The Sun.
London, England, 1842-02-07 00:00:00

It

LONDON •
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 1842.

The Morning Post of Saturday, repeating some
of its observations of a previous day,
The Government had ascertainedyteha::slitat—, taking
the
home
ece the corn-
the average of any seven or ten
meneement of the present century,
not been found sufficient. And We understandSnaat supply
has
fol-
lowing the decennial census, it appears that the ppl su
actually obtained from abroad has augmented 'gradually
with the increase of the British population. The GO-
yernment, from the facts before it, not only admits the
possibility of an inadequate home supply, which the
sliding scale always recognised, but assumes it as a
strong probability to which the policy of the country
ought to be adapted.
the Proper
question is, what policy ? Some- will argue that.-
policy would be" additional encouragement of
agritultP:r
will . ree„,4tas to increase the home supply. Others
the country-. has goner .as far in this way
as it oughtto
now to obtairtd .-that.the..proper object of attention
beneficial, sui
tthay.? .thcicastdidwraras and the mot
pp
on abroad which is necessary to be

but the supply of
last,
added to the present home supply ; meaning by the present
supply not that of this year or the
the last ten years, inchiding years of great
argument of the Government.
well as of scarcity. This latter we understand to be the
, pretending to speak from autho-
rity, oueJnr
informsnal us that the Government is to
make the supply of corn, imported from abroad
during the last ten years, the rule of its policyi n
procuring the future supply, necessary to be
added to our home production, on the most ad-
vantageous terms. Let us at once, therefore, re-
mind ourreaders,and remind the Government, that
a foreign supply of somewhere about one million
quarters of wheat per year, on an average of the
last ten years, has been required, and has been
obtained, under the present Corn-law, when
prices have ruled as high as 88s., and fallen as low
as 365. It has been obtained, in spite of a sys-
tem which has almost excluded the flour of the
United States from our markets, and has been
obtained at an enormous expense of life and
property.
It has been proved over and over again that
during the thirteen years the Corn-laws have
been in existence, no inconsiderable number of
the people has been starved to death, and great
numbers have been prevented from coming into
existence. At the same time, we have been
obliged to give invariably a much higher price
for the corn we have purchased in the foreign
markets, than we should have had to give under
a different system. To what extent prices would
have varied, how low they would permanently
have fallen, and to what extent our supplies from
abroad would have augmented, had the corn
trade been perfectly free, or had corn been sub-
ject to a small fixed duty on being imported, the
facts of the last ten years are no index whatever.
To what extent, also, our population would have
increased had their command of food not been
restricted by the law, it is impossible for any man
to tell. If we were to suppose that with a free
trade the population would have doubled con-
tinually in less than thirty years, and that we
might, in some shape or other, have gradually
imported raw corn and condensed food, till we
had reached, by 1841, to an amount equi-
valent to fifteen or twenty millions of
quarters of wheat, we should possibly not exag-
gerate. But it has pleased the ALMIGHTY to
suffer us to be visited in these years with a Corn-
law plague, and no man can tell to what a height
prosperity would have reached here and in other
countries had that plague been annihilated.
According to the Post, however, these possible
facts are not to be taken into consideration, and
the facts which have grown up or been called
into existence by the operation of the present
Corn-laws, are to be made exclusively the basis
of the new policy. Whatever that may be, it
is to be founded on the consequences of the old
law. Sir ROBERT PEEL and his statistical ad-
visers, will not go beyond that for their data
to frame the new law. The old vice, if we may
so speak, is to lay down the rule for the
new virtue. Under some other guise, some
mockery of an alteration, the old system
is, by its consequences, to be entailed
on the country in a new form ; and its oppo-
nents, who have been fighting so manfully
against it, unless they are on their guard, will
be entrapped by this delusive mode of going to
work, into giving their sanction to the old law in
a new dress.
The facts of the last ten years are not to be re-
jected as elements of our judgment, but they are
not exclusively to be relied on, and, in truth, arc
of little value unless they are compared with the
facts which would, we believe, have been called
into existence had there been no Corn-law. We
know, for example, that population, under fa-
vourable circumstances, doubles itself in twenty-
three years; we know, too, for it is a continual
subject of complaint, that the productive me..
chanical povier of Great Britain is boundless ;
we are certain, therefore, that had there been
no Corn-law, the produce of our machi-
nery would have commanded food of one kind.
.or-another froM all parts of the world; and:We-
CertainAat the trade and population of ~
Great Britain would have been greatly increased.'
If we now, therefore, consent to a law, based—
not on the possible progress of the Last ten or
twenty years—but on the actual progress, made
under the Corn-law, shall we not be stinting and
regulating the future by the injustice of the
past? Shall we not wilfully, suicidally, and in
opposition to our own better knowledge, cut
down the national progress of the next ten years
to the slow progress, full of misery, of the last
ten years? If the measure of the Government
be founded, as.the Post says, on the necessity of
obtaining in future such a supply as we have al-
ready obtained, it will neither satisfy the justice
of the case nor arrest that decay which some
Noble Lords, who spoke on Thursday, even
seemed to think could not be averted.
When a new law is to be framed on statistical
documents, such as have been ordered to be laid be
fore the House, the fact must immediately suggest
itself to every man that the law of 1815, and the
law of 1828, were both framed on similar docu-
ments. On both occasions Committees sat, made
long investigations, gathered returns of prices
and quantities sold and produced abroad and at
home ; agents were sent out, and witnesses
brought to town, and every expedient that art
could suggest, was had recourse to, in order to
obtain the best information. The men who
made the laws were animated, we are continually
assured, by the highest and holiest motives, and
the results of their scrupulous honesty and great
exertions to obtain information, were two laws;
the first of which was condemned as valueless
in 1827, and the second of which, passed in
1828,. is now-condemned in 1842 by own ad-
vocates. When such disgraceful failures, at-
tended in both cases with the most lamentable
consequences to the, community, have occurred
within our own recollection---when the very men
who are now to tinker up the last abordon were
the authors of4he failurewhen PEEL and WEL,

LINOTON, as now, were members of the Govern
ments which passed the Act of 1815, and the Ac

of 1828, we do think, and we must assert, tha

they ought to be extremely cautious in wha

they do, and the people ought to be extremely
slow in placing confidence in them. Common

sense and science alike declare, that the State

ought not to tamper with the food of the people.
Their observations are fully confirmed by expe-
rience; and the only object which the Legisla-
ture ought now to aim at, is to abolish, with the
least possible damage to all parties, all the laws
Which interfere with the supply of the markets.

The regular Tory Journals, and that more dis-
graced class of Journals, which, professing a semi-
Liberatism are the toadies of the Tories, are full
of exultation at the activity and vigour of the
Ministry.
"but
cast our readers," says one of the former class,_
cast their eyes over the documents moved for, and
the notices of motion already given, and they will find
ample evidence already of the untiring industry with
which the recess has been improved, and public business
matured for the early deliberation of the collective
wisdom of the empire.'
" The active appearance," says one of the worst of the
latter class, "which Ministers gave to the session at its
opening, was kept up last night in the House of Com-
mons, by the introduction at an unexpected early stage
of two practicalweasures."

" The language of Sir Robert Peel is that of a man
who is clearing the ground for action, determined to ef-
fect those improvements of regulation and application
which were equally hopeless before." " The veriest parti-
san must see that the good public cause is advanced. The
men of business are in a better state to do business ;
mere party quarrels have given place to the real ques-
tions and difficulties of the day, and, for the first time these
ter years, they are brought under actual consideration."
Taking no notice of the monstrous injustice of
gassing over the new Poor-law, the Commuta-
tion of Tithe Acts, the Municipal Reforms, both
of England and Ireland, the Penny Postage,
Scc., as not the real questions and difficulties
of the day, which this writer so scandalously
forgets in order to praise the Tories, we wish
to call attention merely to the diligence which
is ascribed to the Ministry by these Tory writers.
The Devil is said to be busy when a tempest
rages, and the, diligence of the Tories may he
something_ like that of his Satanic Majesty. What
portion of the people lave asked Lord STANLEY
to meddle with the Passengers' Act, his Bill for

. reforming which is called a practical measure ? 1
From what has transpired, we believe that it is
mainly dictated by a wish, the impurity of which
we need not further notice, to people the Mauri-
tius and some other colonies with a new race of
slaves. Who, too, has asked Lord STANLEY to
meddle with the land of the colonies by Act of
Parliament? We believe nobody. The man is
smitten in fact by the largest and the most foolish
ambition that ever found its way into a human
heart—the ambition of apportioning capital and
labour to the soil of the globe; and he is active
in carrying out that foolish ambition. A more
meddling, mischievous statesman than Lord
STANLEY, never cursed any country, and we de-
precate his practical measures and his activity as
full of mischief. His Passengers Act will be
injurious to our shipping, and his plan for selling
land will give the United States an additional
advantage over Australia.
What, too, does Sir ROBERT PEEL'S determi-
nation amount to? To this, merely, that he will,
after having broken up the Whig Government,
and staved off reform and the Corn-laws, and
relief for distress, for eight months, now adopt
some modification of the Corn-laws like that re-
commended by the Whigs. He used his in-
fluence and power when out of office to prevent
reform, and his mischievous success is actually
set down as a fault of the Whigs. By pre-
venting every reduction in the Sugar-duties,
and every alteration in the Corn-laws, he
and his friends inflicted great calamities on
the country, and that he is now determined
to act as he would not allow the Whigs to act,
stamps his former conduct as factious, and
stamps him a man who sacrifices the welfare of
the country to gratify his own ambition. We
laugh too at the writer who ascribes determina-
tion to the avowed tool of the Monopolists, who
is at the same time so timid that he yields to
the pressure of the anti-monopolists. We have
no great love for the Whigs, but more scanda-
lous injustice than the Journal we have quoted
has been guilty of towards the Whigs we have
not of late seen.

A great many petitions, already numerously
signed, for the total repeal of the Corn-laws,
are preparing, we observe, in a number of
places. The petitioners, however, should re-
member, that Sir ROBERT PEEL has fixed the
day after to-morrow to bring forward the subject,
and consequently the petitions cannot be too soon
forwarded. They ought, therefore, to lose no
time in strengthening the hands of their friends
in the House of Commons, by hundreds and
thousands of signatures fur the repeal of the
Corn-laws.

' We look on it as a fortunate coincidence that
, the Anti-Corn-law Conference assembles to-
morrow. It will be enabled to take charge of
all petitions, and enforce the wrongs of the peo-
ple on the attention of Members of both Houses.
The Deputies from all quarters must bring with
them a great mass of information as to
their particular districts, which they may
make of great use by imparting it to Members
of Parliament, and to the people of London. The
latter are in general, we believe, ignorant of the
sad condition of the manufacturing districts, or
it would be impossible for them to exhibit so much
indifference, not to say apathy, on this vital ques-
tion. If the deputies were to employ themselves
while in town in meeting the inhabitants of various
districts of the metropolis, and informing them,
by lectures or in conversation, of the actual condi-
tion of the people in the distant places, they
would strengthen their cause by all the generous
sympathies of man's nature. The people of Lon-
don are not aware of the intensity of the distress,
and, from ignorance, do not make the exertions
expected and required of them.

We made allusion, in the course of last week,
to a Bill submitted to the Spanish Cortes by the
Minister of Grace and Justice, M. GONZALES, on
the subject of the Spanish Church, which we
stated was likely to create a great sensation in
the Roman Catholic world. A Weekly Contem-
porary, the Tablet, usually well informed upon
such matters, will not suffer us to suppose our.
selves mistaken as to the religious commotion
created by the anti-Papal proceedings of the
Spanish Cabinet. So eager is the Tablet to pro-
cure manifestations of sympathy with the cause
of the Papacy, that it calls upon the Irish Mem-
bers of the House of Commons to record their
hostility to, and horror of; the conduct of Es-
PARTERO and his colleagues. This is very foolish,
and very absurd. The Irish Members of the
House of Commons have enough to do at home,
without troubling themselves with the affairs of
the Spanish Church ; and, even had they an
over-abundance of time for such pursuits, we
fear they would hardly convince the Spanish
Legislature of their superior competence for
assuming the discharge of so very uncalled-for a
task. A nation of Roman Catholics, upon whom
the threats of the Sovereign PONTIFF can make no
impression, would hear with laughter or con-
tempt the fulminations of even so great a man as
the Right Hon. the Lord Mayor of Dublin, with
his train borne up by the whole Repeal Asso-
ciation. We had better let the Spanish people
alone. Whether they choose to have little Church
or much Church, is entirely their own affair.
The POPE was the first to attack them; the
priests were the worst tools of the monster FER-
DINAND ; and CARLOS' seven years' war against
the Constitution, would not have lasted as many
weeks, but for the ecclesiastics of the kingdom,
who assisted him with their wealth and influence,
at the instigation of the Holy See. But the
brave Spaniards proved more than a match for
the POPE and the PRETENDER; and now an
outcry is raised, because they strip the PONTIFF
of the means of fomenting fresh rebellions in
the land! They would be simpletons, indeed,
were they to leave power in hands which have
so cruelly wielded it to their detriment.

A numerous meeting was held in Sunderland,
on Friday, the 28th ult., to make arrangements
for the erection of a monument to the late Earl
of DURHAM, when it was unanimously resolved
that the proposed testimonial be of an architec-
tural character, and be erected on Painshaw Hill,
on the Durham estate, and in the immediate
vicinity of the family mansion. About 3,0001.
have already been subscribed, and, as the lists
will he kept open for-some time, many additional
sums are tipected. To no -statesman of the pre-
sent time do
.Reformers owe a greater debt of
gratitude tinw.to JOHN GEORGE LAMEITON, who
drew up the second great 'Charter of English
liberty) afterwards so cruelly mangled in Com-
mittees ,of the Houses of Parliament. Had
the Reform Bill which he produced become
the law of the land, the people of the United
Kingdom would have been exempted from the
mischievous consequences of the Chandos clause,
and fifty others, which have now restored the
Tories to power. His labours in Canada, too,
deserve the highest praise, because they paved
the way tbr the calm and contentment which
now reign in that formerly distracted colony.
The exertion he made to satisfy all parties
greatly impaired his constitution, and the ingra-
titude with which his well•arranged plans were
received by his political foes, and also by some
of his political friends, broke down a constitution
not naturally strong. It is altogether a melan-
choly tale, and his countrymen have justly tes-
tified their sympathy for his untimely end, by
paying even this vain tribute, the only one in
their power, to his departed merit.

Mr. WALLACE'S motion to vindicate and assert the
right of Members, in the people's House of Parliamew,
to address the House on the presentation of the peti-
tions of the people, will come on upon Monday ; and it
is highly important to have this right restored. The
practice is sanctioned, we believe, by the earliest and past
times of freedom of speech, which privilege is cautiously
guarded by every Speaker of the House of Commons,
when called upon to attend the Crown, on each succeed-
ing Speech from the MoNaacit at the opening of every
&ssion of Parliament.

The right, then, is clear, and the whole question is
involved in the expediency or inexpediency, as regards
the personal convenience and comfort of Members, of
exercising the right, or compromising it, with a view to
expedite public business generally. No one can, in these