The Sun.
London, England, 1845-11-05 00:00:00

ti 111 T 1 ' ii "'-,z- IUL

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 1845.

13it itosittyr PEEL has attained to that age at which the
axperieace both of private and of official life is usually sup-
rolled to lesiva the feelings of even the most buoyant-minded
among us sobered down td a tone of earnest seriousness. It
# ndb at sixty that men who have been accustomed—together
with the ogres of power—to the gravity of deportment which
titeir burden insensibly generates, put off " the old man," and
'babe in the fountains of renovated youthfulness, till the old

Absolutes come out young Rapids—with the wrinkles of
11ree seore and ten exchanged for the smiles and vivacity of
1 e-and-twenty. There is nogetting over the historical fact
fhat Sir ROBERT PEEL has enjoyed a Whittington-like
.cektifieuity of high place. Twice, Principal Secretary of State,
once Chancellor of the Exchequer, and now First i
Load of the Treasury, he must enter fully into all
the reasons which prescribe that decorum of
Ministerial demeanour, for which in general we have
given him full credit. Giving him that credit, we have
been content to overlook the half-dozen of bad jokes which
le is seduced into perpetrating at that period of every
session when the business is beginning to run off
vapidly. The important point is that . this levity
'Meld not be imported into the method of dealing
whirl business the most vital, the most exigent
fAsh can occupy the attention of a statesman. The
&pates:dation of the people—the obviating, as far as
lamas foresight may hope to do so, the terrible
visitation of a winter famine -- these duties, we
too. it, come within this category of all-important business.
Pow, the actual presence of that wasting malady which has
so largely infected one of the principal sources of human sub-
sistence in these countries—the potato crop ; end. the appre-
kanAd results of that scarcity during the winter, which the
diminution of employment, the declining demand natural to
ffle season for industrial labour; and the enhanced price of
corn consequent on a very deficient grain harvest, and the
increased mamas that the potato murrain will leave to be
supported on other nutriment—on cereal products of some
bbd.—do present an aspect of affairs well calculated to
awaken the most lively solicitude in every reflecting mind,
even among private individuals. How much more calcu-
lif ed, theto, to impress on all who are charged with the admi-
eistratire powers of the Government the vastness of their
ponsibi I ty.
All over Great Britain, in every county of Ireland, the in-
action of the same disastrous scourge is felt; the machinery
needed for mitigating its severity, and remedying its conse-
peaces, is everywhere attracting the attention and occupy-
ing the energies of thinking men. Landlord and tenant—
Men of all particle and pursuits—without distinction—are
siting their best consideration to this common object. Its
erkpression hue found no more remarkable or impressive ex-
ponent, that we are aware of, than the " Memorial of the
I)frectore of the Chamber of Commerce and Manufactures at
Manchester)" addressed to Sir ROBERT PEEL. These memo-
rialists set fbrth the fact that the prosperity of the cotton
bade is identified with, or conditional upon the price
of food ; and that a scarcity of provisions has " invariably
Dean attended with a diminished demand for labour and a
reductlan of the earnings of the working classes." After
everting, in emphatic terms, to the fearful pressure already
morienced, stnd the still more alarming results likely to be
eneritintered in another month, from the causes we have el-