The Sun.
London, England, 1827-08-28 00:00:00

SPIRIT OP TIM PUBLIC JOTANALS.

Every one who had the gratification of read-
ing the report contained in ye.sterclays paper, of
the speeches and proceedings of the Birmingham
'Meeting ion Friday last, would be as much struck
by the manly avowal of some gentlemen who
took part in the debate; that " their motive for
signing the requisition was to give support to
the present Ministry." This is as it ought to
be. The great--the exclusive interest attached
to any meeting of the people of England, is its
relation to some important national object. Why
should the King's subjects condole with his
Majesty on the death of one statesman, or ex-
press their gratitude for his appointment of
another, but because the-dead had been a patriot,
'and because-the living Minister, having avowed
his adoption of the same principles, was likely
to follow his example ? Who ever thought of
ct-public meeting to lament the death of Lord
Londonderry, for instance ? The business of
mutual condolence there was left to the de-
pendents on, and relatives of, that unpopular
Minister. Had the people met, it would have
been to felicitate their Sovereign and themselves
on the succession of Mr. Canning to the office of
Foreign Affairs ; and any hint about regret for
an event which accelerated that succession would
have passed for an impudent display Of hypocrisy,
even when addressed to the Crown. No ; if Mr.
Bird, or other persons at Birmingham, flattered
themselves that the friends of liberal principles
would feel it a reproach to be told that their pur-
pose was less to honour Mr. Canning's memory
than to assist and ensure a continuance of that po-
hey which had gained him the hearts 'Allis fellow-
subjects, and had justified the whole nation
in mourning the premature period affixed by
Providence to his noble and brilliant career,
such men did not reflect on the feelings by
which alone a community can be swayed, or on
that which constitutes the necessary spring of all po-
litical action. They were cruelly mortified when the
motives of the meeting were avowed, in the same
bold consciousness of a fair and upright object,
which had distinguished every step in the pro-
gress of those who called and conducted it, from
the measures by which another very recent " ad-
dress" was preceded, from the manner in which
it was prosecuted, and from the end at which it
aimed. We. consider it not creditable to Mr.
Peel, that his friends at Birmingham *ere not
such in character or number, as could dare to meet
in the face of day, and challenge a discussion of
their sentiments. It appears to us that the ge-
neral
politics attributed
.to Mr. Peel by his own
supporters, must be of an unpopular and ob-
noxious kind, when those from whom the ad-
dress to him proceeded could not promise them-
selves a victorious or unmolested issue to an at-
tempt made publicly in his favour. This, in-
deed, is still the more disreputable to the system
of party or factious pelitics—whiCheyer they may
be—now embraced by the Right Hon. Gentle-
man, because some real services to the country
are claimed for him as having been rendered dur-
ing his administration of the Home Department ;
and therefore a most. powerful set-off of evil Trin-
eiples must have been taken for granted by his
partisans, where the balance appeared.to them
too adverse to bear a public investigation. Mr.
Canning had not been a man to require any bol-
stering up of common-place or ambiguous merits,
by the wretched expedient of a hole-and-corner
address. Yet this is the " Flash-man" of the
Tories—the Captain of their commercial inte-
rest ; as Sir Thomas Lethbridge, now on a tour of ,
improvement, is of their .Country
Times.

In these days, when the diseased state of the
social system in England fills all men capable of
reflection with alarm for the future, it may reward
our pains to look occasionally into the speculations
of our Continental neighbours on our own situa-
tion. We have been struck with the good sense
frequently displayed in a, volume, recently pub-
lished in France, under the title " De L'Aris-
toeratie consideree dans ses Rapports avec les
Progres de la Civilisation ; par M. 13. Passy ;"
when contrasting the situations of England and
France respectively. The writer observes, that
though England is the richest and most civilized
country of Europe, yet from, a disease in her
organization, which has, at length, gained the
ascendancy, the great mass of the population
have become pauperized and degraded ;
ever since the French Revolution, which de-
stroyed the causes which retarded the improve-
ment of France, the situation of the people has
become more prosperous. He attributes the
evils of England chiefly to the tendency of the
law to accumulate property in the hands of a
comparatively small number of individuals. At
what a singular result," he says, " has Great
Britain arrived ! In no country is the soil bet-
ter cultivated, the arts more advanced, manufac-
tures more flourishing : nowhere is a nobler and
More skilful use made of human strength—no-
where
is there so much opulence, and even
luxury ; and yet at the smallest commercial de-
rangement, cries of distress are heard. It is not
enough that a nation be rich and industrious, its
means of prosperity must be equitably distri-
buted : all must share in the advantages.result-
ing from the progress of civilization ; woe to
the nations in which the magnificence of
the smaller number is obtained at the expence
of the majority. There exists," says M. Passy,
1! between England and other countries, in
'which wealth is equally ill-shared, a differ-
ence which ought to be kept constantly in view.l
In these countries, if the people suffer without
murmuring, it is because, having only the ideas
and the habits natural to their condition, they do
not experience the evils of retrogradation, and
enjoy even the advantages resulting from the
gradual amelioration of their industry. Li E
og-
land, on the other hand, the people have de-
dined from the effect of laws too favourable to;
large properties ; and hence there is a discontent
with regard to social order, which it would be,
dangerous to allow to break out. The destinies
of England have been delivered by her institu-
tions into the hands of a territorial aristocracy.
A small number of families excessively rich, and
a multitude of poor, have supplanted the classes
of which the graduated property formerly pre-
served harmony in all Parts of the body politic.
No doubt without the burden of the public debt,
the evil would not have. been of such
,extent
but, on the other hand, without the combined!
action of an interested. and eiclusive legislation, ;
the debt would not have pressed so heavily ; and j
echo knows even if it would have existed ? •For'
under another combination.of political elements,,
other doctrines might have prevailed, and conse-
quently another employment of the n ational force.
The Aristocratical institutiens are the cause of
the wouncle'which-torment England; and to these
she must haie. the
courage fo. apply the iron ;
right of -pnmogemture, laws
more favourable to ale'equalization of fortunes,
and a reform raising the Democracy, are the only
means for assuring to that country a durable
prosperity." We ought, in justice tem. gassy

, ,_
to °melte, that these observations respecting!
England are preceded by a long train of reason-
ing,
in which he displays a familiarity with the ,
principles of political tronorny, and the
history of. European civilisation. We can
only at present notice his observations' on the
different phenomena which Franc's presents since '
the Revolution :—" Before the Revolution,
France could hot furnish the, six hundred mil-
lions, indispensable for the service of the State.
A Budget of a thousand millionS is not bOW
beyond her strength. Before' the Revolution
distress prevailed -throughofft the country, and
all the large toWns Ware filled with a populace as
idle as gross and corrupt : this state of things,
no longer exists. Such has - been the growing
ascendancy during the last 30 years of industry
and of opulence over the progress of population,
that prosperity has descended to all ranks ; that
the day-labourer has seen his share
,of prosperity I
increased ; and he is more largely supplied with
the Comforts of life than at any former period.
An industry more active and better regulated ;
cultivation extended to several millions of hec-
tares *Of lands formerly wastes, the produce of
farms doubled, manufactures established in all
parts of our territory, a population more labori-
ous and intelligent, deriving from the same
sources more' ample means of prosperity ; these
are the ;fruits of equality of rights. Compare
Prance and England with each other in the
years which followed the peace. Both were un-
der the necessity of disarming ; both had to
support the inconveniencies of 'the 'change , in
the direction . of capital and industry in the
transition from,war to peace ; but, how :different
the violence of the shock. Whilst England,
victorious, dictated to her rival, France van-
quished, thrown back within her old limits, lost
the markets for the produce of her. industry
offered by twenty millions of subjects ; to the ex-
pence of a change of Government, she had to
join the costly support of foreign armies, in the
midst of provinces ruined by war, and the Pay-
ment of the charges imposed by her allies, and
yet she made head against all. Agriculture,
commerce, manufacturing industry, all followed
their habitual course ; capital was not awanting
for speculations ; the price of land and rents
remained as they were, the people did not
want bread., their taxes were paid, and the
public tranquillity was not even compromised.'!
—Morning Chronicle.
The slight depression which has recently taken
place in the Foreign Exchanges has excited the
greatest attention, not only in the • mercantile
world, but among-that class'of persons—a class
comprehending a large prOportion of 'the people
of England—who reason, or flatter themselves
that they do so, upon questions of political eco-
nomy, and to whom alMoSt Without "exception
the Currency question seems to be the pons
asinorzn. The intermixture of paper with the
precious metals as the media of exchange in our
immense home trade, has introduced a degree of
complexity into the subject with which our an-
cestors had not to contend ; and the frequent
commercial vicissitudes and crises. to which this
intermixture has contributed, has at the same
time attracted towards the subject an in=
terest more general and intense than our an-
cestors could possibly have felt. But we cannot
say that the progress of intelligence upon this
subject has been commensurate with the increas-
ed
attention it has received. We greatly 'fear
that, the flimsy issues of theorists, and the jargon 1
of pretended science, have had an effect upon
the circulation of thought analogous to that
which paper has produced upon the monetary
system of the country—that a vitiated currency
has prevailed at once in the interchange of com-
modities and of ideas—and that perplexity and
adulteration have in both cases equally ensued:
We incline to think that all the knowledge which
is worth, possessing, and all indeed whiCh can
be attained' upon the subjects of currency
and exchanges, is directly and easily dedu.
cible from ' the few and simple princi-
ples of barter—principles so few and simple,
that they were as fully anti familiarly
understood by our rudest forefathers as by
the most elaborate and ingenious reasoner Of mo-
dern- thnes. -- The former knew, as well as the
latter can know, that whenever any commodity
existed in an • excessive or unusual quantity, in
any district, a given portion of it would no ion- 1
ger exchange in that district for so great a quan-
tity of other commodities as it did before. The
former knew, as well as the latter can know, that
in such ease, the commodity, of which there was
an excess, would be sent, if possible, for exchange
to some other district where the same disadvan-
tage was riot apPrehended: We do not hesi-
tate
to say, that all the fine. spun doctrines of '
modern times respecting the currency and the
foreign exchanges are strictly analogous to, or
rather, we would say, identical with, one or the
other of the two foregoing simple and self-evi-
dent propositions. Gold is a commodity.—
Paper, as far as it . is from the credit of the par-
ties issuing it, deemed an adequate representa-
tive of gold, is also a commodity Personal
credit, even although riot embodied in any ne-
gotiable or tangible instrument, is also a com-
modity. Gold alone, of these three commodities,
can never be in excess in any country, not be-
cause its quantity and its value in barter may not
increase or diminish, but because it has become,
by the common consent of nations, the. ultimate
standard of value by means of which all other
commodities are compared, and all other kinds
of barter negotiated. The efficiency of paper
and personal credit must be equal to that of the
precious metals in any country where they freely
circulate together. But the efficiency of
the two former is merely local, while that
of the latter is universal. Hence it follows,.
that the latter only will seek to escape, by
a transit to foreign countries, that disadvantage
in barter which it must always participate with
the other two, but which the excess of one or
both of the latter must wholly have produced.—
We will not, at the present moment, pursue this
subject further than to deduce the practical and
useful corollary from these premises, that when-
ever the state of the foreign exchanges indicates
both,
tliat
n the
England,excess o f paper or personal credit, or
has so far enhanced the prices
of other commodities as to impair the power of
the precious metals, together with their own in
barter—that, in other words, whenever the pre-
cious metals begin to find their way out of the
period is arrived, not perhaps far
country, the
positively circumscribed,
butpap eforrotrhceredieliatletro be
dealers
in
both to exercise great cau-
tion, _ watchfulness, and circumspection. Any
thing more presumptory than this we should be
unwilling to deduce from the circumstances
which have yet appeared ; but there is one con-
sideration, which as it is likely to be a powerful
auxiliary to the admonition we have ventured to
convey, we think it right to urge, viz.—that the
actual state of the exchanges proves beyond the
possibility of doubt or question, to every man
who understands the bearings of the subject,
-that prices in 'England, not the price of this or

that particultir commodity, but the average of
prices generally, have already reached the highfist
point to which they /can possibly attain in otik

present condition of tiic commercial vw4liki
without the, certainty ofa subsegitent and viain
i•evulsion.—Morning Post.

It has become the custom with'sonaia,of these
who have any doubtful object to attain, to coin-
mence by putting forth what are called feelers in
the newspapers, to try time pulse of the public
before the matter is broached in a more fOrmal
way. Something of this kind is going forward
With reference to some grant of public money to
the family of the late Mr. Canning, who, in a
strain of miserable cant, we are told, after dedi-
cating his life to the public service, has died
poor. We are exceedingly unwilling, now that
Mr. Canning is no more, to say one word that
may fall harshly on the ears of his surviving rela-
tives-and friends ; still more unwilling are we to
deal in any way with the private concerns of in-
dividuals, but when such concerns arc intruded
upon the public either by parties themselves or
their injudicious advisers, and that for public
purposes, we arc reluctantly compelled either to
abandon our duty to the public or treat these
private concerns with freedom and
.publicity.
Now, the only proof which is offered of Mr.
Canning having died poor is, that his personal
effects have been sworn, on taking probate of his
will, under 20,000/. ; and it has been since
added, will not in the end produce a residue of
one-fourth of that sum. This; inded*cl, would
be dying poor ; but then it should be re-
membered that this includes only personal pro-
perty, and entirely excludes Mrs. Canning's for-
tune, which was said to amount to 100,000/.,
and was, we suppose, settled upon her and
her children. But, admitting Mr. Canning
to . have died poor, to establish a claim
to renumeration in his particular case, the rule,
to be a just one, should be general ; and if the
country undertakes to provide for the families of
all who die poor in her service, a prodigious ac-
cession to the dead weight would take place, and
another million a year at least, added to our per-
manent taxation. Besides, . when particular cases
are singled out for this species of national justice
and benevolence, it ik fit at,least,• that all the
circumstances connected with them should be
fairly stated. If this were done in the case of
Mr. Canning, we arc inclined to think that he
has not been badly remunerated for his services ;
and that if 'he has failed to lay up a portion of
his earnings for his family, that is 140 concern of
the. public. What the exact sums received by
Mr. Canning have been we have no exact means
of knowing.. A very large sum has been stated,
the precise amount or the accuracy of which
we have not the means of ascertaining. Let it,
however, not be forgotten that Mr. Canning,
besides taking pretty good care of hithself, sad-
dled both his mother and sisters upon the country
as life annuitants. In short, the subject is one
that had better not have been agitated. The
farther it is probed the less tenable it becomes;
and we can only say, that if any thing further is
to .be done, for Mr. Canning's family, the widows
and children of numberless public servants who
are now pining in want will be haidly dealt by
if theis cases are not at the same tithe sought out
and put on a similar footing.—it'lorning Herald.
There is an old proverb- which says, that we
should not do ill, and think good will come of
it. The present condition of Spain is a very
striking exemplification of the truth of this adage.
The troops of France were sent into that country
'after a series of acts of disguised hostility, most
disgraceful to the parties practising them, with a
view to put down disturbances, which nothing
hut the covert assistance of France had rendered
formidable. The party which they supported
was. triumphant ; and the Dauphin, without..a
foe to encounter, Or an obstacle to overconie,
was hailed on his return as a second Alexander.
Foe a time the calm which it was the object of
French interference to procure continued ; but
the. materials of convulsion were too abundant,
and too widely .spread, to be kept down for
ever ; and, as might .have been expected, the
very victories, as they were called, of the French,
were the causes of commotion. The King hav-
ing put down' every thing in the shape of free-
dom at home, began to aspire,to the fame of his
Gallic auxiliaries, by putting down freedom
abroad also. Hence came the scandalous pro-
tection given to the Portuguese insurgents—a
protection which Ferdinand durst not, and could
not have given, had not the presence of a French
army supported him in his pride and his poweis
The result of that protection has been, it is well
known, all the expence.of. a war, without its
honours—taxes imposed, which there are no
means of realizing—an unpaid soldiery—a ruined
commerce7--bankrupt finances—and a rebellion
of a much more serious character than that which
the French led on, raging in the bowels of the
State. Had there been the slightest warrant for
those anti-republican fears which France pre-
tended to entertain, and, stimulated by which, she
was guilty of as gross a breach of national rights
as any that has disgraced modern tunes, the dan-
ger now experienced would have sprung from
a very different motive, and from very different
men. But instead of the poor persecuted rem-
nant of the adherents of the Cortes offering any
resistance to the laws or the Crown, we find all
the disturbances of Spain, ever since the French
entered it, originating with the monarchical
party ; that very party whose re-establishment
was, according to the French politicians, to re-
store peace and order to the 'Peninsula. That
the Cortes did "many fooliSh things, and said
many more, is universally allowed, and that their
plans were neither relished nor approved by the
great mass of the country, seems pretty well as-
certained ; but
force
et
in a d
reason
isuwasptthee,
interference of • a foreign
uncalled
purely and
aadndsepxacinlubsieveenlyledftomtoesittiecr,seuitfterly
, she would,
in all human probability, long ere this time have
settled down into such a sober system of regulat-
ed freedom as was fitted to the wants and the
wishes of her population. But although she
had not, can we for a moment imagine that
lie mischief,
would have
bheeerncowndoirtsieont,hhaand so leTft
unfortunately, which the French invasion
has produced, is not yet exhausted, and that in-
terference has placed France in a position, from
which it is extremely difficult to recede; and
where to advance or stand still is yet a more ar-
duous task. Were wisdom to be looked for in
the- Councils of such a King as Ferdinand, there
is, indeed, a way by which he might perhaps—
we should not like to speak more positively—
restore peace and prosperity to Spain, and by
which he might, at all events, redeem the elia4
racter of his Government. That vay unques-
tionably would be, by restoring the Government
of the Cortes, with such modifications as the
evident defects of the system, when last tried,
require, and by recognising, even if he should
not for some years be able to liquidate, the debts
which he and the Cortes openly incurred.

Without the latter, he can never restore to Spain
the character :of honour, and honesty which she
has forfeited, and without - the former, or some-
thing approaching to it, he will never restore to
her that repose, of which she has been so long de-
privcd, and the continued denial of which is daily
sinking her into more hopeless and helpless in-
significance among the nations.—Nctu Times.