The Sun.
London, England, 1842-04-28 00:00:00

powers of Va.iss terban;th becoure objoors of ii4..-qrs,
interest and discussion. We see nothing in Mr.
FLEMING'S case more than in ' that of any other re-
fractory witness ; but we presume that the Hon.
Member is not likely in the end to be dealt with quite
as severely as a person who is not a Member of thi
Honourable House. One lesson is thus forcibly
impressed on the public, namely, the propriety of al-
lowing only those to make the laws who are to obey
them, and be subject to their operation. This obvi-
ously holds good as to taxation, and penal statutes.
as well to Committees of the House of Commons ; and
the land would not be afflicted with its present load of
taxation, nor with an immense mass of absurd and
contradictory laws, had those who made them been
really liable to pay the taxes without the means of re-
lieving themselves, and had they been practically sub
ject to the operation of the laws. But they have
always known how to escape the curses they have
heaped on the people.

In Wales the colliers have, it seems, boldly carried
away a Mr. STALEY, and have threatened to take
away his life if he do not expatriate himself. At
Dudley, the nailers have risen in great numbers to
11 remonstrate with the masters against the recent re-
HduCtion in their wages of twenty per cent. Now,
when the workmen are generally exposed to great
distress and privation, and when they are beginning
to resist, by violence, further reduction of wages, the
tirades in which Mr. FERRAND has indulged in the
House of Commons, which*the Tories cheered to the
skies, when they served the purpose of diverting atten-
tion from the iniquitous Corn-laws, will tell wit]
great force on the minds of the people. They have
Mr. FERUAND'S authority, they have the authority of
the applauding House of Commons, for believing that
their masters and employers are all intent on cheating
and defrauding them ; and they will no doubt act—
they have already acted—on that lesson. Mr. Fax-
RAND'S teaching will now turn to profit, and he anc,
the Tories will no doubt have the satisfaction of seeing
that enmity between master and workmen, which the 3
have evoked, rife in the land.

We remonstrated the very night we heard Mr
FERUAND'S first speech, against the encouragemeni
given to him by the grave Tories of the House o'
Commons, including Sir R. PEFIL. Now, when the
hunger caused by .the Starvation-laws, wher
low wages and slackened employment, the
results of restrictions •on trade, and when the
_ _

inflammatory harangues of privileged speakers, arc
producing their appropriate effects, and nailers an 6
colliers, and other classes, are collecting in multitueiet
t) settle the rate of wages by force, the military an
put into requisition to keep the peace ; we read of
squadrons of dragoons riding about the country wit},
drawn swords and loaded carbines. Sir ROBERJ
PEEL and the landowners. persist in maintaining
laws which keep away food, and • take away
trade froM the people, . and, persisting in that •
policy, they • are compelled to carry it out by
establishing in the crowded districtS of the empire a
complete military rule. Half, or even two-thirds, ( f
the soldiery kept in garrison at home are plainly
required by the mischievous consequences of the
Corn-laws, which Sir R. PEEL would rather main
taro by military violence than preserve peace ane,
order by allowing the people to be prosperous am:
happy.

Whenever sugar is mentioned, our Tory rulers
profess a holy horror at interfering with it, lest they
migtt impede the prosperity and happiness of the
blacks. At present they seem inclined to lay their
own disturbing hands on Canada ; but when the
Whigs proposed to touch the timber duties they could
not think of risking the prosperity of that colony,
But, with marvellous inconsistency, or with im-
measurable hypocrisy, these very men have not
the smallest regard to the suffering mil
lions at home, and witness with the greatest
indifference masses of poverty, distress, and suffering.
caused by their enactments, such as never before ex-
isted. For the blacks and for the Canadians they
have the tenderest sympathies ; for the starving mul-
titudes at .home they have hussars and brandished
sabres. They are accustomed, like the fishwoman
skinning eels, to their trade of keeping order at
home by the sword; but they feel appropriate indig-
nation at other persons using the whip. What wit'
Corn-law makers keeping food from the people, am'
at the same time keeping them quiet by the use o.
soldiery, England—once, it is said, free and happy
England—has fallen below other nations.

According to the accounts from Ireland, that court.
try is neither tranquil nor safe.- Edinburgh w•a:
alarmed, a few days ago, by a large assemblage a
the working people ; while we know that at Greenock.
Paisley, and Glasgow, the-utmost distress prevails. Slid
is the condition of the empire after twenty-seven years
peace, and a much longer uninterrupted continuance
of all kinds of natural advantages. Obviously the
cause of our national distress is not physicial, but moral
It springs from our institutions, and is a terrible re.
proach to our statesmen. It ;is the result of the joint
and combined labours of both Whigs and Tories ;
and neither of them have any better remedy to offer
us than an Bs. duty on corn, or an Income-tax. What
will follow this we cannot tell; but neither Whigs nor
Tories, who are the causes of this great social disease,
will ever cure it.

The assimilation of the criminal law in England and
Ireland is one of those praiseworthy objects to which we
are glad to find the attention of the Irish law officers ol
the Crown particularly directed. Among the Bills re-
cently preparad for this purpose one is now before us.
brought in by the Solicitor-General for Ireland, and Lord
Emcrr, repealing Acts awarding the punishment of dead:
for eighteen offences committed in Ireland, for which

various terms of transportation are awarded. By the
• 12th of Geo. 1., chap. 3, it was a capital felony for
Roman Catholic priests. to celebrate marriages between
Protestants and Catholics. This Act is now repealed.
and transportation for seven years substituted for it:
penal provision. It is still monstrously severe. n-
penalty whatever should attach to the celebration ol
marriage by a State-recognised clergyman of
any religious communion. Why should not a Catholic
F riest be allowed to marry a Protestant and a Catholic.
as well as a priest of the Established Church ?
has the State to do with the ceremonial of marriage,
when there is nothing criminal in the circitinstances 4)1
the parties professing different creeds ? They violate
no law of GOD, or of the Church by marrying ; wh)
then compel them, more than others, to wed according to
the forms of a particular ritual ? The execution 'of a
clergyman under the Act of Geo. I. would have been it:
the eyes of GOD and man a judicial murder ; the banish-
ment of one under the proposed law will be an atrocious
violation of justice and religious liberty. Where there.
is no crime there ought to be no punishment.

Burning and destroying ships was under the 11th of
Geo. 11., c. 5, a capital felony in Ireland. Henceforth
offenders in this respect are to be transported for fifteen
years, or imprisoned for periods not exceeding three.
This amendment of the law is just and humane, and has
our cordial approbation.

By ithe 29th of George IL, chap. 5, serving in the
army or navy of France was in Ireland a capital felony.
This law is now simply repealed, and thus an indirect
compliment is paid to France. We trust so barbarous a
statute-L-peculiirly barbarous. when a penal code pre-
vented Irishmen from fighting in the armies of their own
Sovereign, simply because they were Boman Catholics—
will never again he re-enacted. Indeed it never can in
all its barbarity, while Irishmen, without regard to creed,
tre,eligible to shed their blood in defence of their Sove-
reign and their country.
The other offences for which transportation and various
terms of imprisonment are substituted are—for rape—
embezzlement of the property' of the Bank of Ireland—
hstrUction of the corn trade—riotously assembling to
pull down churches (what a satire upon the Irish Church
Establishment !)—preventing persons giving evidence-
3xciting riots—receiving escaped prisoners—escaping a
'mind time from prison—returning from transportation
—killing or houghing cattle—abduction—and, as a
climax to to the whole, resisting the revenue collectors

For all these offences the laws in force in Ireland adjudge
the punishment Of death, without benefit of clergy, and
the object of the Bill before us is to wipe them from the
Statute-book, as disgraceful to a civilized country in a
:•ivilized age. Legislation, when needlessly and barbar-
ously severe, is tantamount to no legislation at all.
When the punishment is revoltingly disproportioned to
the offence, offenders escape altogether, as no humane

... •
man eau reconcile it to his conscience to,prosecute them.
Who, for example, would be guilty of the barbarity of
bringing to the gallows a father for harbouring a child
who hall a second time escaped front prison ? The Law
Officer of the Crown who could enforce so unnatural a
law, would be himself unfit to live. We therefore en-
drely approve of the principle of this Bill. It is as
humane as it is politic ; for at last we have made the

scovery that a Draconian Code ir, as impolitic as it is

recoiling.

Since the above was written, a Correspondent at Ips.