The Sun.
London, England, 1827-03-27 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

How long, we should like to know, is this
country to be kept in its present dangerous' and
disgraceful state---with-so many important inte-
rests unsettled, and without even the' shadow of
a responsible or effective Government ? Let us
only see who is to be at the helm, and the na-
tion will be prepared to assist his course, or to
bear down upon, and make him strike his co-
lours. At the first blush, a reasonable man
would pray for success to Mr. Canning. But if
Mr. Canning condescends to come in with his
hands tied behind him—and as the humble ser-
vant of the Court party—what will the country
gain by his accession, except a fresh prospect of
being still disappointed and deceived ? In the
meantime, what are the Opposition doing ? A
little forbearance at first might have been becom-
ing, and even magnanimous ; but this long passive
observation of the indignity by which Parliament
and the people are alike insulted, argues that
the Whigs and their friends are indeed " His
Majesty's. Opposition,"—not that phalanx. of
spirited and independent gentlemen to whom we
had a right to look for some appearance of
energy commensurate with the necessities of the
national affairs. If the Opposition be withheld
from acting by any fear of encountering the Cla-
mours of the hired press-gang of the Ministers,
they are wholly unfit for the place which they have
so long boasted of possessing in the confidence of
independent men throughout the country. They
will be accused, forsooth, of "seeking. office them-
selves," if they do not leave the intriguers of the
other party an open field for the' exercise of their
own selfish manceuvres! And why should not the
Opposition look for office ? Why are they an Op-
position, but because \ they are held together by a
-n of public principles ; and if they wish
not to procure the means of applying those prin-
ciples by getting into power, it may induce a suspi-
cion that they themselves are doubtful of their
soundness ? We should grieve to see a false and
childish delicacy made a cloak for the want of mthly
activity and resolution. It does- appear to us that
Mr. Canning, with whom public opinion used to go
for something, is bound either to abandon the rump
of the Liverpool party at once, or to declare from
his place in Parliament, the principles and condi-
tions on which he abides among them.—Times.
Upon the affair of the Wakefields, we should
be as cautious of speaking, as upon that of the
two gamekeepers m the preceding paragraph,
were we not certain that sentence will be passed
upon them before our remarks can reach Lan-
Their act forms an era in the history of
crime.. Wretches have been known to carry off
innocents whom they have seen, and with whom
they have conversed, from motives of lust or
lucre. But to plot and execute the fraudulent
abduction of a child, who had neither ever be-
held, nor ever been beheld by, the villain who ,
withdrew her from her asylum, counterfeiting
the directions and solicitations of a parent, is an
act which we believe was never known to occur
till now in the history of civilized man. There
was a certain Princess of the house of Gonzaga,
of Foridi, in Italy, celebrated for her beauty,
whom an African pirate attempted to seize, in
order that he might sell her to the Grand
Turk. But then the pirate was a barba-
rian, and the person to whom he would have
conveyed the lady was not such a brute as himself;
he might be a cultivated prince, and not unworthy
of the fair prize, if he had won her fairly. It was
for his own base self that Wakefield abstracted Miss
Turner ; and lucre, na in the case of the pirate, was
his object, for-he could have no love for one whom
he had not seen. It may have been thought ;'-at
the child was more tranquil than could have 1.--
expected under the circumstances of the case. That
maces no difference in the previous crime. Wake-
field had never known, and never seen, her whom
he carried off: he had had no previous corre-
spondence with her. She might have been as timid
and as sensitivelpaninded, as she appears to have
been er-sy and unsuspecting. She miglit have died
with fright at the person of her abducer—with
anguish at the recital of ,her father's troubles. The
criminal could not foresee what effect his crime
might have upon the feelings of his victim.—Thid.
• 4
A Petition was last night presented to the
House of Commons, by Mr. Hume, from the
Working Manufacturers of Bolton-le-Moors,
Lancashire, praying that a minimum of 'wages
might be fixed by law. The Petitioners stated,
that if heard before a Committee, they could
prove that they were as much entitled to the
establishment of a minimum in the rate of wages,
as the Agricultural Interest was to the establish-
ment of a minimum in the price of corn ; "and,"
said Mr. Flume, in that point I perfectly. .agree
with them." Col. Maberley observed, that "if
the House granted to the Agriculturists what
they were pleased, to call a remunerating price;
it could not in fairness deny to any, and every
other class of the community, what they consi-
dered a remunerating price, either for their corn- 1
modities or for their labour."—There is no
question, that the doctrine of a title to a remu-
nerating price applies with equal fairness to work-
men as to agriculturists. But, though the agri-
culturists lay claim to a remunerating price, and;
by excluding foreign corn, ijo all they cap td
obtain it, it is not in the power of Legislation
to" effect the object of their wishes--namely,
prevent a fall of prices below the remunerating
price. In the case of a country increasing in po=
pulation, and adding to its wealth, no doubt the
exclusion of foreign corn, though it cannot pre-
vent temporary depressions, will have the effect of
raising the average price, and in some sort giving,
on an average of years, something like a remu-
nerating price. The question is, whether England
is destined to enjoy that prosperity on the exist-
ence of which the hopes of the Agriculturists are
.founded. But the Agriculturists, though their doc-
trine involves a minimum price, do not go the length
of saying that Wheat or Barley or Oats shall not
be sold below a certain sum; and in this respect the
claim for a minimum of wages cannot be called strictly
analogical. If the Landowners could only hit on any
plan for preventing corn from falling below a certain
sum, no doubt they would embrace it. We do not
see why they should not be able to discover. some
such plan: Why not, for instance, imitate the Daft
policy with regard to spices ? Let an officer be ap-
pointed in every parish, to ascertain the quantities
grOwn by each cultivator, who shall transmit a Re-
port to a_ Board in London, which may thus
be enabled to ascertain-the growth of the kingdom.
Such a Board can order a certain quantity of corn
to be destroyed, and calculate the proportions to be
collected from each grower. By this means the sup-
ply might be made to bear such a proportion to the
wants of the country, as to prevent the price from
falling below the minimum. Perhaps the General
Assembly of the pious Church of Scotland, which is
filled with such alarm lest the people should obtain
bread at too low a price, might delegate some indi-
viduals.of its, Learned Body, to mature the details
of the plan.—lllorning Chronicle.
The abduction of Miss Turner appears to
have been one of the meanest arid-barst things
that has happened for a considerable length of
time. And that women should have been en-
gaged in
the plot ! tile country is in the
highest degree indebted to Mr. Turner for his
bringing forward the tytatutesrucihn
athtehiltoldh,aambaenly
manner that he has,
suffered to have passed, no man's daugghter coulden

Oster.