The Sun.
London, England, 1842-02-21 00:00:00

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LONDON!
MONDAY MORNING, FEBRUARY 21, 1842.

When we reflect on some of the statements made by
the bread taxer:=, and analyze their meaning and bear-
ings, we are filled with contempt at the poor intellect of
those who maku and those who credit them. We feel
something like indignation too that they should have the
audacity to suppose that the public can be bamboozled by
such transparent nonsense. We will take, for example,
Sir ROBERT PEEL'S crack statement, the corner-stone
of all the legislation on the subject that land here is sub-
ject to peculiar burdens, and therefore requires to be
protected against the produce of other lands, not subject,
it is falsely asserted, to such burdens ; ana that it has
been so protected for 150 years, during which great and
mighty interests, measured by the annual production of
50,000,000 quarters of grain, have grown up under the
shade of the protecting law.
We will pass over the inquiry which a just legislator
would institute, whether land has not here many ad-
vantages, such as no other land possesses, before he, on
the ground taken up by Sir R. PEEL, presumed to
make a law limiting the supply of food. We regard as
such peculiar advantages the vicinity of an immense, a
wealthy, and a productive manufacturing population—a
great command of manure—unequalled facilities of
transport—cheapness of materials of which the mass of
agricultural implements are made ; superior skill and
ingenuity in making them, and great command of labour;
so that no particle of a harvest, for want of hands,
ever need he lost, while in many of the half-
peopled countries of the north of Europe, of which we
are told to dread the competition, much is frequently
lost for want of hands and means to gather it in. We
pass by all these circumstances, though every one of
them ought to be investigated, before a law be made to
ensure the produce of our own land a price in the market
corresponding to its supposed cost, and come at once to
the consideration of the two circumstances on which the
protection is founded, viz., the payment of tithes and
the burdens of the land.

'raking the first as a ground of protection, all Scotland
is nearly tithe-free; but the land of Scotland is equally
protected with the laud of England. The land in Ire-
land is in nearly the same condition; at least, the burden
of tithe on it scarcely amounts to one-tenth of the tithe
of the land of England. Tithe of agistment there has
been wholly abolished. In England, too, as Air.
VILLIERS stated on Friday evening, nearly one-half of
.be land is tithe-free, and the landowners are, in
fact, the owners of the great majority of the
tithes. Now, if the assertion that the payment of tithes
forms a valid ground of protection be anything but a
mere pretext, a flimsy
veil hung round a profligate rob-
bory, expecting to conceal it, surely it is unjust, on the
vpirri principle stated, to extend that protection to all
'lad Wholly tithe-free, and to make it equal for the land
of Pigistid and Ireland.
Ada, the Tand,it is said, is burdened with rates ; but
cowl= are irety unequally burdened. Agricui_
tuna counties like Sussex, where the Duke
of RICHMOND presides, and Bucks, where the
pattern of righteous landlords holds sway, are much
heavier burdened than the manufacturing. counties of
Liftaehire and the West Riding of Yorkshire. Is it not

monstrously and scandalously unjust to fix a protecting
price on all the food imported, and so raise equally the
price of all grown at home, in order to enable the land of
Sussex and Buckingham to bear the burdens, while it
pays the squires a heavy rent, which the mismanagement
of those squires havelheaped on it ? All the burdens
nearly which the land bears, are laid on it by the acts of
the landowners, and we know several instances—
they are probably numerous in every corner of the
empire--where their favouritism and jobbing have much
increased those burdens, to enable their land to bear
which they now insist on limiting the food of the people.
Now a; just and discriminating Prime Minister, a cau-
tious, calculating, far seeing, much pondering Prime
Minister such as The PEEL, if he meant, on his own
principle, to have given a protection to the land accord-
ing to the burdens it bears, ought to have inquired into
the origin of those burdens, and ought to have appor-
tioned the protection according. to their different
amounts in relation to the acres of each county.

Further, it is said protection is necessary to prevent
the " cold clays" from going out of cultivation; but why
extend that production to the warm and rich marts ?
Why is not a bounty given to the growers of wheat on
unfertile land, and on such land only ? Butprotection, in
order to keep a few hundred acres of barren land in culti-
vation, is extended over all the land of the empire ; and
on all that which would not be driven out of cul-
tivation by free trade, merely enhances the rent.
It gives the same protection to the rich vale of
Evesham and the fertile isle of Thanet, as to the stony
planes of Bucks, and the flinty hills of Kent. Protection
to keep land in cultivation, in order to approximate to
justice, ought to be regulated by the qualities of the soil;
but, with a lumping generalization, the legislators of St.
Stephen's give an equal protection to the fat lands of
Sir EDWARD KNA.TCHBIILL and the thin moors about
Netherby Hall.
Should it be said that the Legislature cannot enter in-
to these minutia, and must take things in general, we
reply that, on its own principle, the law is founded on
minute differences of cost in different places, and if it
cannot enter into them, it. is not justified in making a
law at all on the subjec.t It is, however, another piece
of humbug to say it cannot enter into them ; it does
enter into such minute inquiries when that suits
its purpose. To carry the Tithe Commutation Act
into execution, the present productive powers, and pre-
sent value of every acre of land in the county subject
to tithes, has to be ascertained. In fact, the pitiable
excuse that the Legislature cannot accomplish this, only
proves that the whole theory of protection which is put
forward as the foundation of an unjust law, is a hollow
pretext, blown into greatness above and around the
heads of the people by the vapid breath of Members of
Parliament, in order to exclude the lightlrom them.
Before any such system can be justified by the prin-
ciple laid down by Sir ROBERT PEEL, a most rigid
scrutiny ought to be instituted into the actual cost of
producing corn, and all other things, here and in other
countries, into the elements of that cost, and into the
circumstances which influence the selling price of com-
modities, as distinguished from their cost. Sir Ro-
BERT PEEL pretends to legislate on these elements,
and he is bound, before he makes a law to keep
out foreign corn, to ascertain the cost of grow-
ing corn in England, and the reasons why that cost
is greater, if it be greater, than in other countries,
For example, manorial rights in many places operate
like the tolls on rivers in Germany, and increase both
the cost of production and the selling price in the
market. Is all foreign food to be taxed on account of
the cost and the price being enhanced by these ma-
norial rights ? Sir OSWALD MOSELEY, we see by
an article in the Manchester Times, has mano-
rial rights in Manchester, which, levying tolls on
all the sellers of provisions, enhance the price
of them in the market. The various parties en-
gaged in bringing food to Manchester market must be
able to pay all Sir OSWALD MOSELEY's manorial charges
by the price at which they sell the food. Similar
charges exist all over the country, and Sir ROBERT PEEL
is the just man to stand up in the House of Commons
and insist on taxing all food that comes in from abroad,
in order that all these charges may continue to be paid.
This he and his followers falsely call protecting the
growers of corn and the fatteners of cattle.
This great renovater of England also speaks of protec-
tion having existed 150 years, but he did not state what
interests that protection has called into existence. Did
manufactures grow up under its shadow, or in spite of
it ? Did his father gather great wealth, and every other
manufacturer, in consequence of that law, or in spite of
it? Had it any conceivable influence in bringing forward
the manufacturing industry of this country ? We answer
no ; it has prevented the extension of that industry,
But the growth of manufactures, and the consequent
increase of a town population in wealth and numbers,
has been a greater stimulus to agriculture, and been
more the shadow under which its mighty interests have
grown up into greatness, than all the laws that were ever
passed since the days of MiNos.
In fact, agriculture, like manufactures, on which its
prosperity depends, has floUrished in spite of the protec-
tion with which the law-giver encumbered it. Sir
ROBERT PEEL talks, however, of still protecting it, and
Mr. GLADSTONE, mimicing his leader, talks of protec-
tion, and all the landlords talk of protection. Their re-
petition of the same cry resembles nothing that we are
acquainted with; so much as that curious propensity
of the canine. :species (and- we hope:our -readers- will
excuse the comparison, but we know• nothing mean
enough, which can sufficiently express our thorough
contempt of the gabble of those whom Lord PALMER-
STON called " dealers in protective duties"), which, after
one dog has lifted his leg and dirtied a spot,
makes every other dog which passes also lift his
leg and dirty it too. One hundred and fifty years ago the
landlords dirtied the fair industry of the country by
their protection, and every generation since of land-
lords, attracted by the scent, has done the same.
Amassing dirt- after dirt, according to this legislative
fashion, merely because dirt was before put there under
the name of protection, makes up what Lord PALMER-
STON so justly and appropriately called the monstrous
legislation of the dealers in protective duties. We
have shown by the facts, of the tithe system, of
the local burdens, and of different qualities of soil, that
the lumping system of protection, now adopted to please
the landlords, is a sheer pretext, having no foundation
in the nature of things. It is unworthy of any rational
being to make it, unless with a design to cheat the public
understanding, and unworthy of rational beings to credit
it on any authority.

It is our misfortune to be sometimes obliged to
censure those who are, or pretend to be, our friends.
Mr. Sergeant TALFOURD is one of the Liberal party,
and we have seen reason to suppose, from the general
train of sentiment in his writings, that like most men of
a high cast of mind, he is a fond aed devoted admirer of
Nature, and a hater of all men and things which deform
her great works. We have high poetic authority
or saying that man is "like unto God," that he is the
" head, the heart, the soul, and tongue of all," and ex-
tending the ennobling sentiment we can, but conclude
that society, an aggregate of men, is the noblest and
grandest work of creation beneath the planets. At pre-
sent, however, society is the prey of an alarming disorder
which threatens its existence. Class is arrayed against
class, and the hand of the oppressor is lifted to snatch the
bread out! of the mouth jof the people. Disease,
distress, and untimely death are on every hand. No in-
considerable number of good men, who generally live
retired in the bosoms of their families, alarmed at this
condition of society, and grieved at the unexampled
distress which they have' no power to relieve, the con-
sequence, as they think, of some acts of a few selfish
and ignorant law-makers, have exerted themselves to
explain to the people the cause of their present
condition, and to urge them to obtain re-
lief by demanding that those acts of ignorant
selfishness be annulled. Under such circumstances, Mr.
Sergeant TALFOURD goes out of his way, when speaking
on a trial at Stafford, to condemn the agitators for Corn-
law repeal, and to advocate submission under these most
deplorable social evils. His remarks are very appropriately
paraded by all the Tory journals, and in them have been
forced on our notice. It is only necessary, we believe,
for us to quote the Learned Gentleman's words, to con-
vince our readers that they are ill-timed and erroneous.
Ile said:—

" I may add. that of all the arts of delusion or excitement,
there is none which, in my judgment, is baser than that which
takes the inevitable sufferings and calamities of human life—
those sufferings and privations which must be the lot of mankind
in this world—those calamities of labour and suffering, and
plays upon them by representing that they do not arise from
the laws of nature or inevitable circumstances, but that they
arise from a wicked disposition to grind, to oppress, to injure,
and to starve, as I am afraid you will be obliged to find is
im-
puted in this article."

Does Mr. Sergeant TALFOURD then really suppose,
while America and the North of Europe, and in fact
almost every quarter of the world, offers us food for which
our people have the means of buying, and are prohibited
by the law, that the terrible calamities they are now
suffering " must be the lot of mankind," and arose
" from the laws of nature or inevitable circumstances?"
The Learned Sergeant will give us leave to say that such
remarks are a greater libel on nature than what the
Editor of the Staffordshire Examiner said of Lord
INGESTRIE. If these be not the serious opinions of Mr.
Sergeant TALFOURD, he did injustice to himself by ut--
tering them in any cause ; if they be, he takes an
equally unpoetic &I.s.d erroneous view of nature. We call'
his attention to the subject, that he may inform the

world whether they are the sentiments of the Min and
the politician, or the mere verbiage of the lawyer.

•The mock revolution which took place at Lisbon, on
the 10th inst., hardly deserves notice. The Charter
promulgated by DoN PEDRO, and annulled a few years
after his deUth, has been restored ostensibly by the
army, but virtually by some secret agents, possessing
both money and influence. The QUEEN, the KING, her
husband, and the nobles and priests, no doubt, consi-
dered themselves under restraint, and were glad to get
rid of the Constitution established by the Radical Sep-
tembrists. They knew nothing, however, of the plot,
but when the old Charter was forced upon them by a few
regiments, and by sixty well-dressed gentlemeu,who made
a terrible noise one night under the windows of the
Municipal Chamber, what could the Court do but
yield, sing a Te Deum in the Cathedral, and order three
days of rejoicing for the revival of the Constitutional
Charter ? The trick is so evident that no one can be
deceived, and the anti-Court party will yet turn it to
good account.

The affair of Mr. HOPE, late President of the Court of
Session, which has made some noise in Parliament, and
more in Scotland, has done little credit to any of the
four parties mixed up in it. The motion of Mr. Fox
MAULE was extremely injudicioUs ; he knew well that
President HOPE had for years been waiting only
for the return of his party, to resign, and
unless he could have made out a continued series of er-
roneous judgments, or given some striking proofs of im-
becility, he might have been assured that the Tory
majority would be too many for him, and that the at-
tempt to stigmatise this venerable idol of the HOPES
would be attributed to spleen, or unavailing re-
gret that the appointment had been taken out
of the hands of the Whigs. He has there-
fore been subjected to this obloquy, and has besides
been compelled to retract and express deep sorrow (as he
well might) that the subject bad ever been mooted. And
why mix up the Strathbogie rebellion with this foolish af-
fair? The remarks made by the aged President on hear-
ing the case appeared to us judicious and honest, and
the late Under Secretary, whose leanings are well known,
and who was an interested party, should have been the
last man to cast even the shade of an imputation on the
purity of the judicial bench. The conduct of Sir R.
PEEL was not much better. Had he, following the
example of his colleague, Lord STANLEY, when a
similar charge was made by Mr. O'CoNNELL against
an Irish Judge, acceded to the motion, the question
would have been settled in a constitutional manner, with-
out compelling two interested and accused parties, father
and son, to come before Parliament, and give evi-
dence in their own behalf. As for the LORD ADVO-
CATE, the course which he chose to pursue, is totally in-
comprehensible. He denied point blank that the President
had been absent for even one day, yet refused.to grant
the official information, which would give more satisfac-
tion—than letters from every one of the numerous hopeful
family in Scotland. The paltry sqUabble has this re-
markable feature (a rare circumstance in such disputes)
that all the parties have committed such egregious blun-
ders, that no one can crow over the other.

The Shareholders of the Edinburgh and Glasgow
Railway are to meet on Tuesday the 22d instant,
to decide a principle which concerns the whole com-
munity, and we wish thera a happy deliverance.
We have repeatedly called the attention of the
public to the absurd, nay more, the wicked
attempt to stop the running of mails on Sunday ; and
and from the numerous letters received on the subject,
and the indignation excited among the Proprietors by
the meddling and impudent interference of a hypocri-
tical sect, to the certain injury of private pro-
perty, we confidently look forward to the triumph
of common sense and true religion over the bigotry and
the self-interest of the non-intrusionist clergy. Is all
communication between the capital of Scotland and the
populous towns in the west—Glasgow, Greenock, Paisley,
Kilmarnock, &c.—to be stopped for twenty-four hours,
because the holier-than-thou men are pleased to de-
nounce a work of necessity, a work of duty, and often of
mercy, a desecration of the Sabbath ?

All the letters received from the well-informed resi-
dents in Paris, Bordeaux, Bayonne, San Sebastian, and
Madrid, confirm the reports in circulation of the in-
tended outbreak of a Christ:no-Carlist conspiracy in
Spain. The pseudo French Ambassador, M. SALVANDY,
has bequeathed a legacy to the REGENT which we fear
Spain will be long in forgetting. It appears that this
official personage, while apparently higgling about a
point of etiquette, was in reality corrupting as many
disaffected Spaniards as were accessible to the blandish-
ments of the Ex-REGENT, the favour of the King of the
FRENCH, and the gold of which a worthless woman bad
robbed the Spanish treasury. General CONCHA and the
Duke of SAN CARLOS, who directed the murderous attack
upon the Palace, were sheltered by M. DE SALVANDY in
-hiS own house, conveyed in carriages to France, and by
him presented as especial favourites to Madame Musoz
—now the evil genius of Spain. Latterly all the Chris-
tino general officers in France have been gradually collect-
-ingupon the frontier to be ready for throwing themselves
itifo" Spain when the signal is made at Paris. General
JAREGUY, Pastor)
,is within a few leagues of Bay-
onne, where he corresponds regularly with hii adherents
in Guipuzioa: Generals URBISTONDO, PIQUERO, and
Ecti.u.Aa are at Berdeaux, 'and, to crown all; it is as-
serted that CAnakaA is concealed in Paris, assisting
CHRISTINA in settling her plans for again unfurling the
the standard of Revolution in Spain about the middle
of April. As the basis of the combination of the Chris-
tinos and Carlists is a marriage between the young
QUEEN and the eldest son of Don CARLOS, the friends
of that Prince all are cordial in their support of it.
CAnws himself is still somewhat obstinate, but the Prin-
cess of BEIRA, his wife, admits that the cause of CAR-
LOS alone is now hopeless. The prime mover of
the plot is the CITIZEN KING, who, however, has the
tact to appear to the less trusted Christino chiefs
to know nothing at all about it. Nevertheless he is the
life and soul of the whole movement. He it is who
calms the fierce turbulence of the Carlists, and directs
the dark treasons of the Christino leaders. Well
aware of the anti-constitutional designs of the Court of
'Portugal, he essays in that quarter to strike the first
blow against the Spanish Constitution and the Regency
of ESPARTERO. This is the secret of the Chartist in-
surrection in Oporto guided by COSTA CABRAL, who is
acting under secret instructions from Queen DONNA
MARIA. The abolition of the Constitution of Portugal
in favour of Don PEDRO'S Charter, would afford a pre-
text for the Spanish adherents of CHRISTINA to declare
in favour of replacing the Constitution of 1837 by the
Estatuto Real of MARTINET DE LA ROSA.
The firmness of the REGENT, and the patriotism of
the Cortes and army of Spain, will soon be severely
tested. Sir ROBERT PEEL'S declaration in the
House of Commons that the sympathies of the
British Cabinet are wholly in favour of the estab-
lished Government of Spain, has already damped the
hopes of some Of CHRISTINA MUNOZ'S Parisian friends.
Besides, the REGENT has now had fair warning given
him, and has ample time to put Spain in a proper state of
defence. Should he triumphantly defeat the present
unhallowed alliance between the Christinos and Carlists,
he will have broken the neck of insurrection in Spain
during the minority of Queen IsenELLA. The scan-
dalous and abandoned designs and conduct of Madame
MuNoz will stand so exposed to the world, that a gang
of bandits would shrink from the odium of fighting under
her banner.

Scorn and contempt are showered by the French Mi-
nisters and their organs, upon the devoted heads of the
Liberal Opposition. M. G UIZOT has set an example to
the Court and the retailers of its scandals, which we are
prepared to see very generally followed. Instead
of offering to confute the arguments of M. Ducos
and M. DE LAMARTINE in favour of an extension of the
suffrage, that able and distinguished Minister stooped
to the employment of fierce invective, notorious misre-
presentation, and the most contemptuous scorn, of
every party opposed to the views of the Government.
He absolutely appeared to glory in trampling upon and
insulting them, and invited all his supporters to
unite with him in ridiculing their pretensions.
Such a course was equally unworthy of M.
GuIZOT'S intellect and his acknowledged political
sagacity; to treat a great party in the State with
contempt, however extravagant its demands may appear,
is to infuse it with a spirit of undying hostility. Lord
-BAcoN, who was as great a statesman as a philosopher,
he most dangerous person in the State. "
regarded a Minister who treated his opponents with
scorn, as t It
may says that great authority, " that in
the
edesescerm anipstitorgnoe,'
f'm
men, formed, as it were, by Nature
for the destruction of States, SOLOMON should
select the character, not of a proud and haughty,
not of a tyrannical and cruel, not of a rash and
violent, not of a seditious and turbulent, not of
a foolish and incapable man ; but the character of
a scorner. Yet this choice is becoming the wisdom
of that King, who well knew how Governments were
subverted, and how preserved. For there is scarce such
another destructive thing to Kingdoms and Common-
wealths as that the Counsellors, who* sit at the helm,
should be naturally scorners. They despise rumours as
the breath of the rabble,
and things
that will soon pass
ever; though the Counsels of Princes are chiefly to be
directed from hence. They reject as dreams and melancholy
notions those counsels and precautions that regard futurity

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