The Sun.
London, England, 1842-05-11 00:00:00

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LONDON!
WEDNESDAY MORNING MAY 11, 1542.

The House of Commons was chiefly occupied last
night with the Tariff. Sir R. PEEL employed very
nearly three hours in explaining its principles and de-
fending some of its details. We must confine ourselves
to noticing a few particulars.
Sir ROBERT admitted at the beginning that the delay
which had taken place since he first announced
his projects to the House and the country, had been
unavoidable, and of absolute necessity. He did not
eompluin, as his scribes have done in his name, of im-
pediments thrown in his way by the Opposition ; he
knew that such complaints were without foundation, and
he truly ascribed the delay to the magnitude of the task,
to the imperfection of his first rude scheme of a new
tariff, to the propriety of consulting some of the great
interests with which he was dealing, and to the neces-
sity of making alterations' in his own plan, in
order to make it perfect. By the first few sen-
tences, the ungrateful Premier cleared away from the
I,ll,ige the mud and filth with which the Tory Journals:
h7e,e, bespattered them during the last month. The delay
is Sir R. PEEL'S own fault, and whatever disappointment
the people may have felt must be exclusively attributed
to him.
The Right Hon. Baronet took great pains to sooth and
mollify. the agriculturists, and therefore he pointed out
at considerable length, the advantages they would derive
from the reduction of the duty on clover seed from eos
to 10. per cwt. (no less than 141,000 cwt. of that seed
having being imported last year) ; on grase seed from
20s. to ss. per cwt. ; on onion seed from is. 6d. per 11,.
to 20e. per cwt. ; and on lint seed and rape seed, by which
they sill get oil-cake cheap, to Id. per quarter. But his
.thief effort on that head, was reserved for the
end o: his speech, when he dwelt on the prodigious nd-
vanteges to the feeder of cattle in being able to obtain
lean :tattle at a reduced price. He asserted, to our asto-
nishment, that, notwithstanding the exorbitant price t.
\;hieh cattle and meat have risen in the market for slit
last few years,the cattle-feeders had made no profit by
fattening cattle, and that they only continue to fatten
;them for the sake of the manure. At the same time the
70light.ilon: Baronet, following Mr. M'Creeoen, assured
the feedersof cattle that the price would not be at all
retineo by his new system of duties. He made this out
n ite elaborately, by referring to the price of meat and cat tie
in Belgium, France, and Holland, and came to the con-
.clueion that his alteration of duty would merely give a
.security against any great further increase in the price.
We do not know whether the Right Hon. Baronet meant
it or nor, or whether he counts on the hopes of the
;town popaistion refusing belief to his statements, but he
proved that the alterations relative to cattle and meat,
which have hem so glowingly described, will be of little
01' no e*arleie to the consumer.
We watt. t: direct attention to that part of his speech,
in which be proved, by a series of facts, that the
price of cattle and of meat had been gradually ris-
ing ti. roughont Eurog. at least since 1835. Itre
regard .this as a very etee`ous circumstance, and in-
fer front it that the bulk o,e the population through-
out Europe have become greater consumers of meat, and
that the supply has not kept pace . With the demand. We
inter from it also that all the fears- ...which prompt the
stetesnian, as the organ of the landlord; ?'etre'c()rnlilit
injustice—that free trade would cause tl Ova.: reduction
of the price of corn, are wholly groundl, 'A4= A glenuil'(l
forme it implies a high pries, of Weed, at. vi that di. amid
would keep, pace with the most enlarge al supply, i="d
;maintain the price o: core. In fact, S.
.statement demote:tree-es that the people of' ail Europe
Are under-fed, and that it is a cram injusti(9`)
in all lie Governments of Europe to put jmi edimeete
in the -way of their subjects obtainine mu eh ford
as possible. England,' and Europe at lame are not s:if-
ficiently cultivated to supply the wants of a growing- pc -
pulation, and statesmen Cannot reasonably dread auy
great reduction in price.
Sir R. PEEL had some crumbs of corm ;ort for
classes. To the furniture makers be pro. re ised add: •
tional employment by lowering the duties on ark sods.
To
the shipbuilders he held 'out the great a dva stage of
cheap timber, and cheap copper bolts, and el leap copper
sheathing. To the fishermen he promised cheal..er and
better boats. Manufacturers are to L dei lighted
by a small reduction on the duty on sper JIB oil, about
one-eighth of its price. The bulk of Vae peopl'e are
to have herrings cheap, and potatoes abuntionce.

To every class he threw some little piece of promised
advantage as a bait, and nearly all classes seem to have
been hooked.

In favour of cheapness, to our delight, he exhausted
his vocabulary of praise. He stoutly maintained the
principle that we ought to buy at the cheapest market.
If other nations would not make reduction in their tar:fi's
they would suffer from it; if they would not buy at
the cheapest market, we ought ; and trust that they
would soon repent of their wasteful obstinacy. We re-
joiced at hearing this, but we ask why this principle was
not applied to the Corn-law, and why the Tory jour-
nals, for the last two years, have, day after day, been
filled with tirades against cheapness ? Sir H. PEEL
was eloquent in its favour on behalf of the labourers, but
his supporters in the Press have continually dafended
dear corn as keeping up the rate of wages. Sir ROBERT
smashed whole volumes of Tory argument by his recom-
mendations of cheapness, to be produced by lowering
duties. •

The Right Hon. Baronet was also great about the
smuggler, whom he styled " almost the natural cor-
rector of exorbitant duties." 1L excited some merri-
ment in the House, by reading a letter from a notorious
smuggler, offering to some house in town to supply it
with various articles of blonde at about eight par cent.
. _

additional on the price. lie also showed—that he had
been amongst the smugglers, by producing a parcel of

straw fur making hats, which pays a penny du y,
inclosed within which was a roll of manufactured straw
to be smuggled, which pays duty of 7s. Gd. So the
Right Honourable Baronet gave a practical proof of the
folly of those high duties he and the rest of our states-
men have imposed and maintained on nearly all kinds
of commodities.

We heard the close of Sir ROBERT PEEL'S speech
with compassion for his infirmity. He has just
passed a Corn-law, of which one striking fea-
ture is, that it keeps out the flour and grain
of the United States. He proposes an alteration in
the tariff, which leaves the duties on their tobacco and
cotton untouched ; and which makes a concession to the
cattle breeders and the growers of barley and oats in
Europe, but by which the Americans cannot profit. lie

reduces the duty on Baltic timber, evidently to be inde-
pendent of the supply from America, much of which,
though nominally Colonial, comes from the Unit2d
States. llis new Corn-bill, and his tariff, therefore, per-
petuate the exclusion of the commodities of the United
States from our markets ; and yet he discoursed largely
and bravely on the United States increasing their custom
dues to collect a revenue, and expatiated for a consider-
able time on the benefit the example of England would
confer on mankind in general, and on America in particillar.
Poor blinded and besotted man, he is setting America
the very worst example, and is knowingly, if not wilfully,

destroying the trade of England with that free country.
To be sure his scribes promise, though we place no faith
in them, a compensation in an extension of trade with
the Magyar serfs of Prince ESTERHAZY.

We stated yesterday, that we thought Sir RonEwr
PEEL'S universal charity sermon, was an awful event.
We felt convinced that he would not recommend such a
silly measure, but in some fit of desperation, or from
some alarming circumstances. We can now state tha

the Right Honourable Baronet is greatly alarmed at the
reports which he has received from Lancashire. The
working people have given the authorities to understand
that they do not mean to lie down and die peaceably.
Hence the alarm of Sir ROBERT PEEL, and honce his
late-coming charity is the offspring of his fear. His
alarm is an awful event.

We are glad to find that many journals directly op_
posed to the principles of the Chartists strongly and em-
phatically condemn the decision of the House of Com-
mons in refusing to hear their grievances at its bar.
The House assumes the right to tax the people ; to
make laws to regulate their conduct throughout life ; to
restrict the quantity, and keep up the price, of their
food ; to compel them to shed their blood by land and
si-a, at the pleasure of any Minister who chooses to
plunge the nation into unholy wars ; but when millions
of them raise their untuned voices and rugged hands
against oppressions which they can no longer endure,
they are insolently told that Parliament has no time to
waste in listening to them. First among the journal.,
not strictly political, which have treated the refusal of
the House of Commons to hear the complaints of the
poor in the most enlarged and Christian spirit, may be
classed the True Tablet. From an able article we quote
the following :
Sir Robert Peel, indeed, like a good guardian of the public
time—he is a timepiece in more senses than one—cannot hear
of such an obstacle being thrown in the way of the due de-
spatch of public business. Good Sir Robert, pray tell us, if
you can, what business can properly be called public, if this is
not entitled to the name. We protest we know of none. The
distresses and sufferings of the lower classes are emphatically
the public business of the day. There is none snore important,
none more urgent, none for which it is so important to secure
an early hearing, in order to settle with regularity now what, if
left unsettled now, may have to be adjusted with a most un-
pleasant irregularity afterwards. Public business forsooth 1
The necessities of a sixth of the population, who complain that
they want bread, that you govern them ill, and have no feel-
ing for their sufferings—depend upon it, in any honest dic-
tionary, in any language under the sun, heathen or Christian,
these matters come under the definition of public business.
The man who cannot get on with the public business if he
attends to these matters, is very like the man who couldn't see
the wood for the trees. Public business, indeed ! The time
will come when the Members of the Honourable and Right
Honourable Houses will most bitterly regret that they have
not, both in their individual and their legislatorial capacities,
devoted a great deal more time to this department of public
business.

We are entirely of this opinion. Should it never
come the termination will be more dreadful still ; foe
the crash will be sudden, and so conclusive, that there
will be no room for regret—no time for repentance.
And yet in the teeth of the vote of Tuesday night, the
Tory and Whig statesmen, as they flatteringly cull
themselves, would have the country believe that they
think of nothing but how best to govern the people.
They add hypocrisy to falsehood, and by presuming to
understand the grievances of the people better than

themselves, insolence to both. In what estimation re •
fleeting men of Liberal, but not of Radical politics, are
very generally beginning to hold the Right Hon. Member
for Edinburgh, may be gathered from the following ex-
tract from the clever Journal above quoted. We can
assure Mr. MACAULAY'S supporters that the 'True Tabiet
expresses a very general growing conviction respecting
the public character of that Right lion. Edinburgh Re
viewer :

Little as we like the adverse decision of the House on Tuesday
night, we disapprove far more strongly of the reasons on which
the vote was grounded. The spokesman of the House in this
affair—the orator who made it his business to find both parties
in arguments—the philosoper who undertook the arduous
labour of furnishins Hon. Members with a plausible theory on
which to act—was Mr. Macaulay. We cordess to having con-
siderable prepossession in favour of this gentleman, and many
reasons for speaking of him with good will. We always ream
his speeches and his writings with interest, and very often with
profit and advantage. But with all this, we must say, that the
more we see of him in the House of Commons the less does our
confidence in his statesmanship become. He is a great rhetori-
cian, a great theorist, but, we are sadly afraid, a somewhat slip-
pery politician. We do not mean by these expressions to charge
hint with anything like positive or personal dishonesty—far from
it. But we cannot get it out of our minds that he is a man whit
has no faith on any political question whatever. He may have
a strong opinion that such and such conclusions are sound or
unsound ; but he seems to have no firm conviction of the im-
portance of the conclusions themselves. He views politics as a
game ; he harangues as an advocate; and he makes it his busi-
ness to cover whatever position his friends may occupy with a
fence of dazzling sophistry. But what is it that induces him
to take a part in the game of politics at all? Ambition, tin.
doubtedly ; nor, as we think, an essentially dishonest ambition.
What determines him to adopt the Liberal, or Whig side in
politics is, we firmly believe, an honest conviction. But where
are his sympathies? Whose applause does he value ? What
is his public? We answer that there is about him, as far as we
can discover, a hard intellectual pride, in which, as in a coat of
mail, he wraps himself against the approaches of common men.
He desires the Applause of coteries who form his public ; and
his sympathies are not with the masses,not with the poor, not
with the uneducated, but with the better-informed men of
h:s own class. Ile cannot identify himself with them.
A certain degree of consideration from the poorer class is
necessary to enable him to keeais seat, and he strives to earn
it; but his efforts in this kiriff appear, not dishonest, but
laboured—task work, uncongenial to his taste. In spouting
ingenious theories, clothed in a brilliant rhetoric, he is in his
true element. But though, we dare say, warm-heat tedenough
in his domestic relations, he has not the soul to be a great
statesman and to win the confidence of the poor. He does not,
and he cannot, bear the poor in his heart always; they are a
weight too burdensome for him ; but he patronizes them, and,
like a god, would condescendingly shower benefits upon them
out of a higher sphere than theirs. He cares for them, we
doubt not ; but he could not love them, live with them, and die
for them. For anything we know he might die rather than do
a dishonourable action; he might be a martyr to duty, but not
syt
eoarrtvdh po i
see
eo.ve or rst.
the
ec Wh limitsei s
theofman question
whuo compelledc
wh
uhpteyut whether eofrodrohweat
hrwdeombu
yl
ad t h set ew p
ttwo
yards over the limits of compelled duty to do them a hazardous
service. Such is the man who was put forward by the Wlsigshazardous
to oppose "the people's petition."

tionaries; for frequenting theatres and other places of r
I public amusement, and little time therefore is left for
reading or religious duties. To put an end to
this anoma!y, therefore, in France, as compared with
most other countries, is the object of the present move-
ment on the part of the clergy, and were they to confine
their application to the Sovereign for the due observance
of the Sunday alone, we have little doubt that they would
accomplish their purpose, with the general consent of
the public. The Archbishop, however, goes considerably
farther, and expresses a hope that at no distant period it
it will be possible " for the Government to put an end
to public labour on the days consecrated to God, and
that, influenced by the example of the Court, these sa-
cred days will be respected by all Frenchmen." This
is attempting too much, and possibly may frustrate the
whole plan:
_The history of France furnishes but too
many inatanees of the encroaching, selfish, and
wicked disposition of the priesthood, and should
suspicion be excited:;,that plans are in agita-
tion for re:,toring irdi46dy to their former power
and influence over King''and people, a universal outcry
would be raised against them. Not satisfied with the
observance of one day in the week, the clergy appear
anxious to have all the festivals of the Church placed on
the same footing. The KING had the good sense, how-
ever, to refuse this portion of the request, and to give a
significant reply to the address of the Prelate by
countenancing the non-observance of Holy Thurs-
day, and employing workmen on that day for re-
pairing the palace of St. Cloud. We have not
ascertained the KING'S sentiments regarding the be-
coming observance of Sunday, but it can hardly fail to
meet with his cordial approbation. Example, however,
in an affair of this kind, would be better than precept,
and were the Court to lead the way the people would fol-
low, without compulsion or legislative enactment.
Any attempt to legislate on the subject would be fluid.
The folly of the Agnewites here has been so outrageous,
that it would be held up to the people of France as a
sufficient cause for rejecting the measure at once.

We have Madrid Journals of the Ist inst. The
young QUEEN on that day was to give a grand dinner
to her uncle, FRANCISCO DE PAULO, of whose removal
from the Capital nothing is now said. Should that
Prince conduct himself with discretion, there will be
no necessity for his. removal from the Capital ; but he
has an ill adviser in his wife, the Infanta Donna
CARLOTTA, one of the most inveterate political intriguers
in Europe. This Princess would be ten times more
dangerous than she really is but for her violence of
temper, which can brook no contradiction.

The Spanish Deputies are occupied with the Bill for
granting a new loan of 160 millions of reels. So many
amendments were offered upon the Bill, that it was
expected the debates upon it would last a fortnight.
The Expectador, a Madrid Ministerial Journal, repu-
diates the idea of the Five Great Powers undertaking to
dispose of the hand of the young Queen of SPAIN. That
journal is perfectly right. The marriage of the young
QugEN is strictly a question within the province of the
Spanish Government.

The insurrection of the 2d of May, 1808, against the
French, was ordered by the Municipality of Madrid to be
celebrated with great pomp. The families of the victims
who perished on that memorable occasion were invited
to attend.

On the Bourse on the 31st ult. three bargains were done in
the Three per Cents. for 23i at 60 days, with i premium, and
17 in the Five per Cents., with 11 coupons, for 261 27 at 20
days, and 281/e % at 60 days, with i premium.

There is not much news in the French journals
The Government was busily employed sifting the
details of the conspiracy discovered in the capital on
Thursday and Friday, for killing the KING. The news-
papers say little upon the subject, Ministers wisely re-
solving to make no unnecessary noise about the affair.
Now that the walls are in progress, the less that is
said about crimes so enormous the better. Nothing is
more dangerous than to familiarise the public mind with
the possible commission of such an enormity as the
murder of a Sovereign.

The ensemble of the first article of the Railway Bill
has been adopted by the Chamber of Deputies. It esta-
blishes the following lines :-
1. From Paris to the Belgian frontiers.
2. From Paris to the Channel.
3. From Paris to the frontiers of Germany, by Nancy, and
Strasbourg.
4. From Paris to the Mediterranean, by Lyons, Marseilles,
and Cette,

5. From Paris to the frontiers of Spain, by Tours, Bor-
deaux, and Bayonne.
6. From Paris to the Ocean, by Tours and Nantes.
7. From Paris to the centre of France, by Bourges.
8. From the Mediterranean to the Rhine, by Lyons, Dijon,
and blulhausen.

9. And lastly, from the Mediterranean to the Ocean, by
Toulouse and Bordeaux.

The French Government has authorised the establish-
ment of several nunneries of Sisters of Mercy and Sisters
of St. Theresa, who devote themselves to the education
of the poor and rich. The following are extracts from
the French Journals :

The tailor in whose house the incendiary bombs were seized
at named Orit. The number of persons arrested is twenty-
:wo. Among them is said to be Piegard, who was condemned
ror the affair of the Rue des Prouvaires, and pardoned.
Jourdain, the examining Judge, continues the investiga-
ion into the affair.

The Commerce publishes a letter from a Captain Williams,
dated Havre, the 6th instant, complaining of the conduct of a
collector at Sydney, New South Wales, in having seized a
French whaler, called the Ville de Bordeaux, under the pre-
tence that she had violated some local regulations. The let-
ter further states, that " the British Government offered to
restore the ship, on condition that the owner paid the expenses
of the capture. The owner refused, and brought an action
against the English Government." The action is pending,
but " the owner says he expects no redress unless a French
ship of war be sent on the station."
The Phare says—" The accounts which we receive, by pri-
vate letters from Catalonia, are rather serious. On the 25th
there was a disturbance in the Theatre of Barelona ; seditious
cries were uttered. On the following day there was some agi-
tation in the city ; the Captain- General, Van Halen, had
thought it necessary to double the posts, and to take other mea-
sures to prevent any disorder. The cause of all these demon-
strations is said to be a letter which M. Villarregut, Deputy to
the Cortes, is reported to have written to his constituents, to
acquant them with his apprehensions respecting the Treaty of
Commerce with England ; the preponderance of that rower in
Spain, and the credit which M. Arlen enjoys at Madrid, makes
the Deputy fear that it will be speedily signed. All these re-
ports, which sensible people consider to be exaggerated, make
a surprising impression on the mass of the people. Already
sever al manufactories at Manresa and Borga are closed. The
workmen are discontinued."

The Barcelona Journals of the let of May, announce, in fact,
that for the last two days energetic measures of precaution had
been taken to prevent any disturbance.— commerce.
The Tree per Cents, were done at toe Cafe Anglais on Sun-
day for E32f. 17ic.
IioTCH FUNO3.—AMHTERDArd, MAY 6.
Pol obey
Ac:ual Debt. `23 per Cent
Jitto, ditto 5 per cent.
A ',I/41i Syndic, 44 per cent yitti s2:3N