The Sun.
London, England, 1842-11-24 00:00:00

will, we hope, call a new trade into being, and
extend the old, not revive an interrupted trade.
'We agree with Mr. R. GREG, that as this war
did not cause our difficulties, putting an end to it
will not relieve them. "To open the empire of
China to our trade," he said at the great meeting
on Tuesday, "would give no effectual relief, in
conjunction with our present system of Corn-
laws."

" We may import," he added, " ten times the quan-
tity of china and silk that we do now, in return for
our exports; we may have silk gowns as cheap as
cotton gowns, if the raw silk becomes as cheap as the
raw cotton ; but what will that benefit us? lam not
aware that the possession of a silk gown will make a
poor cottager the least bit better, happier, or better
fed. In this way it will be an amazing benefit to us
—if we can take the silk, china, tea, or other produce
of China, to other countries, and exchange the surplus
of these or other luxuries which we cannot consume
ourselves, for food—(Hear and applause)—then the
opening the trade to China will be an amazing boon
to this country ; the population will be fed; and as
soon as they are fed, then the cottager's wife will
be able to buy a silk gown.and to enjoy it.—(llear.)
Then the people will be able to buy tea and sugar,
and then these luxuries will be a blessing to them. But,
as long as they have no food to eat, no accumulation of
luxuries can benefit the poor.—(llear.) This point,
so viewed, is of so much importance, that consider it
to form the whole basis of our restrictive laws upon
the importation of food. You cannot benefit the mass
of the people without increasing the quantity of
food."

These truths must be steadfastly remembered,
otherwise the hopes and expectations of an ex-
tended trade may paralyze the exertions of the
League to get rid of the real cause of our diffi-
culties. An increase of trade with China will
benefit both countries, but nothing can rescue
the people of England from want and pauperism
but a completely free trade in all the articles of
human subsistence.
The noble meeting at Manchester has inspired
us, we must say, with renewed hopes that this
object is not far off. As the perception of the
manutitcturers there, a the ruin which hereafter
awaits them, grows clearer, their language be-
comes bolder, and; their contributions larger.
We have already adverted to their subscriptions.
To notice their language, it was well said by Mr.
R. GREG that "rent is not a necessary ingredient
in the cultivation of the soil." That is, we do
not need landowners to provide society with the
means of subsistence. The only classes required
to obtain that prime end and object of all social
institutions are the actual cultivators of the soil.
The receivers of rent perform no part of the in-
dispedsiblc operation. If they will persist in in-
creasing their rent by a law, therefore, ruining
trade and starving a portion of the people, they will
so impress on the community a conviction that
they are useless as landowners, and mischievous
as law-makers, as by and by to compel it to
cast them aside and trample them down as a
perfect nuisance. Unless they do justice, and
allow the community to have as much food, and
have it as cheap as possible, they may be assured
that merchants, manufacturers, artisans, and la-
bourers, now that such men as Mr. GREG have
begun to speak out, will not long submit to be
impoverished or starved by those who are mere
ornaments to society, and form no portion of its
essential elements.
We have other reasons for anticipating a
complete and not distant success. Sir ROBERT
PEEL has shown so effectually the injuriousness
of a fixed duty on corn, that he never can advo-
cate that system. His sliding scale has turned
out more injurious to his own friends than the
one he abolished. He has endeavoured, slyly,
to open a free trade in corn with the United
States, only directing it through Canada. He
must go on, and he cannot stop at a fixed duty.
We anticipate, therefore and we urge the
League not to relax its exertions—that Sir R.
PEEL will, ere long, give the country a free trade
in food.
The landowners themselves are coming round
to this doctrine. At Ilminster, on Wednesday
last, Mr. BICKHAM ESCOTT, who represents
Winchester by the Duke of BUCKINGHAM'S in-
terest, and is supposed to speak the Duke's senti-
ments, sported such good free-trade doctrines as
these, with more of the same sort :
" I will venture to say that if ever a death-blow is
to be struck at the agriculture of England, it rvill be
when the trade and commerce of the country has suf-
fered an irreparable decline."
" I have," he tells us, " come_to a conclusion, after
considering the whole bearings of the subject, that
the great protective power of the agricultural classes
of the country rests in the renewed prosperity of its
trade and commerce."
" We are not bound to a Corn-law. What is the
object of a Corn-law? It is to .protect the growers
of the people's bread, by encouraging the home growth
of our country ; but if the home growth is not suffi-
cient for the consumption of the people, where is the
farmer who would stand between an altered Corn-law
and the destitution of the people."
If such are the sentiments of the landowners,
Sir ROBERT PEEL will find no obstacle in com-
plying with the demands of the manufacturers,
and in carrying new laws coincident with the
principles of freedom and of justice.
Before concluding we would beg our Contem-
poraries, for their own interest, to look at some
tacts mentioned by Mr. R. GREG :—" The
Athenaeum at Manchester is likely to be sold up
to pay the debts on it. The Zoological Gardens,
that innocent source of amusement for the popu-
lation of the town, were broken up. At Bolton
the public news-room was closed for want of
sufficient funds to keep it open." Now these
are places at which several newspapers were
taken,• and to shut them up is to cut off sub-
scribers to the journals. Newspapers are, to a
certain extent, a luxury, and their sale is closely
connected with the public prosperity. Journals
of all political opinions must suffer by the
closing of Athenaeums, News-rooms, and Literary
Societies ; and our Tory Contemporaries contend,
with great disinterestedness, against their own
interest in advocating a line of policy as to
trade which cuts up by the roots the national. prosperity.
s- T 1

le melancholy termination of the Niger Ex-
pedition, the last wreck of which, the Wilber-
has just returned to
force, England, is a pointed
lesson to those well-meaning
lltal a nt
knowledger op h i et s,
who are guided more by impulse than At the cost of 60,0001.
.
to the people of England,
previously pressed to the earth by taxation, that
expedition left our shores upwards of two years
ago to carry civilisation into Africa. It was to
ascend the Niger, plant a model farm, promote
trade, and instil into the savages a love of peace,
humanity, and order. Merchants, in the habit of
trading to Africa, cautioned the philanthro-
phists that their project was impracticable
and would only impede the civilisation
which trade was promoting. They were
ridiculed and vilified for their pains, and told.
in good set terms, that they encouraged the de-
gradation of the Africans to gratify their own
thirst of gold. The merchants, however, were
right, the philanthropists wrong, and the costly
expedition has sacrificed the lives of many of our
countrymen without conferring the least benefit
on the Africans. The model farm became the
home of slavery, and the communication that was
to carry only love and kindness, seems to have
imparted moral, and received physical, conta-
gion. Never was there a greater failure, though
probably no expedition ever originated in purer
motives. To the self-conceit of philanthropy
the lesson thus taught is most humiliating. We
wish it may generally be taken to heart by those
who believe that a stroke of the pen, a grant
by the House of Commons, or the united will
of the Legislature, can at once alter the course of
events, and change the character of man.

ATTEMPTED SUlClDE.—Yesterday, a few minutes
before twelve o'clock, just as the down train of the
Great Western Railway was about to start, two young
men, who had engaged their places by it, very respect-
ably dressed as sailors, went into the Dudley Arms,
for some refreshment, which they partook of at •the
bar. From their conversation, they appeared to be
brothers; and soon after they were in the house, one
of them retired to the back part of the premises. His
absence being such as likely to endanger the loss of
their places, the other spoke to Mr. Young, the land-
lord, who. immediately went into the yard, and found
the man in the water-closet suspended by his necker-
chief, which he had fastened round his neck, and
attacked the other end to a beam; he was black in the
face, and apparently quite dead. Mr. Young called
for assistance, and he was cut down. A surgeon at-
tended and bled him, when he was removed, in a very
dangerous state, to the hospital. No reason could be
ascertained for the attempt on his life.