Star. — London, England, 1820-01-12 00:00:00

THE EVENING STAR. LONDON. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 1!, THE FUND& ?RIC& OF STOCKS THIS DAY AT ONC O ' CLOCK •• 3 per Cent. Reduced 68i - S per Cent. Consols 671 68 671 ex. div. Si per Cent. 77/ 4 per Cent. 861 5 per Cent. Navy 1021 I I mt. div. Bank Long Annuities 17 15-16 18 Imperial S per Cent. Anns. 671 India Bonds 9s. pr. Exchequer Bills(2d.) Is. 2s. dis. Commercial 13 11 discount Consols for Acct. 691; 1. For a long period we have advocated the cause of justice, as relating to the prices of labour; doing what was in our power to open the eyes of the Public, generally, to tire iniquity and impolicy of a system, but too long permitted to operate, at the will and discretion of the employer, on the pretended principle that the- rice of labour should be left, like water, to find its own level. This question has nothing to do with politics, and none but arose who wish to persist ia an iniquitous system, with a view to their own personal interest, will attempt to identify the two...—. We have never disguised our opinion, that the laws, as applied to combinations, though on the face of them just and equitable, have always operated to the injury of the workmen. The reason is obvious— Masters have the means, without shew or bustle, of combining to defraud the t workmen (and they are defrauded as often as their wages are reduced to a lower price than is sufficient for their maintenance) ; but the workmen can with difficulty form any agree ment among themselves, without incurring the pe nalties of the law ; and this is rendered impossible, when a want of a full supply of employment is ex perienced, for then the work is put up to Dutch sale —that is, bidding downwards—and men will be found, anxious to obtain hey'a lonf instead of a whole one—submitting to become, for the Masters, agents in a robbery upon the Public. The steps and rami fications of the robbery, though not obvious at first sight, lie very near the ,surface, and are easy to be traced. Sonic workmen being induced to take an inadequate remuneration, others are led to comply, that they may not be left among the unoccupied ; and i the result soon is, that the whole Master Manufactu rers in that particular line (whatever it may be), get their goods manufactured at a price not sufficient to afford half sustenance to the workmen. Who fur nishes the other half? The Public, in the shape of Poors' Rates !—And that too without any real benefit to the Misters as a body ; for, whenever the first thieves, by robbing the workmen, have laid in goods somewhat lower than their neighbours in the same line, they instantly begin to undersell the others ; and these (soon finding out the cause) become thieves, in self-de fence, to be able to meet their rival in the market : and thus the goods, notwithstanding that part of the price of their fabrication has been kept out of the belly of the workman, and another part of the price surreptitiously taken from the Poors Rates, get reduced in price, till they yield as little profit to the Masters as when they paid full wages. Nay, the case becomes even worse than we have stated, for the Master is enabled to.prepare a larger stock of goods, with the same capital, than when paying a fair price for labour; and the workmen, to eke out their scanty wages, in stead of working twelve hours, are induced to work eighteen hours out of twenty-four—thus increasing the quantity, and overstocking the market. _ We endeavoured, oftener than once, to make the injustice of this system obvious, by comparing the two legged and thefour-legged labourer. The Manu facturer will not tell his horse, " I cannot get such a price for my goods as I would need, considering their cost, and therefore you must, for your share in the labour of manufacturing them, be content, in future, to have only half your quantity of hay and corn."— Ile will not try this experiment with his horse, be cause, as we have not yet Palish Rates for the sup port of famished manufacturers' horses, he would soon be obliged to buy a new horse. But he does not need to buy men when he wears them out, by labour exaeted h ithout due sustenance given in return. The Public are at the expense of rearing his la bourers—and, by the present system, also at the ex pense of maintaining them. Our labours in exposing the iniquity of this system have not been unavailing. It is months since many of the Parishes in Leicestershire and Nottingham opened their eyes to the robbery to which it con stantly exposed them, and wisely resolved to protect the workmen—not in combinations to obtain more than a due remuneration, but by ascertaining what prices they should be paid, to yield them sustenance under their labours ; and resolving not to give relief to workmen taking lower wages—these being em ployed, and consequently having no right to Parish • ;chef. The more this question is examined, the more gels eral will the protection of the workmen become. the sensible men among the Masters, who have any feelings of humanity or justice, deplore the evils which we have exposed, as much as any other mem bers of the community ; and, in various placps, are lending their efforts to apply the proper remedy. Our Readers cannot have forgot the sensible letters which that most _respectable Manufacturer, of Man chester, Mr. HOLT, addressed to us, and which ap peared, some time ago, in our columns. They were read. with great interest, and had a powerful influence in recommending the principles which we hat advocated, to the serious consideration of all classes ; and the fruit is now stewing itself. The system of protection is not now confined to Leicester and Nottingham : it has extended itself to York shire. On Thursday, the 6th instant, a very large Meeting of persons assessed to the Poor►rates, inclu ding many Master Manufacturers and others, was held at Soothill, to consider of the Wages and 4e gulations of Labour in the Woollen Trade in that Himlet—when the following Resolution was passed unanimously: " Rantit,vsa—That this Meeting views with ghat concern the disputes existing between the masters and the men employed in the Woollen Trade in this Hamlet ; but having taken into our consideration the demand for Wages, and the Regulations adopt ed by the men, we are of opinion that they are entitled to the protection of this Meeting : and we hereby direct the Overster in any case where relief is applied for by any MIN who shall: after this time, accept of work but at these Prices, and subject to these Regulations, not to grant such relief as long as the ap plicant has a pair of bedstocks, or a single article of furniture left in his possession; and that the Overseer shall be, and he is hereby directed to band this Resolution to all the Magistrates usually acting in this District." We are confident that the system of Protection needs but to be fairly examined; to become general throughout the kingdom : nor can we conceive any mean more powerful to prevent those excesses, to which workmen are sometimes goaded on, by real or supposed oppression, when they are left to act alone ; for the Parishes would thus become the umpires be tween the masters and the men—and the cause must be a bad one which would shrink from the investi gation of such a Tribunal. The Paris Papers of Saturday arrived this forenoon. M. de CAZE still continues indisposed. It is now stated, as a matter of which there is no doubt, that the KING has granted a free pardon to the celebrated LAVALETTE. The letters of pardon are addressed to the Royal Court of Strasburgh, be fore which M. LAVALETTE must appear to claim the benefit of them. The Alonitenr contains the following apparently Official Reply to the Statement made by our CHA NCEL LOR of the E 'CC EQU En, respecting the testamentary power of Foreigners over Property vested in the French Funds: " It may have been observed, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in the sitting of Parliament of the Vd of December last, thought proper to say, " that according to the French laws, Englishmen who had property in the French Funds could no: dispose of it by will, conformably to English law, but that it must be distributed agreeably to the French law. " French law is necessarily less known in England than in France. Whatever errors, therefore, may be committed on this subject, even by men eminent for their information and sagacity, ought not to excite any surprise ; but it may be advantageous to both countries to rectify such errors. " The law of July 14, 1819, had no other object than to alter a pre-eListing right. It merely intended to give to foreigners, possessed of estates situated in France, that dispo.ition of their property which they had not, except where their own Government, by reciprocity, had given the same power to French. men. It abrogated the Articles 726 and 912 of the Civil Code. Thee Articles concerned only real property—property in land (Article 726), property which a foreigner could not dispose of in favour of a Frenchman (Article 912). " Now, the established law of France, and which neither the Articles 726 and 912, of the Civil Code, nor the law of the 14th July, 1819, have in any way infringed, is, that foreigners may, notwithstanding the thoit d'aubaine, dispose, with a view to their de cease, of mites (or dividends) which they may pos sess in France; that their heirs, whether testamen tary or ab intestat, will be recognized with regard to these :mites, which are transmitted to those heirs in the same manner as they themselves enjoyed them. " This right is founded on a great number of laws, too well known to render it necessary to cite them here; and in respect to England, without mention ing anterior Treaties, it was still more particularly recognized by Article 13 of the Treaty of Utrecht, and by the declaration made thereon on the 19th of July, 1739, and registered in the Parliament of Paris the 4th of August following : " It is free and permitted to the subjects of Great Britain to dispose of all tle moveable property which they may possess, or which may belong to them in any territories or places of our dominions; and farther, whether they die after making a will, or iatebtate, their legitimate heirs, executors, or administrators, residing in our dominions, or coming from other places, though not admitted into the number of the citizens of our State., may recover and peaceably enjoy all the said effects and property, of whatever description, according to the knee of Crest B►ritain." It would, therefore, be an error to suppose that the right of succession for English subjects, with regard td renter and other moveable property, should be re gulated in France conformably to the French laws, unless the law of the 14th of July had infringed the above cited laws, which have been observed up to the present moment ; and also even the common law of France, which holds that the place in which the suc cession opens is not that of the death, but of the do• micile of the deceased (Art. 110 of the-Civil Code) ;1 and that the succession is determined, with respect to moveable property, by the law of the domicile, and' with regard to real, by the law of the place in which such property is situated. " The law of the 14th of 1819, is, however,' far from making any such infringement. " Article 1 gives to foreigners the right of succeed ing to property, of disposing of and receiving it in the same manner as French subjects. " With respect to moveable property, it gives no thing to those who already had the power of dis posing of or receiving that property. It merely gives to those who before had it not, the power of suc ceeding to real property, and of disposing of and re ceiving it in the same manner as the French : that is to say, as if they were in this respect Frenchmen.— In granting them a new right, no pre-existing one was taken away. Such an intention is not in the law, and would have been contrary to its object, which was to favour foreigners more than they had hitherto been favoured.: " Thus, then, suppose that an Englishman holding French stock should die either in England or France, if he be not domiciled in France, his renter will be long, as before the law of the 14th of July, 1819, to his heirs, whether testamentary or ab intestat, Ac cording to the English laws; for the French law does not regulate successions to moveable property, except in so far as they are open in France, and they are only open to them who are domiciled. A foreigner is not domiciled in France until after ten years' residence, preceded by a declaration of his wish there to fix his domicile. " Can the provisions of Article 2, have excited any alarm among the English Capitalists in France ? Nothing could be more unfounded. " That Article, which relates to the case in which French heirs may concur with foreign heirs, dues not, any more than the preceding, innovate on the right of foreigners to dispose of rentes at pleasure; for that Article, like the law, merely respects real pro perty, with regard to which it was thought desirable to remove the existing incapacities. " The Article speaks of property (biens) situated in France. The property here to be understood is teal, for though moveables are also property, the word property is particularized by the following word— situated. The words property situated in Francesig ni:y territorialproperty. "No rentes, unless it be ground-rents,fencieres, are attached to the soil ; they are due, but not situated in France, since by common law they are moveable, and the suc c ession to moveable property opens with the domicile. They are held to be in the bands of the proprietor, who, in fact, has in his own posses sion the title-deeds, without which they cannot be touched. His heirs take them out of his desk, or re ceive them from his testament ary executor. They can only participate in the distribution of the move able property; and that distribution takes place ac cording to the law of the country in which the de ceased was domiciled—to the English law, if he was an Englishman. " The Article applies only to the distribution of prOperty situated in France, when the rights of Frenchmen are implicated therein. The reason and object of this Article are as fellow: "Permission has been given to foreigners to dispose, either by testament or a intested, of their property situated in France. • Anterior to this permission, the State would have succeeded to them, unless they bad heirs who were denizens or suhjects of France. The State, which renounced this right of succession, could attach thereto a condition. The State deprived the French heirs or denizens of the right which they would have had of excluding foreign heirs. It was fit they should be indemnified. That condition and this in demnity are stated in Article 2. " A foreigner can convey his property situated in France, but under the restriction of not infringing the laws which regulate that property. Accordingly, he cannot subject it to entails, for entails are prohi bited in France. This is not said in the law, because it is in the common law; but it was necessary to re gulate whit was a new and special right, and this the law has done by providing for the case of distri bution among French and foreign heirs. "The French law has no authority over property situate out of the French territory; but its authority is complete over property within that territory. Its intention is to establish, as far as possible, equality of distribution, in the same manner as would take place if all the property existed in France. For this rea son, the French heir is indemnified out of the French property, for what he may lose out of the foreign pro. perty, in consequence of the law which governs it. "For example: An Englishman possesses 600,000 francs in property of every kind, in England. He possesses also, in France, real property to the amount of 300,0(X) francs. The whole value of his succession is, therefore, 900,000 francs. He has a son and a daughter : the latter is married in France.. In conformity with the liberty afforded him by the English law, he leaves the whole of his property to his son, or bequeaths to his daughter only a part in &rior to the reservation made by our laws in favour of children. The daughter has a claim on the real property in France for as much as is necessary to complete this reservation. " The property being 900,000.fpncs, and the part at the disposal of the deceased being one-third, when there are two children, there remain 600,000 francs to be divided. The daughter would have 300,000 to ;Wilts she finds them in France, and they are ad- judged to her. • She will thus °Warn the lam her father could not convey, except under tilt tion of Article 2 of the Law of the 14th July, “ But if the father has no property in France. rentes. Can his French heir obtain payment legal reservation out of those rentes? No, renter are not included in the descriptions perty situated in France, on which the law served a right of indemnity. No; because the did not acquire his tenses under the condition law of the 14th of July, but under the guar.].) the preceding laws, and of all the legislation ing rentes, which leave to foreigners the po conveying or bequeathing them according laws of their own country, according to the Great Britain, with respect to Englishmen, stated in the Treaty of Utrecht, and the Decl of 1739. Finally, no, because, by common the inheritance of moveable property is mg) by the law of the proprietor's domicile, and that of the place in which the property ma , pen to be. These examples shew the Meaning and al tion of the law of the 14th of July, the enactmi which extend only to real property, because thi object was to permit its conveyance, and not ' moveable property, which existed before in lest latitude. It is then manifest, that forei who are proprietors of rentes in France, have more to far from the new law, with respect free conveyance of such rentes after their tit than during their life ; that this law, which solely to the conveyance of real property, cli affect the conveyance of renter. That yolks inoveable property by the determination If th, (Art. 529,0 f the Civil Code), are governed law of the domicile; and ; with respect to fort by the laws creating rentes, and specially English, by the Treaty of Ut!echt, by the ration of 1739, confirmed by Article 28 Treaty of the 20th of November, 1815, whi pressly maintains the abolition of the droit tie detraction, and others of the same nature. countries which reciprocally stipulated with Now England did reciprocally stipulate with the abolition of every distinction between men and Englishthen, relative to moveable p► The English can, therefore, since the 14th of 1819, convey their rentes in the same man! they have always done, without experienci obstacle from the present law." We have received Charleston Papers to the last month, but there are no later advices fro, seat of Government than those obtained prey' The following is an extract from the Speed Governor of South Carolina, regarding the ences with Spain, in convening the Legislai that State: "To the &mate mid House Repeseioadities of the South Confirm, " FscLow Crrizmis—Since your last Session, nothing curred to impair the resolutions of amity subsisting between United States and any of the Powers of Europe, exc. - Spain. With her we have differences, as she has refused ratify the Treaty Which cecied to us the Floridas, equivalent. This country, which neither yields .her nor adds to her power, would be to us a valuable from its relative situation : while in the possession it must bt a source of perpetual collision with our bowing States, threatening sooner or later to eventuate war. Public opinion is unequivocally in favour of system on the part of the United States, as comporting with our interests, as long as It can be maintained, with the: honour and rights of tie Nation; but where become implicated, there can be no doubt that there ways be found, in the breasts of our countrymen, a manly rit ready to act in their Nindication. What may be of these differences with Spain, we know not; but, appeal to arms become necessary, there is every believe that the people, mindful of the wrongs they ceived from that Power, will rally round their and maintain the dignity and independence of the Nation. All the principal towns is the United States, general, were free from the Fever; in the States, however, it still lingered, although lence had abated in a great measure. In Mobile, deaths were averaged from six to eight dail doubt the cold weather has, by this time, put to the malady altogether. The Charleston of the 4th of December, says— ,, After several of cold weather, it was supposed all danger in Mobile, and a number of the inhabitants, had been in the cowry, returned, under the that the infection had entirely subsided, but gret to say, that a number of persons, in full have met with an untimely grave, from the proper precaution." ST. LOUIS, (M. T.) NOVEMBER gh EMIGRATION.--Notwithstanding the great of persons who are held in check by the agit. the Slave question, in Congress, the emigral the Missouri is astonishingly great; proba.. SO to 60 waggons, daily cross the Mississippi different ferries, and bring on an average f. to 500 a-day. The emigrants are principall, Kentucky, Virginia, &c. and the States farther They bring great numbers of slaves, knowii Congress has no power to impose the agitated tion, and drat the people of Missouri adopt it. The Duke of Mowrnosz arrived yesterdl house in Grosvenor-square, from a visit to quis and Marchioness of CAMDEN, at their Wilderness, Kent. The Duke of WELtINGTON is expected town in a few days, for the Wilderness, K. visit to the Marquis tux! Merchioneee of CAM . Tc of roug the s. for tt To Corn VTvl for tt Cottle consi the a fectly Su lion, Gene 100, to be regin will Th wers: Bova exten but tl for at count sheul servac VAL VeWCI Poft Squirri limn, DEI and sai mercia Indust from I Hyt has bee pilot-b , the He tote , as a Di SET: k St several sitting are plat Arms: state t< exists r them si clearly may be obtain Counci the Lo to the I may cc Arms a 0 To In c directi Treasl G getters format Got: LE Bata u Hope, to degi to alto Arms " Sol hafon have in pa 10th 0850 Consi 10th 1818 parat follov Quarto Ditto Ditto Ditto Ditto Quart dom, Octo parat On ' hen On Irela •n Iran Ta land wl:i the opex uly, nce, exit tent of t: !o, Ins of r- aw has s ! the fots . tion of ts loran:cc on regas, pok.ker ing to the laws t, nen, as )eclaratio- )mon regulate ad not l), may Iva; applira scttnents:: se the sc .; not that ki n the fu: foreigner- ye nothin, ect to t',! it aleceas ich relate , does r . lifts beii,, the la:, ed by t 5:: foreignm, ly for :he 28 of ti • which cr.. crenfbeiv„ re. for LI ..: ith Franck.. ith France na French. e property. th of July manner as :racing any ) the 7th (t s from the previously eech of tl. the differ ;islatare f the State sthing has cc between the , except with has refused t as, for a fel .her revenue dt aequiritio. ion of Spain our neigh eventuate i r of a pacife nporting best I, consistently where thine there will al. , a manly spi• be the rank nit, should an Ty reason to hey hare re- Government, Nation." 1 States, in to Southern gh its viru- Mobile, the daily. No put a stop on Courier, event' days der was over iitants, who the belie but we re. full health, the want of s. reat number agitation of migration to ►bably from ssippi at the from four cipally from trther South. vowing that :ated restric- : will never terday at his to the Mar- teir seat, the :ed to leave Kent, on a