The National Register.
London, England, 1820-01-23 00:00:00

No. I,S4.—VoL. XIII.]

political itttrooprct.

Anatctrurune is the great foundation of all
stational strength and national prosperity. Its end
is the supply of the first necessaries of life, and in
proportion to their scarcity or abundance in any
sountry, even moderately well governed, will be
the population, the wealth, the labour, and all the
stattina which constitute sound vigour and real
tread:less. ats existence marks the boundary be-
meson-savage and civilised 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 Wig,
from the peculiar character of its exercise and cm- ,
ployment. All its concerns arc peaceful, healthy,
and favourable to innocence and virtue. By the
labourers in agriculture being distributed in smell '
parties, by their wages; being► liable to but little
:fluctuation, and by their employment being more
regular than in almost any other branch of human
industri, many of those evils as well as vices are
unknown, which so perpetually infcct and pollute
the messes cangregated in the various branches of
•commerce and manufactures. You have, therefore
in agriculturei no combinations, or turnings out, as
they are called, for int cease 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 our liberties. The character
of the fumy is aka equally distinguished by a love
of peace and tranquillity public as well as private ;
his skill, hissapital, and his industry, are all em.
played for purposes of national good, as well as
private,gain.
Is it not then wonderful that there should exist
any instances of as enlightened state of society, or
any Government which is not either stupidly blind,
or desperately, wicked, where the promotion of a
science so essential to human happiness, and fa-
-vouraWe to public prosperity, should not be made
she very first objeci, of concern I And is it not
still more wonderful, that (heat Britain should

furnish that ingenue. But, alas! there is no part
/whatever of her policy, either foreign or domestic,
which furnishes so deplorable a picture of mis-
government. lactead of cherishing, even as the
apple of her cyg; avhat she must know and feel to
be the great alum to which sheifinst look for her
strength, the universal system has been not only to
withhold encouragernent, but to inflict on it the
heaviest scourges. The burdens by which the seri-
eulture 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 to,
keenly felt to need that we should strive to excite
a greater sensibility by our picture. In fact*, al
most fur the first time, an active and even acute
impatience scents tole alive throughout the country
on this subject.. The farmer is at last roused to a
Mom 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-
hpwevere are some o 1 them of so extraordinary
a descriptioo, as airmen taanke us laugh at their
absurdity and inconsists Not a few of these
strings
,set got by prof , of loyalty and con-
`dance in the wisdom of at very Government

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