The Sun.
London, England, 1852-04-09 00:00:00

TO THE ELECTORS OF THE CITY OF
NORWICH.
bomerleyton Hall, April 6. 1852.
Gentlemen, —I have had the honour to receive, through
the Mayor, a copy of the resolutions passed at a recent
meeting of the Liberal members of the town-council of

the city of Norwich.
I am also informed by the same authority that meet-
ings of the Liberal electors of the city will be shortly
held, to consider the subject of your future represtu-
tation.

I therefore think it is duo to your intelligence to at
once place fully before you my sentiments OR the leading
questions now demanding general attention, and I beg
your kind indulgence if I be not quite so concisa as I
readily might be under circumstances not requiring so
detailed an exposition of views.

I have now had the gratification of representing you
for five years. Though conscious of inability to dis-
charge the trust with conspicuous credit, I venture to
assert with confidence that my attendance in Parliament
has been assiduous, and that my votes have been in ac-
cordance with the principles on which I sought your
suffrages in 1847. On no occasion since that time has
any important question of practical reform been sub-
mitted to the Legislature that I have not been, as was
my duty, at my post, and I am proud to know that I
have thereby secured a continuance of the confidence with
which you originally honoured me. So much for the
past;—now for the topics which immediately challenge
our contemplation.
The first, the paramount one—is, shall this country
in its commercial legislation be progretsive or retro-
grade? That is the issue upon which all men now
await the judgment of the people. Of the character of
the verdict I have no doubt. But as it is possible that
the expression of that verdict may be thwarted or per-
verted by a Government hostile to popular instincts, it
becomes essential to understand, if possible, how a policy
confessedly the most advantageous can be pursued by
those who have hitherto denounced it as most pernicious.
I am as freely disposed as any person to recognise the
doctrine " Measures, not men." But the present is a
moment when the working value of measures must be
estimated by the character of those who administer them.
It was the certainty of free trade and the cause of re-
form generally being safe in the hands of the late Go-
vernment that rendered the country and its representa-
tives comparatively indifferent to the rapid advancement
of numerous reforms much needed; and it is the well-
founded distrust of those now in office that creates the
natural fear that not only will commercial progress find
I no favour among them, but that a backward policy
I will be attempted. And how can it be otherwise
if we accept the repeated and recent declarations of
• the Ministry, on the hustings and in Parliament,
that free trade is and must continue to be hurtful

to every great interest of the empire? From free trade
and cheap sugar the Colonial Secretary deduces the
ruin of our West Indian dependencies. The East Indian
Minister tells the electors of Stamford that free trade in
shipping has paralysed England's right arm—the navy.
In the House of Commons ho repeats the assertion,
though refuted by the experience of the most competent
anthorities from all parts of the kingdom, and he im-
plies that be has some plan for virtually restoring the
old state of things, though the First Minister uncondi-
tionally admits that the navigation-laws are for ever
abolished. The President of the Board of Trade dis-
cerns otherwise undiscoverable social evils, including
Australian and Californian gold, in unrestricted imports.
The Irish Attorney-General connects the calamity of
economic justice with the misery of a cheap loaf, and
lements both as a subversion of the constitution. While
the Chancellor of the Exchequer contends that to save
corn, sugar, and shipping, his budget is indispensable.
Its meaning, probably, nobody will know till the coming
appeal to the country shall be decided. At present,
however, we may assume that it can not be free trade.
It is for you and the electors of England to say if it shall
be the reverse of free trade.
Six years we have been living under a free trade
regime, and with what result? George the Second's
reign is usually referred to as an auspicious era in
British annals, and was one of long peace and plenteous-
ness. But it bore no comparison to the present, at least
as regards the material interests of the population.
Whatever be thought of other sections of the State, it is
admitted on all hands that never before did industrial
labour produce so great a command of substantial com-
forts. Prices have fallen, on the average, 20 to 40 per
cent., while wages have scarcely declined; in many in-
stances they have greatly advanced, owing to the in-
creased employment which abundance of food never fails
to occasion. If it were not that this abundance could
be proved by unquestionable data, its vastness would be
quite beyond belief. Exclusive of almost countless
supplies of consumable articles of nearly every de-
scription under the modern tariff, our imports
of corn, flour, and meal have averaged upwards of
ten million quarters per annum. This it is tbat as-
sures a " bold peasantry." This it is that is really mak-
ing them " their country's pride." At the same time
almost any large borough may be selected at random, as
showing a corresponding improvement in the urban
population. For instance, in the capital of the Midlands,
Birmingham, last year 1,329 new houses or manufacto-
ries were erected—almost double the number of any pre-
ceding year, and entirely by the smaller class of trades.
people. Pauperism had fallen off by four-fifths; while
the artisans alone had invested in freehold land societies
70,0001. Similar prosperity is recorded of Manchester,
Leeds, and other hives of skilled labour.
Ascending to the next grade in the social scale, the
capitalist class, similar proofs abound. If our imports
of grain have been large, our exports of manufactures
have been larger still, exceeding all anticipation. Thus,
in three intervals of five years we have :

Yrs. Imports. OfficialVidue of I Declared Value
Exports. of Exports.

1840 X 67,494,710 X 116,481,015 X 51,406,430
1845 85,297,508 150,877,782 60,111.082
1850 100,460,433 197.309,876 74367,885

The duty on corn, as you are aware, ceased in July,
1849 and our annual exports have increased by more
than 21,000,000/. in 1851, as compared with 1848. Con-
sidering the innumerable branches of industry affected
by such works, it will be admitted that much internal
prosperity must have resulted from the fact that, whereas
in 1845, only 2,024 miles of railroad had been opened,
costing 71,649,000/., in 1851, there had been opened
close on 7.000 miles, involving an expenditure of
236,841,4201. Now, whence, I would ask came
or twenty-
came this extra
investment of 165,000,0001., in the six
ye
six millions the average per annum? Whence but from
the unexampled prosperity of trade. Nor is it in thisl
channel only that capital has been fruitfully flowing. The
creation has gone on apace of mills, factories, docks,
wharfs, and warehouses; not a little has also gone on in
shipthere was no neglect of Lord Derby's ad-
vicedraining; and yet capital has continued to
i abuilding;s t o
abound at 2} per cent. in all monetary avenues ; while
nearly twenty millions of gold are lying in the vaults of
the Bank of England. Again : At the commencement
of free trade in shipping, in 1848, the amount of our
mercantile tonnage was 4,050,190 tons, employing
236,906 men; in three years, at the close of 1851, the
tonnage exceeded 4,300,000 tons, and the men 240,000.
The Right Hon. Member for Oxfordshire lately im-
plied that free trade had increased vice ; but the answer
is that in 1841 the committals were 27,760; in 1850 they
were 28,813—a diminution, not an augmentation of
crime, seeing that the population of the kingdom has
advanced thirteen per cent. in the last ten years. There
can be little doubt that the moral as well as physical
well-being of the people hus lately been in rapid course
of improvement; and every man conversant with great
towns is aware that the instance of Glasgow, cited with
such unanswerable effect by Sir J. Graham, in a recent
debate, is an average typo of the actual position of all
our manufacturing population.
Intemperance has everywhere greatly declined, espe-
cially in the metropolis. In pauper maintenance there
has been a saving of 11 per cent, in the latter half of
1851, as compared with that of 1850. In that one item
alons there is a most material direct relief to the landed
interest, who, it is to be remembered, have likewise
shared in the general benefit of reduced cost of living,
and in the indescribable advantage resulting from a state
of society where the masses, being employed, well paid,
and well fed, are necessarily contented, and attached to
the institutions which secure them against the encroach-
ments of others.

The Income Tax returns show likewise that their at.
sessmeats in 1843 were 2,419,3291, and in 1849
2,656,7961.. an increase of a quarter of a million in `ix
years, which, at 7J. in the pound, attests no small addi•
tion of revenue.

But although facts establishing the beneficial results
of free trade are numberless, there is only one
point
further to which I will advert, and the more emphati-
cally, because it has not received the attentiwneohnteiabttesceatehumass
to me to deserve. Ministers deride the people's dread
of a ss. duty lest it should derange the commercial
and
et
ognelnyer4asl.bhnesiandedsesdoftthhethernextriyst.ing Butit is
price
of future wheat would not thereby be enhanced by
double
or treble that amount. Much of the wheat now preparing
for the English market throughout the world would
the tax is levied on that
ceAasnedtoitfinisdni(t)st wsiamy here.
ply
that
which is imported, but upon all that is consumed in the
there bweh
kingdom ; for, supposing
Ireland 30,000,000 quarters of
35,000,000, and though the il
tGarneda tsß,oroiots,ionvvo.oaonide
imported, virtually the tax will be levied on the..
on n..le
..
duty be actuallyupnajidng
the actual amoguut paid by the. people 5,000,000 foreign goin
250,0001., to revenue, oßilu,
ar"ple will have
we are fighting
been 8,750,000/. And who would a this sum? Undoubt-
edly the mass of the people.ln preventing its re-impo-
sitionof humanity —.the • - r bread for which it has
right to eat the
laboured.
• the continuance of
But whilst strenuously advocating
and I think
free trade, I am not insensible
great,necessarily been
atoccoosmupdadnenie,ichoymmereial change, tthat
huet thehe
landed interest,
to remove any burden
passed off to a consider-
able thoughdegree that, yet
l T
?e 1
i pressuredh Ty
which is born®
hu
which land is liable is a fair mat_
to
nfatrly by the land. The whole sub-
ject of the taxation
.00
ter of inquiry -. re the Legislature, and if there are
burdens by
t.xation on land to promote national objects,
be borne by the land exclusively,
let them no longer b
lexed with doubt as to the mode, nature,
If, then, a nem corn tax e untenable, why should the
nation be p-rp
and date of its imposition? What is there in the ante-
cedents of the men now in office that should entitle them
to our confidence? Is it not a fact that the majority of
them are known in public lire only by professions of
hostility to every popular tendency? What can be said
to give them strength at the present time? Surely it
cannot be their well-known acts and long and openly-
avowed opinions. It the Reform Bill of the late Cabinet
failed to satisfy the just requirements of the people, ticw
is it possible that they can fill the void? Is is not true
that they refuse to admit that numbers and intelligence
shall confer the franchise, if it be not distributed ac-
cording to a geographical arrangement, originally in.
defelasible, tiud 491 Y more tlasu ern ACCli94§bits?