The Sun.
London, England, 1845-03-14 00:00:00

duce affected the agricultural labourers. As to the ex-
! istence of that distress they could not have higher au-
thority than that of the lion. Gentleman who professed
to be the friend of farmers and protection, and the ex-
istence of distress being admitted, it was their duty to
inquire into the causes which had produced it. It must
be admitted that inquiry was necessary, for while,
on the one hand, the Right Hon. Baronet at the head of
the Treasury attributed the distress to local causes,
which could not be remedied by legislative inter-
ference, the lion. Member for Dorset contended
that it was attributable to a deficiency of legislative
measures. For himself he was ready to prove before a
Committee, that the farmer had long been suffering from
evils which were attributable directly to the corn-laws-
To the operations of thoselaws he attributed the present
bad farming and pauperism of the farmer. The farmer
had no capital, and no capitalist would embark in farm-
ing unless under a proper lease. The Hon. Gentleman
then went on to show the ingenious manner in which
the present system of corn-laws operated on the tenant-
farmer and the agricultural labourer, and concluded by
formally moving for the appointment of a Select Com-
mittee of Inquiry.
The motion gave rise to a lengthened and animated
discussion, in the course of which the House was ad-
dressed by Mr. SIDNEY HERBERT, Lord Hovvwx, Mr. S.
O'BRIEN, Mr. BRIGHT, Mr. WODEHOUSE, and several
other lion. Members ; and, Mr. COBDEN having briefly
replied, the House divided, when the numbers wero—for
the motion, 121 ; against it, 213 ; majority against the
motion, 92.
The other orders of the day were then disposed of,
and the House adjourned at a Quarter to One o'clock.

The division on Mr. ConneN's motion for an inquiry
into the cause of agricultural distress was, within a few
votes, what might have been expected. The majority
which Sir ROBERT PEEL can always command when he
chooses to act the Farmers' Friend were at their
post, and resolutely determined to look for no
relief to themselves, their tenants, and their half-
starved labourers but from protection. They have not
courage to look the evil in the face, and, like sluggards,
trust to the chapter of accidents, or what is still more
hopeie-s, to vain Acts of Parliament, for relief-
Speeches like those of Mr. COBDEN and Lord
Howicx, excellent as they are, are entirely
thrown away on men whom experience cannot convince.
Though the corn-laws have been in operation now fur
thirty years, and during a great portion of that period
were entirely in accordance with the landowners' claims,
prices have been constantly fluctuating—they are
now so low, that ruin stares master and servant
in the face—yet still the monopolists continue the
mad cry " More corn laws," and " Down with free trade."
The Government, however, are evidently conscious of
the absurdity of these men, for, with the exception of
Mr. SIDNEY HERBERT, all were silent, and had he been
silent too their case would perhaps have been better. The
Duke of WELLINGTON has long undergone the odium of
having described county meetings as farces, but there
was absolute wisdom in this maxim compared with the
character which the now Secretary at War has given of
Committees of Inquiry. " Tell me," said he, " the
politics of the majority of the Committee, and I will
tell you the nature of the report." So that all
inquiries are vain, honour and honesty are not to be
found among the representatives of the people. Facts
are set at defiance, and the Chairman of a Com
mittee delivers a report, not according to evi-
dence, but in accordance with his politics. We
trust, however, that the enemies of the corn-laws
will not be dismayed by such defeats, but persevere in
the steady tenor of their way till they have, by the re-
petition of undeniable facts, taught even their blind op-
ponents wisdom. They have already done wonders.
They have silenced Sir ROBERT PEEL, because
he cannot deny their conclusions without contra,.
vening his own principles on free trade ; but they have
done a great deal more, they have roused the farmers to
their real interests and the cause of all their distress.
The obstinate agriculturists of the old school have begun
to open their eyes—they have tried protection, till they
are left without protection ; and they now believe
that safety may yet be found by improvements in their
system, by increased diligence and industry, and by
securities from the landlord that their labour and capital
shall have a suitable return—in other words, that
their is no safety for them, and no hopes but
in leases of such a length that they shall have
time for realising ample returns for their outlay. • This
is the foundation of all good farming. Without it
neither Sovereign, nor Parliament, nor Minister can
afford them any relief. For this new light they are en-
tirely indebted to Mr. COBDEN and his friends ; and,
instead of denouncing them as enemies, they ought to
welcome them as their best friends.

We cannot recur to the debate of Tuesday night, on
Mr. AGLIONBY'S motion for the production of papers
connected with the affairs of New Zealand and the
policy of Captain FITZROY'S government, without a feel-
ing of extreme difficulty in selecting the most important
features which it presents for animadversion. Oa the
conduct of the New Zealand Company—on the unjusti-
fiable proceedings of its Directors—on the loss of pro-
perty, the disappointed hopes, the broken spirits, the
ruined expectations which have ensued upon their past
mismanagement—we have not been slow to express our
strong opinions. We do not, therefore, in the present
state of our information, fuel prepared to concur with
the Hon. Member for Cockermouth in the sort of case
he has inferentially assumed in favour of that Company,
as a public body at once meritorious and aggrieved. We
hare no sympathy with the singular delusion under
which its champions labour, when, in vindicating the
complaints of certain settlers and colonists against the
local government of that far distant possession, " that an
undue degree of consideration and favour is habitually
shown to the 'savages'"—as they are pleased to term the
whole of the Aboriginal population ;—they affect to treat
the native New Zealanders as overgrown children, in-
capable of judging what are their own wants, ignorant
of what are their own rights, and inadequate to any
estimation of the means pr.( rented to them for supplying
the one or establishirg the other. If negotiations with
the New Zealanders for the purchase of lands, or the
preparation of treaties, have failed on account of this
fatal preliminary, an undervaluing of the moral dispo-
sition and natural intelligence of the people, the fault
lies in the gross ignorance and misapprehension of those
who undertook the organization of such relations with
them being so utterly disqualified for such a duty. So
far from regarding—with some of our friends in whose
political and commercial views we have the happiness of
generally concurring—the principles or managemant of
the whole New Zealand Company concern with un-
qualified favour, we look upon it as one of the most ill-
considered, precipitate, ill-advised, and ignorantly worked
experiments in colonial emigration and settlement which
was ever set afloat in this country. The Company's affairs
abroad seem to have been at least as much mismanaged
as their business at home; and a more emphatic con-
demnation than this we could not pronounce upon the
Association. The catastrophe of Wairau was the in-
evitable denouement of such a melancholy series of blunders.
We sincerely lament, with Mr. BULLER, the disastrous
fate of Captain WAHEYIELD on that occasion ; tut can
we forget the fatuity or the misfortune which makes
him so largely responsible for the incredible proceeding,
on the part of the settler-band, of surrendering up their
arms, without a struggle, to the sanguinary followers
of the implacable chief to whose spears and clubs
they may be said to have presented themselves
a voluntary sacrifice ? But we dismiss the particular
case of New Zealand, and even of the extravagant mal-
administration of its interests by the Government ap-
pointed under the Colonial Department, in order to ex-
press our unqualified thanks to Mr. AGLIONBY for the
masterly exposition he gave of Downing-street dog-
gedness and folly in dealing with the most vital inte-
rests of cur fellow-subjects in our remotest possessions.
It is high time, as the Hon. and Learned Gentleman,
who followed Mr. BULLER in a speech of congenial
ability, said, " that the attention of the Legislature
should be solemnly directed to the unsatisfactory
management of co'onial business by the Minister for that
great department, and the melancholy exhibitions of in-
capacity and wrong-headedness which its selected go-
vernors too frequently exhibit, to the amazement of
the public. To judge from the official acts of Captain
FITZROY, which are of an eccentric extravagance, on the
statements of these gentlemen, we are left to hesitate
under what phase of intelligent respectability we arc
to consider him as acting. We must not call him a con-
juror—we do not believe him to be one. But he seems as
arofound an adept in ham :ling measures of suicidal
temerity as the " medicine man" in a camp of Mandan
or Scioux Indians. It was well observed that the ques-
tion of New Zealand was that of our colonial govern-
ment at large: its history of ly a striking illustration
or the entire ignorance of the whole subject of colonial
government, which pervaded the whole colonial adminis-
tration abroad and at home. And what can be the
cause of this singular administrative anomaly in a Go-
vernment generally of so much intelligence and sagacity
as our own ? We answer that it is mainly the re-
sult of the very defective system of education which
prevails in our Universities and public schools
Captain FITZROY, it must have been imagined, was, by
descent and family connexion, a born legislator. His-
blunders are only one more example to prove the rule of
favouritism and party connexions in the bestowal of
such t.ppointments, and to illustrate their melancholy but
inevitable consequences. Now and then a man like