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

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