The Sun.
London, England, 1842-12-13 00:00:00

PUBLIC OPINION.

The Herald has the following remarks on the meet-
ing at Brill. It is cruel to turn round thus upon

the Farmer's Friend" :—" The spirit which animated
the speakers at the agricultural meetings recently
holden at Yeovil, Clevedon, and Leicester, is cer-
tainly preferable to the feeling which pervaded the
Brill festival, if it were only because at the former
there was a fine display of energy, hope, and deter-
mination, while at the latter a reiteration of personal
opinions and of unavailing regrets was the be all and
the end all' of post-prandial eloquence. To repine
at what is past never to return is waste of time ; in
preparation for the future alone is there safety for
agriculture. The present Corn-law is the utmost pro-
tection land will in these days receive, and no time
ought to be lost in making ready for greater compe-
tition by increased industry and skill. The Duke of
Buckingham stands alone in his expectation that the
country gentlemen in the House of Commons will
come back and again support him in the principles
which he advocated.' Even Mr. Miles of Somerset-
shire has abandoned all such anticipations—' improve-
ment in agriculture' he assured his' constituents the
other day was the only means of meeting the altered
state of the times.' A- perfect revolution in hus-
bandry is now the recommendation ,of those agricul-
tural leaders who formerly relied solely on high
duties. That revolution consists in firstly having all
the soil of Britain as highly cultivated as that of
Norfolk, North Northumberland, and the Lothians,
and then not resting ratisfied that productiveness has
reached its utmost limit."

The Chronicle thus replies to the violent article in
the Quarterly Review on the Anti-Corn-law League :
—" The foulest selfishness ; sedition, hypocrisy, and
blasphemy; and polluting and perverting the most
sacred topics into incentives to pillage and bloodshed,
are the charges made in direct terms by the Quarterly
Review against the Anti-Corn-law League. It is
superfluous to say that this is not the language of civi-
lity or courtesy, of philosophic calmness, or of Chris-
tian meekness. Imputations of this sort are not tole-
rated in the intercourse which is carried on orally;
nor are they more excusable in that which is sustained
through the press. In fact, the press is only, as it were,
a huge speaking trumpet, through which people may
be spoken to by scores of thousands, and at the remotest
distances. Its language is under the same laws of
civility as that of direct personal communication be-
tween man and man. And those laws are observed
by all but base minds as faithfully as if there were no
such screen from responsibility as that of anony-
mous authorship. The 'sin of their violation offends
not only against manners but morals. What
can the Tory reviewers plead in its defence ?
They may say that they believe all this ; that they
speak the language of sincere conviction ; that they
have proofs, which they adduce or offer to adduce,
which satisfy their own minds of all that they affirm.
We allow,Tho far as it is true, the validity of this
excuse, and we claim it in turn for the violent lan-
guage' imputed to the adherents of the League. Their
convictions are as sincere, their belief as firm, and
their proofs as satisfactory to their own minds as
those of any Quarterly Reviewer. To them, the
base selfishness of landowning legislators, who take
advantage of their position to enact laws for enhancifig
the price of food, is most demonstrable. To them,
the hypocrisy and blasphemy of praying to the Deity
for daily bread, and levying a tax which' often de-
prives the poor man of his daily bread, is manifest.
To their perceptions, the impost which raises rents at
the risk of starvation, is pillage in itself and blood-
shed in its consequences. Why, then, should they
not speak out? Why should they be more mealy-
mouthed than the Quarterly Reviewer ? Is free'speech
and sincere writing a monopoly, as well as corn ?
They only do that which the Reviewer does ; and he,
doing as they do, yet dares to threaten them with
criminal prosecutions."
The Times has the following remarks on the Bar-
celona insurrection :—" The outbreak of an insurrec-

tion in Catalonia, or, to speak more correctly with
reference to the ate disturbances, in Barcelona, is an
incident which has unhappily been of far too frequent
occurrence to occasion much surprise. Nor has this
Catalan spirit of revolt been more conspicuous amidst
the modern vicissitudes of the Spanish monarchy than
in the days of its most absolute power. Of the four-
teen or fifteen sieges which the city of Barcelona has
at various times sustained, by far the greater number
have been occasioned by the rebellious resistance of the
population to the Generals of the Royal armies; and
the severity of the language which Espartero or his
Ministers are reporteffto have used is readily accounted
for, if it be not wholly justified, by their knowledge
of the incorrigible temper of the people arrayed in
arms against the Queen's Government. As a political
movement, it is impossible to conceive a more ill-
regulated and incomprehensible demonstration of a
desire to do mischief, without either a scheme or a
leader to give effect to the brutal passions of an igno-
rant multitude. But the combustible elements which
are so well known to exist in the city and the pro-
vince doubtless attracted the machinations of those
foreign incendiaries, %hose cause is irrecoverably lost
if, in spite of their predictions and conspiracies,
Spain remains tranquil, and the Government of the
Regent_unassailed by weapons more formidable than

thOSO of constitutional debate. As we do not possess
at present any complete account of the real origin or
extent of the insurrection, it would be premature to
speculate on its causes or its ultimate consequences.
But our attention has been excited, by the very sin-
gular tone in which the leading organ of the
French Government, or, more especially of the
French King, has from the first spoken of these
events. There has been an obvious endeavour to give

them the utmost importance ; and although it was im-
possible for a journal iprofessing, before all things,
to uphold the principles of monarchical power
and public order to avow an open sympathy or to
afford direct encouragement to a mob of revolutionary
enthusiasts, led on by a few Republican desperadoes,
yet it is evident that the enemies of Espartero, be they
who they may, were not viewed with much horror or
repugnance by the Court of France."
The Post forgetting old friendships, tells the Tory
landlords that they have not made a proper use of
their brains. " There are a great many very respect-
able persons (says this journal) who, from want of use,
find it very irksome to harbour two leading ideas at
one and the same time, and to act upon their impulse.
To this we attribute a good deal of the very strange
abandonment of formerly avowed opinions, which of
late it has been our 'unpleasant duty to criticise.
Certain gentlemen who, from the easy circum. tances
that have surrounded them from their birth, hare not
had occasion to make very active use of their brains,
are very apt to fall into mistakes through the habit
of throwing aside one leading idea, as soon as the
events of the day, or the accidents of their position,
cause them to take up another. 'These gentlemen to
whom we refer were for a long time told by those to
whose guidance they chiefly looked in public affairs,
that the securing to the cultivator of the land a remu-
nerating price for his produce (so far as the regulation
and restraint of foreign competition could do it) was
their duty as members of the landed proprietary and
friends of the agricultural population. Upon this
idea they constantly acted, in which we think they
were very right ; but (for the most part) they acted
upon it exclusively, in which we venture to think that
they were wrong. Giving their chief, and almost
their whole attention, as guardians of the landed in.
terest, to agricultural protection, they neglected, to a
very blameable degree, that agricultural improvement
which always ought to have been a leading object of
their care. But how stands the case now ? They to
whose guidance these gentlemen chiefly look in pub-
lic matters, do not now inculcate the policy of protec-
tion, but say a great deal upon the policy of improv-
ing the process of agriculture, and obtaining better
crops. The idea of improvement has, therefore, be-
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