The Sun.
London, England, 1842-09-17 00:00:00

,§nn.

LONDON:
SATURDAY MORNING SEPTEMBER 17, 1842.

Trade is a little improving in the manufactur-
ing- districts; and where employment is to be
had the Turn-outs are gradually but sulkily re-
turning to their work. Accounts received last
night from Lancashire, state that the cotton-
loom weavers in Blackburn and its vicinity, and
the hatters of Oldham, were in full employ-
ment. We regret, however to learn thiA
at Ashton-under-Lyne, Staleyblidge, Hyde,
and Stockport, work is very slack, arid
there is but little abatement of the had
feeling on the part of the operatives against
their masters. Our hope at present is, that the
late news from the United States will revive our
sinking trade before the winter sets in, other-
wise the prospect before us would he indeed
dreadful. While the weather is fine, and the
people can subsist in the open air, upon the
smallest allowance of food, we may expect to
hear comparatively little of their sufferings. But
the case will be widely different when frost and
snow covers the ground, and when danger of
starvation by cold is added to the horrors of
hunger. In the mean time, the Government
appears to take the whole affair very coolly. It
does not seem as if Sir ROBERT PEEL thinks of
providing any remedy for an evil, which is
hourly growing more gigantic and more terri!)le.
As regards the operatives themselves, such of
them as can get work are acting cruelly towards
their families, and very wrong as regards their
masters, in not accepting the wages which the
latter tender to them, and returning to their
employment. By remaining idle, they dis-
hearten and impoverish their employers, and
ruin themselves. Wages must ever be regulated
by the demand for labour, and the profits of in-
dustry—not by combinations to regulate them by
a fixed monetary standard.

Peace with all nations, but especially with the
people of the United States, ought henceforth to
be the prevailing maxim in the political system
of England. There is no nation in the world
which can gain less, and which may peril more,
by war, than Great Britain. Fortunately at this
moment we are in a singularly favourable posi-
tion for giving more stability and vitality to the
pacific principle than during any period since the
close of the great European struggle which
clOsed the meteoric career of NAPOLEON. The war
faction in France is rapidly decreasir:g both in
nurnbers and influence ; Spain is more than
friendly to us, because she knows that the British
alliance is essential to her independence; we are
on as good terms as we are ever likely to be With
Portugal ; Austria and Prussia regard us with
something bordering upon affection; The Porte
fears and respects us ; and Russia knows that she
must lose more than she can gain in a contest
with the only rival whose hostility she really
dreads. Then on the other side of the Atlantic
the mighty swarm from the parent hive is again
heartily reconciled to us—again acknowledges in
England the only parent worthy of so enterpris-
ing a race. Whatever conflicts, therefore, Eng-
' land in Asia may engage in, there can be no
doubt that by proper management England in
Europe may avoid all hostile collisions with her
neighbours, and henceforth devote all her ener-
gies to the extension of her trade, the improve-
ment of her arts and manufactures, and the bet-
ter government of her people. Peace and Trade
Societies ought to be formed in all our large
towns, and everything done to e;evate the public
mind to a full comprehension of the duties of
Government. One of the great sources of popu-
lar error is the regarding Government as a sort
of' abstraction—an intangible something which
, controls everything without being itself con-
trolled by anything. Now, there never was a
greater delusion. Remove the external forms,
the tinsel appearances, and there are few Go-
vernments in the world conducted upon princi-
l.ples so sound, so honest, or even so recondite,
as those which govern the policy of a petty cor-
poration. The wheels within wheels are often
clumsy contrivances; and, what is more, they
".tire frequently put in motion by the most trifling
and even accidental circumstances. The Govern-
' tient of England is quite as much a Government
of clerks as of statesmen; and though this-pro-