MR. SADLER AND THE "WHITBY DINNER.
Mr. SADLER derives a factitious consequence from the position that he holds in relation to the party that has chosen him for its champion. The speech at Whitby may be received as a synopsis of his theory of commercial policy. His arguments are pretty well balanced ; and the mere enumeration of them, stripped of the declamation in which they are enveloped, will suffice better than any counter reasoning to exhibit their real value.
The character of a man's intellect is as easily discoverable in small as in great matters. One of Mr. SADLER'S preliminary observations is therefore as conclusive as the most elaborate judgment that follows. Seventy shipowners, or persons connected with shipping, give him a dinner: and what is the inference of the honourable gentleman in con- sequence ? " I cannot but regard your present attentions as one of' the most unequivocal proofs ever tendered to any man that his public con- duct has met with general satisfaction." We admire the candour which, after this modest declaration, led the speaker to remark, that he would not seek for a true description of the state of the country " from flat- terers at feasts—from the discussions of economists, at the boards of merchant princes, groaning with delicious viands, and sparkling with wines of every vintage." The ancient policy of England, from which we have so sadly departed, influenced by Lord WALLACE and his fol- lowers, was founded, first, on the abundance of all things necessary to human existence within our own sheres, and the necessity of de- veloping these resources ; second, on the comparatively unimportant nature of those things that we required from abroad. So says Mr. SADLER; and hence he calls for prohibition of silk goods,—it being a fact notorious to all mankind, that raw silk cannot be raised in Great Britain in any shape—that the climate is destructive to the manufac- ture of the finer description of organzine, and also to the more delicate dyes. Of the contrast between his premises and conclusions this is but one of many examples. The arguments against free trade derive, it seems, additional force " from the course of events, which have made Great Britain a country more heavily taxed than any other." This is a pleasant way of describing what other men call the course of policy supported for many years by the Duke of NEWCASTLE, and the other disciples of that school of which Mr. SADLER is the advocate. Mr. SADLER grants that there have been depressions even under the old system, but they were partial and temporary; at any rate, there can be no doubt that before the new system was introduced, no country under heaven was so prosperous as Eng- land. And the proofs of this indubitable proposition are—the indivi- dual experience of seventy gentlemen belonging to the port of Whitby in Yorkshire, and the King's Speech of 1825 ! The Corn Laws are a subject of complaint, as every thing else is ; it is however admitted that they are not so bad as they will be—why?—The late Mr. RICARDO was and the present Mr. HUME is of opinion that they should be made worse. Why not add, that Mr. SADLER himself is for their amendment. Surely he is equal to Mr. HUME at least. From corns Mr. SADLER strays not unnaturally to shoes. The poor shoe- makers have been bemoaned in strains that might wake King Crispin from the dead ; and still shoes are twelve shillings a pair. It is fair to state, that a sentence or two farther on, Mr. SADLER gives up the snobs at discretion. While luxuriating bn a picture of a lady surrounded by the labours of the Turkish and Lyonese looms and other outlandish machines, he adds that the head and the feet of the fair object of his poetic vision were not clad in foreign manufactures. And indeed he gives, in a general way, a still more extended qualifier : " The object of these changes (from the old system to the new) was all the while low prices ; and after all, a more insane attempt to effectuate that (a reduction of prices, to wit) never entered the head of a man." In fact, we begin to suspect that there has been no such thing as a fall in prices—that it is all a delusion of the free trade newspapers and the Catholics : silks, and gloves, and shoes, are as dear as ever,— for, as our orator well observes, "eight hundred millions of debt and cheap prices are not convertible terms ;" and there is no doubt of the debt. The evils which we suffer have all arisen from the free trade principle. This is obvious, says Mr. SADLER, from the fact that they came into existence at precisely the same time. The precise time to which Mr. SADLER refers we do not pretend to guess. He complains of the Corn Laws, the Shipping Laws, the Silk Laws, the Small Note Laws, the Cash Payment Laws, with nume- rous others too tedious to mention. Now the enactments enumerated happen to be spread over fourteen years ; the first Corn Law was passed in 1815, the Small Note Act came into operation in April last. Large Farms receive from the wandering orator as strong censure as the laws on the Silk Trade ; he is as indignant when Government lets men do as they please, as when it interferes to direct them. His aversion and his favour are alike indiscriminate. Thus, after dwelling on the sufferings and wrongs of agriculturists, he turns round and asks why agitators for Emancipation should be listened to, and agitators for Bread put down ; it being a first principle of these same agitators for bread that there ought to be no protection of agriculture at all. In the same style, having contended for the annihilation of Foreign Trade in the first part of his discourse, he perorates by declaring himself a consi8- tent advocate for the extension of the Shipping interests. But we must quit this unsatisfactory task of chasing one who is ever doubling, and who at every turn puts on a new character. Had Mr. SADLER been a man of twenty, we should have entertained some hopes that his poetry might in time sober down to sense ; but a hunter after tropes at fifty! —he must really content himself with writing verses for the Annuals, and leave political economy to men of duller wits.
We have seen it stated in a Dublin paper, that Mr. SADLER was originally an advocate of the Catholic claims ; and that he suppressed that fact in his book on Ireland, that he might not turn away the Tories from the study of it, well aware that it would not be perused by the Whigs under any modification.- This we cannot believe; we think that the intellect of Mr. SADLER is essentially Anti-Catholic, and
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