The Sun.
London, England, 1845-11-26 00:00:00

the surplus corn of foreign countries, for our mer-
chants can afford to pay, while others cannot. Why
then should we derange that which is going on
steadily, as business ought to go on ? If there be an
insufficient supply, the price thereby produced will
open the ports. The sliding-scale will open the ports,
and by that time (though not before) something will
have been provided by our merchants worth opening
the ports for. To open them now, would serve no put-
pose but that of gratifying the factious views of the Anti-
Corn-law League. It is said that we knowingly post-
pone cur demand for foreign wheat till the time when
the supply will be must costly. Another absurdity_
another falsehood. We do not postpone our demand.
Our demand is now steadily proceeding, and we are ac-
quiring foreign corn at less cost, because we are acquir-
ing it while a considerable barrier exists between the
foreign produce and the British consumer. The propa-
gators of lies on the subject of the supply of foreign
corn leave entirely out of account the operations of our
merchants in anticipation of the future demand. They
assume what they must be ignorant, indeed, if they do
not know to be false, that until our ports are open, no
purchase, or no important purchase, of foreign grain
takes place. It is strange that any portion of the
public should be gulled by nonsense such as this.
We believe the sliding-scale to be right in principle.
but whether it be right or wrong, the operation of
those whose business it is to watch and calculate upon
the facts which they are at the utmost pains to ascer-
tain—the operations of the great dealers in corn, have
been adapted to the machinery of the sliding-scale.
In conformity with what may be expected from it, they
are making their preparations, and to open the ports
suddenly, vs vile their measures are in progress, would
be to ruin them, and to destroy our own means of safety,
if, indeed, it be true that we shall require considerable
aid from foreign supply. If, again, it be true that our
(avn produce is considerably short of our ordinary con-
sumption, what palpable madness it is to be clamouring
for cheapness of price ! Does not every one know that
a rise in price is the natural remedy %%hid' the habits
and the reason of mankind supply to induce economy in
the use of the commodity of which a scalci•y is appre-
heudei ? Shall we by any desperate measure set k a
momentary depression of the price of home-grown corn,
and tries induce a greater consumption at the very mo-
ment that we say we have not enough to sustain the pre-
sent rate of consumption till next harvest ? Really, such
representations are too preposterous to be borne with
common patience. We have the satisfaction, however,
of believing that the Government is not raided by the
lies which are pelted about town and country with such
vehemence ; and we hope Government will have manli-
ness enough not to give way before clamour, which it
well knows to be dishonest.

CHRONICLE.—The Nation recommends to the con-
sideratioa of repeal wardens, to be read in their parishes,
a " few short and easy rules " as to the uses to which
railways may be put. We had the gratification of
printing them in the Chronicle yesterday :
" A hint on this subject," the Nation says, "may be
thought enough ; but wesee no objection to speaking plainly;
and, therefore, we give a few practical views, which may be
unproved as engineers turn their attention to the subject.
" First, then, every railway within five miles of Dublin
could in one night be totally cut off from the interior coun-
try. To lift a mile of rail, to till a perch or two of any
cutting or tunnel, to break down a piece of an embankment,
seem obvious and easy enough.
" Second-L.The materials of railways, good hammered iron
and wooden sleepers, need we point out that such things may
ho of use in other lines than assisting locomotion.
"Third—Troops upon their march by rail might be con-
veniently met with in divers places. Hofer, with his Tyro-
liens' could hardly desire a deadlier ambush than the brinks
of a deep cutting upon a railway. Imagine a few hundred
men lying in wait upon such a spot, with masses of rock and
trunks of trees ready to roll down—and a train or two ad-
vancing with a regiment of infantry, and the engine pant-
ing near and nearer, till the polished studs of brass on its
front are distinguishable, and its name may nearly be read;
Now, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of
the Holy Ghost !—now-2
" But 'tis a dream. No enemy will dare put us to realise
these scenes. Yet, let all understand what a railway may,
and what it may not do."

it requires a" fine philanthropist and legislator to dis-
cover such advantages in the railway system—one of
those obstinate martyrs who would cut off his nose in
order to spite his face. Suppose the rails are down and
the tunnels complete, the Irish philosopher instantly
begins to think how it would be easy to I.ft the former
and fill up the latter again. This also would give fresh
work to the neglected poor ; and, causing a wholesome
and perpetual demand upon capitalists, would enforce a
circulation of money through the country. " Second—
goad hammered iron and wooden sleepers" would be
capitally handy to make pikes with. The " second" is
admirable : the logical precision and neatness of the
rules to be read in parishes. Get your • subscriptions
and your Parliamentary Acts ; pay your engineers,
landowners, and workmen ; and you have at once good
hammered iron and wooden sleepers ready for demo-
lishing Saxons. The cheapness of the weapon is uncle.
viable. The boys could have the pikes for nothing.
There are historical examples for the practice. The
refined and intrepid Vandals, when they invaded
Rome, pulled out the iron clamps of the Cc losseum
for the same purpose : the Turks (an exceedingly
eiviT,ed and maiigned race) fired off the heads and
limbs of Phidias' statues from the Parthenon, when be-
sieeed there. There is also the case of the enlightened
Chinese, mintioned by Char!. s Lamb, who having eaten
a pig which was roasted in the burning of a house, burned
down a house every day a ith a pig in it, in order to get
his faveuri•e crack ling. Young Ireland is fur legislating
in this way. Travellers, who have visited the country,
have seen the system many times put in practice; and in
the Irish domestic economy have admired a piano figur-
ing very handsomely as an apple-cupboard, or a window
replaced advantageously by a pair of pantaloons or a wig.
Here it is proposed to employ the plan on a grand and
noble scale, and to put arms in the hands of ingenious
patriots who are about to levy war. Then we wind up
ith the night attack—the Irish in ambush, with the
rocks and trees handy; the smashing of the engine, and
the roasting, crushing, and slaughter of the Saxon
tegimeut in the train. And the allele of tke wretched,
tawdry romance finishes with that accustomed invoca-
tion so commonly used among certain patriots in Ire-
land now—out the Nation writers merely. The Captain
Rocks and Molly Maguire's men used a similar one
before they went out to niurder. Has Swift left no suc-
cessor? Are these people, who could listen to sense and
wit once, to be led by such harangues as those of Mr.
Sinnott the other day, and as this of the Nation ? Fancy
a country in which popular journals are found which
call these plans of incendiarism " practical views"—•a
country where starvation is imminent, and employment
is the only chance of averting it. The native legislators
do their best at this moment to frighten out of Ireland
its sole means of livelihood, as if in such a time, and to
starving men, bread were not more necessary than the
best Parliament that ever was devised, or all the spouters
that ever roared through lungs ! You want your land-
lords to come and live among you ; shoot at those who
are there, and so encourage the rest back again. You
want money and work ; curse and threaten the may
people in the world that can give it you. You want
railroads to develope your own internal resources ; pro-
mise to' destroy them, so that you may get pikes to kill
the Saxon with. This argument goes on day by day,
and is talked to the best, wisest, bravest, cleverest people
in the world. If Swift were but by to listen to it ! Bat
they seem to prefer an orator out of Swift's Hospital
now—a bedlatuite with a murderous monomania.
SE NTINEL. —The total abolition of the corn-laws seems
now at hand. The friends of the farmers who rejected
the fixed duty of the Whigs, will ere long be driven by
the man of their choice to surrender the whole of their
monopoly. There is no longer any opportunity for parly
or compromise. Impending famine, the precursor of
riot, it may be of revolution, threatens to extort the
opening of the ports. We may have soon to select
between the downfal of the landowners or the sub-
version of the monarchy. The gigantic fraud of pro-
tection against foreign growers of corn has been laid
bare in all its details. It is now known that protection
means robbery, since it throws taxation on the indus-
trious classes and exempts the property classes from
its pressure. But more than this is known. It is
well understood that the imposition of the taxes on
food was originally consented to, on condition that the
landlords would support the Bullion Committee in the
Bill which compelled the Bank of England to resume
cash payments. Sir James Graham is our authority,
and lie has called that bargain an imprudent bargain; we
denounce it as a base one ; and punishment is now,
though tardily, about to overtake the criminals. I:jint
let us attempt to exhibit the bearings of
this question
without heat or rancour, neither as exclusive partisans of
manufactures or agriculture, for there has been too
much of vituperation, too little of argument on both
sides. We will endeavour to write in the spirit of a
mediator between extreme parties. Why dal the land-
owners originally demand the exclusion of
foreign corn from the home market ? Because
they perceived that the highly. taxed labour of
this country could not compete with the comparatively
low taxed labour of the rest of the world. Had we
been free from a national debt at the peace of 1815, the
landlords would nut have sought or required any legis-
lative protection ; therefore, in reality, it was not the
dread of the foreign producer, but the dread of the
domestic tax• gatherer that guided their polity. Or, if
this mode of stating the fact be deemed ambiguous, we
would say that the domestic tax-gatherer immediately
and the foreign producer media•ely created the corn-
laws. In simple truth, high taxes render high prices
necessary. ; monopoly is favourable to high prices ;
therefore the landlords claimed a monopoly for the
commodities which they sold. So far, they only" acted
as all other traders would act, had they the power ;
they threw off taxation from themselves and placed
it on the consumers of grain and other farm produce.
Now, had the Legislature granted to all other classes
of producers the same amount of protection as they
mum& d to the agriculturists, there would have been
no cause of complaint. But the very reverse was the
case. The next measure was Peel's Bill of 1819.
That Bill, overlooking the fact, that taxes ought to
enhance prices in exact proportion to such taxes,
enacted that gold, at its natural cr untaxed value,
should be the standard measure of all taxed commodi-
ties. The consequence was, that, while all agricultu-
ral produce remained high, all other industrial produce
r enabled
esaepl
his produce dear, an
became low ; so that tdhebulayndalofirdotisah'ers
produce
This is the real iniquity of the system. The nobility,
by a fraud, became as fiscally privileged, as were the
French nobility before the Revolution : they sue.
ceeded by the joint action of the money laws and the
to escape taxation ; for, whatever
wholly
to the tax gatherer they always got back
csact hot(g:
iic►, and generally with a high bonus from the con.
the food in which they traded. Repeal the
retain Peel's Bill, and then the landlords
would have to sell as cheap as other traders. It is the
knowledge of this fact that makes them so tenacious of
their piivil. ge. Is there any mode by which, on aura
rendering their monopoly, they could still obtain high
prices to cover their just share of taxation as pro-
ducers ? Undoubtedly there is. It is by reverting