The Sun.
London, England, 1842-03-03 00:00:00

rite °tun.

LONDON
THURSDAY MORNING, MARCH 3, 1842.

The Report on Sir ROBERT PEEL'S corn resolu-
tions was received last night, and the Bill will be
brought in as soon as possible. He and the great
majority of the Parliament are quite identified, and
as the most ardent Corn-law Repealers are not pre-
pared, as far as we can learn, to set aside the autho-
rity of Parliament, though it be the mere organ or in-
'strument of the landlords, it follows, as a matter of
course, that they must acquiesce in the landlords' de-
cision. The community, enslaved by its own defer-
ence for the aristocracy, must put up with whatever
laws the landlords choose to make. Under these cir-
cumstances, nothing short of a miracle can prevent.
Sir ROBERT PEEL'S plan for continuing a great sys-
tem of legislative plunder from becoming the law of
the land. True, it is a terrible disgrace to the Legis-
lature now to re-enact a law which experience has de-
monstrated to be as mischievous as it is fundamentally
unjust; but the Repealers having striven and pro-
tested against it, and not being efficiently supported
out of doors, must wash their hands of the iniquity,
and lay it entirely at the door of the landlords. Their
duty, in relation to that plan, in Parliament must now,
we believe, draw to an end.
Sir ROBERT PEEL has in plain terms informed the
House of Commons, that the landlords would not
allow him to make a further relaxation of the Corn-
laws ; at the same time he has announced other mea-
sures to restore the dilapidated finances, and to amend
the tariff. Though disappointed with what he has
already done, the public are extremely desirous to
learn what more he means to do. It will not be pru-
dent in the Liberal Members to baulk this desire;
and we would suggest to them, therefore, to throw,
no obstacle in Sir R. PEEL'S way, by proposing any fri-
volous or useless motions, to be withdrawn after an un-
satisfactory debate. Let them rather facilitate the per-
formancii of essential business, and so enable Sir R.
PEEL to state as speedily as possible what he proposes
as to taxes and what as to trade. No other subject is
of public interest or public importance, and the Li-
beral Members will not gain on public esteem by in-
terposing with petty measures and petty projects of
their own. If they can defeat the Corn-law project,
let them do so ; if they have no hope of that, let them
contribute to gratify the expecting people by hasten-
ing the publication of Sir R. PEEL'S whole plan.
Their cause will lose nothing by this course.
Public opinion is already setting in strongly against
PEEL, and an additional impetus will probably be
given to the current by the other petty measures by
which he will disappoint the people. New taxes, we
presume he must have ; and he can scarcely impose
them without raising prices, and altering the relations
of his new Corn-law. It is very probable that hi:-
other measures, without benefiting the consumer, will
tend, like his Corn-law alterations, to make him un-
popular with the farmers. What he has already pro-
posed has seriously damaged his character and
exposed the aristocracy, whose servant he is;
and the Liberal party will lose nothing by
allowing the thorough conviction of his weakness and
their injustice to take deep root in the public mind.
We do not say the Liberal Members are not at every
stage of his Corn Bill to say No to it, and point out
its injustice; but let them not interpose with any mo-
tions or proceedings of their own to prevent the
public from hearing his whole plan of commercial re-
i lief .r.nd financial burdens.

[The following article was written immediately after
Sir PEET. delivered his last great speech, but the pres-
sure of Parliamentary matter excluded it till now :—]
We feel almost inclined to pity Sir ROBERT
PEEL. Never was a political schemer more com-
pletely caught in his own toils. Unwarned by the
present use of earnest and solemn language, the
index to strong and irrepressible feeling, arising froth
general and great suffering, he has persisted in playing
fast and loose with truth, and has for years notori-
ously spoken against his own convictions, in order
that he might, by help of the land-owriers, be the
Prime Minister of England. Mistaking the source
and nature of political power, he has continued to
worship the Church and the aristocracy, because ig-
norance once made- them Gods, after those idols—as
his successive defeats on the Catholic question, and
on Reform proved—were thrown down, and
trampled in the dust. In obedience to their com-
mands he has striven against truth, justice, and en-
lightened public opinion, and by them he has been
successively laid prostrate and helpless. Now he has
attained the very height of his ambition, and by his
own act, amending the Corn-laws, does he again
stand self-condemned.

Ills all-important recognition, which we noticed on
this day week, of the superior influence of the success of
manufactures to any system of Corn-laws in promot-
ing agricultural prosperity, is an acknowledgment of
the impotency of his legislation, and of the over-
whelming po)ver of-the substantial interests of society.
It implies a conviction on his part that these substan-
tial interests are it law of society, and it imposes on
him the obligation to study them, and conform himself
thereto. He has again admitted, as in 1829, the in-
adequacy of a much cherished law, which he has strenu-
ously maintained,, to answer its intended purpose,
and has been thus compelled again to lay violent hands
on his own political greatness, and the ascendency of
his party.

We have on two or three occasions distinctly charged
him with appealing to the passions and prejudices of the
landowners, and with exciting their alarms, as in his re-
ferences to the corn which might possibly be grown in
Denmark, and as to the effect of 2,000,000 of acres of
land being thrown out of cultivation by free trade.
We have accused him of dealing in House of Com-
mons clap-traps, and of having for his party purposes
exaggerated all the possible evils of putting an end to
the bread-tax. Now on Wednesday night he
avowed that his present measure was as large a one
as he could carry He said-
-1 believe the Hon. Gentleman (Mr. C. Buller) wishes
for an ultimate repeal, yet he wishes them to act with caution,
and not excite aprehensions in the minds of the agriculturists.
I knew that my proposition would not have that effect; and if
the Hon. Gentleman had seen the communications I have re-
ceived, I think he would think that I have advanced as far as I
possibly could without raising those apprehensions. It was I
therefore on this account that anticipated his vote to-night in
opposition to the Hon. Gentleman. I am sure that if I had
gone much further those apprehensions which the Hon. Gen-
tleman fears would have been fulfilled.
He implied, therefore, that a larger measure than

his resolutions would be beneficial and just, and he
admitted, as the servant of the landlords, that he is
only allowed to give the little he offers. But he has,
for his own purposes, now and on former occasions,
strengthened the prejudices and excited the alarm of
the landlords, to whom he succumbs ; thus is he
made powerless to do good, thus is he rendered im-
potent to benefit the nation, and soon must he give
up a helm which he has obtained by most unworthy
means. Thus is his political character and power de-
stroyed by those very prejudices and passions in the
landed aristocracy, which he, for the sake of getting
office, has nourished into strength. Who shall doubt
the moral government of the world, when schemers,
even when they appear at the height of prosperity,
are thus caught in their own toils, and doomed to
pass a sentence of condemnation on themselves ?
On Wednesday Sir ROBERT, with his usual cun-
ning, made great use of the concessions of his oppo-
nents, though he was well aware of their worthless-
ness. Mr. M. Plumps adniitted over-trading and
too great &cities of banking prior to 1838. But
what have such temporary and fleeting causes, which
might involve a flew persons in difficulty, to do with
the wide-spread distress which now pervades the
entire empire ? The banking system of Scotland has
undergone no alteration, and Sir ROBERT PEEL will
hardly affirm that the over-speculation in Lancashire
in 1836 and 1387 caused the ruin of Paisley, and the
want of trade at Aberdeen and Arbroath in 1841.
So Sir ROBERT PEEL seized hold of the acknow-
ledged prosperity of 1832 to 1837 to prove that pros-
perity might exist under the Corn-laws ; but he ought
not to have forgotten that the country was rejoicing
at that period under great remissions of taxation, as
well as abundant harvests. As a statesman he was
bound to look at the terrible vicissitudes to which
every branch of industry has been continually sub-
jected during the last twenty-seven years, though the
country has been at peace, and the people uniformly
industrious and orderly. From that general failure
he ought to have concluded that there must be some
general disturbing cause in operation—something
wrong in our legislation, when the exertions of the
nation have been as mistaken as a lover's fancies, and
have continually run into fitful speculations or sunk into
paralysed helplessness. It is his business to find out thiB
cause, and remove it ; for that he has pay and power ;
he contented himself with showing up Mr. GREG.
He abdicated the functions of a statesman to assume
those of a pettifogging disputant.
He quoted Mr. RICARDO, too, as the advocate of
protection ; he forgot to say that Mr. RICARDO
founded his argument on the land being subject to
tithes, the burden of which increases with the gross
produce, while, since Mr. RICARDO wrote, the tithes
have been commuted, and are not henceforth to increase
in quantity. He omitted to notice that prices have since
settled down, with many ruinous fluctuations, at least 25
per cent. He forgot also to state that poor-rates have
been forcibly reduced in the proportion of frOm
8,000,0001. to 5,000,0001., and that every tax, even to
that of shepherds' dogs, which weighed exclusively on
the agriculturists, has been repealed. To quote Mr.
Ricanno,- at present, as an authority for a law to tax
the people's food on account of the burdens borne by
the land, without taking any notice of these changes,
must be attributed, not to the ignorance, but to the
disingenuousness of Sir ROBERT PEEL.
Sir ROBERT PEEL based another great argument,
which pervaded all his speech—from his first notice
of the new mills mentioned by Mr. HORNER,
to nearly the end of it—on the increasing employ-
ment in the manufacturing districts. He admitted the
distress, but when he found 94 new mills had been
built in Lancashire only, when he found that the con-
sumption of cotton had increased in 1840 to
175,000,0001b5., he concluded that the distress was
evanescent, trifling, much exaggerated, and one of
those petty disturbances of the social system, which
are compatible with general prosperity, and would soon
pass away. But if the distress he now great, in spite
of all this additional employment, what would it have
been had these mills not been built ? • To erect them,
and to fill them with machinery,• gave employment to
a great number of persons ; to work them after they
were erected, employed an additional number. To
manufacture all the cotton in 1840 mentioned by Sir
It PEEL must have given work to upwards of a mil-
lion persons. Notwithstanding that, there was great
distress, what, we ask Sir R. PEEL, and his cheering
landlords, would have been the overwhelming distress,
had this cotton not been worked up ?
The manufacturers did not call the pauper popu-
lation of Ireland and agricultural England into ex-
istence; they only provided work for them as long
as they could. They continue to provide work for
them as much as they can, and because they are not
able to go forward as rapidly as they did from
1832 to 1837—because their prosperity is nipped
and destroyed by the Corn-law, the Prime Minister
reproaches them 'with having caused the national dis-
tress by ovr-speculation and over-production. We
have before convicted him of disingenuousness—We
have now convicted him, we think, of gross injustice.
We might easily add to our catalogue of his offences
against good taste and morals, but we give him over to
the contempt of the hungry populace, whom his new
modification of the Corn-law outrages, and to the cen-
sure of the manufacturers, to whom his reasoning and
his language are an insult.

- AGRICULTURAL PRODUCE AND SHIPPING IN NORTH-
ERN EUROPE.—A paper has just been published, by
order of the House of Commons, under this title, which
extends to 63 pages, and must have cost a considerable
sum of money to print it. The facts it contains, which
are nicely disposed in a tabular and columnar form, are
summed up by the author of the paper, at the end,
somewhat to the following effect :—Should our Corn-
laws be abolished, Belgium can supply England with
no material increase of agricu.tural produce. Neither
can Holland. Bremen, as the port of Hanover and
Hesse, might. supply a little more. From HambiFgh
Some increase might take place. Kiel, It is possible,
might send us from 25 to 30 per cent. more food than at
present. Lubeck the same. Rostock the same. From
. these ports, however, we can get only the produce of
Holstein, Mecklenburgh, and Lunenburg, the whole of
which, could it be spared—the amount they have supplied
is about 150,000 quarters—could scarcely suffice to feed
our people for a single week. Stettin, no increase.
Dantzie, no material increase in a seasonable time ; but
there are districts in Poland and Prussia which might be
cultivated. There is news for the people of Eng-
land worth paying for ! Elsinore might increase ittex-
I ports of food about 25 per cent. Was it neces-
' sary to send a political agent to the Continent
to gather this information, and was a large folio re-
quired to make known to the people of England that
these several places could not immediately send any great
additional supplies of food ? We have already stated
that fact months ago in The Sun. To grow corn, the
ground must be prepared, and cultivation cannot be ex-
tended in an hour ; and were the Corn-laws to be abo-
lished to-morrow, there is no part of the world from
which we could immediately procure any large additional
supply of food. Who the wonderfully sagacious man
may be who has provided the public with this informa—
tion at so considerable a cost, we are not exactly aware,
but we see that his report is dated from the ADMIRALTY,
and that the Comptroller of victualling and transport ser-
vices is called, like the reporter, James Meek, Esq. Can
it be that he had been spared from his duties at the Ad-
miralty to visit the Continent to gather that informa-
tion? Must the people of England give this Mr. Meek
two salaries for such service ? Is his Comptrollership a
sinecure? At least we can say that if his labours in the
victualling and transport office are of no more value to
ot the et pieu 3l c
Continent, his a
lr et sheea rpcuhbels intoo
nt he
ye pi
sr oduc iN
terriblye polv er
wasteds
which goes into the pockets of Mr. Meek. When new
taxes are to be levied., the people have a great right to
complain of the manner in which their resources are
squandered by such silly missions as this on which Mr.
Gladstone has sent Mr. Meek, and in procuring such
valueless, though expensive information, as is contained
in those 63 pages.

A public meeting of the inhabitants of Bermondsey
was held at the Working-man's Church, Dock-head, last
Thursday evening, for the purpose of discussing Sir Ro-
bert Peel's sliding scale Corn-law, and while Mr.
M'Doual, a Scotch delegate, was condemning such a
scale, the floor of the Church gave way, and before the
crowd could say " Doctor," they suddenly slid down to
the lower region, exclaiming this is Sir Robert's general
sliding scale. Fortunately no one was hurt.
THAMES TUNNEL COMPANY.---On Monday the an-
nual assembly of the Proprietors of this Company was held at the
London Tavern, Benjamin Hawes, Esq., in the chair. The Re.
port was read by the seeretary, from which it appeared that this
stupendous work is now nearly ready for public use, there being
but the entrances to the tunnel to be made. That on the
Wapping side had been contracted for by Messrs. Grissell
and Pcto, to be completed in about three months, after
which that on the Rotherhithe side would be undertaken.
The works remained secure, and had not settled in the
slightest degree throughout the tunnel, a length of 1,200 feet.
The Report alluded with gratitude to the assistance the Com.
Pliny had received from Government under various Adminis-
trations, and the able manner in which the object had been
advocated in the public journals. The balance sheet from
the Ist of January to the 31st of December,
1841, was, receipts
5.3521. Igs. 4d. (in which were the sum of 1,6991. 155. from
visitors, and from the sale of books, 1251.), and payments,
1,9901. 14s. 3d., leaving a balance of 3,362/. ss. Id. In the Bank
of England the funds were 31,3601. 13r. 9d., and the payments
21,124/. Ss. 4d., leaving a balance in hand 1,36/. ss. sd. The
sums owing were 2,400/. The Report and accounts were adopted.
The Chairman regretted the decease of Mr. Hyde Wallaston, who
had been one of the first promoters of the undertaking, and stated,
in reply to a
.Proprietor, that he could not- exactly say when the
carriage-way would be opened to the- public, the present arrange-
ment being only for the footway, and that he hoped the Govern.
meet would be induced, on the work being opened to the public, to
give up a portion of the toll, in order that score retvrp might be
made to the Proprietor,.

THE SUN, LONDON, THURSDAY EVENING, MARCH 3, 1842.

and meeting with a butcher and a calf, in a pa-
roxysm of humanity they give the Calf' its free-
dom, and then hurry on in search of other ad-
ventures ; in the course of which expedition of
discovery, they suddenly find themselves in the
midst of a game preserve—a circumstance thus
poetically alluded to by Dashem
" We've got into the game seraglio
Of some great Turk ; should he o'erhaul you,
His Janissaries are not the folks
To pay night-trespassers with jokes:
Yon wigwam, or whate'er the word is,
The mansion-house of no small lord is ;
And, hark ! d'ye hear that sound? A whistle!
The keepers- are on us—let us mizzle
The epithet " mizzle " has an . elegant pro-
priety—not to say melody—about it, that must
strike even the most unobservant reader. The
sequel of the adventure is described in terms not
less chaste and euphonious:—
" This hint being fortunately taken,
•They turned away, and saved their bacon."
But Zachary was not always so lucky as in this
instance, for having made himself obnoxious to
the authorities by his Reform crotchets, the Lord
Chancellor,
" With a view to keep things quiet,
Issued his peremptory fiat,
Engrossed and sealed—and Boots was bid to
Deliver it quickly, which Boots did do." •
The consequence of this punctuality on the part
of Boots was, that Zachary Cobble was arrested
for sedition, and brought to trial before a jury of
his countrymen, one of whom was so clever a
fellow that he could actually
"By dark chiromancy tall for
Of a prize ox what his rump would sell for,"
a species of information which must have been
peculiarly acceptable to the prize ox. Of another
of the jury we are told that
" A tidleywink shop once he kept
'Till by John Doe scoured out and swept."
When the evidence had been all gone through,
the prisoner,

•
" Who first as dumb
As patience sat, and looked as glum
As a bull surveying a raw beefsteak,
Broke all at once into a fresh freak,"
and delivered a long speech by way of defence,
which so electrified the jury, that they unani-
mously gave a verdict in his favour—a cheering
incident, which relieves the reader from a load
of apprehension, and forms an appropriate ter-
mination to the poem. Such is Zachary
Cobble," a ridiculous, and, in some respects; an
incomprehensible performance, wherein sound
is substituted for sense; and similes introduced,
which are distinguished for nothing so much as
their utter dissimilitude. As for humour or
fancy, there is hardly an atom of either in the
whole work, and even the rhymes-hobble un—
like an old man on crutches—without grace,
ease, or spirit. The best thing in the poem
is the word " Finis" at the end of the last line.

THE BOOK OF THE POOR MAN'S CHURCH.
London, Cleave.
This is a well-timed, useful publication. Its ob-
ject is to instruct the people as to the worldly
qualities of the poor man's Church. The author's
intention of instituting an impartial and ingenious
examination of the principles and practices of the
Church is carefully carried out ; and the conclu-
sion he arrives at, " That the Church is a cun-
ningly devised system of anti-Christ, alike ini-
mical to the temporal welfare and the spiritual
interests of mankind," is borne out by the facts
he adduces. As the book is at once cheap and
full of information, it will become the manual of
all Church Reformers. We shall quote a short
passage, made up of extracts from works lying
beyond the ordinary reading of most persons, to
show the secular and purely political character
of the Church :

We have a fine illustration of the light in which the digni-
fied clergy themselves regard their position in the Establish-
ment, and of the real objects they aim at, in what Archbishop
Wake said :—" As for myself," he writes to M. Beauvoir,
"as Archbishop of Canterbury, I have more power, larger
privileges, and greater 'authority than any of their Arch-
bishops; from which, by the grace of God, I Will not
depart, no, not for the sake of an union with them." And,
again, in a postcript to the same, he says, " Did Cardinal
Nenailles know what authority the Archbishop of Canter-
bury has got by the Reformation, and how much greater a man
he is now than when he was the Pope's legatus flatus, it
might encourage him to follow so good a pattern ; and be as-
sured, in that case, he would lose nothing by sending back
his Cardinal's cap to Rome. I doubt your doctors know little
of these matters."

In concluding this part of the subject, are request attention
to the following extracts from the writings of Churchmen
themselves, in proof of.secular and purely political character
of the Church Establishment :

Bisnor WARBUILTON—" At the Reformation, the Church
resigned its independence, made the Chief Magistrate its su-
preme head—and now, without his approbation and allowance,
can neither do nor decree anything."
DEAN PRIDEAUt What power the Pope had used, was
the'abrogation;of the Papal authority in this realm, trans-
ferred to the King by the statutes."
Chri4tian Kings have spiritual dominion or
supreme power in ecclesiastical affairs and causes; and, within
their own precinct, an authority and power to command, even
in matters of Christian religion."
BLACKSTONE—" The Parliament of Britain can al* the
established religion of the land ; as was done in a variety of
instances in the reigns of Henry VIII. and his children."
BISHOP VAN 111)LDERT—" Even over her own member° her
control is very limited, and entirely subject to the legislative
and executive authorities of the country."
BisHisr LOWTH--," It pleased God, in his unsearchable
wisdom, to suffer the progress of the Reformation to he stepped
in the midtvag."—Visitation Sermon, 1758. ,

Da. HENRY MORE—" The Reformed Churches have sepa-
rated from the great Babylon to build those that are lesser and
more tolerable, but not to be tolerated for ever."—Myst. of
Iniquity, p. 553.
BLAcKwoon's MAGAZINE—" The business ef the Church
is lumped with the other business of the Home department,
and there is too much reason to believe that it is carried on
with reference merely to secular ends ; and that that portion
of the wealth of the Church which is at the disposal of the
'Crown, is only considered as so much,,il for greasing the wheels
of Government, in order that the machine of State may roll on
more smoothly,"—February, 1832.
• BEVERLEY—." I am thoroughly impressed with this truth
as paramount to all other truths, excepting the high mysteries
of our religion, that the Church of England is a machine of
anti-Christ, greatly surpassing, in the grossness of its abuses,
all other jobs or systems of corruption that ever have afflicted
the kingdom."

LIVERPOOL STEEPLE
AND HURDLE RACES.

LIVERPOOL, LAST NIGHT.

THE GRAND NATIONAL SWEEPSTAKES
of 20 sovs. each, 5 ft., with 100 added. (42 subs.)
Mr. Elmore's Gay Lad (Oliver) 1
Sir P.Mostyn's Seventy-four (Powell) 2.
Mr. Hunter's Peter Simple (Owner) 3
Mr. H. Johnstone's The Returned (Owner) 4
The following also started ;—Mr. Elmore's Lottery
(1 Blbs. extra) ; Mr. Elmore's Sam -Weller ; Lord
Waterford's Columbine ; Hon. C. Forester's Lady
Langford ; Mr. W. Ramsay's Bangalore ; Mr. Fer-.
gusson's Bannathlath ; Mr. Moore's Anonymbus ;
Lord Maidstone's Satirist ; Mr. R. Ekins's Luck's-
All ; Lord Clanricarde's Honesty ; and Baron Roths-
child's Luck's-All.

Won easy by five or six lengths.
THE PRINCE OF WALES' CUP

Of 100 guineas, was won after a fine race by Lord
Chesterfield's Claude Du Val (Hon. A. Villiers),
beating Mr. Ward's Forget-me-not (Sir J. Baird) ;
Mr. Moore's Game Chicken (owner), and Mr. Tom-
linsues Jem along Josey (owner).