The National Register. — London, England, 1820-01-24 00:00:00

41! 4'1 4; / • L . t No. 1,2411.—V0L. VIII.] polittal liar/mut. AcinteueTtree is the great foundation of all 'national strength and national prosperity. • Its end is the supply of the first necessaries of life, and in proporfion to their scarcity or abundance in any • country, even moderately well governed, will be -the population; the wealth, the labour; and all the stamina it hioli oonstitute sound vigour and real greatness. Its existence marks the boundary be ; tween savageand civilized life, and by the degrees of its progress and encouragement the scale of re finement is exactly graduated. It is further of incalculable value, as connected with public policy, from the peculiar churacter cf its exercise and • em ployment. All its cheerer are petweful, healthy, and liwourable to innocence and virtue. By the labourers in agriculture being distributed• in small parties, by their wages bciug liable to but little fluctuation, and by their employment being more regular than in almost any other branch of human industry, many of those evils as well as vices are unknown, which so perpetually infect and pollute the masses congregated in the various branches of commerce and manufactures. You have, therefore in agriculture, no combinations, or turnings out, as they are called, for increase of wages amongst work ; men ; you have no political meetings, or• commotion which can furnish either cause for alarm, or pretext for the abridgement of oar liberties. The character of the farmer is also equally distinguished by a love of peace and tranquillity public as well as private ; his skill, his capital, •and his industry, lire all em ployed for purposes of national good, as well as private gain. Is it watt then wonderful that there should exist any•instances of an enlightened state of society, or anyGluveratnent which is nut either stupidly blind, or desperately 'wicked, where the promotien of a science so essential to human happiness, and fa vourable to public prosperity, should not be made the very first object of concern And is it not still more wonderful, that Great Britain shouid• ~ fiarnish that instance: But, alas ! there is no part whatever of her policy, either foreign or domestic, which tarnishes so deplorable a picture of mis government. Instead of cherishing, even as the apple of her eye, what she must know and feel to be the great source to which she must look for her strength, die universal system has been not only to withhold encouragement, but to indict on it the heaviest scourges. The burdens by which the agri culture of this country is now oppressed are too numerous to be reckoned,, and too obvious to. need >that we should state them. They are also .too keenly felt to ticed.that we should strive to excite a greater sensibility by our picture. In feet, al most .for the first time, ar. active am) even acute ;impatience-seems to be alive throughout the country .on this subject.. The farmer is at last roused to a sense and conviction that something must be 'wrong; and meetings are now being held, and 'resolutions of various kinds passed, and petitions to the Legislature framed, in almost every consider able. town throughout the kingdom. These resolu tions, however, are some of them of so extraordinary a description, as almost to make us laugh at their absurdity and inconsistence. Not a few of these strings set out by professions of loyalty and con ..dence in the wisdom of that very Government w jZ 44... d ationalt lAtt iOttr4 , l . ~' L . • fur thug, Condtttution anD 1 MONDAY, JANUARY tt, 1820. which has produced the miseries under which they groan. and are petitioning for an alleviation of.— Others again are so absurd as to profess that their l l petitions are in no way convected with party objects, and have nothing of a political character about them• NO ft real}y the only answer to these professions of confidence in . His Majesty's Ministers, which those Ministers can or ought to give is, " pray, continue it ;" it is our wisdom which has placed , you in the condition you are in, and if wisdom has been manifested in your ruin, it would be arrant fatly to do 'sty thing •to help 'or save you ; you have like good and faithful sobjects supported our measures, and ail those who tallow in our train ; you have most properly returned representatives to Parliament, who, like yourselves, have reposed in our wisdom, have voted for wars and taxes, and whatever could contribute to promote our contir.ti ance in power and Me Glory of a Great Nation; .you have to' recollect that it was under your express sanction that an enormous debt has been contracted, and it would now be not only disloyal but shabby and ineonsistent'toshrink from paying its interest; you have for five and twenty years supported that very system of policy which we are now pursuing and Intan.to .continue; we are glad it .has met , your approval,-and glad to hear that your confidence is not diminished ; your Petition shall lie upon the table." • Such is really the only answer which such documents as we have mentioned east . eilher expect or deserve. Nor are their sentiments very different who welld pretend that their petitiontrhave nothing to do with politics. The faet•is, that the whole questithi is, and must be, purely political. But what Abuse gentlemen want into get the aid and assistance of those, who have uniformly and consistently labonred to ward off from their poor county the calamities under-which she groaned, fur this express object, and then return to kiss the rod that has afflicted us, and fawn and cringe like spaniels with encreased affection for those who have scourged and whipt them. They have year after year pursued with unmeasured Obloony that opposition to a wasteful and profligate expenditure, which for a single pint of direct self.interest they would now gladly them selves join, and if that end could only be marital, cast them off again, and return to wallow in their . former sink, --unmanly dependence and corruption. But this is not all—for supposing this unnatural coalition once formed, we do not see how the opposite parties could proceed one single - inch together. There can be no doubt that the whole evil . is the stile and natural fruit of our enormous, taxation. You must either pray for relief from this or you pray for nothing, and are those who profess this anxiety to combine all parties prepared to admit their own past errors, and to join in reminding 'tis Majesty's Ministers of the miseries they 'have caused and the ruin they are spreading round us? We fear not. On the ot4e.r hand, the only plan to which Ministers would listen would be for a duty on importation. This tax, from their known propensity, 'they Might ,prtibi;bly be easily led to impose. But would these who have seen and felt, and exclaimed day after day against the wanton waste of public money, be inclined to vote for a measure which would place still more at their disposal. Would these who have for years been struggling against fresh imposts being laid upon the poor, now lend their sanction, to tax even the bread they eat ? Would they lend a baud to aug ment that wretchedness which is already to dined- .0".- -- b - se LritiCE sive, as to threaten the most serious consequence:•. and as a cure fur which our liberties are gone, and the• proud name of a free Englishman suffered to exist no more ? Is it a crisis that can admit of seek a • palliation ? If trade were prosperous, : if our 9aances were sound, if our Tillers were really to be trusted, there are - litany considerations which would'induce us to believe that a duty upon im ported corn, and the trade then left free and other wise unfettered, might nut be unreasonable. But with starving manufacturers and universal poverty, with no disposition to public economy, no wisaom, no sympathy, no system but that of direct tyranny and positive subjection of all to their sovereign will, at the Itelninf State, who can wisely or prudently lend a hand to support such policy, and that at the expence of the poor and indigent ? No, we fear, seriously fear, that nothing short of a great crisis is destined to set us rights We have been proceeding with most rapid strides, of late, in that course which generally precedes, because it can hardly fail to •produce Revolution. The only mode of actual relief to agriculture, in our present state, is to enable it to• contend with success against foreign growers, but this can•never occur whilst a mach larger min is actually paid to Government upon the production of corn in this country, tkan the wholnprice of the corn itself upon the Continent. That his Majesty's 'Ministers are fully responsible for our situation is true, -that they 'should be loudly mid earnestly reminded that they ire . so is true4ikewise. But as long as they can gu on without interruption in their career, it is worse than madness to hope that they I will seriously set Aleut any plan of reformation.— Let the friends and supporters of 11Iinisters then have the whole subject 'in their •own exclusive • hands. They can .pleat; their 'claims to gra titude and attention, anti indeed the supporters of our present Rulers do deserve something for the for the services they perform. The present Corn Laws arc infinitely worse than none. The mischief' they occasion is qualified by no good ' w haterer.— Their -repesitvould be a work ofwialom, but what is to be substituted in their stead,• Ministers and 'their frktds ban beat 'consult' together. LEEDS, Sat. IA.—A committee has been formed here and measures are taking to make out a strong ease, to induce Mi nisters to consent to a repeal of the a oel-daty, immediately or. the re-assembling of Parliament. It having been intlus.riously circulated here, and published in Some of our newspapers. that Lord Milton, one of the etrzaty nietnber., supported the bill in the lust session of Parliament, for laying a tax on foreign wool imported, his Lordship Isis written a letter to a respeetablb gentleman in this town, denying the charge, and appealing to the debates in the house at the time, for n refutation of the calumny. The noble Lord Wisher seys—j• I not only opposed to the utmost of my ability, the obnoxious measem I)•sing into a law, but I will likewise support any motion that may be made for its. repeal ; and your Committee may rely on any best exertions on behalf oftlieliNelves. and the bionufacturing interest generally." The business in our cloth-halls to-day was rather brisk, as compsnal with last week; -but these is a shocking deficiency Of cash ; all is iioneon the credit or kite system ; arid assignments and compoundings are daily taking place. The body of a female, whose name a at present unknown, was found this morning in • pit at W limey, near this town, into whi, h she is supposed to have been dimwit by two villains, who acre seen to follow her sue of a public base lust night, where she had called for refresh. meat. Intelligence from the Cape of 'Good Hone states that the news had just reached the ( ape of the in. tenant% of Government to form a settlement on the Irish River, and produced, as might be expixted, very pleasant impression, as the importance of :he colony would be increased by this uew arrange. Letters have been received fitm 'Gittietar . of the 2Stli of last month. The comnitnictfion between that place and Spain was opened ea the 23d bras Proclamation from his Fccellettey.the Oovernor, is having been closed Tor several mone:s to prevent infection from the yellow fever, 'which had been raging at Cadis, the Isle de Lcon, &c. Trade nt the British .fortress, which had, for a long tires, been in the meat deplorable condition, ew i ng to 'those restriction!, scented to be tn'proving. • to