The Sun. — 1839-12-30 (London, England)

ROBERT PEEL. He was guilty of most disgraceful special pleading. much more worthy of a Nisi Prius or Old Bailey lawyer than a statesman, to make out a case for them last session. He headed the opposition to the repeal ; and all his influence and power were exerted -nn the side of the landed interest, with which his own fortunes are now incorporated. Now we have some reason to suppose that the Right Honourable Baronet is preparing to veer round on this point, and we shall state why. His former conduct will prepare the world for any change that may help him into power. A few months before he brought forward his measure for murdering Protestant ascendancy, he professed a strong determination to resist the Catholics to the last gasp. At that time his relative and man-of-all-work, the Right Hon. GEOROB DAWSON, was equally violent against the Catholics ; but just before the meeting of Parliament of 1829, the said Mr. DAwsoN sounded, for his dear brother-in-law, the note of change at Londonderry, and professed himself a convert to the necessity of removing the restrictions on the Catholics. Since then the Right Hon. Go-before has relapsed, like the Baronet, into his original heresy, and was as vigorously bawling'' No Popery" at DevQnport,in November as Mr. M'GHER himself. In the last speech he made there,however, which has fallen under our notice, contained in the West of England Conservative Journal of the 25th instant, the Right Hon. Gentleman, like his retiring relative, speaks as softly of the Papists as if he were asking their votes. He trusted, he said, to the good sense of the people that they would support a religion which had been a source of happiness to them and the safeguard of their liberties. Why, we could say as much ourselves' and such is now, generally, the courtly language which the PEELITES, frightened by their own FRANKENSTEIN, are generally beginning to use. In these remarks we have closely identified the policy of the two relatives, Mr. DAWSON being shoved before, having no lack of assurance to prepare the public for the opinions the other is to profess. Mr. DAwsoN, then, we have to announce, has become a convert to the necessity of revising the Corn-laws. According to the Journal above quoted, he said :  " He had gone into houses where he had seen swarms of children, and the mother had anxiously asked him  how she could feed them, that the father toiled from morning till night but could iiot sufficieia,y y their wants. He had found this in a great many instances, and if he had any previous indisposition to the modification of the Corn-laws, such a state of feeling would remove it. Why it would be useless for him to attempt to contest the borough under such a state of things. * * * * He would go into Parliament with a desire to modify the Corn-laws in such a manner, that the objects he had named should be compassed ; and let him add, that be considered a population, such as that of this borough, were best entitled to demand some modification of these laws. When he was in Parliament he supported the Corn-laws, but be did not regard them either as Magna Charts, or the Bill of Rights ; these were the foundations of the laws, and were consequently immutable ; but he conceived that if it were found that after ten years' operation, the Cornlaws acted oppressively or inefficiently, then he should say they were open to modification or even repeal."  The Right Hon. Go-before here distinctly declares, in consistency with the conduct of the Right Hon. Gentleman who shoves him on, that he is ready to sacrifice the Corn-law for which he voted. to get power. Sir R. PEEL is well aware that, let him do what he will, the bulk of the landlords will cling to him as the great man for conserving those abuses which are the breath of their nostrils. They know that their only chance of preventing the total abolition of the Corn-laws would be to consent to a modification of them if proposed by