The Sun.
London, England, 1842-07-25 00:00:00

liirronb'EPittton

SUN OFFICE Three o' Clock.

All parties are obliged to admit that Mr. Roxnucx
has clearly established all the charges of bribery and
corruption advanced by him, when moving for his
Committee, against the boroughs of Harwich, Not-
tingham, Lewes, Reading, Penryn and Falmouth, and
Bridport ; and the bitterest opponents of the Hon.
I and Learned Gentleman are compelled to acknow-
ledge that he has done so less offensively to indi-
viduals than was supposed possible from the na-
ture of the investigations upon which he entered.
Mr. ROEBUCK exhibited throughout the greatest
firmness, as well as the greatest moderation. The
taunts and jeers by which he was constantly assailed
appear to have no more ruffled his temper, than water
would the plumage of a swan. Strong in the cause
he had undertaken, and sure of his ground, he felt,
or appears to have felt, that the greatest vengeance
which he could take upon his assailants, would be by
drawing up a Report, in which personal feeling would
find no place, and in which something like an excuse
would be found for the conduct of persons who had
treated him with marked discourtesy and dislike.
" The inquiry," in the language of the Report, " was
not a judicial one; the Committee were not called
upon to decide upon the legality or illega,
lity of the proceedings of any party, or
upon the guilt or innocence of the transac-
tions in which any of the parties implicated were in-
volved in connexion with the alleged compromises
and bribery practised in the boroughs comprehended
in the order of reference. They understand
their duty to have been to elicit and lay before the
House, faithfully and clearly, all the facts of
the several cases, rather with a view to expose
the evils of a system, than by any direct expression
of their own opinion to inculpate individuals, or di-
rectly to lay the foundation for any legislative enact-
ment with respect to the particular 'boroughs in ques-
tion." The just and proper inference from this is,
that Mr. ROEBUCK did not consider the system of
corruption, which he exposed in the case of the six
above -mentioned boroughs, at all confined to them,
and he is quite right. Bribery has become the rule,
and purity the exception, in nearly all the
smaller boroughs in England, Wales, and Ire-
land. The whole system is one of fraud, of
collusion, of corruption, of perjury, of drunkenness,
and of vice. Nor is bribery confined to the boroughs.
In one shape or other it prevails everywhere. What
are the Corn•laws but bribes to the great agri-
culturists ? Brewers are bribed by imposing
a prohibitory duty upon foreign wines ; cattle-
rearers are bribed by a heavy import duty on meat ;
and landlords are bribed by every device to maintain
unjust monopolies and high rents. This is the result,
in a great measure, of the narrowness of constituen-
cies, which places it in the power of wealthy
candidates to buy oft; at nearly any price, the
whole of the electors. Deeply reflecting men in
reading this Report, cannot but feel a powerful sense
of national humiliation. Religious men will find in
it much to abase their spiritual pride in the efficacy
of the Established Church as a repressor of the
most corrupt practices, on the part of her
professed children and champions. They will
find the rich, the powerful, the well-informed,
and the externally pious aristocracy of wealth and
sanctity leagued and banded together for the unlawful
purpose of imprinting upon the soul of some poor
ignorant wretch the burning brand of per-
jury. They will find the WALTERS, the BERES-
FORDS, the BAGSHAWS, the Tory ATTWOCDS, and
such other heroes of Anglican orthodoxy, pouring
corruption like a tide over every constituency in
which electors are to be found ready to sell their
country, their souls, and their GOD for a handful of
sovereigns.

The Journal du Havre, a French Paper, states that
according to the latest accounts from the United
States the harvests there are so abundant that after
supplying the wants of the inhabitants there will re-
main for exportation six millions of barrels of flour,
each barrel weighing two hundred pounds. Now
were England to abolish the Provision-laws this flour
would be sent to this country, partly to pay the State
debts, and partly to exchange for Yorkshire broad-
cloths, Sheffield cutlery, and Staffordshire earthen-
ware, thus giving employment to an immense number
of our starving poor. On the part- of the United
States too, there would be an end of the proposed
Tariff, which threatens to throw two-thirds of our
future trade with that country into the hands of
smugglers. We shut our ports against the staples of
the United States, wheat, barley, beef, pork, butter,
hides, wool, and timber, and yet express surprise at
the blindness of the Americans in retaliating upon us our
miserable system of commercial policy. That system
is every where shutting the ports of the world against
us. It was shown by Lord PALMERSTON, in the de-
bate last week, upon Mr. DUNCOMBE'S motion, that
our restrictive system for benefiting the landlords at
the expense of every other class deprived us of a pro.
fitable and constantly increasing trade with Sweden,
Prussia, the whole circle of the German commercial
union, and we might add of Spain, Portugal, and, to seine
extent, of Belgium. The question now is, shall we
abandon that system and give life to our people, cr
adhere to it, and kill them off by starvation ?
Americans offer them abundance of food in exchange
for their manufactures. Operatives of England, how
long will you submit to see your children dying with
hunger around you, to gratify the avarice of men who
have the cruelty to shut out from you the food which
the nations of the world are willing to exchange for
the productions of your skill and industry ?