The Sun.
London, England, 1842-07-14 00:00:00

Ott ,§nu.

LONDON
THURSDAY MORNING, JULY 13, 1842.

We will not copy from another part of The Sun the
strong language used by Mr. COBDEN yesterday, at the
meeting of the Anti-Corn-law League, but we earnestly
recommend it to th 6 consideration of our readers. Mr•
COBDEN is a man of property, and a well-informed able
writer, as well as speaker. Under the title of "A Man-
chester Manufacturer" he has acquired extensive reputa-
tion. He is by temper and inclination, as well as habit,
a reflecting, moderate, liberal man. He is one of the
middle classes, whose welfare is bound up with peace
and order ; yet Mr. COBDEN exhorts the League to
" take any, every step to force from the Government jus-
tice for themselves and the people." He recommends
them to "embarass the Government in every possible
way." He says the more they embarass such a Govern-
ment the more they would fulfil their duty to themselves
and their country ; keeping within the law, " whatever
they could do to embarass the Government they were
bound to do. They owed it no respect." " The Govern-
.ment is based on corruption, and the offspring of vice,
corruption, violence, intimidation, and bribery." He
derided the notion of preserving the public credit at the
expense of national suffering ; and he held up to repro-
bation the money classes in London, who had never gone
beyond their counting-house doors to inquire if the
statements of distress were true or not.
Mr. COBDEN is not only all that we have described,
he is a Member of Parliament, who will be called on in
the House of Commons to defend his opinions, and who
would forfeit by violence and untruth the confidence of
those who have made him their representative. To find
such a man using such language, and to know that it
meets the. approbation of the numerous and powerful
bodies with which he is associated, is one of the signs
of the times which the public and prudent statesman
ought not to overlook.

At the meeting of the. Anti-Corn-law League on
Tuesday, at Manchester, Mr. Alderman BROOKS, in
giving an account of the interview which the Deputa-
tion has had with Sir R. PEEL, said that " he was glad
of the opportunity of telling Sir R. PEEL that he had
become a Chartist." He had been so disgusted, it ap-
pears, by the conduct of the House of Commons. that he

had joined the movement for Universal Suffrage. Such
men as Mr. COBDEN and Mr. BROOKS represent the
bulk of the mildle classes in the manufacturing dis-
tricts, and their sentiments are an indication of the sen-
timents of thousands.

Men only respect and honour a Government for the
protection it affords them, and the Government or Legis-
lature which inflicts impoverishment and ruin on them
' must be despised and hated. We do not wonder, there-
-1 fore, at the manufacturers now turning against the
Government. As Mr. COBDEN stated in the House of
Commons on Monday evening, there will soon be no
middle classes in the manufacturing districts to
stand between the aristocracy and the outraged
people. The manufacturers and the shopkeepers will be
ruined, or they will turn Chartists ; and in either case
the democracy and the aristocracy will come into per-
sonal and fierce conflict. Let not the latter flatter
themselves that this can be advantageous to them.
Though they should succeed by military force in sub-
cluing the democracy, the attempt must be ruinous to
their wealth and power. The union of all classes in
England, society being more closely knit together here
by the authority of the constable's staff than it is in other
countries by the pressure of military power, is the main
source of our superiority as a nation ; break or banish
the middle classes—set the democracy and the aristod
cracy in fierce array—require an army in every town, to
preserve peace and obedience—and the power of Eng-
land will dwindle below the point which is due to her
geographical extent. She will then have the turbulence,
without the vigour of a popular Constitution ; and will
be worse off, till time has destroyer) the friction be-
tween liberty and arbitrary power, than the States of
the Continent, which run smoothly, if slowly and con-
strainedly, in the well-worn channels of despotism.

There is no person in the empire more cruelly libelled
than her MAJESTY. Is a in,asure required by the aris-
tocracy to keep out food and keep up rents, they go
through a solemn farce, and declare that her MAJESTY—
poor calumniated Ladyl—gives her assent to it. Is it
necessary, in order that the Exchequer, drained by their
extravagance, and shrunk and shrivelled for want of the
supplies a prosperous trade would pour into it, should
be filled by an Income-tax; her MAJESTY is pomp-
ously put forward, by those who should shield her
from unpopularity, as consenting that her in-
come should be taxed, and as giving, at another
stage, the Royal assent to this terrible infliction
on her people. We have endeavoured to rescue
her MAJESTY from these foul libels, by explaining to our
readers that her gracious name is usurped by her Mi-
nisters, and that what they and what the law, with one
of its customary fictions—or, to use a better English

Vocal Music—Potition of pupils of the classes at Exeter
Hall, under the sanction of the Committee of Council on Edu-
cation, for such an alteration in the terms of the annual grant
for the promotion of education, as will enal4e the QoPIIIIIItte9
of Council to appropriate a sufficient sum of money in aid of
the expenses of conducting the classes now held in Exeter
Hall, and towards the provision of a
suitable building for
these Schools (Queen's tteeDFnmemlatiun
signified); to lie on
the table.

cup of bitterness has been for the people Sloplo
time brimmed, and it only wanted this mockery of their
suffering in the name of the QUEEN, to make it run
over. We fee by our ,correspondence that the pFopo-
sit ion has justly excited theindignatiou of the people,

Admitting that the use of Machinery throws persons
out of employment, as asserted by the Pro-Corn-law
Pali", can anything be more najast flan for the Legis-
laturp to linai!, the supply of food, and poh4rtee it 4 pi4ce,
to those whom the progress of society has thrown out
of employment ? The present use of such an argument
by tini T9ries to account for the national distress, is
entirely and Ortiii iTT*yant to the Cure}-lacy qnestion;
and it is only adopted, eve 4e4PFP? fIi:VPFt the exertions
of the League from the breach they have made in the
Corn-laws, to resist a §ham attack on their own lines.
If all which the Tories
.say of 03 pire4s of machinery
be tree, betwixt them and the pffec4 of the P9Fn:4T
there is a atrikles t4iffprence. ''h,e nse and extension
of machinery is not .oyd#ingsi by the I.,egislature-7-the
Corn-law Is; for the effects of the formar, therpfore? the
Legislature is not yevion4i4, for the effects of the latter
it is. Should the former reAtily begs injqpinlig tp a class
of the people as the irruption of the piropaoo into
America has bean fat4i. tp the Red men, the Legislature
cannot help it, Its duty 4 tpr' ea !.f:t! titr'~itsl 13
bvery individual, fu tip foli ppsipssiou of ios
and the free exercise of his right,s, It is bound, there-
fore, equally to protect the owner ofa self:acting mole in
its free nee as the owner of e. distaff or a spade. If the
exertions of the former sbnnid f@PciPr the labour of the
latter less useful or valuable to other persona, the Legis-
lature must regard it as he regards the blight which
spares one man's field, and utterly destroys the crops of
another. The Corn-law, however, is altogether the off-
spring of the law-maker, it would not exist ex-
cept for him, and for ail its effects, even the most
remote, for the effect of diminishing still more the value
of that labour which machinery has partly superseded,
he is responsible.
No doubt, Sir R. PEEL meant, by adopting the vulgar
argument of his party, to throw off from himself and the
Legislature all responsibility • for the existing distress,
But that is far too widely diffused to permit of the ex-
planation. It pervades Ireland where there is no machi-
nery as well as England where it abounds ; it is felt in
the agricultural districts as well as at Manchester; at
Nottingham, where no improvement has taken place in
stocking-weaving, as well as at Bolton. or Stockport ; in
the Whitehaven coal trade, where no steamers are em-
ployed, and in the Liverpool foreign and home trade, in
which steamers abound. The wide diffusion of the dis-
tress, and its long continuance, completely disprove the
opinion that it has been caused by the use of improved
44,chiupry. Sir R. PEEL, in truth, knows that
the use am achinery, though it may change the
direction of labour, #lwq.pf increases the amount
of employment; and it is ;Sense than nuo4ndj4 in !lip} to
ascribe the vast and general distress to OW use Of lan
ehinery, He seeks, by such u futile argammt, to throw
on machinery fhp, responsibility for the existing evils,
which belongs to i,eo;hition. Rightly con, idered,
we are not sure that his prmsl49p is not impious as well
as unjust, for he ascribes the blimp, 40 0 !}i# own mis-
chievous legislation, to Nature, or Goy.

We have given et lenXth the second clause of the
Bill introduced by Sir R. PEEL,, fiir the !nore effectual
security of her MAJESTY'S person, and our readess
will be glad to find that ono of the punishments is
"whipping," either print° or public. We have el cr
and navy, as well
beento
topposedp p
no
gflogging
fionr
tilaZglnalLeny, and still more
to tii whipping of old men—a punishment which a late
Chief Justice f;eluently awarded ; and, indeed, so de-
grading and injurious to the future prospects of the suf-
ferer has this species of esagation appeared,
that ninety-nine persons out of a hundred would
have willingly voted for its total abolition. The
heartless yagabon4§, however, who have. lately
so cruelly annoyed our vietms QUEEN, and dis-,
graced their country, have no doubt inatevlany altered
public opinion, and not ninety. nine out of a hundred, but
the whole community, will be glad to learn that the dis-
graceful punishment is to be continued on the statute-
book, at all events, for the especial benefit of this new
Cass of offenders. The punishment should be made in
public. Let it be inflicted in the presence of thousardis•
at the old place of execution, by the common hangman ;
let the miserable victims of morbid notoriety have, their
fill of it in this manner, once, twice, or thrice, as cir-
custances may require, ;Ad then be banished from
the land they have made a bye.word 'among the na-
tions. All pity for such men becomes extinguished, when
we reflect on the anguish which the QUEEN must suf-
fer, who of all Sovereigns on earth is the most innocent
and most ardently attached to her people, and yet is ha-
rassed and attacked by her own subjects as if she were
the most hatefulof,tyrants. The Bill on Tuesday could
have been passed by acclamation, so cordially did it meet
the views of every Member, but the Government pru-
dently preferred the usual course. It went through
Committee last night with a few alterations, was read a
third time, and passed. It will proceed at the same ra-
pid rate through the House of Lords, and in a few days
become the law of the laud.

The readers of The Sun can bear testimony to the
fact, that the cause of general education has had few
more zealous and untiring advocates among the public
Press than this Journal. When it was first proposed
by the late Government to grant a pittance of 30,0001.
a-year for the education of the people—a proposal stre-
nuously resisted by the whole of the Tory faction now
in ofsce—we pointed out the notorious inadequacy of
such a sum for such a purpose ; and called the attention
of the then Chancellor of the Exchequer to the shame-

lessness of voting 70,0001. for Royal stable., and only
30,0001. for the education of millions of her Majesty's
British and Irish subjects. We premise these remarks
to prevent the astonishment which we have to express at
the conduct of the House of Lords last night fro.n
being misunderstood, or as indicating on our part any
lukewarmness on the great subject of general education:
Lord WHARNCLIFFE presented a petition from Mr
HuLLAR's singing classes in Exeter Hall. or-
ganised under the direction of the Committee
of Education of the Privy Council, praying
that they might be allowed to participate in the Educer
tion grant—a prayer which his Lordship, the Earl of
LANSDOWNE, and Lord BROUGHAM, cordially supported,
and in which the House, without a dissentient voice,
concurred. Nov,, with the highest respect for Mr.

lIITLLAn's great abilities as a musician and a teaeher
of music—with the fullest conviction of the humanising
influence or that divine science upon the minds of the
people generally, we cannot but regret the inappropriate-
as the time chosen for bringing the question
of musical science before the House of Lords. It can-
not but increase the public indignation at tl:e conduct of
that House on the preceding night, when the subject of
discussion was not singing, but starvation. There are
hard-hearted people who never relieve mendicants who
cannot give expression to their miseries musically—
in some touching street ditty or other—and the Lor,:s
are perfectly willing to qualify the starving millions
to work upon the benevolent feelings of this numerous
class of pauper supporters. They are to be made as
musical in their miseries as distracted lovers in an
opera. For the appointment of a Select Committee to
inquire into a state of general, appalling distress,
jeopardizing the health, the morals, and the lives of mil-
lions of the poor, only 14 votes were given in the House

one iof irls'enstoinary lies,ealls the Royai assent, is
nothing in tb .e world bat the assent of the oligarqs and
innnopolia s, who, by dint 'of bribery, corruption, and
intiinidatiolt, have for the season taken possession of the
functions o f the Government‘ It is nothing more than
the assent fof Land, Church, Sugar, and Co., signified in
the usurped name of the QUEEN by those who, being
her, and, for our sins, our masters, are falsely called her
Ministers,

We Anti in the Votes of the House of Commons of the
night befot'e last, great reason to be thankful for having
already been enabled to blunt the • point of the libelS
which the Tory Ministers are eteitinuaq heaping on the
qvgrw, WWI the people are actually starving—
when they dig up and beg rotten carrion for food— when
those Ministers have refused them all aid and relief, ex-
cept that which degrades them to mendicants, and
makes them seem to hold their lives at the mercy of
those who feed them, we find it asserted in the Votes
419 t 114 4:4;iigit bv ree2799ld?cl grant c,-f vaintY
to MA* OP T4,11t qqcf cam e'laAsei Moting at EAeter
Hall to enjoy the Leneiit o' Lk instruction..
Hpp M4,r!:srF has given no such recominororttlon Z it
is, in troth, oeiy the rgP49lMeliCation of her Ministers.
The Prime Minister, too, who denies all relief to the
people in their distress, except his pitiable scheme of
R,lins? was the man to present, the petition to the House of
Commells 19 r9Y941, ef the tilnging classes., and to libel her
MA.lnsr. by saying she reeorctneMied what, in the
present cilTeMstetres of the country; is a mast prepos-
terous 994 di§peeeffil chgllle, We cnpy the ptwago
from the Vott-S, and the reader will judge whether it be
possible more cruelly to libel her M44o.:,rry, than to re,
present her, when her people ask for food, as reec.mtnenti-
ing the awn: 4144 M of the p 44110 moiley to teach them
singing