-
gant a supposition to be lightly entertained. With scarcity
officially proclaimed over the half of Europe; with our own
corn harvest seriously deficient, both in quality and quantity;
with famine impending over Ireland, in consequence of the
failure of somewhere between one third and one-half of the
crops which there supply the staple article of popular diet;
—it seems inconceivable that any Minister, in the present
state of public knowledge and feeling, should venture to await
the action of a law which, though expressly made to let in
foreign corn when wanted, exhibits, at this moment, the
monstrous coincidence of a prohibitory duty with (for good
wheat) a famine price. We should not, on any less decisive
evidence than his own acts, suspect our bitterest political
opponent of the cold-blooded infatuation of intending to sit
still end look on while the scale slides, shilling by
shilling, and week by week. The Premier must mean
to give the scale a push, to make it keep better
time with the growth of those national necessities the
relief of which he designed that it should facilitate. As
matters stand, our corn-law is more than a mere obstacle to
the supplies which we need so sorely. Its operation is not
merely obstructive. Under the present circumstances of
Europe, it actually causes the re-exportation even of such
scanty supplies as the merchant venturers of the most perilous
of trades have dared, in defiance of pivots and rests, to land
on our shores. With the ports of Holland, Belgium, North
Germany, and Russia open to free importatio i, our sixteen-
shilling duty is virtually a sixteen-shilling bounty on expor-
tation. At this moment the corn merchants of Liverpool
are, it seems, sending their bonded wheat to Russia—Russia,
meanwhile, putting a premium on its importation, by exempt-
ing corn ships from port dues. Is it possible that any Minister
should let this go on? We need not say that we do not
recommend a resort to the worse than equivocal
policy of forbidding exportation. To cure the
effects of one prohibition by another would be but the old
wife's recipe—" a hair of the dog that bit you." But to hold
out special inducements to the exportation of what little we
happen to have—when we want, and shall want, all and
more than all, that we can possibly get—is doe nright
fatuity. We must start fair with our rivals in this lace In
the great European competition for the means of life we can-
not afford to give advantages. Those peculiarities in the
case of Ireland which especially call for prompt action, we
have noticed on a former occasion. At this season of the
year, before the frost blockades those northern ports to
which, so far as Europe is concerned, we must look for our
chief supplies of the coarser species of grain, every
week is precious. We must also entreat attention to
the singularly insidious character of that mysterious cala-
mity which now threatens that wretched country with
the worst horrors of famine. We already know enough
to justify the most distressing apprehensions; but we
likewise know that we do not, and at present cannot, know
all. The potato plague, or murrain, or whatever else it may
be called, which is now devastating Ireland, is described by
the Government commissioners 'as "an enemy whose history
and habits are yet but imperfectly known." Nothing is per-
fectly known of this enemy, but that its ravages are of im-
mense and unascertainable extent—that it attacks, on the
shortest ,notice, both growing and housed crops which were
previously considered safe—that the :most promising signs of
vegetable health may turn out to be utterly deceptive—and
that the enemy is beyond measure difficult to dislodge from a
soil of which it has once taken possession. Is this an enemy
to trifle and temporise with? We are almost ashamed to al-
lude to considerations which, in the view both of statesman-
ship and of humanity, should now be held undeserving even
of a passing thought. Yet we cannot forbear adding,
that the class interests to which protection professedly mi-
nisters can, at all events, have nothing to apprehend now from
the boldest and most sweeping of measures. All objections,
or pretences of obji ction, to " sudden" change, are nullified
by the circumstances of the present season. The change now
would not be sudden. The utmost that any change could
effect would be to maintain something like the status quo.
Though an order in Council slid down the scale to zero to-day,
and an Act of Parliament fixed it there to-morrow, farmers
are secure of their "remunerating prices." The landlords
may make themselves quite easy on the score of a possible
superabundance. Tamboff itself is effectually put hors de
combat. The men who dread a corn invasion now are of
that genus of alarmists who would have cried " fire" at the
general deluge. Even the poor agricultural labourer, whom
they dread " throwing out of employment." is provided for
too. The railways will take care of him if only Government
will take care of the railways, and of that which keeps rail-
ways going.
TIMES.—The minds of all who feel, not only an interest
in the condition of Ireland. but a sympathy for the priva-
tions of their fellows, are now fully aroused to the state of
the sister country. All men of all parties are unanimous in
pronouncing the necessity of prompt and energetic action to
arrest the progress of the fellest calamity that can devastate
a nation. It is one of those striking emergencies which sus-
pend the operation of party tactics and the violence
of party passions. The Orangemman and the Pa.
pist, Tory and Repealer, Peer and tradesman, now
meet together on one common ground, and for one
common purpose, not, as heretofore, to mingle their
complaints or concoct their censures of an indif-
ferent and contemptuous Government, but to unite their ex-
ertions and combine their influence for saving the masses of
their countrymen from famine and its satellite—pestilence.
It would be too much to expect that in an Irish assembly of
any kind—especially in one collected under circumstances of
national excitement, and composed of materials the most va-
rious and the most antagonistic—political allusions should be
wholly forborne, and political acrimony completely subdued ;
consequently, the little fracas between Admiral Oliver and
Mr. O'Connell, at the recent meeting in Dublin, may pass ler
nothing more than a slight and natural tribute to the public
spirit of their countrymen. But the firmness of the chairman
in checking this desultory altercation, as well as the
express determination of those assembled to fix their atten-
tion on one subject, proves the imminence and the magni-
tude of the apprehended danger. And while it must ever
be a matter of deep regret to Ireland, that those who are the.
most able to do her service by their position, popularity, or
talents, generally seek opportunities rather of division than
of co-operation, feelings the reverse of pleasurable are sug-
gested by a consideration of the cuuse which has now anni-
hilated differences and amalgamated factions. It looks as if
Irishmen required some great and terrible calamity to remind
them of their common duties and to restore them to common
sense. At the same time, it might be ;ash to expect that the
unanimity and goodwill which the fear of a great danger has
consolidated will last beyond the evil day; or that the Iris`.;
gentry will exhibit the same disposition to sustain the future
prosperity of their country, as they do to mitigate its present
more unusual distress. In such a crisis as that which we are
deploring we might reasonably expect to hear of numerous
and conflicting remedies. And this is the case. Various
methods have been proposed for curing the diseased pota-
toes, and preventing the progress of infection. The peasant
has in turn been advised to use acids, alkaline liquors, and
chlorine. But these modes of treatment, however appre-
ciable they may be by a chemist, and however valuable on
chemical principles, are wholly beyond the cotter's reach. If
he waits until his circumstances or those of his neighbours
enable him to make use of such scientific preparations,
lie will wait till all his produce is consumed, and
all hope abandoned. The Irish peasant, even when
in the best position and the most complaisant humour,
has but little love for the experiments of science and
the tests of the laboratory. But when his existence
is at stake—when the delay of a few days may entail a dearth
of months—it is hard to impose on him a succession of trials
which may each in its turn fail, and which must each in turn
cost him both time and money. In the suddenness of new
embarrassments, and the perplexity of confli sting recommen-
dations, he may lose not only the opportunity, but also the
hope of deliverance; whilst a timely resort to those more ob-
vious and simple means with which the nature of the soil and
the character of the country, and his own arm, have furnished
him, may enable him to secure a certain portion of his food
from infection. And this he should attempt. No thoughts of
comparative failure should deter him. Those who are really
and honestly his friends should impress on his mind that
it is his duty to save from the virulence of disease as much
as he can ; if he cannot recsue provision for six months, thee
let him try that for five; if for five appears hopeless, let him
try for four, and so on. Only let him be made aware that
on his efforts--simple and laborious efforts, like those re-
commended by the Government Commission, depends
not only the question of more or less food at the beginning
of the next year, but of seed for that which is to follow
—in a word, the hope of future crops. But it is impossible
that any reflections suggested by the state of the Irish
people at this time should bound th emselves by a mere
consideration of the potatoe failure. The potato is
pronounced by all practical chemists to contain the
least possible quantity of nourishment in propor-
tion to its bulk. Yet this is the staple food of four
millions of our fellow-subjects ; and weak, inefficient
as it is, when most plentiful, it is now to be reduced one-
half, and perhaps two-thirds, in its supply 1 Such are the
conditions of life to the Irish peasantry l Alas ! whenever
one begins to investigate the sufferings of Ireland, the mind
becomes entangled in a labyrinth of distresses, such as no
other nation is subject to. One misery opens on another,
and one privation on another, greater than that which pre-
ceded it ; and the remembrance of its ordinary almost dis-
heartens us from attempting to alleviate its extraordinary
sufferings. But, the huge necessity of the case looms
through the mists of doubt and fear which gather round the
gaunt image of famine, and suggestions come forth
plentifully,— vague notions, sometimes more in har-
mony with the obscurity around them than with
the capability of -execution. But, when did a crisis not
teem with impossible theories? Mr. O'Connell complains
that Ireland is exporting corn to England at this moment,
at the risk of starving her own people. Surely he cannot be
seeking to raise an agrarian clamour against the exportation
of wheat to this country. A more foolish cry could not be
raised. At no time has much native wheat been consumed
in Ireland; nor do we believe that, if all growing there were
kept back for home consumption, its supply would materially
affect the aggregate quantity of food six months hence;
whilst the people would lack and starve from lacking that
greater abundance of coarse food, purchaseable by moneyob-
tained in the English markets. We hope that, at all events,
the Irish, for their own sakes, will be cautious not to inter-
rupt that commerce with England, which is of such inesti-
mable value to 'themselves just now. England might buy
corn from America; but where would Ireland find the means
of buying grain for herself, after a self-exclusion from the
English markets? Among other recommendations, that of
opening the ports is one which has probably presented itself
to the minds of all ere this—one of which the aspect of affairs
both.in England and Ireland warns us, but which bides its
time for execution, whilst that which seeks to give employ-
ment to the people embodies an idea not indeed new to those in
England who have studied the problem of Irish grievances,
but worthy of remark as proceeding from two mixed assem-
blies of Irishmen, and representing a sentiment common to
all parties in the state. The means of achieving this great
end will remain a subject for after-thought, when this
dearth shall have passed away. This is a topic which no
prosperity can make us slight, and no calamity make us
forget. It grows upon the mind with every day. It in-
volves the most profound considerations of social and poli-
tical happiness. It involves questions of race, of rank, of reli
gion, of population—of everything which a philosopher regards
with attention and a citizen with solicitude. And, whatever
may be the means eventually adopted for conferring on the
Irish peasantry that greatest beep, the bete; 9f general told