The Sun.
London, England, 1842-07-19 00:00:00

LONDON:
TUESDAY MORNING, JULY 19, 1842.

The distress of the country was brought uneer the
notice of both Houses last night by petition-, Ind we
gather from the answer which Lord WHARNCLIFFE gave
to the Earl of RADNOR, that the Knisters rely on giving
relief by the tariff reviving trade. They have un-
doubtedly much better means of judging than we have ;
they are probably warranted in hoping somewhat from
the extended business of the Custom-house during the
last week ; they are countenanced in such hopes by the
great praise bestowed on the tariff in its progress by
their opponents ; and though we still retain our opinion
that it will do little or nothing to relieve the serious
distress of the people, we must suppose that the
Ministers, with their better knowledge, have a strong
and an abiding conviction that it will have this effect,
or, doing nothing else, they must be the most fool-
hardy lunatics that ever stood at the head
of a nation's affairs. Though differing from
them we give them credit for such a belief, and we
infer from it that, so bel:eving, they will rely on the
laws they have already passed, and will do nothing mere
whatever to comply with the wishes and the prayers of
the Anti-Corn-law party. The deputations, the meet-
ings, the memorials, the prayers, the supplications, the
threats, the pictures of deep distress, the riots in the
Potteries, seem all lost on the Ministers ; they 'are
satisfied with their own decision. they have confidence
in their own wisdom, and by what they have done they
mean hopefully to abide.
Believing that the several descriptions we have from
time to time published of the great, growing, and urgent
distress in Leeds, Stockport, Bolton, Paisley, Man-
chester, Bury, &c. kc., are not exaggerated, dread-
ing that it will increase, and dreading that
the most serious consequences, even much violence, may
be the result, we look on this resolution of the Mini-
sters as of fatal augury to the pubic welfare. There
seems now nothing left for the suffering people, but the
workhouse or the grave, though despair will no doubt,

-,
( in some cases, prompt to wild and dangerous measures.
The Ministers, however, it is plain, do not fear a revolt.
They have barracks everywhere. They hold in their
hand a powerful military force, which they let slip in
companies or regiments as the case requires. They
transport them by rail or steam, so as to multiply their
means, and they ride triumphant and powerful over the
disorganised masses, whether scattered in hamlets or
collected in towns, whom the law dooms to poverty, des-
titution, and death.

Their military power is supported, too, by nearly
15,000 yeomanry, and a larger army of police collected
in the towns and scattered through the country, which is
entirely at their command. Moreover, the bulk of the
middle classes everywhere, whether embodied into
yeomanry or commanding the police, or merely connected
with the various contrivances and establishments for
preserving political obedience, or interested in preserving
it, make common cause with the aristocracy, and assure

it, in any contest with the lower-classes, a ruinous
triumph. There may be violence, there may be out-
breaks, there may be incendiarism, property may be
destroyed to a great extent, there may be wide-spread
misery and death, but the Government of the aris-
tocracy, supported by the! middle classes, and having
also at its command the vast military, and organised
means we have described, is not alarmed, however much
it might deprecate the temporary evils, for the ultimate
consequences of any attempt at revolution. It believes
that it is completely master of its own course and master
of the people.

Having no faith in the utility of such an organised
means of oppression on the one hand, and of the slavery
which it inflicts on the other—far from believing, and
even strenuously denying . that political order is social
happiness, we deeply regret this present mastery of the
unrighteous monopolists. But the middle classes,
some of whom now begin to suffer from it, are
themselves to blame. Who are the worshippers,
the toadies of the aristocracy, who imitate all
their manners, even to their vices—who have no
other idea of human grandeur, or of the nobility of
man, than a titled wealthy aristocrat ? The middle
classes. Who in the people's House, and out of the
House, are the great champions of the aristocracy and
all their acts ? Who set up a shout of faction and
rebellion, whenever it is proposed to draw off the vital
strength of the aristocratic Government by_stopping the
supplies ? The Liberals of the middle classes.
Who honour and administer the laws, barbarous and
brutal though they be? The middle classes. Who con-
stitute our most diligent, most learned, most zealous bar- ,