The Sun.
London, England, 1842-04-21 00:00:00

price. I believe you will find that that practice exists ;
and I must say that I cannot conceive a more unwar-
rantable abuse of power.
We differ from Sir B. PEEL, in being able to con-
ceive something worse than this conduct. The truck
master only commits a petty, however detestable
fraud, in common with many thousands ; but the
Minister of a great nation, who deceives all classes,
who is double-tongued, who cheats the public
both by his silence and his words, who sacri-
fices mankind to his party purposes, who
invents fallacies to disguise the oppression of
which he is only the instrument, whose acts are con-
trary to his own convictions, who, in support of the
injustice which places him at its head, denies in Par-
liament the dictates of his head and the feelings of his
heart, who, knowing better, consents to be the
means, for the poor bribe of office, of inflicting
injury and degradation on the people, who
while he expatiates on the advantages of competition,
makes himself the tool of monopolists, is a far worse
man than the truck-master. He seems to us a'perfi-
dious monster, who should excite the indignation and
horror of all honest men.

And now let us conclude by a remark on the
system which is upheld by such men and such con-
tradictions. That a great system of delusion should
be maintained for years when its foundations are laid
in the spiritual hopes and fears of man, when it is
shrouded in mystery and carefully guarded from in-
quiry, when an immense army of men have an in-
terest in maintaining it, and have vast funds at stake,
which they use for the purpose of promoting delusion,
and which they will lose when the delusion is at an
end, is consonant to expererience in every age of the
world. But that a system of delusion should be long
maintained, which refers wholly and exclusively to the
gross interests of this world, which courts inquiry, and
cannot escape investigation, which is surrounded by
sharp critics, eager to detect and exaggerate all its
vices, which is daily felt in the business and pockets
of men, that such a system should be long
maintained after its admirers have lifted its
foundations, and loosened all its .boldfa,sts.
is not consonant to experience, and should it take
place will be a new and memorable lesson for man-
kind. Prophecies of revolution realise themselves.
The. conception and the utterance of such a thought,
shows that the reverence is at an end, on which
alone human institutions repose in safety. When
we find such language in common use—when we
see that the system, as now carried on, is a great mass
of falsehood and delusion, and when we see it daily
exposed to a fierce investigation, we join with others
in saying that its end cannot be far off. In the midst
of life we are in death, and the Tories " will find that
in the midst of victory they will, be everlastingly
crushed by their own errors and contradictions.

It will be seen by our extract from the Manchester
Guardian that the increased activity in the Cotton
Market of Liverpool, which was obviously mere spe-
culation, and perhaps diseased speculation, has had no
influence on the Manchester Markets. Our advices
from that quarter, we regret to say, come more and
more gloomy. Trade, far from improving, becomes
worse, and less and l6s wages are paid, we are told,
from week to week.

Sir ROBERT PEEL'S tariff, whatever good it may
ultimately do,' and we hope but little from it, has
hitherto, by adding uncertainty to stagnation, only in-
creased distress. It has unsettled those trades which
were doing something, and has not put into activity
those which were before lying still.
The Income-tax, however advantageous or even
necessary to the Government, cannot, it is quite clear,
relieve the people ; and it may, perhaps, by pressing
heavily on the struggling traders, be that straw which
breaks the overburdened camel's back. Let them
receive relief, therefore, before they have to bear
additional pressure.
If Sir ROBERT PEEL, and his great majority, have
a spark of patriotism left in their whole composition ;
if they be not the selfish incarnation of party spirit,
they should forego, for the present, their plan of in-
creasing the revenue of the Government and the bur-
dens of the people, and bend their exertions to relieve
the public distress. lie says, the tariff will have that
effect: His Corn-law is nearly through the House
of Lords. The Income-tax, though a part of his whole
scheme, is not so closely connected with the Corn-
law as the tariff, and it would seem better for the
public, therefore, and more consistent with principle,
that he should hasten to pass the tariff, setting at rest
commercial inquietude, than that he should hasten to
hurry on the Income-tax.
His majority is commanding, and he can have no
fear that his Income-tax Bill shquld fail. In fact, to
pass the tariff would soften the opposition to the In-
come-tax, and ultimately hasten its success. More-
over, as the tax is to be levied from April, it will be of
no consequence now that the public is adver-
tised of the fact, whether the Bill receive the
Royal Assent on the 20th of June or the
20th of May, while it is, on Sir ROBERT PEEL'S
showing, and the showing of his friends, the city
merchants, of much consequence, that the tariff should
he, as soon as possible, carried through Parliament.
For these reasons, we trust that the Members of the
House of Commons will press on Sir R. PEEL the
propriety of proceeding first and immediately with
the tariff; and we trust that he—leaving the discus-
sions on the Income-tax Bill in Committee, till after the
tariff has been finally disposed of—will proceed at once
to re-fasten the trade he has universally cast adrift.

The Hon. and indefatigable Member for Finsbury,
Mr. THOMAS DUNCOMDE, gave the House of Commons
notice on Tuesday night, that on May.l2 he would pre-
sent the National Petition in favour of the Charter,
signed by more than three millions of the industrious
classes, praying to be heard by their counsel, agents, or
delegates, at the bar of the House, in support of the prin-
ciples of the Charter. The Hon. Member likewise gave
notice that on the following day he would
move the House to take the petition into con-
sideration, and comply with its prayer. When we
see a change in the institutions of the country
advocated not by a few hot-headed enthusiasts, but by
millions of working people, we owe it to ourselves
and to society to expose the danger of allowing
such a mass of discontent to go on accumu-
lating instead of taking timely steps to remove
it. 'When millions rise to reseti their wro gs,
the speedy redress of their grievances is a measure ol"
self-defence on the part of a wise Government. For
the deep discontent which prevails among the working
classes, the Whigs are equally responsible with the
Tories. They refused Household Suffrage—while they
taxed the poor to keep up the monopolies of the rich,
they spurned their prayers to be allowed a share in the
representation of the country—to have an indirect
voice in framing the laws by which they were to be
taxed and governed. Chartism has sprung from the at-
tempt to make the Reform Bill a final measure, instead
of employing it as a lever for mmoving those abuses
which hung like a millstone round the neck of the in-
dustry and the intelligence of the nation.

What Sir ROBERT PEEL will do with the national
Petition and the Chartists we do not know, but one of the
certain consequences of the Income-tax will be to make
converts to Chartism of a large body of small tradesmen,
upon whom that inquisitorial impost «ill fall with crush-
ing effect. The disaffected will join the Chartists, and
in proportion to the tyranny of the Government will the
Chartists gain strength.
To put down Chartism, the first step is to extend the
suffrage. The next is to remove all restrictions upun
commerce, whether the trade be in cotton or in corn, and
leave the working-classes unfettered to enjoy the fruits of
their own industry. In the naval and military services, the
road to rank,and honours must be left open to the meri-
torious, without regard to the mere accident of birth.
The whole system of colonial patronage must be
abolished, and more regard had to the competency, than
the rank and Parliamentary connexion, of the men
chosen to be Governors. Our whole existing system of
Government is radically bad. It is based on the
assumption of an indefeasible right of the few to
trample upon the many. It recognises a people as
objects of taxation, and as supplying the coarse materials
for war, but nowhere as a power paramount in the
State. This system can be upheld no longer. It is the '
duty of the Legislature to take the initiative in gradually
abolishing it, with a view to inflict as little injury upon
existing institutions as possible.

The Augsburg/I Gazette states, that the following is
,the Archiepiscopal Letter of the Primate of the Church
of England to Bishop ALEXANDER, to be by him pre-
sented, on arriving in Jerusalem, to the Prelates and
Clergy of the Maronites and Greek Churches. Con-
sidering that the Maronite Church is in Aposto-
lical communion with the See of Rome, it is not
to be expected that the very Chistian sentiments
which the Archbishop of CANTERBURY'S letter breathes
throughout, will escape the animadversion of the
Exeter Hall bigots. The letter was written by the