The Sun.
London, England, 1827-06-14 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

We have now to announce to the British
nation the overthrow of its favourite measure,
the Corn Bill !—that act of discreet and well-
weighed humanity to the people of this realm,
which received the sighing adieu and last appro-
bation of the expiring mind of Lord Liverpool !
We have to announce its overthrow, too, by a
trick—by chicane—by an affected amendment,
which was calculated to turn its sweets into bit-
terness, its honey into gall. Does any one ask
us whether we grieve that the Bill has been
withdraw, as the public wiL perceive that it was
withdrawn last night, by its benevolent authors,
rather than that it should have been carried,
with a clause curdling its very blood ? We
answer (and we are sure that we answer in the
name of the British nation), No. It was an
act of humanity, congenial with the spirit that
first engendered that Bill, to stop its farther pro-
gress, when it was seen that it must prove a
curse to the nation instead of a blessing. By
the original Bill, foreign corn was admitted upon
paying duty, when the home price was 625. per
quarter. By the amendment, the same corn ac-
tually warehoused in this country, was not suf-
fered to be sent forth (its exit was prohibited)
till the price mounted !;p to 665. Is it credible,
that, under every circ !instance of low wages, and
of a contracted currensy from the gradual disap-
pearance of small notes, it should have been pro-
posed that the labouring classes of this country
should not be permitted to eat the grain that
was actually among the-n, at a less price than
665. per quarter ? If a inoiple be suffering from
scarcity, there being so corn among them,
they must so suffer ti,", corn can be imported ;
but to allow a population to feel the utmost
agony of want (of which-we have had but
too many instances), and to guard, almost within
the reach of their teeth, by bolts and bayonets,
a hoard of corn which they may not touch
or taste but at a price which they cannot pay,
would exceed in tantalizing cruelty any thing re-
corded. Why, the pagan nations of antiquity,
Rome, and even Carthage with all its barbarity,
and the despotic and savage Governments of
modern times, Algiers and Morocco, have them-
selves providentially established deposits of grain
in their capitals, in order that in seasons of
scarcity corn might be let out from thence, and
sold to their suffering subjects at a price propor-
tioned to their circumstances. But it would
have been the effect of the Bill in its deformed
state, to render even the stores laid up among us
by private and commercial speculation impreg-
nable to the wants of the people. We should
have had granaries than could not be opened for
the emission of their contents, but at a price
which, during a season of slack employment and
low wages, the toiling man who must still eat
bread could not pay,—granaries appertaining to
private individuals, but converted by the unhappy
arts of legislation into the graves of their sacred
contents. Not only, therefore, is the people of
this country, but even loalanity itself, obliged to
the Ministers, for shrinking from all contact
with a Bill which had assumed so revolting a
nature. And now let the people of England
consider who are their friends. It was tha im-
mediate elrect of the rejection of the Bill—for
so it must be called—proposed by hisMajesty-'s
Ministers, to raise corn five shillings a quarter
upon the Corn Exchange in the course of
yesterday ! Was it an act of benevolence or
humanity that produced such a result ? Is
there any writer on political economy who has
said that it is advantageous to a State that
bread should be dear ? Oh, but the landed
interest must be upheld--must be main-
tained in affluence. What is the landed interest ?
Will the labourer on the land, whose class is the
most numerous, find his wages increased at the end
of this week, hi the proportion just stated ? And if
corn goes on increasing in price, which is not un-
lil,ely ;rem the retention of that Bill which was so
humane in its provisions and so agreeable to all par.
ties, will the money-earningi .of the poor peasant
mount up simultaneously ? Will they even follow
the enhanced prices, except et a great distance.—
For our own parts, we are no friends of the present
Ministers, except in so fat as we believe and see
them to be the friends of humanity in general, and
of z)e people of this nation in particular. They_ are
called a Coalition Ministry, and so they are ;—a: co-
alition between the expert and practised men of of-
fice, and those who have recently approved of their
policy. And what is the Opposition ? A coalition
likewise ;—a coalition between the refuse of office
and the contemned aspirants to it. And by such
an Opposition, with the casual access of some re-
spe.ctable individuals, indiscreetly pledged on this
single question, have the moot benevolent provisions
of the Corn Bill been defeated, In future, there-
fore, the country must look to the tried humanity of
the Executive, should any relaxation of the present pro;!
hibitory system be found necessary. But the nation is
fully aware, that it has no occasion either to tax its
own repi,,ertatives or his Majesty's Ministers with
:the want of due consideration of its circumstances:
It ;Day, perhaps, be worth the while to recall to the
recollection of our readers, that the argument ins
sisted on Iv Lords Goderich and Holland against
the infecting clause, was one which had occurred tO
us previously, viz, that the clause ingrafted " a nes*
principle on the Bill, directly subversive of that on
which the Bill itself was founded, by the revival of
the prohibitory system, which it was avowedly the
object of the Bill to abr,lish."—Times.
The snore we c osider the Correspondence
published by Dr. -lhillpotts, the more it ap-
pears to U 3 to be a brain-blow to the cause of
which that learned and active divine has put
hirnself forward as the advocate. In point of
law, Lord Ken)on cru,hed to pieces the weak
scruples which had or; ,ioated in a total mis•s
conception of the K ig's Coronation Oath•
i;
while, on the constitutional policy of the ques-
tion, Mr. Pitt, wits st;11 greater force, quelled
by anticipation, in these :tble letters, the factiouS
hypocrites of the present nay, who presume to
mix with their public homage to his name the
bitterest abuse and slander of his principles.---t-
-" To overthrow any part of the Church Estabr
lishment," says Lord Kenyon, " would, as it
seems, militate against the Coronation Oath,
settled in the Statute of 1 William and Mary and
the Act of Union, and contravene an essential
anc; fundamental part of the Act of Union."--4-
Now, in a preceding paragraph, the Chief Justice
says, Ist, that the Coronation Oath enacted in 1
William and Mary requires the King to main-
tain the Protestani reformed religion, established
by law ; and, 2d, 'explains the " religion estab-
lished by law," to in can " the doctrine, worship,
discipline, and government ofthe Church." The
Learned Lord subjoins, that " So long as ttip
King's supremacy ane. the main fabric of the Act
of Uniformity, the doe :rine, discipline,and govern-
ment of the Church oi'England, are preserved As
the national church, ard the provision for its Mi-
nisters kept as an appropriate fund, it seems th4t
any case given to Sectarists would not militatte
against the Coronation Oath, or the Act (#'
Union." What attack, then, is conveyed or int
plied i.' the restoration of their civil rights tP
Catholics, against the above defined system of
," religion e.,tablished by law?" If, evert en-
largement of civil privileges in favour of Catho-