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 copyin4
what appears in another, but we earnestly request publi4
attention to our report of the proceedings yesterday
at the Meeting to consider the distress of the country.
Though much grieved, we are not surprised at the great
distress, for we warned the public, months, and even
years ago, that the laws were subjecting the people to all
the terrible severities of an Ilindostan famine. Unhap-
pily our prediction is realised, and the public must di+
credit all testimony if it be not now convinced thtit
gaunt famine prevails in the manufacturing district.
since 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
cotneth 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
tamed 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.
Men reason on this subject from an imperfect ana-
logy, -and are consequently deceived: Violent revolu-
tions 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 clone. 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 ;
end there is more reason to dread the g'radu'al reconcile-
ment of the multitude to a liindoo- standard of subsist-
nce. 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 quar-
rel, than make common cause: But, while the people
are divided,:the 'system hick .ipygre?scs them is
unifoim and constant in it7operations. Rebellion, then,
Ca44ot, 1)9 concocted iu wrPti extegl4vo copse 4

scarcely possible, and a pining atrophy seems as Oka 1Y
as a furious fever to waste the greatness of England:.
Yet the alarm which has of late been felt, and wh jell
still prevails in some quarters, seems not wholly witlic +ut
foundation. We learn from the Kent Herald, that Dt.
I.I‘DouALL gave a lecture at Canterbury, on Monday,..
on the distress of the country, a part of which is tkus
described :

The leeturer 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 thousaA d
to London, and, abstaining from physical force, would make'
known that " since they must starve, they would starve ire
face of Cod and of Queen Victoria II" He was sure that t+s!
soldiery woald 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
p eat revolution, and he prayed it might be bloodless—but that
-would depend on the manner 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 stn,
would not endure ilf-treatment.

Dr. M'DouALL's cenviction concerning the soldiers
may be compared to the anecdote told of the feelings of
one soldier, by Mr. G. THOMPSON, at the meeting. His
accountoof the resolve of the people gives no counte-
nsnce 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 4„ 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 tame, or
.tho
natural progress and development or.society, is as muds
a part of science, and it has been so treated by CUVISR.
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
name, 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 demigods 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
nys

" The British Islands are pouring both their thousands an 4
their tens of thousands upon the Americin shores, and I oh-
serve that a majority of the arrivals are these 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-
ready arrived this season, while at Philadelphia, Boston, and
Baltimore, the arrivals are more numerous than ever before
known."

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 ie
more accessible from the sea border of England than
1. 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
our 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. Band
is useful, for what it bears; and by importing the produce
of the new soil of the United States, wt in fact import all
for which the soil is valuable. With 4Umeasurable folly,
however, our law-makers are depriving England of this
immense advantage, and dooming her people to expa-
triation and decay.

MEHESIET ALI AND THE TRANSIT THROUGH EGYPT.
—From the last advices received from Alexandria, it
appears that the Pacha of Egypt is fulfilling the promises
which he made to the Peninsular and Oriental Steam
Navigation Company, under the negotiation effected by
Mrs. Anderson, for opening and facilitating the transit of
passengers and goods to and from India. The Pacha
has granted permission to the Company to navigate thw
Great Canal, from Alexandria to Atfeh on the Nile, by
steam-boats, a point of which he has hitherto been
very tenacious. This will facilitate the transit of pas-
sengers in a most important degree. The Pacha has further,
on the Company's requisition, postponed the commence.,
ment of the first, or experimental twelve months, which he
granted for a free transit through Egypt, of merchandize
to and from India, until the arrival at Suez of the first
of the Company's steamers destined to form the commu-
nication between India and Suez. He has also given
orders for improving the road between Cairo and Suez,
and has, moreover, offered to build or furnish to the
Company, transit depots at Alexandria, Atfeh. Shoubra
(near Cairo), and Suez, the Company giving in their own
plans for the buildings, and engaging to pay to the Pasha
a moderate rent proportionate to the outlay. The route
to and from India, via Egypt, may therefore, in the course
of a very short time, be expected to present every facility
which can be desired, and to become the great thorough-
fare between the Eastern and Western Hemispheres.
THE STEAM-SHIP HINDOSTAN.—This magnificent
vessel, the first of the Oriental Steam Company's line
for the communication between Calcutta, Madras, Cey-
lon, and Suez, is rapidly progressing in her outft, and
will, it is said, be ready to start for India from South-
ampton, by the Ist of September. She will be com-
manded by Captain Richard Moresby of the Indian
Navy, so well known for his elaborate survey of the Red
Sea, the Maldive Islands, &c. A considerable number
of cabins are already engaged in her, and it is expected
the vessel will be full of passengers on her outward
voyage. The Bentinck, a sister vessel to the Hindostan,
and destined for the same station, will soon be launched
at Liverpool. These vessels are each of the burthen of
1,800 tons, and have engines of 520 horse power. A mo-
del of th;: Hindostan, exhibiting a complete plan of her
interior accommodations, is kept at the offices of the
)ricioul Company in St. Mary Axe, and is a great
our:ositN.