The Sun.
London, England, 1842-10-20 00:00:00

77rIt

LONDON
THURSDAY MORNING. OCTOBER 20, 1842.

We have already adverted to Mr. WEBSTER'S
speech, and given it well-merited praise for the
bold manner with which he confronts some be-
setting prejudices of his countrymen. It
deserves closer consideration, from the informa-
tion which it gives of the state of parties in the
united States, of some Ministerial projects, and
the little progress which sound political know-
led4,s has made amongst the leading men of

Anicrica.

Upwards of a year ago, but not yet two years,
the Whig party, like our Tory party, was
triumphant in the United States. General
HAI:BISON was elected President in opposition
to Mr. VAN BUREN. The Democrats. or Loco-
locos were every where in the minority. The
Whigs took as their watchwords, peace with
England, a sufficient revenue, protection to
native industry, and a national bank, or some
analogous institution. They have, we hope,
secured peace with England by a treaty which
will be mutually advantageous. After a great
deal of squabbling they have done something
to se-Lint-6-A revenue, and by the same means, the
tariff, they carry into effect the principle of pro-
tection. Their chief and most favourite object,
however, a national lbank, is not attained, and
seems as far off as ever. It is doubtful whether
the tariff will survive another session, and all
the arrangements, both for securing a revenue
and giving protection, must, it is supposed, be
revised. Like our Whigs, the Democrats com-
pletely failed thy their measures' to satisfy the
public wants, and now, like our Tories, the
Whigs in the United States are much in the
same dilemma. Success in both cases has had
the same result, and the general policy of the
Whigs in the United States, and of the Tories
in England, is condemned as insufficient and
feeble by the actual condition of both countries.
The two parties differ in one point. It is not
necessary in the United States that the Cabinet
of the President, or the President himself, should
think and act in harmony with the Congress •
but in England the Ministry and the majority
are identical, and when they cease to be so the
former is dissolved. Our Tories, except in the
case of the Poor4aw, have carried all their mea-
sures ; the Whigs of the United States have not
carried their principal measures. In this the two
parties differ ; but they resemble each other in
liavi"g failed to answer public expectations after
a great triumph at the hustings.
How far the death of General HAnnisoer, and
how far the feeble or unjust policy of the Whigs
in the. United States, may have brought this
about, it is impossible to discriminate• but Mr.
WEBSTER tells us that he has been blamed by
the Whigs for remaining in office with the Pre-
sident, whom that party elected to be Vice-
President, and the Whigs of Massachusets have
declared—in which they seem likely to be
imi-
tated by our farmers in relation to Sir I. PEEL
—‘.; for' a full,and finalseparation from President.
TYLER." In truth, most of the members of Ge-
neral HARRISON'S Cabinet have deserted 'Mr.
TYLER, and a short tenure of office has sufficed

to split the American Whigs into unsatisfied and
contending factions. Looking at the reception
Mr. EWING'S national bank scheme received
from Congress, and at the great difficulties which
all the measures of the Whig Cabinet have had
to encounter, we are inclined to attribute but
little influence to General Hastaisost's death.
His life could scarcely have altered the strength
of parties; the measures at first proposed were
those of his Cabinet, and we attribute the failure
of the Whigs much more, therefore, to the short-
coming, to the impracticability, and to the injus-
tice of their policy, than to the death of the late
President.
Let us take Mr. WEBSTER'S own account of
their policy on two great points on which the
Amerimns are divided, protection and a national
bank. He says, " they have succeeded in carry-
ing a law which is specific and discriminating,
and imposes duties above 20 per cent." Such a
tariff he describes as " the protection of domestic
industry," which should be " inwrought," he says,
" into the policy of all parties." The main feature
of the Whig policy is a discriminating protection,
as iris called, of native industry, such as that for
which ourjandlords are always clamorous. But
the protectionists in the United States have no
such majority as our landlords ; and Mr. WEB-
STER'S important principle was affirmed in the
long run by only one vote, given apparently
more fitm weariness, and to get rid of unpro-
fitable discussion, than from the conviction ,
that the tariff was a good measure. It is advan-
tageous, too, only to the manufacturers of Mas-
sachusets, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New
Jersey, and perhaps to some interests in New
York ; to the agriculturists of the Southern and
Western States, who are exporters, and who,
like our cotton manufacturers, fear no competi-
tion with their own produce in their own country,
it is injurious. It limits their markets in foreign
countries, and taxes them 20 per cent. and more
on all their clothing and hardware, for the behoof
of the manufacturers in the Eastern States. The
Southern and -Western States are those which are
most rapidly increasing. Their interests are by
far the greatest, and Mr. WEBSTER and his
friends expect that they will submit to be taxed
20 per cent. in their c °conniption for the benefit
of the minor interest of the Eastern States.
With our opinions of what legislators call pro-
tection, but which we call spoliation, we must
characterise the policy of the American Whigs,
like the policy of our landlords, as essentially un-
just. But waiving that, is it to be expected that
the Southern and Western States, which have
already threatened to dissolve the Union, and
have actually resisted an Act of Congress on ac-
count of discriminating duties, will, now that
they have increased in strength, put up with
fresh injury inflicted on them by the vote of
one weary senator? Each State having a diffe-
rent government, and sometimes very different
interests, there is a less strict union betwixt the
States than between the counties of England.
The Federal Government cannot long bind
them all in submission to a rule which is partial
and unjust to some. Suppose that Manchester,
Leeds, Sheffield, Glasgow, and Birmingham,
were each a separate State, united in federation
with the counties of Rutland, Huntingdon, and
Kent, which will about represent the relation
between the two interests of the United States,
would it be possible long to maintain those inde-
pendent cities submissive to a policy which was
framed for the exclusive advantage of these three
English counties? But the case in America is
stronger. The communities there are new, the
fresh sprung and fresh arrived population of the
Southern and Western States have no traditional
feelings extending through a thousand years,
connecting them with the Eastern States as
one body. They are exclusively governed by
preSent advantages, and past recollections will
not make them sacrifice a groat a year to enrich
the inhabitants of Boston, and maintain the
factories at Lowell. The policy of the Whig
party, therefore, as expounded by Mr. WEB-
STER in relation to protection, is at once unjust
and short-sighted, based rather on European
opinions than American wants, and having been
passed by a limited support and extraordinary
means, cannot possibly last. Its nature, in rela-
tion to the people it is intended for, is just as un-
wise as the law which keeps food out of England
—the maintenance of the one accounts for the
failure of the Tories here; the struggle for the
other accounts fbr the proximate ruin of the
Whigs in the United States.
In Mr. WEBSTER'S own descriptio❑ of his
party, there is the strongest reason to believe
that its partial and unnational policy cannot en-
dure. It is worth quoting, both for its own truth
and for the resemblance it indicates between
fhetions abroad and factions at home. In the
United States the democratic party had fallen
into general opprobrium, like our Whigs; and
as here the Tories and Chartists united to get
rid of Lord MELBOURNE'S Government, so there
men of very different political creeds united to

turn out Mr. VAN BUREN. Mr. -WEBSTER says—
We came in as a party made up of men of different
opinions—embracing every complexion of political
creed. There were men of extreme state rights' opi-
nions—of extreme federal opinions—there were tariff
men, and anti-tariff men. The country expected
them, in a spirit of harmony, union, and cordial sym-
pathy, to agree to save her from the effects of the ruin-

ous Measures of the last Administration. The Whole
history of the revolution of 1840 preaches to the Whig
party kindness, forbearance, conciliation, friendship,
sympathy, and union.

They have shown their forbearance by carry-
ing a tariff by a chance vote, after a long struggle,
against the interest of the majority of the people;
they have sacrificed the public union to their

owa selfishness ; and instead of being remem-
bered hereafter as patriots, like 'WASHINGTON
and FRANKLIN, they will appear in history, like
cur landlords, as the blind and ignorant de-
stroyers ortheir country's greatness. Protection
to industry is the sad slang, of men in the old
States of Europe, whose whole being is a burden
on industry ; and we regret to see it finding a
home in the Western world, welcomed by such
men as Mr. WEBSTER, 'vhen it is about to be
given up here. We regret that he has not yet
learned, to borrow the language of Miss MARTI-
NEAU, " that the true dignity of America is to
follow out her own republican principles, instead
of adopting the false principles and injurious
policy of older and less favoured nations. If she
would leave labour, and commerce, and capital
free, disdaining interference at home and retalia-

tion abroad, showing her faith in the natural

laws of social economy, by entirely committing
to them the external interests of her people, she

would become the pattern and instructress of the
civilised world." But her WEESTERS have not

knowledge and the requisite faith, and they
would sacrifice, if they be allowed, the welfare
of that rising community to a servile imitation of
the discredited policy of Europe.
Wu shall reserve our remarks on the banking
scheme of the American Whigs for a future
occasion.

There can be no doubt that the present con-
tention in society arises, like most contentions,
from the desire for wealth. In some it takes
the shape of a struggle for subsistence, in others,
it is only the demand of something more than
they have. There is net at present enough to
satisfy all; some must go without, some get a
great deal less than their share, some have more
tha: they know very well what to do with, and
discontent and contention pervade the whole.
Of course the first object which a wise states-
man contemplates is to increase the amount of
wealth. To interfere with the distribution is to
trench on -the right of property, which it is his
lbusiness to protect. At the same time expe-
rience has demonstrated that the statesman
cannot add to the amount of wealth in society.
He has no means to Operate on the production,
but by bounties, or duties, or prohibitions, all of
which are, in fact, an interference with the dis-
tribution of wealth, and infringements on the
right of property. This power, therefore, of
putting an end to our contentions, or of lessening
them,%,Y
adding to the quantity of wealth in
extremely limited, or rather nil, and
we society,
mustety, is
not
look tor redress or assistance from
s
any ability lie possesses to increase the stock of
enjoyment.
It is, however, evident from the fact that all

• the physical sources of our wealth are unimpaired,
that the evils of our present condition are self-
imposed. It is only requisite to know the cause
to be enabled to cure them. To say nothing
now of any particular laws which flow from our
opinions, it is sufficient to observe that to our
Opinions, our ignorance, or our imperfect know-
ledge, we must ascribe all the evils which plague
us. Being extremely limited in our views,
knowing accurately but a very few things, and
being confined to a very limited sphere, we,
nevertheless, seek to control and regulate all that
our• imagination can grasp. Ambition of one
kind or another is at the bottom of our dis-
I tresses, and seems equally to prompt the de-
I rands of the Chartist and the usurpations of the
priest. As we cannot expect much help from
the lawmaker, it is perhaps worthy of one mo-
ment's consideration whether we cannot help
ourselves. To inculcate kindliness and charity,
forbearance and mutual indulgence, is the duty
of a large body of men. To enforce tire observ-
ance of these, and the more rigid duties of jus-
tice, is the business of another body; and were
their example to conform to their precepts, great
good would be effected.
It is for them to be the models of society. If
they wish the bumbler classes not to be extremely
anxious for their property, let them not be ava-
ricious themselves. If the lower classes must be
taught not to grasp at political power, which
it is said they cannot wield, let the upper
classes not monopolise it, proving, by their
mode of using it, that the lower classes
could not possibly make more unjust legislators.
If all are to be taught contentment, let the land-
owners be content with what justly comes to
them, and not exert themselves covertly to get
riches at the expense of the humbler classes. The
lower classes are starving; let the upper classes
forego some of their claims and privileges, and
so take some share of the general burdens.
The State, says EMERSON, in his " Man the
Reformer," must consider the poor man, and
all voices must speak for him. Every child that
is born must have a chance for bread. Let the

melioration in our laws of property proceed from
the concession of the rich, not from the grasping of
the poor. Let usbeginby habitual imparting. Let
us understand that the equitable rule is that no
one should take more than his share. That
is the sort of wisdom which our ruling classes
should now practise. Let them not take more
than their share—let them make concessim—

and then they will soon have no reason to com-
plain of the grasping of the poor. If the great
and the rich cannot be brought to understand
that it is for their advantage to make concession,
to follow the equitable rule, the need of such a
quiet improvement will beget a fearful change.

The speech of the King of HOLLAND on open-
ing the Chambers, which will be found in another
part of The Sun, represents that country in a
condition somewhat like our own. The taxes
are falling off, and the imposts are to be in-
creased. The indigent do not diminish, and
trade does not flourish. To compensate for the
national distress the people are told of happy
marriages in the Royal Family, and of the reci-
procal love between the SOVEREIGN and his sub-
jects. They cannot live long on that, and the
sagacity of the Hollanders, like the sagacity of
our own people, must be directed to investigate
the cause of their suffering, and the means of
remedying it.