The Sun.
London, England, 1842-03-03 00:00:00

SPIRIT-, of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.
FROM TLIE EVENING PAPERS OF YESTERDAY.
GLOBE.—Mr. Feargus.
,O'Connor; addressing his
Chartist admirers the other day in larylebone said, the
" cry was that there were too many mouths to feed. But
if the* Corn-laws were repealed to-morrow, no good
would accrue to the working classes, who Would, not
have bread one halfpenny cheaper. The only good it
would do would he to make' the manufacturers and the
millocrats greater tyrants than they were at present.
—(Loud cheers.) Instead of going to foreign countries
:for corn, they could grow it all at home on the unculti-
vated land,' and give employment to the surplus popu-
lation." We might find, our apology for noticing lan-
guage like this in the fact that it is not at all worse
than the House of Commons hears with complacency.
But we have a better reason for noticing it than any qua-
lity of its own. It expresses apprehensions which find
some echo (though a weaker and weaker)'in the minds
of many of the working classes. The repeal of the Corn-
laws presents itself to their minds as calculated to ag-
gravate that competition of labour emigrating from
the rural districts, which is already complained of in
the towns, and to depress still farther its already de,
pressed and precarious remuneration. We have
said that this apprehension shows itself less and.
less actively in opposition to the repeal of the
Corn-laws, and, indeed, seldom shows itself at all in
any spontaneous. expression from the lips of the work-
ing classes. Yet it is a key which may be still struck
with some effect, though in general the direct and
palpable pressure of the Corn-laws on the working
classes now outweighs their fears of indirect evils-
from their repeal. It may not, therefore, he useless`
to point tout what the work-people apprehend from
the repeal of the Corn-laws is precisely what is taking
place during their continuance! It is very true that
the sudden and total repeal of the Corn-laws.might
.produce that sudden and extensive deprivation of em-
ployment in the rural districts, which would send
their labourers 'to compete with the already de+.
pressed labour- of the towns. This effect, -if pro-
duced, would be the consequence of a panic amongst
the farmers, which, however excessive, we. should
think it highly impolitic to. create. We are not,
therefore, for the sudden and total repeal of the Corn=
laws. We. are convinced that no augmentation of
our imports • which could possilly take place would
make up the deficieney which would be caused by
any considerable reduction of our home-growth.. The
fears of our farmers greatly magnify the available
sources of importation. We should be more in dan-
ger of dearth than excess from any.sudden and sweep-.
ing measure. • • • -
STANDARD.—Lord Campbell introduced into
the Houseef Lords last night three Bills relating to.
Law Morin: These .Bills may be very good Bills
(we think that some of their provisions are impracti,
cable), but they will fall very far short of satisfying
the public expectation of a reform in __the _administra-
tion .of .the law. Lord Campbell's measures merely..
contemplate some changes in the exercise of the appel-
late jurisdictions of the 'Privy Council and the House
of Lords; matters abbut which 999 out of every 1,000.
of the people 'do not care, and have no reason,
to care, one farthing. But thus it is always—" the
fly on one's nose eclipses the distant mountain ;"
and, Noble Lords and eminent lawyers think nothing so
important as what concerns themselves, or what comes
under their. immediate cognizance. Accordingly,
Session after. ,Session we have Bills for the reform of
the appellate jurisdiction and' the higher Courts of
Equity, while the monstrous abuses of the inferior
departments in the law are left untouched. Prom
Lord Lyndhurst and Lord Brougham, however, we
expect something better ; they• are both, in the ho-
nourable sense 'of the phrase, men of the world ;"
they have seol and are capable of judging, of mat•
'tern beyond' the limits of the, particular. courts in
which they have practised or presided. The law,
or rather the .unreformed administration of the
law, is, however, a tyrant, and the only tyrant, in
this country ; it fulfils all the conditions of ty-
ranny—no man's liberty, or property, or fame, is
safe from it ; .and it goes beyond the evils of
other tyranny- in this, that its cruelties and op-
pressions are not the suggestions of individual caprice,
which must be to a great extent limited in its activity,
but the suggestions of the capriee, the cupidity, or
the malice of thousands. This is the enemy with
which a law reform must grapple, and it is an enemy
not unworthy of the arms of Sir Robert Peel,
Lord Lyndhurst, and Lord Brougham. The people
may not clamour for law reform as for .other re-.
forms ; but this is because the habitual clamourers are
of a class already ruined, and who have nothing-to
fear from tyranny, whatever they may hope from dis,
order ; while the classes above them are ashamed to
confess their hostility to the administration of the
law, lest they be suspected of having suffered from
it in a country where " poverty is infamous,". It is
this dread of confessing poverty which guards the mon-
strous extortion to which persons in humble rank, and
in circumstances in the last degree embarrassed,
are exposed in England more than in any other
country in the world. The feeling is not a
dishonourable one, and it has proved eminently
useful as a stimulant to frugality and in-
dustry ; but it exists here in a far higher
degree than elsewhere, and therefore it is the duty
of the British legislature to protect from extortion
and oppression those who are*ashamed to' complain,
and without complaining cannot protect themselves.
Such protection, however, cannot be afforded without
a severe revision of the details of the administration' of
the law, and an unsparing removal of all the instru-
ments of rapacity that time and the arts of greedy
and dishonest men have :accumulated ; without, 'in
short, a thorough reform of the administration of
the law through all its departments, and all its suber-
dinations. This we expect froni Sir Robert,, Peel's
Government; and we expect it with more anxiety
from the conviction that, if Sir Robert Pea decline
the enterprise, no other statesman will .ever. embrace
it, and the country must wait for the worst of all pos-
sible remedies. What that is it is neither necessary
nor pleasant to say.