The Sun.
London, England, 1842-05-11 00:00:00

titt _Sun,

LONDON •
WEDNESDAY MORNING MAY 11, 1842.

The House of Commons W 23 chiefly occupied last
night with the Tariff. Sir E. 'PEEL employed very
nearly three hours in explaining its principles and de-
fending some of its details. We must confine ourselves
to.noticing a few particulars.
Sir ROBERT admitted at the beginning that the delay
which had taken place since he first announced
his projects to the House and the country, had been
unavoidable, and of absolute necessity. He did not
complain, as his scribes have done in his name, of im-
pediments thrown in his way by the Opposition ; he
knew that such complaints were without foundation, and
he truly ascribed the delay to the magnitude of the task,
to the imperfection of his first rude scheme of a new
tariff, to the propriety of consulting some of the great
interests with which he was dealing, and to the neces-
sity of making alterations in • his own plan, in
order to make it perfect. By the first few sen-
tences, the ungrateful Premier cleared away from the
Whigs the mud and filth with which the 'Tory Journals
have. bespattered them during the last month. The delay
is Sir It. I'EEL's own fault, and whatever disappointment
the people may have felt must be exclusively attributed
to him. •

The light Hon. Baronet took great pains to sooth and
mollify theagriculturi:ts, and therefor. 1 e pointed cut
at considerable length, the advantages they would derive
from the reduction of the duty on clover seed from 2es
to 10s, per cwt. (no less than 141,000 cwt. cf that seed
having being imported last year) ; on gras., seed from

20s. to 5.1% per cwt. ; on onion seed from Is. 6d. per lb.
to 20s. per cwt. ; and on lint seed and rape seed, by which
they will get oil-cakC cheap, to Id. per quarter. But his
chief eftlgt on that head, was reserved for the
end of his speech, when he dwelt on the prodigious ad-
_ .

vanttiges to the feeder of cattle in being nhle to obta

lean cattle at a reduced price. lie asserted, to our asto-
nishment, that, notwithstanding the exorbitant price to
%Odell cattle and meat have, risen in the market for the
last few years,;the cattle-feeders had made no profit by
fattening cattlei.and that they only continue to fatten

them for the sake of the manure. At the same time the

Right Hon. Baronet, following Mr. M'CcLLOCH, assured
;Ow :fee6o,of.,ep the jafiee would not bo'r.t all
ixatepi or Naos. : He made this out
di te'elabbriitebi,,py raOring to the priceof meat and ea t tle
"did Holland, and came to the'con-
elaaion that. his' alteotion of duty would merely give a
security against any great further increase in the price.
We do not know whether the Right Hon. Baronet meant
it or not, or whether he counts on the hopes of the
town population refusing bel:ef to his statements, but he
proved that the alts rations relative to cattle and meat,
which have be(n so glowingly described, will be of little
or no advantage to. the consumer.

IVe must direct attention to that part of his speech,
in wbich 'he proved, by a series of facts, that the
price of cattle and of meat had been gradually ris
ing throughout Europe, at least since 1833. We
regard this as a very curious circumstance, and in.
fer from it that the bulk of the population through-
out Europe have become greater consumers of meat, and
that the supply has not kept pace with the demand. We

infer from it also that all the fears—which prompt the
statesman, as the'organ of the landlords, to commit gross
injustice—that free: trade would cause a great reduction
of the price of corn, are wholly groundless. A demand
finr meat implies a high price of bread, and that demand
would keep pace Ivith the most enlarged supply, and
maintain the price of corn. • In fact, Sir R. PEEL'S
statement demonstrates•that the people of all Europe
are under-Xed,. and that it is a cruel injustice
in all the Governments of Europe to put impediments
in the way of their subjects obtaining as much food
as possible: England, and Europe at large are not suf-
ficiently cultivated to supply the wants of a growing po-
pulation, and statesmen cannot reasonably .dread any
great reduction in price.
Sir R. PEEL had some crumbs of comfort for all
classes. To the furniture makers he promised addi-
tional
employment by lowering the duties on woods. To
the shipbuilders he held out the great advantage of
cheap timber, and cheap copper bolt3,:atil cheap copper
sheathing. To the fishermen he promised cheaper and
better boats. Manufacturers are to be delighted
by a small reduction on the duty on sperm oil, about
one-eighth of its price. . The bulk of the people are
to have herrings cheap, and potatoes in abundance.
To every class he threw some little piece of promised
advantage as a bait, and nearly all classes seem to have
been hooked.

In favour of chettpass, to our delight, he exhautvd

shis...vostlmjary of praise. He steutly maintained 014'
prine'pie that we ought ,to 'tiny at the cheapest market.
If other'nations would not inake.redUction in the* tariff,'
they would suffer from it; if they .would not buy at
the cheapest market, we ought ; and trust that they
would soon repent of their wasteful obstinacy. We re-
joiced at hearing this, but we ask why this principle was
not applied ,to the Corn-law, and Why the Tory jour-
nals, for the last two years, have, day after day, been
filled with tirades against cheapness ? Sir R. PEEL
was eloquent in its favour on behalf of the labourer, but
his supporters in the Press have continually defended
dear corn a 7, keeping up the rate of wages. Sir RottEer
Smashed whole volumes of Tory argument by his recom-
mendations of cheapness, to be- produced by• lowering
duties.
The Right Hon. Baronet was also great about the
smuggler, whom he styled " almost the natural cor-
recter of exorbitant duties." He excited Some merri-
ment in the House, by reading a:letter from a notorious
smuggler, . offering to some house in town to supply it
with various articles of blonde at about eight per cent.
additional on the price. He also showed that he had
been amongst the smugglers, by producing a parcel of
straw for making hats, which pays a penny duty,
inclosed within which was a roll of manufactured straw
to be smuggled, which pay; a duty of 7s. Gd. So the
Right Honourable Baronet gave a practical proof of the
folly of those high duties he and the rest of our'states-
men have imposed and maintained on nearly all kinds
of commodities.

We heard the close of Sir ROBERT PEEL'S speech
with compassion for his infirmity. He has just
passed a Corn-law, of which one striking fea-
ture is, that it keeps out the flour and grain
of the United States. He proposes an alteration
.in
the tariff, which leaves the duties on their tobacco and
cotton untouched ; and which makes a concession to the
cattle breeders and the growers of barley and oats in
Europe, but by which the Americans cannot profit. He
reduces the duty on Baltic timber, evidently to be inde-
pendent of the supply from America, much of which.
though nominally Colonial, comes from the Unitcd
States. His new Corn-bill, and his tariff, therefore, per-
petuate the exclusion of the commodities of the United
States from our markets ; and yet he discoursed largely
and bravely on the United States increasing their custom
dues to collect a revenue, and expatiated for a consider-
able time on the benefit the example of England would
confer on mankind in general, and on America in particular.
The Right Honourable Baronet is thus setting America
the very worst example, and is knowingly, if not wilfulle-,
destroying the trade of England with that free country.
To be sure his scribes promise, though we place nu faith
in them, a compensation in an extension of trade with
the Magyar serfs of Prince ESTERRAZY.

We stated yesterday, that we thought Sir ROBERT
PEEL'S universal charity sermon, was an awful event.
We felt convinced that he would not recommend such a
silly measure, but in some fit of desperation, or from
some alarming circumstances. We can now state that
the Right Honourable Baronet is greatly alarmed at the
reports which he has received from Lancashire. The
working people have given the authorities to understand
that they do not mean to lie down and die peaceably.
Hence the alarm of Sir ROBERT PEEL, and hence his
late-coming charity is the offspring of his fear. His
alarm is an awful event.

•
THE Me DUTY AND THE KENTISH FARMERS.—
The Kentish hop=growers may be satisfied, we think,
with a duty of 4/. 10s., or 90s, per cwt. on hops, which
Sir 11. Peel announced last night. This is, we believe,
considerably above the average price, duty included, at
which they sell their hops. If the foreigner, therefore,
could grow and import hops for nothing, he could
not undersell the Kentish hop-growers. The re-
duction of the duty will have the effect of discouraging
unfounded hopes, and restrain the cultivation of hops
within due limits. People will not expect to 'Wake for-
tunes, and so they will be prudent.