The Sun.
London, England, 1842-01-04 00:00:00

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LONDON:
TUESDAY, JANUARY 4, 1842.

Some persons suppose that Lord ASIIBURTON'S
rank will recommend him to the Americans, but
]►is Peer's robes are too new and scanty to hide
his counting-house sleeves. Hispatent of nobility
will not cover his loan contracts. Au ennobled
a►►d successful NICHOLAS BIDDLE may excite
the envy, not the respect, of the shrewd Ameri-
cans. If a Nobleman were required to dazile
them, one should have been selected who can
boast of his ancestry and of their deeds. Lord
AsumTnTON'S ancestors are unknown beyond the-
second generation, and all his greatness, derived
almost exclusively from money, was achieved
by himself and his immediate predecessor. If
tl►e Americans honour high rank, they do not
honour ennobled wealth, and the new negotiator
will be better known in America, and will be
treated accordingly, as Mr. BARING, the mer-
chant, than as Lord ASHBURTON.
We dislike his-appointment, because we be-
lieve it is a mere piece of Tory trickery to make
the petyle expect relief from the wrong quarter.
Great and undefined • expectations have been
already excited. The Funds got up from a kin-
dred feeling and confidence i❑ the monied man.
But Lord Asnupftrox will not be able to do
much. The affair of the Caroline is perfectly
simple. We are right, and therefore bound to
refuse all satisfaction fur cutting her out from
Schlosser ; or we are wrong, and bound to
make instant satisfaction. Negotiation cannot
alter,that simple fact, nor will it induce the
Americans to enter i►►to a compromise.
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Neither is the Boundary question to be settled
by
..ncgotiatioa ; the surveyors and mappers must
alreatiy have decided it, or it will not be decided
at all. As to the right of search, the Americans
will not ,submit to that, the PRESIDENT must
yield to the prevalent popular feeling on that
subject, whieb no negotiations can set aside.
On this question we consider Lord ASHBIJRTON
an unfit negotiator ;''because we have a recol-
lection that, as Mr. BARING, he expressed opi-
nions unfavourable to our practice, whence it is
to be inferred that, as Lord ASIIBURTON, he will
be a determined stickler for it in its most out-

rageous form.,
flat while Lord ASUBURTOS is dilly-dallying,
Sir U. PEEL will be able to say " Wait till Lord
.:I:4unuirroN has concluded his negotiations.
'The American tariff is soon to undergo
revision.,, and as the Americans would profit
by a free trade, iii corn, let us keep that back
and'' hold it out as a boon or a threat to procure
an alteration in the new tariff favourable to our
trade. Lord AsnBURTON is gathering much
useful information, which will enable us to legis-
late with much grea'er certainty and advantage
tharritwe now make an alteration in the Corn-
law." Lord ASIIBURTON's mission then, which
tho man'i deeply interested as he is in maintain-
ing the,ebrn-law, will know how to protract and
how to turn to the advantage of those class ini-
quities of which he is such a strenuous advocate,

will be used as a pretext for postponing the dis-
cussion on the Corn-laws.
With respect to the particular right of search,
the Quarterly Review recommends negotiation
and a convention ; but we venture to assert that
the simple suggestion we threw out on Sa-
turday will do more'to settle the question than
any negotiation which does not adopt it.
We are aware of the objections that are
made to having American officers on board
our ships. They are of no importance.
American naval officers are well-educated,
gentlemanly men; and there would be no more
danger of their quarrelling with our officers
than there was of the Russian officers quarrel-
ling, several of whom were on board our ships,
during war, for years. Such an objection is idle.
The American officer should be of a rank lower
than the Commander of the English vessel, and
instructed to obey him within the sphere of his
duties. There are hundreds of examples of offi-
cers of different nations serving together on such
terms, without any serious quarrels ensuing ; but
in the case of one American officer embarked on
board one of our ships with strictly defined
duties, there would be no chance of disturbance.
Those who make the objection must have a
worse opinion of officers than we have ; and the
officers ought to be told that they must conform.
We see no difficulty, therefore, in the two
nations coining to an agreement to embark
an American officer on board every one
of our ships which is employed to repress
the Slave-trade, who shall be instructed
and empowered by the American Government
to examine every ship which shows American
colours, and determine whether she be a genuine
American vessel or not, and whether she be en-
gaged in the Slave-trade. In fact, the prostitu-
tion of the American flag touches the honour of
the United States, and the plan of having ships
overhauled by an American officer, will enable him
to prevent it being tarnished, while national dig-
nity would be carefully preserved, by the exami-
nation being made under the authority of the
United States, and by one of their officers.
We believe, too, that some common-sense
plan, such as this, would settle the other ques-
tions. The English and American Governments
take different views as to the Caroline; why
not refer the single point in dispute—namely,
whether England had, or had not, a right to
burn the Caroline—to a third party? The Boun-
dary question may not be so easily settled, but
where there is a will there is a way, and Govern-
ment and diplomacy, indeed the whole art ofpoli-
tics, will stink in the nostrils of the world, if
they do not prevent a quarrel between the two
nations about such trifling objects, by some easy
and simple methods, similar to that we have
pointed out.

The persons who talk and write about appor-
tioning labour and capital to land, cannot have
formed any accurate idea of what they propose
that the Government should undertake. The
dispersion of man over the globe, and, conse-
quently, the apportioning of labour and capital
to land, has been going on since the history of
man began, and will continue till its termination.
What extends so much beyond the sphere of
any and every Government can be no part of the
duty of any one. But let us see what it implies
as to our own Government.

On our empire it is justly said the sun never
sets, and within its limits are crowded Hin-
dostan and the unpeopled Southern Continent,
the sugar colonies of the West Indies and the
wool and wine colony of the Cape of Good
Hope, Canada, and the Falkland islands;
and if the principle be once admitted
that the Government is bound to appor-
tion capital and labour to land, or duly dis-
tribute the people according to some sys-
matic scheme of colonization, it must do that
universally through its dominions, leaving none
too much of either here, and none too little there.
Emigration must be promoted from India as
well as England. It must be directed to the
Cape of Good Hope, as well as to New Zealand
or Canada. The Government must take into
consideration the place where profit and wages
are highest, and it must possibly direct emigra-
tion, not to New Zealand, or to Canada, but to
the West India Islands.

It will be bound also duly to consider the
claims of all the capitalists already established in
our different colonies, and not send a labourer
more in proportion to Van Diemen's Land than
to the Island of Trinidad or Upper Canada.
Such a task, implying an intimate knowledge
of the capabilities of every acre of soil in
every part of her MAJESTY'S dominions, of
every creek and harbour, and of the present
amount of employment possessed by the labourers
in every part of those dominions, _would require
an emigration-office ten times as extensive as the
establishments of the Treasury and the depart-
ments of the three principal Secretaries of State.
That would be a gigantic species of administra-
tion, even if it did not embrace the whole globe,
as we think the principle would; for the appor-
tioning of capital and labour to land is not limited
by political boundaries, and would require the
Government which undertook the task, to send
capital and labour where they could be most be-
neficially employed, without regard to the land
being under its dominion or not.
We say so much in reply to the gigantic folly
of requiring the Government, by a systematic
scheme of colonization, to apportion capital and
labour to land. It is beyond the compass of
human power. The practical objections to the
Government undertaking a scheme of systematic
colonization are quite as great as the theoretical.
At present the manufacturers of England are in
great distress. According to the Corn-law men
the agriculturists are happy and flourishing be-
yond description. They do Jot want to go abroad,
and cannot be spared. But in almost every co-
lony agricultural labour and agricultural skill are
chiefly in demand. Manufacturingcapital and ma-
nufacturing skill, could all Manchester be trans-
ported to New Zealand, would only perish for
want of occupation. The mass of the people
who go thither must till the ground. Besides
the agriculturists, a few mechanics, to make and
mend their tools, and build their houses, would
be required; but we want to obtain employment
and food for the starving weavers and spinners,
and their connected trades, of Carlisle, Manches-
ter, Stockport, Leeds, Macclesfield, and Spital-
fields ; and such people would only be an incum-
brance to a new colony, and would perish if they
were sent thither. So far as they 'are concerned,
the most extensive emigration could give them
and the country no relief. They can be as cheaply
maintained here as by sending them to Canada
or New Zealand.

The want and the distress which require relief,
exist in the manufacturing districts. But the
population there are all parts of a great system
of combined labour, of which the workmen and
the machines are alike essential portions. To
wrench them from their places, to separate them
from their fellow-workmen and their tools, is
to annihilate their skill. Our manufacturing
system must be maintained entire here, expand-
ing and improving, and those who work it must
be fed at home, or they and it will perish to-
gether. Emigration, as a substitute for the total
repeal of the Corn-laws—a scheme of gigantic
ambition for the practice of justice—may hasten
the national decay : it can give our suffering
people in their present circumstances no relief.

At the Manchester meeting on Saturday, re-
corded in our columns, a part of the petition
agreed to prayed the House of Commons to " ap-
point a Committee to consider in what manner
the injured people of Great Britain may be best
compensated for the great loss and damage they
have for so long a period sustained—whether
by a bounty upon the importation of foreign
corn, or any other plan which shall, by the supe-
rior wisdom of Parliament, appear to be best
adapted to answer the object in view." The
meeting wa^, attended by several gentlemen of pro-
perty ; but during the discussion one person ap-
pears to have called out, " Let us have the land,"
or something to that effect ; to which Mr. FAL-