The Sun.
London, England, 1842-06-28 00:00:00

ti tt ,S

LONDON
TUESDAY MORNING, JUNE 28, 1842.

The fruits of Sir R. PEEL'S policy are ripening fast.
At home we have corruption, and there is springing from
it abroad noisome and poisonous plants. Here we, have
rottenness, and yonder grow the fungi, which contribute
to hasten the general decay of which they are the signs.
Sir R. PEEL has taught mankind to honour the principle
of protection, and the Americans and Germans are prac-
tising his lessons. He and the renowned Parliament of
England have thought it necessary, after mature delibe-
ration, and after much warning and discussion, to levy a
duty on foreign corn of 40 per cent., and the.Govern-
meats of the United States and of Germany propose to
apply the same principle to their home-made woollens-
To Sir 11. PEEL belongs the credit of having induced the
Americans and the Germans to heap additional duties on
the manufactures of Great Britain. Their new restric-
tions are planned contemporaneously with his, if they .be
not their offspring.

There cannot be a doubt, if the present Ministry had
proclaimed the principles of free trade which science has
taught and experience has confirmed, and had acted on
them, by opening our markets to the wheatand flour- of
the United States, and to the agricultural produce of
Germany, that at least those States would have waited
to see the effects of the new system, before they had re-
enacted and extended the old one. Had Sir R. PEEL, too,
instead of haggling with France about duties, lowered
our duties on wines, adjusting them on the ad valorem prin-
ciple, all the South of France would have been in arms
to resist new duties on English eommodities, and the
demand for higher duties on linen yarn would probably
not have been acceded to.

But what are the principles Sir R. PEEL has recoil/.
mended to the world? For months and years our. eople
have begged and prayed for a free trade in food. Sir
HOBERT PEEL came into office, in the midst of great
public distresQ, and he has made it his especial business,
after inquiring into the causes of that distress, to uphold
the food monopoly in spite of the prayer of the people.
He denies, therefore, that this law is the cause of dis-
tress, and by re-enacting it he has declared to all the
world that the principle of protecting native industry,
as this species of legislative plunder is called, is the only
safe and sound principle of national policy.
Ho has proclaimed by his conduct, that restric-
tions are the source of national greatness. The same
principle runs through his whole tariff. For the
first time he has given a general form to the
principle of protection as applied to colonies,
and established a whole series of differential duties.
France, Germany, and the United States, there-
fore, are imitating his example. They are acting on the
worn-out principle of protection, which he has conse-
crated anew. Ours is the most melancholy suicide that
ever a nation was guilty of. Great, powerful, weialthy,
and glorious by trade, we have laboured to put a stop
to it. We have laid violent hands on the neck of our own
power, and infected other nations with the horrible mono-
mania of self-destruction.

The First Report from Mr. ROEBUCK'S, or the Com-
promise Committee, was made last night. It stated that
JOHN WALTER, Esq., having been summoned to attend
the Committee, had declined to comply with the sum-,
mons ; and Mr. ROEBUCK. moved that Mr. WALTER be
called to the bar. The motion was agreed to, and Mr.
WALTER ordered to attend this day.
Mr. WALTER may be able to give some explanation
of his conduct, which will place it in an improved light ;
at present, his refusal to attend the Committee seems
not to be justified. There is no difference between the
constitution and powers of Mr. ROEBUCK'S Committee
and other Committees, and attendance on them has al-
ways been readily given, because it has always been en-
forced by the power of the house. Mt WALTER can-
not be excused any more than others, and he will have
to suffer the consequences of his refusal.

He objects to the great powers possessed by the Com-
mittee, and if he mean to contest and try them by an
appeal to the law, should the House commit him for con-
tempt, if he be ready to suffer martyrdom for the publics
welfare, we should not deny that • he is animated
by a legitimate and honourable ambition. But Mr.
WALTER has a special objection to the Chairman, who
"at one time, in his place in the House, recommended
any one who might be attacked in the Times, and did
not wish to have the attack repeated, to horsewhip Mr.
WALTER." He declines, in truth, to submit to the tri-
bunal, because the Chairman " has shown undisguised
hostility towards him." Unfortunately for Mr. WALTtR's
reputation, and perhaps for the purpose ,he has in view,
this personal objection neutralizes all the patriotism we
had detected in the objection to the powers of the Com-
mittee. Against the Chairman's hostility he would bo
sure to find protection from the other members of the
Committee, from the House, or, in the last resort, from
the public ; but neither the public, the House, nor the
other members of the Committee, will justify him for
refusing to obey its summons, because he has had, at
some former time, a personal dispute, which he remem-
bers with more keenness than the public, with its
Chairman.

Mr. WALTER has put himself in the wrong. At pre-
sent the Chairman of the Committee has only fulfilled
his duties ; the violence which Air. WALTER appre-
hends has no other existence than in his own imagina-
tion. The House and the public know nothing
of it. He should have waited till Mr. ROE-
BUCK had committed himself, before appealing
from his authority. In the House last night
Major BERESFORD bore testimony to the inquiries
of the Committee being conducted in a courteous
though stringent manner. The world will infer that
Mr. WALTER would have met with the same treatment ;
and by his refusal to attend, precluding the possibility of
any contrary experience, he will appear to have dis-
obeyed an order of the House of Commons from per.
scnal pique towards Mr. ROEBUCK.
We do not for one moment suppose that Mr. WALTER
dreads any disclosures. The apparently frank manner
in which he refers to his agent, and expresses a wish to
afford the Committee every information, forbids the sus-
picion that he has any reason to shun the searching in-
vestigation in which it is engaged. At the same time,
the public would have been better satisfied on this head
had he as readily obeyed the Committee as he frankly
informed it of the name of his agent. It is not yet too
late, we presume, for him to retreat, and as his personal
obviously outweigh his patriotic motives,! we frankly
advise him to prepare his apology to the House, and
profess his readiness to obey the summons of the Com-
mittee.

We are glad to see that the subject of oaths, including,
we presume, the source and character of the obligation
they impose on men, is to be investigated by the Houta
of Lords. No subject is more worthy of a solemn in-
quiry. Upon it rests the whole administration of the
law; and it will not tend to the future security of either
life or property if the question, now that it is mooted, be
not probed to the bottom. To have the nature
of an oath clearly understood, and the obligation
it imposes brought forcibly home to the conscience,
so that it shall exist, and be felt at all times and by all men,
independently of any vanishing and changing forms, and
I independently of any inculcated, and perhaps erroneous
religious opinions, their Lordships must dive deep into
the mind of man. They cut,o-ht to call before them those
who have studied the question, and who can point eat
the eternal and universal (so far as the globe is eternal
and man is known) source of that obligation, which, in con-
,j unction with all creeds, false and true, and at all times and
places, men have felt and acknowledged to speak the
truth and the truth only. To do their work effectually,
the Lords must inquire into the meaning of the word
" belief," and the state of mind which that word
expresses must be exactly defined. As the in-
quiry is forced on by a desire to give re-
lief to tender consciences, and to those who
entertain peculiar thoughts and principles, some per-
sons of that description will, of course, be examinad,
and they will be the best able to explain the source of
their objections to comply with the injunctions of the
law. Of its mighty arch, an oath, or something equiva.
lent, is the key-stone; and we teel assured that their
Lordships, should they prosecute their examination fear-
les3are likely to clear up many doubts, establish some
limpsior.'tant truths, and promote the advancemeat of cor•
rect knowledge.

THE MANCEUVRENO MOTHER.—This new novel, by
promises even to rival in attraction its for-
the Authoress of that most popular fiction of last season, " The
tunate predecessor. Indeed the great variety and contrast of
its numerous characters, and the amusing way in which they
"
are made to act as foils to each other, prove that the writer has
History of a Flirt,
made a great advance in her delightful art since her last ap-
pearance before the world. Nothing can be more distinctly
marked than the. characters of the four daughters,
_who are
made victims to the matrimonial schemes of Lady Wetherall,
" the Manoeuvring Mother." The train of lovers, and ulti-
mately of husbands, that her art and their own attractions
gather round them. are still more entertaining. The buis-
terous foxhunter, Tom Pynsent ; the mincing milksop, Lord
Ennismore; the good, but grim Boscawen ; the coarse Sir Fos*
ter Kerryson ; the party-giving Lady Spottiswoode ; the so•
lemn Dowager Lady Ennismore; the frank, though slyly
satirical Sir John Wetherall ; the obsequious Mrs. Thompson;
and the various other persons who figure in this exclilent twist
L of real life, will command for it universal popularity.

4- . ,
. . ~ ...4
0,0 0, ..., - -6.7-s.- 4 , ,
4) 14
.6,.`p..11 41111ML,h- 421,1 ~,,,
,-.:.•.-tl'Z' ::*0,a:71;:7:' e41r'7141:=3"66.4V11M16:4&77: . .'",
ri.t.r. ~.......- ' v....-. . 14, 41.3
1- ",,,,,,•• . .kakiio' ;C, 14, , • . k.\
- -
6

THE WEATHER.—NOON, JUNE 28.
RO fA L GALLERY OF SCIENCE, ADELAIDE-STREET.
Thermometer.... 68 Highest 69 I Lowest 46
Barometer 30.30.—Wind S.W.