The Sun.
London, England, 1845-11-20 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.
FROM THE MORNING PAPERS OF THIS DAY.
CHRONICLE.—The Times bas made aging-War appeal to the
Anti-Corn-law League and its chiefs, which certainly would
have been neither an ungenerous nor an unimportant one, if
made a little earlier in the day. The modest proposal tot
Messrs. Cobden and Bright is neither more nor less than that
they should turn Tories—not openly and impudently, as the
Times itself did at a memorable epoch, but only as it plays
Tory now—that is covertly, cautiously, with a sheep's cloth-
ing of Liberalism loosely hung over its shoulders, and with
the pretence of moderation. " Free trade," exclaims that
organ, which abetted the formation of a Ministry and a
Parliament of monopolists, " is gaining ground, but the
League is not." The League, it says, has risen and
grown by Liberal support, but the Liberals have done
for it all that they can do. The moderate Tories are
now anxious to come round to ideas of such truth and
power, which it is no longer possible to resist. The only
thing, the last scruple, which prevents these Tories from
ma-king final sacrifice of their principles and prejudices, is
fear of the League. They have but little objection to give up
the corn-laws; but they dread the League as" a Jacobin
Club," a sectarian clique," and " a combination of Radi-
calism and Destructiveness." But if the League, which is
assumed to be " aware of its past errors," would only mend
them—would first. of all abandon "the sectaries," and con-
form to Mother Church, a thing so requisite for clear-sighted-
Dees in political economy—if the League " would disclaim
all party connexions and obligations," and allow Tories to
pass for free-traders, now that free trade has carried the day,
Just as they passed for Reformers when the Act of 1832 was
accomplished ;—if the League would only do this, it would
deserve well of the country and the Tines, and Messrs. Cobden
and Bright might not only be elected Members of the Con-
servative party, but, like the great Hudson, be received as
guests at Tamwerth. We must say, that notwithstanding
the grave impudence of such overtures, they are the
best of signs. It is evident that the battle is well nigh
won, the contest well nigh over, and that the more
knowing of the Tories are anxious to rat from the monopo-
list camp, if the semblance era flag of truce were held forth
to cover their desertion. Nor are we surprised to find that
the more knowing of the Tories consider the League as a
snore important fact than even the corn-law itself, and that
they would be contented to waive the one, provided they
could win over or even neutralise the other. But the power
of the League is of Tory creation. The Tories sowed the
dragoon's teeth, and were fully warned bf the seed which
they put into the earth, and of the crop to be expected from
it. Their defiance of reason and right gave birth to the great
principle of popular associations, whose power of achieving
rightful and rational purposes has been too fully tested to be
ever abandoned. One might as well hope to abolish steam
pressure at the present day as political associations. We
may henceforward set it down as a law of free countries, that
a great and universally felt grievance will infallibly give
rids to an association of the many, who feel it, to rid them-
selves of it by common effort. The most powerful argu-
ments, put forth in the ablest way, and circulated with
the greatest universality and speed, can be best furnished
by united funds and intellects; and the most efficient means
for influencing public feeling and legislative and administra-
tive opinions can be put in action in this way. Such ga-
therings of men cannot take place without raising master
spirits to take the lead ; and thus' classes, if wronged or op-
pressed, or strongly and universally moved by ideas of ame-
linration, will find tribunes to represent them. It is there-
fele a groundless fear and calumny that brands the Anti-
o n-law League as Jacobin or Destructive, especially when
it is well-known how little the great class behind it is one or
the other. It is puerile to call it sectarian. 'What matters
religious opinion in the case of corn? Religious opinions
have leagues of their own. The dread of the League—put
forth by its enemies, even whilst they recommend a cession
of the great principle to carry which the League was formed
—merely implies a consciousness that there remain gross
abuses which are calculated to excite associations to get rid
of them, but which the Ultras are still determined to defend.
However, the wheedling proffers made to the chiefs of the
League being accompanied with no trifling abuse of them,
shows how little the writer trusts in the effect of his elo-
quence. But neither Sir Robert Peel nor the Times, how-
ever they may turn free-traders, and abandon monopoly in
the eleventh hour, can persuade men with memories for the
events of even a few years back, that the Tories are friends to
the fair influence and development of the middle classes,
whom they have striven so long to shear and to oppress, no
more than they can persuade men of plain sense that they
are friends of tolerance, because they at last reluctantly ac-
quiesced, when the fetters of religion in both countries were
struck off in despite of their long and stubborn resistance.
TIMES.—It is a curious and, unforeseen consequence of the
institutions of the United States and of the state of parties
in that country, that the destinies of the republic and its
pacific relations with the rest of the world are placed within
the almost absolute control of a man of whose character and
abilities as a statesman scarcely anything can with certainty
be known. The rival candidates for the highest office in the
state at the last election were driven from the field or de-
feated by having acquired too much celebrity and given too
many pledges. Mr. Polk was brought forward, in the most
imposing obscurity, as the nominee of the predominant party
in the Union; and the result of the election revealed the
astonishing fact that the country was delivered over for the
next four years to a man who had acquired his power not by
individual merit or exertions, but as the mere symbol of an ir -
responsible faction. For purposes of mischief, and for what-
ever may flatter the whims or passions of the people, such
a man enjoys the greatest imaginable degree of political
power. If Mr. Polk be disposed to plunge the United States
into war, such a measure would not be more difficult to him,
in the present state of feeling in that country, than it would
he to the Autocrat of all the Russias. Whatever betide, the
President of the United States is certain of holding office for
three years and a half from the present time; and, notwith-
standing the extreme reserve which has marked the first six
months of his official career, we are much mistaken if he do
not prove himself in the end a worthy successor of those de-
mocratic statesmen, and especially of General Jackson, whose
intemperate character and unscrupulous policy have already
so profoundly infected andmodified the spirit of the American
people. In a word, the personal disposition of Mr. Polk
is at this juncture of such importance that the question
of peace or war may be decided by it ; and, we are
constrained to add, that all we know of that per-
sonal disposition, and all we learn from America,
tend to strengthen our suspicions rather than our confidence.
It remains to be seen how far the people of the United States
and the present Cabinet of Washington are advanced on this
fatal track. We do not believe that they are so wicked and
absurd as to desire a war, but we suspect that they are not
strenuously and sincerely labouring to avert it ; and we have
no doubt that upon the opening of the next session of Con-
gress one party at least will do all that it can to embroil the
present very delicate foreign relations of the Union. With
regard to the Oregon territory, the Americans teem now to
be convinced that we are not to be bullied out of that part of
her Majesty's dominions ; and they fall back on the
expedient of gaining time in order to promote that
species of emigration which ends like the occupation of
the nests of other birds by the cuckoo. But, as we
have repeatedly observed, the present position of the
question renders this indefinite postponement impossible.
The two states cannot allow their relations to be kept in jeo-
pardy by the uncertainty of tenure, and the probability of a
collision on the banks of the Columbia. The treaty of 1790
recognised the principle of a joint right, and of joint occu-
pancy. The English Government and an English company
availed themselves of that right, and resorted to the coast for
the purposes of the fur trade. The Spaniards allowed their
co-existing right to remain dormant, and until the current of
emigration from the United States began to penetrate of
late years to the falls of the Willamet, the existence of this
boundary question was only known to the diplomatists who
had been engaged from time to time in discussing the provi-
sional arrangement. At the present time England adheres
to the principle of the treaty of 1790, that neither party has
an exclusive claim to the country; but she declares her re-
solution to resist any exclusive claim hostile to her own
concurrent rights, and she urges the American Go-
vernment to commute those concurrent and now
conflicting claims to the whole country into an
undisputed title to a moiety of the territory. Virtually the
American Government has recognised the existence of this
concurrent right by offering to divide the district by the 49
degrees parallel of latitude. That proposal reduced the ques-
tion from one of right to one of expediency and amount.
Yet, although there are so many just causes of mistrust in
the present aspect of this transaction, a statesman of large
mind and patriotic views might discern in the prevent condi-
tion of England and of the United States powerful means of
cementing the good understanding and the pacific interests of
the two countries. On both sides there are most important
commercial changes or concessions to be made. If
Mr. Polk be anxious to conciliate the states of the west,
their interests would be infinitely more promoted by open-
ing a channel for time exportation of their great article
of agricultural produce—lndian corn—to Great Bri-
tain, than by the annexation of countless acres on the shores
of the Pacific ; and if the commercial policy of England is
steadily to advance in the direction which has of late years
been given to it, the reduction of the American tariff will in-
fallibly lead to the modification of our restrictive duties on
American produce. On the one hand England has to offer to
the United States all the advantages of a commerce propor-
tioned to the rapid growth of two great and cognate nations,
and extending itself under the beneficent influence of peace
and freedom ; on the other hand, if the most distant and un-
peopled tract of the British empire be assailed by force or
fraud—if a just right be invaded—if a British subject be
wronged, England has an arm to resist and to redress the
injury, and she has the firm, unanimous resolution, of her
statesmen and people to hold her own.

MEETING OF LAW WRITERS.—The law stationers
and writers, without whom little or nothing can be done in
the preliminary Parliamentary affairs, fearing a vital injury
is likely to accrue from the introduction, by some respectable
friends, of printed and lithographic documents, as a substi-
tute for those which have ever been considered as necessary
to be the performance of the penman, called a meeting,
which was last evening numerously and respectably attended,
at the Ship Tavern, Chichester-rents, Lincoln's Inn. Mr.
Gardner, law stationer, of Took's-court, Chancery-lane, was
unanimously called to the chair; and various resolutions
were proposed and unanimously agreed to, the purport of
which was, that a memorial be presented to the Lord Chan-
cellor, praying him to remedy the growing evil, by causing
'solicitors' bills on taxation to be allowed for printed and li-
thographic documents only as such, and not as if written.
That all parties should withhold their assistance in the
drawing of the notices from the printed or lithographic
books of reference, and that the secretary of the Law Sta-
tioners' Society should be requested to attend the next
meeting. Messrs. Harston, M'Cartney, Charles, Edwards,
Hayes, and other law stationers and writers, having ad-
dressed the meeting, a business and finance committee W 29
~Appointed, and the company separated, with a firm dete.rmi-
nation to unite and persevere for the attainment of their
"mutual rights and privileges.
EXTRAORDINARY SUICIDE IN THE MERSEY.—As
the steamer Nun was proceeding from the George's pierhead
to Woodside, about seven o'clock on Saturday night, one of
'the passengers, who was standing near a group of gentlemen
'near the helm, suddenly sprang to the side of the vessel,
vaulted over the bulwarks, and was instantly carried down
with the tide. The act is described by the gentlemen to have
been the work of an instant, and wilfully committed. The
captain,
who was upon the paddle-box at the time, had the
engines immediately stopped, and ordered the punt to be
put out. The order was quickly obeyed, and the punt was
rowed about for a considerable length of time to see if the
unfortunate man could be found in any direction; but there
was not the slightest appearance of him from the moment
that he had plunged into the water. It is supposed that he
sank even before the engines were stopped. The body has
not since been found, nor is it likely to be until it floats, as
the melancholy occurrence took place about 500 yards out-
side the floating stage, and in a very deep part of the river.
Many reports have been circulated as to who the deceased
is, and as to what was the cause of his committing the rash
act; but we have been unable to trace them to any accurate
source. Some said he was a collector of taxes, who had been
deficient in his accounts; others that he was a railway share-
holder who had lost considerably by recent speculations; but,
upon inquiring in the proper quarter last night, we learned
that his name and address were as yet unknown. The gen-
tlemen in the boat say, that he never spoke a word during
the time he was on board, and that he did not appear to be
in the slightest degree intoxicated. He wore a dark frock coat,
and light-coloured trousers. In jumping over the side of the
mai ke knocked off the hat of a passenger.