The Sun.
London, England, 1827-06-14 00:00:00

for which it was proposed. As I could not defeat
this amendment, I do not think it possible that I
can undertake to propose the third reading of the
Bill. It is impossible, indeed, that I should do so,
and I shall not propose to proceed further with
the Bill." So much for the determination of Mi-
nisters. But the Duke of Wellington means, as
the order for the third reading on Friday is not dis-
charged, to proceed himself with the Bill he has
made his own. However, here his Grace's
power ends. The amendments must be adopted
by the House of Commons, before the Bill be
ready for the Royal Assent : and as their pri-
vileges are attacked in the amendment, they will
not, of course, adopt it. Put even though the
Bill should linger on till extinguished in this
way, the nation will not be misled with regard
to the real source of the failure. We wish Earl
Grey had continued to maintain the silence he
has hitherto preserved during the discussions to
which the Bill gave rise. His votes were intel-
ligible. But with all deference to so able a
Statesman, his reasons for supporting the amend-
ment are hardly intelligible. " I think (said his
Lordship) it will correct the dangers and abuses
of the bonding system—dangers which are as-
signed as the reasons for adopting the pre-
sent measure ; for the amendment will pre-
vent corn from being stored up to excess,
and will prevent corn under bond from being
suddenly released, producing a famine at one
time and an inundation of corn at another—
dangers against which it is the intention of the
present Bill to provide." It is very easy to talk
of famine and inundations ; but how the ware-
housing system should contribute to produce in-
undation and scarcity in the case of corn, more
than in the case of other commodities the sub-
ject of speculation, his Lordship did not attempt
to explain. If we have formed to ourselves any
thing like a correct idea of the effects of specula-
tion, these effects are the very reverse of what the
Noble Lord states them to be. The speculator,
the merchant who stores up grain, either of home
or foreign growth, by £0 doing prevents prices
from falling so low as they otherwise would do,
were the consumers alone in the market. By
thus increasing the price, unnecessary waste is
prevented, and the crop is less likely to fall short,
so that the speculator, when successful, still sells
his corn at a lower price than would otherwise be
obtained during the period before harvest (when
the crop is average) had Corn not been stored
up. In former times (we need not go far back)
it not unfrequently happened that the price after
harvest was ruinously low, and before the new
harvest so high asto disturb the public tranquillity.
Under a warehousing system, the quantity of corn
in the country would be no secret. The speculators
never could act in concert; but each merchant
would act for himself. Now how, in God's name,
would all these speculators, if a decent profit could
be made, agree to keep back their corn to produce
an inundation, while one of the first effects of such
inundation would be the involving the most of them
in ruin ? If the new harvest promised to be abun-
dant, each speculator would be anxious to anticipate
the inundation, by ridding himself of his stock in
time, and thus diminishing his loss. Really Earl
Grey should return to the wisdom of ottr ancestors,
and propose laws against forestalling and regrating,
for his notions about the evils of warehousing are
exactly in accordance with the principle of these
once-venerated Statutes. As to what fell from his
Lordship, when he stated, " I do not think tha any
Noble Lord, who is held worthy of taking part in
his Majesty's Councils, can act so unworthily as to
abandon the Bill for the purpose of exciting the dis-
content and ill-feelingof the country," it would seem
to imply that it is the particular duty of 116 Ma.
jesty's Ministers not so much to consult the welfare
of the people at large as to screen their Lordships
from the effects their acts may produce on the public
mind. Earl Grey very naturally thinks very highly
of the Peerage; but it does not follow that it is the
duty of Ministers to share with that body the con-
sequences, pleasant or unpleasant, of their acts.—
Ibid.

The result of the action of Soane v. Knight,
must be gratifying to every person who does not
wish to see the Press reduced to as abject a state
of slavery as was ever effected by a Holy Inqui-
sition, or a Court of Star-Chamber. Indeed, as
it is, the " Freedom of the Press" has almost
become an empty tLeory ; and it seems the con-
stant endeavour and policy of most of those who
sit in high places to reduce it to the humble and
degraded condition of recording the praises of
the great, and giving to every form of vice and
folly the adornment of its venal panegyric. As
to the history of the day, it has become danger-
ous to meddle with it ; for there are so many
people of tender reputation in the world, that the
Press cannot give an account of passing events—
which, of course, are more or less connected with
human actions, without running the risk of pu-
nishment by damages, fine, or imprisonment—
for an erroneous statement, however innocently
repeated, is punishable by civil process ; and
a true statement, however laudably published,
is punishable by a criminal proceeding. This
is the liberty of the Press. There is, how-
ever, one province of literary discussion hi-
therto protected from either actions or prose-
cutions of libel, and that is criticism on lite-
rary works—the Fine Arts—the Drama, and other
subjects of science and taste. But Mr. Soane, the
architect, indignant at finding that some critics were
audacious enough to entertain an opinion of his
works different from his own, and to impugn the
supremacy of his genius, levelled againit such pro-
fane disbelievers the terrors of the law. It is true,
_
the critics did not travel out of the record to attack
his domestic or moral character. They did not ac-
cuse him of any breach of any of the ten command-
ments—no, not even of the second one ; bat they
had notwithstanding been guilty of the grievous
crime of pointing out what they considered the bad
taste and the expensive puerilities of his forensic
architecture, and therefore he appealed to the laws,
to silence such open sedition against his architec-
tural dictatorship for ever. The Jury, however,
being twelve plain, honest men, who kr.,r,v a great
deal less of pedantry than of common sense, could
not understand why a man, who had the good for-
tune to obtain large sums of the public, money,
should not be subject to public opinion, or why the
fantastic productions of one who chose to prefer
gew-gaws to utility, should be protected against
that visitation of free criticism from which the great-
est monuments of human genius have never been ex-
empt. The Jury, therefore, as in a similar case
where the same person was plaintiff, returned a ver-
dict for the defendant, and the right of criticism, in
despite of the efforts of Mr. Soane, is still reckoned
among the privileges of Englishmen.—Morning
Herald.

As we anticipated, the Corn Bill has been
lost in consequence of the Duke of Wellington's
amendment. Lord Goderich last night an-
nounced to the House of Lords the intention
of his Majesty's Ministers to abandon it, since
it seemed the pleasure of the House to insist on
alterations which were utterly destructive of the
principle of the Bill. The Lords have thus, as
was observed by Lord Clifden on Tuesday, the
full credit and popularity of having achieved its
overthrow. The Session of Parliament is too
near to admit of the introduction of
any a close
othermeasure on the subject, nor is it
likely that any will be proposed. The rejection