The Sun.
London, England, 1842-06-25 00:00:00

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LONDON!
SATURDAY MORNING, JUNE 25, 1842.

We cannot afford to occupy this column by copying
what appears in another, but we earnestly request public
attention to our report of the prcceedings yesterday
at the Meeting to consider the distress of the country.
Though much grieved, we are not surprised at the great
clistl-ess, for we warned the public, months, and even
years ago, that the laws were subjecting the people to all
the terrible severities of an Hindostan famine. Unhap-
pily our prediction is realised, and the public must dis-
credit all testimony if it be not now convinced that
gaunt famine prevails in the manufacturing districts.
siece the fifteenth century, growing commerce and pro- '
gressive civilization have guarded England against such
a calamity ; but the hand of the ruthless and avaricious
lawgiver, arresting both, by stopping the former, has
doomed our beloved country to all the horrors of the
ignorant and barbarous ages. We earnestly beseech the
public to be warned, while it is yet time, for the night •
cometh when no man can work, by the evidence of
dreadful destitution which we lay before it.
We have no wish to alarm the public by copying or
repeating threats. We have some reason to suppose
that the slow but sure process of famine has already
tae-,ed the spirit of the multitude into the most abject
submission. Evidence of the people enduring almost
unheard of and unmerited privations without murmurs,
and certainly without commotion, proving that their
patience has already extended far beyond the point at
which riot might have been anticipated, is found in al-
most every provincial journal. Violence has not latterly
been the character of Englishmen, even when lustily
fed, and is less to be expected now when their spirit is
broken by long fasting and much disappointment.
.Il‘.‘n reason on this subject from an imperfect ana-
logy, and are consequently deceived. Violent revolu-
tien,; have been instigated by hunger, and therefore it is
inferred that here distress must provoke rebellion. But
our people are- accustomed to discussion, and the daily
growth of every public feeling is duly announced. The
anger which grows from distress, is checked by the
charity which relieves it ; and Outrage is kept down, by
the hope that something yet will be done. All classes
meet to express their opinions, and no new sentiment
can come suddenly and generally into existence, bearing
down all before it like an avalanche. Discussion and
freedom nourish a universal respect even for bad laws ;
and there is more reason to dread the gradual reconcile-
ment of the multitude to a Ifindoo standard of subsist-
ence, than a furious outbreak. We are at present a
greatly divided people. We are split into many con-
flicting sects. Capitalists and labourers are at variance.
The English look on the Irish as interlopers, who take
away their bread ; and the two are more likely to guar- '
rel, than make common cause. But while the people '
are divided, the system which oppresses them is one, I
uniform and constant in its operations. Rebellion, then '
cannot -concocted in secret, extensive tenzert.:is
scar ely possible, and a pining atrophy seems as likely •
sa a furious fever to waste the greatness of England.
Yet alp alum which has of late been felt, and which

still prevails in some quarters, seems not wholly without
foundation. We learn from the Kent Herald, that Dr.
M‘DouALL gave a lecture at Canterbury, on Monday,
on the distress of the country, a part of which is thus
described :

The lecturer in fervid and eloquent language depicted the
distressed state of the manufacturing districts, and said that
the tariff would afford no relief. He declared that the starv-
ing people from the north and midland counties intended next
week to march up in a body of two or three hundred thousand
to London, and, abstaining from physical force, would make
known that " since they must starve, they would starve in the
face of God and of Queen Victoria !!" He was sure that the
soldiery would not, even if ordered, fire upon this unarmed,
helpless mass. They would find plenty of houses, for the cor-
rupt and cowardly aristocracy would vacate London on their
approach. He thought that the country was on the eve of a
peat revolution, and he prayed it might be bloodless—but that
would depend on the wanner in which the people were treated,
as there was a point beyond which even the English people, the
most forbearing and submissive of all people under the sun,
would not endure ill-treatment.

Dr. M‘DonALL's cenviction concerning the soldiers
may be compared to the anecdote told of the feelings of
one soldier, by Mr. G. Tnompsos, at the meeting. His
account of the resolve of the people gives no counte-
nance to his conclusion ; and the marching to London to
die, seems more like despair than rebellion in the Char-
tist camp.

The distress in the north, and the language held at
the Chartist meetings in the cathedral city, are, how-
ever, not unimportant events. A good opportunity
offers to investigate the former. At this mo-
ment the British Association for the Advance-
ment of Science is holding its annual meeting at Man-
chester. The natural history of man in tlme, or the
natural progress and development of society, is as much
a part of science, and it has been so treated by CUVIER,
as entomology, chemistry, or astronomy. It is, in truth,
that science, which, for the well-being of all, now de-
mands, much more than any other the attention, of the
Ides fortes of the kingdom. Intellect has no wilder
waste to reduce under culture than the little tilled
science of society, and no nobler conquest is now offered
to its exertions. To calculate the parallax of a fixed
star is a great achievement, but it will be a far greater
to demonstrate the cause and the cure of the national
distress. The British Association holds its sittings in
the midst of social decay, and it will be unworthy of its
nan e, it will be considered as a trifling and a useless
body—it will deserve the satire of its opponents, if it
break up from Manchester without supplying some ex-
planation of the sources of the evils which now press so
heavily on the community. If mankind are not to look
to " the lights of the world and demi-gods of fame " to
light them peaceably to a better condition of existence,
where can they find any guide ?

A Philadelphia correspondent of a Morning Paper
Lys.—

" The British Islands are pouring both their thousands and
their tens of thousands upon the American shores, and I ob-
sf rye that a majority of the arrivals are those of agricultural
labourers, artisans, mechanics, and small farmers. Last week
3,830 personages landed from Europe at New York. At
Toronto, far in the interior of Upper Canada, 2,500 have al-
reagy arrived this season, while at Philadelphia, Boston, and
Baltimore, the arrivals are more numerous than ever before

If the people cannot get food at home, they will go
abroad to obtain it. The plain consequence, therefore,
of the Corn-keeping-out law is to depopulate England,
to a certain extent, and increase the population of the
United States—diminishing our wealth and greatness,
and increasing the wealth and greatness of that rapidly
rising Republic. We have quoted the proof.
Not half so many persons would go, probably, if the law
would allow food to be brought hither, and then England
might fully participate in all the advantages of the yet
untitled forests of America.

The wilds of the Far West " may be reached in com-
fort," says the same correspondent" for from six to eight
pounds." In fact, the new land of the United States is
more accessible from the sea border of England than
were the wilds of Scotland, or of Ireland, half a century
ago, both of which have since much contributed to feed
our population. The law which keeps out of England
the food grown in the United States is a law to prevent
oar people adding the States of Illinois and Missouri to
their territory. It deprives them of the advantages of a
new country explored and cultivated by old arts. Land
is useful, for what it bears; and by importing the produce
of the new soil of the United States, we in fact import all
for which the soil is valuable. With immeasurable folly,
however, our law-makers are depriving England of this
immense advantage, and dooming her people to expa-
triation and decay.

It distresses us beyond measure to hear the lamenta-
tions of our respected Irish Contemporary, the indefa-
tigable, the consistent, and the unflinching Tory Mail.
For twelve long years has it resisted the Irish Radicals,
manfully supported the party of which PEEL was the
chief, denounced all the wicked attempts of O'CONNELL
and the Catholic priests, and bravely fought, in season
and out of season, for every right and privilege conferred
originally on that useful establishment called the
" Protestant Church of Ireland." It contributed in
a great measure to the return of its party to
office, and reckoned no doubt that the principles
for which they had so long contended would be
rigorously adhered to when a Tory Lord Lieutenant
was installed in Dublin Castle. But alas I How short-
sighted is weak and erring man I "Put not your trust
in Princes," said an ancient writer, and our ill-used
fellow-labourer makes the response, " Put not your trust
in PEEL, or in any Premier." The great Protestant
leader has been weighed in the balance, and, like the
light gold, has been found wanting. He has turned his
back, not on himself, like the apostle of the Union and
Orangeism, but on his friends. He has mounted the
ladder—but we have not the heart to carry out the
stnile, and merely announce the awful fact, that the
great and good cause has been ruined by treachery.
What makes the case the more deplorable is, that PEEL
has carried all the great men with him—the Duke, and
STANLEY, and GRAHAM; even the good old Protestant,
tr.e Kentish Baronet, has forgotten " nusquam tuta
fides," and all gone over with the renegade in a body
The London Correspondent of the Mail, writing on the
Irish Registration Bill, thus describes the wicked
deceivers :—" The fact is the discussion on the Bill at that
period (last Session) having answered their purpose,
Government are content to let the matter slumber,
notwithstanding the most shameful abuses, which are
more manifest even at present than when they brought
forward the denunciations of Lord STANLEY and
the great mass of the then Opposition. What was proper
and necessary when sitting on one side of the House is
considered trivial and unimportant when a change of
place occurs." Who will deny the Tory split
now ? And what true Orangeman can ever
again back the Minister whom one of his own
journals described as JUDAS ISCARIOT, and who
thus has performed a second time the part of that noto-
rious traitor ? It is some consolation, however, to find
that there are some honest men left, and that, should
the heavens fall, our Contemporary is determined to do
his duty. "In position," says he, "we are all alike in-
dependent of Government and individuals ; and we claim
the right, in common with our fellow-subjects, of giving
free and fearless expression to our opinions upon public
men and public measures."

The unanimity which prevailed in the House of Com -
mons on Thursday upon the necessity of re-establishing
the power of Great Britain in Affghanistan cannot but
be productive of immense advantage to our rulers in
India. We now know that the native Princes in India,
and the Governments of Lahore, Herat, and Persia,
take the deepest interest in the proceedings of the
British Parliament, and that by means of active, intel-
ligent agents, they are as quickly informed of what
transpires in the House of Commons as the Governor-
General of India, to whom despatches, with similar

news, aro seat express. To show with what expedi-
tion any news to the prejudice of India travels in Central
Asia, we need only allude to the recent well-known fact,
that fie account of the fall of Ghuznee, the murder of Sir
M‘NAGHTEN, and the massacre of the garrison,
reached Constantinople, by way of Herat, Ispahan,
Teheran, and Erzeroum, crossing the immense Persian
deserts, nearly nine clear days before the same intelli-
gence by the Overland Mail arrived in London. The
" golden-footed " Monarch of BURMAH bas spies at
every one of our Presidencies in India, by whom what-
ever transpires to our prejudice is at once communicated

to him, and he awaits but the hour of our humiliation
in any quarter to fall upon us. The debate last night
will satisfy these Potentates that it is no slight matter
to precipitate a war with England—that whatever
changes have taken place in the administration of
her Government—whatever internal divisions may
distract her people, she has but one mind,
ono purpose, one determination when her honour is
at stake, and her power to vindicate it disputed by fo-
reign enemies. Of the ccurse pursued by Sir ROBERT
PEEL, as well as with the tone and temper of his speech
last night, we entirely approve. Whatever documents
relative to the war in Affghanistan the Government
may have kept back or garbled, this is not a fit time to
move for their production. Besides, we do not regard
them as of much importance. We know very well au
the causes of the war in Affghanistan. Persia, insti-
gated by Russia, had, in 1837, resolved to conquer Herat
and Affghanistan, and extend her empire to the banks
of the Sutledge. Our Government saw the danger of
permitting alimere tool of the AUTOCRAT to become our
neighbour in India, and took measures to prevent
it. Political agents were sent to Caubul and
•

Herat.. and t whole web of Russian conspiracy
and'intrigue discovered and made known to the world.
We then found out that without faithful allies

in the Governors of Lahore, Caubul, and Herat, we
could not counteract the intrigues of Russia. Hence the
expedition for the restoration of our pensionary the Shah
SOOJAH to the throne of Affghanistan. We condemned
the choice at the first—we condemn it still. It was the
cause of all our disasters. Sir ALEX. BURNES likewise
condemned it, in his despatches to the Governor-General
of India; and this, we believe, comprises the important
part of the suppressed papers. But the late President
of the Board of Control, Sir J. C. HOBHOUSE, informed
the House that the resolution of restoring Shah Soo-
JAR was only taken when it was known that no trust
could be reposed in the most sacred engagements of DOST
MOHAMMED, whose rapacity was unbounded. Now if
this was really the case, and if the Shah SOOJAH was a
person in whom Lord AUCKLAND felt he could place
confidence, nothing could be more proper than suppress in
the publication of despatches, passages reflecting upon the
moral character and mental capacit.s- of our Royal
protege. Sir A. BURNDS was one of the officers chosen
to accompany the SHAH to Caubul, and it would have
placed that gallant, lamented officer, and his countrymen,
in a queer position, had the Government at home pub-
lished despatches in which the SHAH was described as an
incorrigible blockhead. Such proceedings would doubtless
have precipitated the Caubul massacre, and afforded our
enemies a pretext for attributing to British stupidity
and insolence, what all the world • must acknowledge to
be an act of unparalleled treachery reflecting eternal
disgrace upon the Affghan name and nation.
We never condemned the origin of the war in Aff-
glianistan. What we condemned and ever shall con-
demn, is the choice of such a cowardly knave and foul
as the Shah SOOJAH to govern that country.
Having been twice before driven from the throne,
it was clear to us that he was wholly incompetent for
the regal office. Bat les justice to Lord AUCKLAND,
we must await his arrival in England, to ascertain upon
what conceivable grounds he adopted the SHAH as his
protege. We want some account of how and wherefore
this original sin was committed.
Seeing that only nine Members voted for the pro-
duction of file papers, we are glad that Mr. ILUME
divided the House upon the motion. We should
look for -as large a minority had the motion been
for burning Westminster Abbey, or converting St. Paul's
Cathedral into a theatre for the performance of farces
and burlettas. A motion to the effect that "this House
direct Mr. Speaker to set the Thames on fire " would
command at least a minority of twice as many votes as
were given to paralyse the war in Affghanistan. A British
Envoy and British army have been treacherously and
barbarously massacred in cold blood in that country, and
however distant it may be from the seat of our power in
India, the Parliament of Great Britain unanimously de-
clares that it shall be made to feel that it is not beyond
the reach of our vengeance. An impunity must not be
allowed to the Affghans, which would encourage treachery
on the part of Nepaul and Burmah. Our empire in India
has, long ceased to be an empire of opinion—it is a Go-
vernment of strong, consolidated, irresistible force, as all
who dispute it with us will discover to their cost.

The whole of the French Journals have reached us
but their political articles are of no importance to Eng-
lish readers.

BOURSE-PARIS, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 22.

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EXPRESS FROM LIVERPOOL.

LIVERPOOL, FRIDAY MORNING.

We have received New York papers from the United
States, by the South America, Captain Bailey. They
are later than those delivered by the last Boston and
llaliCax steamer, but not so late as those delivered by
the British Queen, at Cowes.

.1;
*llotoieri,::*