The Sun.
London, England, 1842-05-24 00:00:00

LONDON:
TUESDAY MORNING, MAY 24, 1842.

To hear insincere men unwittingly do homage to
some great principles which they at other times
deny, is a great satisfaction. While it adds to our
contempt for them, it establishes the principles be-
yond the reach of controversy. By what fatality k
was that Mr. GLADSTONE, the son of a Liverpool ship-
owner, got linked up last night with provisioning
ships cheaply, and with the unfairness of clogging
our shipping with heavy duties on their provisions,
because they have to compete with the foreigner—as
if that were not precisely the case of the manufacturer
who sends his cottons to the Brazils, where they meet
the cotton of the United States and of Germany—:
by what secrot, but unfortunate, connEettriTr—nrr:
GL,u)sroNE, one of the great champions of taxes on
the people's food, last night became the advocate of
provisioning ships cheaply, we do not care to inquire;
but we record the fact with infinite satisfaction, and
can assure the Right Hon. Gentleman that every word
he said in answer to Mr. CALLAGHAN, and in favour
of allowing our shipping to get cheap beef, was
equally an answer to Mr. GLADSTONE himself, when
he argued against allowing the manufacturers and
consumers to have cheap bread. Mr. GLADSTONE'S
broad doctrine was that salted beef had become so
dear in Ireland, and the laws for preventing ship-
owners from provisioning their vessels on the plea
of exporting foreign provisions was so inefficacious, that
it was unjust to continue the restrictions, and there-
fore he resisted Mr. CALLAGHAN'S motion for levying a
tax on foreign salt beef, equivalent to the tax on
living animals. Mr. COBDEN or Mr. VILLIERS could
not have expounded the principles of free-trade, on
which they ask for a total repeal of the Corn-laws,
more broadly than (lid Mr. GLADSTONE. But those
gentlemen, and the manufacturers of Manchester,
will require to know why those principles are not to
he applied to them as well as the more fortunate
Liverpool shipowners.
The inconsistency of our present insincere and
dishonest Ministers is, on many occasions as well as
on this, very remarkable. On the lath of last month
they strenuously resisted Mr. LABOUCHERE'S pro-,
posal to remove the duty which they have levied on
flour imported into Canada. They stated explicitly
that they did not impose this duty with any view to
our own landed interest, or to impede the entrance of
American flour through Canada into, our markets.
It was all to protect the consumers of Newfoundland.
The spokesmen on that occasion were this very .Alr.
GLADSTONE, Lord STANLEY, and Sir ROBERT PEEL,
and they said that the markets of Newfoundland were
open to Canadian flour free of duty ; that the flour from
the United State, paid a kluty: that the flour front
the United State,, being the needed supply, would
regulate -the price of Hour in Newfoundland ;
and that the consequence of allowing flour
to be imported free of duty into Canada
would be, that the merchants of Canada would
send it to Newfoundland, without allowing the con-
sumer there to have it one farthing cheaper than Ame-
rican flour, and they would put the duty, which
was paid on the American flour, into their pockets.
They rightly denominated this as most unfair, and
most unjust. So it is. It is a monstrous thing to
levy a tax on the American flour consumed in New-
foundland, and allow the Canadians to import'United
States flour into Newfoundland free of duty. The
true remedy for the injustice, is to allow flour to be
imported, equally free of duty, into Canada and
Newfoundland.

When Lord HowicK, however, applied the prin-
ciples which the Ministers applied to Newfoundland,
without the smallest difference, to commodities im-
ported from Canada and other colonies into England,
the Ministers resisted him most stoutly. Though
they would on no account give th 6 Canadian 2s. a
barrel on flour imported into Newfoundland, they
will give him 13s. or 155., as the case may be, on
a quarter of wheat, Bs. per cwt. on cheese, 10s. 6d.
per cwt. on bacon, l os. on butter, 6s. on salted pork,
and so on, imported into England, and levied here on
the price of his articles, that price being raised by
corresponding heavy duties on the produce of Holland.
In the case of the consumers of Newfoundland the
Tories think honestly and justly, but, as the
consumers in England may be plundered at discre-
tion,. they refused to apply to them, on Lord
How!cies motion, the principle they had insisted on
applying to the consumers in,Newfoundland on • Mr.
La BOLT(' Il ER I:. S motion. That is only one other spe-
cimen of their dishonest inconsistency.

We are, however, inclined to think that some part
of the' tenderness shown by Ministers to consumers
in Newfoundland, and disregard of the consumers in
England, arises from the.fact .that they look on the