The Sun.
London, England, 1842-12-28 00:00:00

ett

The Marh-lane Express, in common with
other journals, blames public men for not ad-
hering to the law. That is unjust. Public men
have maintained the law as long as they possi-
bly could, and at an expense of national misery
which is now, and ever will be, a terrible re-
proach to them. The Whigs did not meddle
with it till they were compelled, and the strong-
est condemnation of the Corn-law repealers
pronounced by any statesman proceeded front
the mouth of Lord MELBOURNE. Sir R. PEEL
too, was reluctant to take the subject in hand,
but he could not help himself; though his man-
ner of handling it would have been a disgrace
even to that ingenious youth, Mr. GLADSTONE,
had he been the author of the new sliding-scale.
If he touch it again, as touch it lie must, parti-
cularly with the prospect of the price of wheat
falling even lower than it was in 1835, it will not
be of his own free will, but on compulsion. The
people who expect that such a law, or any simi-
lar law can be maintained, are far more to blame
than the statesman who opens his eyes to facts,
yields to the pressure of circumstances, and abro-
gates a law of which he is at length convinced
that it inflicts a grievous injury on the very per-
sons it was intended to benefit. It is real folly
to ask and strive to preserve such a law, and
real wisdom to resolve—as it must be given'bip—
to give it up instantly.
Those who talk and write about encourage-
ment to agriculture, who discuss at interminable
length the operation of manures, and yet never
carry their ideas beyond the dunghill and the
grim tide-waiter keeping out foreign corn, seem
to us to have most mole-like views of the ques-
tion. The best manure is not to be found in the
farm-yard, but in the city. It is the increase of
customers. The best encouragement for agri-.
culture is not duty on corn, but the increase of
the demand. The best system of drainage is the
growth of towns, which carries away superfluous
hands from the land, and supplies the means of
carrying away superfluous moisture. If Sir R.
PEEL wishes to have our fields manured, encou-
rage agriculture, and prevent the threatened fall
of the price of agricultural produce below the
level of 1835, he will, on the meeting of Parlia-
ment, abolish restrictions on trade, and allow the
manufacturing- and commercial population to find
employment and prosperity.

A Morning Contemporary yesterday gave a
sketch of the policy of Lours PHILIPPE, of
which .this is the substance. Fearing for his
throne in the years immediately succeeding the
Revolution, that King assiduously courted the
friendship of England, and was anxious to con-
clude with her some treaty to which the North-
ern Courts should not be parties. In 1834 the
situation of Portugal and Spain supplied an op-
portunity to form such a treaty, and the Quad-
ruple Treaty was concluded. But Lours PHIL-
LIPPE never meant to execute that treaty, and
promoted sedition and rebellion against the Go-
vernment, and promoted war and bloodshed in
the land he had pledged himself to protect, by
allowing Don CARLOS to make France the basis
of operations against his trusting ally. Having
this treaty? he used it to bribe the Northern
Powers to favour him, and pledged himself, if
they would countenance him, that he would not
keep his engagements with us. In defiance of
his treaty, therefore, he sought to establish
despotism in Spain, and overthrow his own
ally. Defeated in this nefarious scheme, he re-
solved, cost what it might, to marry the young
Queen of SPAIN to a BOURBON. In working

LONDON :
WEDNESDAY MORNING, DECEMBER 28, 1842.

A paragraph has gone round of the papers,
sportively asserting that the Duke of BUCKING'.
HAM has offered a reward for the discovery of
any new argument in :favour of the Corn-law.
Several arguments have, in consequence, been
suggested, but it is not said whether they were
regarded as novel, and, therefore, entitled to the
reward. Though the monopolists may not have
succeeded in that object, they have certainly
pointed out a forcible, •if not a new, argument
against the law. The Mark-lane Express has
this passage, which must be full of terror for the
landowners:—
The demand which has been created by deficient
harvests during the last four years has given a stimu-
lus to the growth of wheat upon the Continent; and if
there should be an abundant harvest generally next
year, we should not be surprised to see wheat at as
low a price as in 1835. In this view we are confirmed
by the Banker's Circular of the 16th inst. :—" The
four or five consecutive years of large exports of
grain from all parts of the continent ofEurope and all
the shores of the Mediterranean and its connecting
seas eastward to England, have so stimulated produc-
tion that corn is likely to be in excess beyond the
power of consumption of the population of Europe for
some years to come, and prices consequently low.
There is, for example, a marsh in the neighbourhood
of Leghorn, 30 miles in length, which a few years
since grew scarcely a blade of corn—so unhealthy
that the peasants were allowed to cultivate patches
of it without paying any rent, now covered with the
finest wheat possible."
Now what has been the stimulus to that pro-
duction, not at home, but abroad ? Obviously
the high price of wheat in England, which is not
a natural price, the result of the increase of our
population, and the deficiency of the home
supply, but of the Corn-law. The sliding-scale
was expressly intended to raise the price, and
limit the foreigner's advantage ; but he has always
been able, except last year, in consequence of
the unexpectedly early and bounteous harvest,
to introduce the bulk of his corn at a nominal, or
very low duty. The foreigner, therefore, who
grows his corn, as the Post continually assures
us, at a very little cost, has continually obtained
for it, when we wanted any, the high, artificial
prices of England. Hence the landowners of
Mecklenburgh—and we shall not soon forget
seeing one of them, as he went across to Ham-
burgh, most complacently handling a purse
heavy with English gold—Tuscany, the Crimea,
and Poland, have in some years realised pro-
digious gains, which have stimulated cultivation
in those countries. Now were there no Corn-
law, the price here would not rise at any time so
much above the level of price on the Continent;
the stimulus of our growing population would
be first felt at home ; and till all that our own
cultivators could supply had been consumed,
none would be brought across the ocean. That
the price of grain should rule somewhat higher
here than on the Continent, from the density
of our population, and its rapid increase, is
natural ; but the great excess of price which
tempts at times, and at times rewards, foreign
cultivation, is the result of our enactments.
But what are the elements of the law-made
high price of England, or of what is it made up ?
First an artificial value is given to land, and the
farmer must promise, before he begins to culti-
vate, to pay an exorbitant rent for the use of it.
He must pay more for all his seed-corn and the
food of his animals. He must pay more in poor
and county rates. He must pay more for wages
—for the increased rent is paid on the food of
his labourers ; and his increased expenses, in
order to bring corn to market, caused by the
law, constitute the elements of its high price in
England. Thus the Corn-law subjects the Eng-
lish farmer to heavy charges, from which the
foreigner is wholly exempt, who nevertheless
gets as high a price for his wheat, when he can
import it, in the English market as the English
farmer. Hence the Corn-laws operate imme-
diately as a premium for foreigners to cultivate
corn fbr our market. We know that their after
consequences, in putting an end to trade, operate
in the contrary sense; and abroad as well as at
home, they carry with them all the curses of a
great system of gambling, and now make men
wild with hope, and anon make them mad with
despair.

Arne's opera of Artaxerxes was performed at this
theatre last evening, for the purpose of giving Mrs.
A. Shaw an opportunity of appearing in:a thoroughly
English opera. Her Artaxerxes must have convinced
the musical public that her claim to be considered
the English prima donna, par excellence, rests not
alone upon her proficiency in the modern Italian
school of music, but upon her thorough knowledge
of her art, a knowledge not confined to the compo-
sitions of any single school, for she has shown that
she is as capable of appreciating and elaborating the
beauties of Arne and the older composers as those of
Rossini and the moderns. Her Artaxerxes is, with-
out comparison, the finest on the stage. She threw
an energy and a dignity into the part to which we
have hitherto been unaccustomed ; the words also
were articulated with a distinctness of enun-
ciation which rendered every syllable distinctly
audible ; while, at the same time, the intonation was
rich, and the music given with the most perfect
taste, feeling, and correctness. Until last evening we
had no idea of the capabilities of the part of Ar-
taxerxes. The exquisite feeling and mellifluous rich-
ness of tone with which she gave the air "Fair
Semira, lovely maid," was most deservedly applauded.
The great triumph of the night, however, was the
beautiful melody " In infancy our hopes and fears."
Mrs. Alfred Shaw entered thoroughly into the ideas of
the composer, and in this beautifully plaintive air
exhibited a tenderness of feeling and a correctness of
taste which have never been surpassed. There was
no straining after effect, no endeavour to introduce
ornaments, no attempt at showing off the powers of
the singer at the expense of the music, but the tide of
melody was suffered to flow on uninterruptedly clear,
and rich, and full. The audience listened with
enraptured silence until the conclusion of the air,
and then there was one loud and enthusiastic
call for its repetition. Mrs. Alfred Shaw has
added immensely to her already high fame by
her performance of Artaxerxes. She is not only the
most mellifluous contralto, and the most accomplished
singer, but also the most finished musician of the
day. Miss Rainforth was the Mandane, and her's was
a Mandane every way worthy of the Artaxerxes of
Mrs. Alfred Shaw. We recollect seeing Miss
Rainforth in this character some two years
since, and cannot but congratulate her on
the marked improvement which she exhibited last
night. Her Mandane is now one of the best on
the stage, and not only did she sing the music with
taste, feeling, and correctness, but she acted the part
admirably. In the celebrated bravura, " Monster
away," her acting was of a very high order. The
song of the part, "The soldier tired," was given with
great pow 9r, chastened and controlled by exquisite
taste and jcdgment. Let Miss Rainforth go on as
she has begun, and she will achieve for herself
a name and a fame equal to that of any
compeers. Harrison, as Artabanes, was very
unequal; he gave the air, " Behold on Lethe's
dismal strand," excellently well ; the music was quite
within his compass, ,and he did full justice to it; but
in "Thy father! awav,l renounce the soft claim," he
failed, manifestly from want of power. in Braham's
quartett, " Mild as the moonbeams," he and Mr.
Manvers, who was the Arbaces, rendered

most efficient support to Mrs. Alfred Shaw
and Miss Rainforth, but to the ladies alone is