The Sun.
London, England, 1845-12-20 00:00:00

MINISTERIAL MOVEMENTS.

(From a Correspondent of a Morning Contemporary

- of yesterday.)
Viscount Palmerston received visits from the Earl of
Clarendon and a few friends after the meeting yesterday
at Lord John Runt:ll's.
The Earl of Shelburne and Viscout Leveson have ar-
rived in town.
The Earl of Minty was expected to have arrived from
Mint°. House, HawickANorth Britain, last evening, and
Mr. C. Wood, M.P., was to have arrived by the mail
train this morning. - .
. . The Earl of .Bosborough is 1K.p..-17 414)ected, also the
Marquis of Clanricarde the filin' from Besburimgh
Howe,. .and the latter •from Portumna Castle, county
Galway, Ireland. - •
_

We are informed that on the explanation, which, as a
matter of course, will take place on the assembling of
Parliament, the 'following; division for and against Sir
R. Peel, will prove.in every particular correct.
There were for Sir Robert Peel, in support of his
views, including the Right Hon. Baronet himself—
The Earl of Aberdeen.
The Right Hon. Sidney Herbert.
The Earl of Lincoln, and
Sir James Graham.
In opposition to those views—
The Duke of Wellington.
Lord Stanley.
The Duke of Buccleuch.
Lord Wharncliffe.
The'Earl of Ripon.
The Etrl of Haddington.
The Lord Chancellor (Lord Lyndhurst).
The Chancellor of the Exchequer (the Right Hon.
Henry Geulburn).
Lord Granville Somerset.

As regards Lord Lyndhurst, we can state, on un-
doubted authority, that the Noble and Learned Lord
contemplated, previous to the meeting of Parliament, to
relinquish the high functions of Lord Chancellor, owing
to the uncertainty of his health.
The Duke of Bedford, it is stated, will be offered the
office of Master of the Horse.

.The Duke of Devonshire will give the future Whig
Government his support, but will decline any office.
The Noble Duke was Lord Chamberlain in the late
Earl Grey's Administration.

THE ANTI-CORN-LAW LEAGUE.
(From the Times.)
The expression of opinion in public meetings cannot
always be appealed to as a certain • index of the influence
which it exercises, or the numbers by whom it is main-
tained. In every free country the demonstration of political
feeling exceeds rather than falls shortof the enthusiasm or the
zeal of these who make it... Where it is a popular privilege
to lasemble in numbers, to speak and to resolve, there will
be many gatherings, many speeches, many resolutions. The
frequency of publie assemblies will become a habit, their
rules and regulations an instinctive knowledge in a people;
public duty will attract many to them, private amusement
will allure others. Some will be rigidly exclusive and fana-
tically fastidious as to the character and object of those which
they attend ; others as indiscriminately lax. One class of
persons will go only to exercise the duty of citizens; another
to study the humours of mankind, or the excellences of
public speakers ; such will with equal indifference cheer a
loyal or a democratic sentiment, hurrah with equal intensity
of lungs " The Queen," or "People' the only source of legi-
timate power." This is a natural consequence, from the
frequency, and forms a natural deduction from the influence
of public meetings. In process of time they begin to
be considered as a species of popular diversion, cheaper than
the opera, more personal than the drama. And when they
are held throughout a long continuance of time for the fur-
therance of some one measure and the promulgation of some
one theory, their continuity generally tires and their same-
ness palls. The effect is equally injurious both to speakers
and listeners. The same sentiments perpetually uttered by
the same persons on the same matter spoil their style, and
impair the vigour which ought to belong to every oratorical
effort. Nor can it be concealed that this iteration is not un-
frequently destructive to the impression which every
speaker ought to make upon his hearers,—that of since-
rity-. A man who speaks week after week on the same
subject is easily betrayed into inflated exaggerations of
style or narrative, which materially detract from the
effect which it is his wish to produce on the hearts or intel-
lects of those about him. With some of these shortcomings
or overshootings the Anti-Corn-law League may be fairly
oltirfaeLlt
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inflictedm ind
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ot
chargeable. It had its birth at a time when circumstances
e evils
impressed with a conviction of the ex-
auinnt country eboybj ethet
corn-laws, its members always spoke of them aspresent ; they
realised to their own minds a contingent calamity, and de-
claimed about it as fulfilled. Hence they were accused of
vilifying the good without a pretext, and of magnifying evils
without a cause. It is not our province to defend the
League, its members, or its proceedings. We confess that
they are amenable to some charges of misconduct, and to
some of mismanagement. If they have sinned, they
have been abused enough. But their present posi-
tion is ene which proves that their course has not been
widely wrong, nor their cause imaginary. A small
club of manufacturers—plain, practical people, whom
the operation of obnoxious laws had associated to-
gether to promote their abolition—men whom their own bu-
siness had familiarised with the daily working of the system
of which they complained, and its bearings on the condition
of the numerous class that, spin and weave—men without the
influence of ancestral name or territorial possession, but ani-
mated by one common feeling, and inspired with one com-
mon zeal—a club of this kind has grown up against opposi-
tion, against contempt, against abuse, into a powerfel and
ambitious association. Where it was weak it is now strong;
where it begged it now dictates; where it whispered it now
speaks out boldly and threateningly. Mach of its success
may be due to the energy and determination—those greet
heirlooms of the Saxon race—which have breathed the spirit
of heroism into the labours of commerce and the strug-
gles of itrade. Much may be due to untiring perse-
verance, to unfailing courage, to the calculating shrewd-
ness of the north. But what were shrewdness cou-
rage, or perseverance, without a cause worthy of their
exercise—without a cause for which the hearts of thousands
beat high with enthusiasm ? It is not the League that is
powerful of itself, or
through its own exertions alone. The
League is a creature of circumstances. It is by the exi-
gencies of a crisis, by the yearnings of a people, by the de-
mands of commerce, by the hopes of nations, by the die-
traction of Cabinets, that it has waxed strong. Men may
declaim on fancied grievances, and their declamations will
only amuse ; but when the grievance becomes real, the
coarsest speaker and the roughest limner find a road to the
heart of the most insensible and the head of the most stupid.
Let a Demosthenes harangue in time of plenty on the pro-
spect of starvation, and men will smile at the superfluous
rhetoric. But let the danger approach—let men be placed
within the proximity, not of starvation, but of scarcity—let
them be brought to ;ask one another this question, " Why
should we want bread ?" and then the homeliest speaker
in the roughest dialect may strike a chord which will
thrill through the hearts of millions. It is to
this fear—it is to the question which this fear arouses,
no less than the other questions to which it gives
birth, half-buried as yet in the unconscious mind of toil, but
soon to be developed into potent speech—it is to these that
the League owes its power. Were it not for these, Covent-
garden would not be thronged; the West Riding of York-
shire would not send forth its mechanic population as it did
to swell the recent gathering at Wakefield ; Bright would not
be listened to; Cobden would not be followed. They are the
indications, not the origin, of a general sentiment—the re-
sults, not the causes of a popular combination. Time and
events have now realised what was once deemed a remote
contingency. Men begin to see that bread may be scarce—
more scarce—very scarce. They ask themselves also, "Is
there no means of prsviding against this ?" and the flippant
reply, " Providence wills it," satisfies not those who see that
human laws have something to do with it. Men see
that when bread is dear labour is suspended ; the fac-
tories stop work ; the unbusy streets swarm with squalid
artisans, wageless and labourless. Therefore men ask,
" Why is this ?" and when told, " The corn-law
makes it, so," they cry aloud, " Away with it," and
be selfish, commercial, vulgar; but it has a strong
cheer hear' t and soul the glowing oratory of the League. All
this may
touch of human nature iu it, and of those elements in our
nature to which this country is indebted for wealth and
power. On Anglo-Saxon industry is laid a heavy burden ;
its theirs and sinews are taxed by anticipation for genera-
tions vet to come; the labour of its arms is mortgaged; it
therefore demands freer play of limb, greater expansion of its
power, to enable it to do its work with health and energy.
It has done much already, despite many obstacles; but it
feels its time is come to de more, or to give in for ever. It
has triumphed over foreign rivalry and Continental tariffs; its
handiwork has penetrated through the ineffectual barriers of
jealous laws into the heart of distant empires; and now it
finds that its worst foe is nurtured on its own soil, the
strongest resistance is arrayed against it by the country
which it has enriched. Therefore does it ally itself with
the League, and therefore is it that the League will be
triumphant.

GREAT FOOT-RACE FOR 1001.--On Tuesday the
much talked-of match between Westhall, of London, and
Leyland, of Bury, came off. The Loughborough-road, Lei-
cester, was selscted; the distance was 180 yards, and the
stakes 501. a side. Westhall was very numerously attended
by his London friends, and at the time of the race the spec-
tators amounted to upwards of two thnusand. The men,
having bounded away with the celerity of locomotives, West-
hall quickly showed in front, and his opponent made a stre-
nuous effort to come up, but without success, and Westhall
ran in triumphantly seven yards ahead. The Leicester
fancy (who backed Leyland very heavily) appeared much
mortified Atlas raults