The Sun.
London, England, 1839-01-01 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

It would be worse than useless—it would be dangerous
—to disguise the fact, that the present aspect of the
country presents many features calculated to excite the
deepest solicitude and alarm. Manifestations of the most
minatory character are displaying themselves in the north,
of which the arrest of Mr. Stephens is in some instances
made the pretext, and to which the wrongs and sufferings
of the people have been the remote stimulants ; but which
might sooner or later be expected to arise from the excite-
ment for some time pervading the masses of general so-
ciety. On the other hand, the high price of corn, the
dearth of employment, and the sense of wrong consequent
on the wide-spreading diffusion of intelligence, would,
in themselves, be sufficient to call forth demonstrations
of an alarming character. From whatever causes, how-
ever, the symptoms indicative of convulsion may have
arisen, they are such as demand decisive measures for their
suppression. In alluding to decisive, let us not be sup-
posed to imply coercive, measures ; these would only ag-
gravate the evil ; but we mean such a decisively liberal
policy—the introduction of such decidedly liberal mea-
sures—on the part of the Government as will convince the
people of the willingness of Ministers to coincide with
their wishes, and restore that confidence Maids the events
of the few last years have so lamentably impaired. We are
not alarmists—we are not ready to cry out " the Wolf,"
the Wolf," unless we perceive certain indications
of his approach ; but we do perceive ,in events
passing around us indications which, unless prevented
by a firm yet conciliatory policy, may lead to re-
sults of which it would be impossible to calculate the
disastrous extent or nature. The crisis of which the alarm
has, for the last four years, been from time to time
sounded, is now on its advent. We are now on the eve of
a decisive collision of parties, unless a liberal spirit in the
Government and Legislature may allay the spirit of the
storm. We cannot prognosticate the result—but we shall
watch the progress of events with a vigilance proportionate
to their importance ; and again would we impress upon
the Government the necessity of taking measures for
appeasing the present commotion, more congenial to the
spirit of the time and to the circumstances of the country,
than the arrest ofsuch men as Mr. Stephens. It is folly to dis-
guise the fact, that it is not by coercion, but conciliatioe,
at—let us use the most expressive phrase—revolution can
be stayed.—Morning Advertiser.
The Corn-law repeal agitators are so anxious to press
ail sorts of arguments into their service, that they do not
scruple to make use of arguments which contradict each
other. This shows great liberality in the use of their logical
weapons. One of their grandest discoveries is, that through
the operation of the Corn-laws a man is hindered from get-
ting as much food for his labour as he would get if foreign
corn might be at all times imported free of duty. Now
this can only be true upon the supposition that when foreign
corn reached us it would be cheaper than home-grown
corn, and wages remaining the same, more food would b.:
obtained by the same quantity of labour. But another
discovery, no less frequently insisted upon, is this—in con-
sequence of the dearness of home-grown corn the wages of
labour are so high that our manufacturers are unable to com-
pete with the manufacturers of othercountries, where corn is
much cheaper. Therefore, say they, let us have foreign corn at
a cheap rate, that wages may be reduced, and that so we
may be able to manufacture at a smaller expense. How do
these arguments cohere ? One of them rests upon the as-
sumption that corn being made cheaper, wages will con-
tinue the same, or rise. The other rests upon the assump-
tion that wages will not continue the same, but fall ! One
of these arguments must be false, and yet every day in
the week we find both of them put forth as triumphant
and unanswerable by the advocates of Corn-law re-
peal ! By the way, our widely-circulating Contempo-
rary The Sun was graciously pleased to be particu-
larly wroth with us the other day for, laughing at
the cotton-spinning coxcombs of the Manchester Club,
which calls itself the " Chamber of Commerce," and, by
way of punishment, it printed all our bad jokes. The day
previous to this infliction it was almost savage with us,
for having gone into what was (for unlearned people like
ourselves) a very close piece of argumentation touching
wages, the price of provisions, and other unpoetical de-
tails, in which argumentation we showed, exceedingly to
our own satisfaction, that the price of b;ead had not
made, and did not make, a difference of more than one
per cent. in the price of calico. We proved, gastro-
nomically, as it were, and as irrefragably as if we had
been answering for a senior wranglership, that the dif-
ference between the labourer getting his bread-food
for nothing, or paying for it twopence three farthings per
pound weight, which it now costs, would not make a differ-
ence of more than a shilling in a hundred shillings worth of
calico or cotton twist. The wide-spreading, far-darting
Sun, which diffused upon its beams the atrocity of our
jokes, did not scatter' over the earth the cogency of our ar-
guments, but OnViave the said arguments a bad name, to
our great, but happily not lasting, discomfiture. Was this
accident, or did The Sun not like carrying our matter-of-
fact statements into the manufacturing districts ? 0, potent
Sun, remember that it is your duty to shine alike upon the
just and upon the unjust.—Morning Post.
It will be seen by a letter from Manchester, dated
Saturday, which we publish in another column, that the
simple folks in that neighbourhood are beginning to ask
" Why Mr. Stephens is to be prosecuted when O'Connell
has been permitted for years to spout treason and sedition
with impunity ?" How very absurd a question ! We
shall hardly be astonished now to hear of some simpletons
in other parts of the country inquiring why Joseph Hume
was not prosecuted for his letter to certain Canadian rebels,
which Mr. Spring Rice publicly declared, in the House of
Commons, to be treasonable. Of course the " honest"
Whigs will not prosecute agitators whose votes sup-
port them in place and pay : and although it is quite
true that if Mr. Stephens were to agitate for the next 00
years he would find it difficult to spout half the treason and
sedition that Mr. O'Connell has already given utterance to,
still, as Mr. Stephens is weak and powerless, he is pre-
cisely the sort of person whom the brave Whigs,- with Lord
Little-John at their head, might be expected to select for a
victim. We heartily congratulate the Whigs upon the in-
stitution of this State prosecution for a speech delivered a
month ago. It has commenced admirably. Their agents,
with the clumsiness so characteristic of all Whig doings,
have made a signal blunder at starting ; but these worthies
may be assured that their masters in Downing-street will
miscarry on some more vital point, and prove thmselves to
be the real Dogberries after all.—Timea.
The Rev. J. R. Stephens has been liberated on bail, and
the examinations are to be resumed on Thursday next.
There can, we should suppose, be but one opinion with,
respect to the language held by this man at various meet-
ings, if the reports be at all faithful ; but though there
may be good reason for believing the reports to be substan-
tially accurate, there may be difficulty in obtaining evidence.
There is a general belief that the magistrates who have
taken up the business have hitherto shown more good-will
than ability in their manner of proceeding. And this
must always be more or less the case where men are not
specially charged with the conducting matters of this kind.
England is now a very different country from what it was,
when a country gentleman was equal to the duty of preserv-
ing the peace in his neighbourhood. We could have wished
that greater care had been taken to obtain evidence than
seems to have been taken in this case ; for it would have
been better to have not moved at all, than in such a man-
ner as to afford anything like a triumph to Stephens. We
have given, in another column, an address from Stephens
to the men of Northumberland and Durham, in demonstra-
tion assembled, which we found in the Operative of Sunday
last. He says, in this paper :—" What I found written
in the law and the gospel, I spoke out boldly to an
awakened, a thinking, and a determined people. I told
them from the law books to arm for their own and their
country's safety—and from God's book, if there should be
need. I said to them, Remember the Lord, who is great
and terrible, and fight for your brethren, your sons, and
your daughters, your wives and your houses.'" He is
quite astonished that this language should be called inflam-
matory.—Morning Chronicle.
" The resolute tone adopted by the Manchester manu-
facturers," observes the. Glasgow Ghronicle, " will no
doubt be responded to by every city and town in the king-
dom. The question is one of truly awful importance." The
Liverpool Papers inform us that steps are taking for having
a meeting in that great emporium. It would be hard to
deny to toil and industry the usual festivities at the depar-
ture of the old and the beginning of the new year ; but
after this brief truce, not a day we learn will be lost in fol.
lowing the example of Manchester. In an article in Tait's
_Magazine, for January, intitled " How Do Poor Men
Live ?" fault is justly found with the expression " Corn-
laws."

—..—
" The Corn-laws," says the writer, " is a misnomer for
what is generally signified by them—namely the taxes on
food. It should be familiarly known to every man, and
woman, and child, who earns a shilling by the sweat of the
brow, and in laying it out in food gives at least three-
pence to the landowners, who are the law-makers, that
it is not bread, not corn alone, that is directly taxed
for the landowners' benefit, but all sorts of:fbod. For
example, fine new Dutch butter is now selling' in the city
in which we write, at 10d. a pound ; but the import duty
upon this butter is 25 per cent., which, were it an article
of free trade, as it is one of universal consumption, might
be bought fur 7d. a pound. Foreign cheese is so heavily
taxed, that cheese for which the workings, man pays 6d. a
pound, could be bought for 4d. The present duty on ham
is we believe, 2Bs. per hundred weight. ' But there is also
strict prohibition on the importation of all kinds of fresh
meat, beef, pork, mutton, &c., and a duty on eggs and
fresh fruits. From Belgium and Holland, and the oppo-
site coasts of France, the daily and hourly supply of un-
taxed provisions to our great towns, tiy means of steamers and
railways, would have an instant effect in reducing prices,

which we need not describe. The Corn-laws, then, popularly
mean the Mouth-tax, the Trencher and Pot-tax, the Food-
impost. . They comprehend the butter, the cheese, the
ham, the hung-beef, the egg and poultry impost, fas-
tened upon the industry of the country, for the imme-
diate benefit of the landowners, and for their ultimate in-
jury. These laws mean as well the candle and soap laws,
as the import duty which enhances the price of meat raises
that of tallow ; so that soap and candles are first taxed in the
raw material, and then excised when manufactured. Let us
then give the Corn-laws their true designation--the Mouth
Tax, the Food Impost. Men live not by bread alone,
nor yet in this country by any one necessary which
escapes the land-owners. Along with engravings and
models of the different sizes of the loaf, which is
of equal price in despotic Russia, revolutionary France,
and in free and happy England, where the poor man's
house is his castle, however slenderly it may be provisioned,
there should be side by side, engravings and models of hams,
cheeses, and tubs of butter, all so • beautifully less' for equiva-
lent sums of Englishmen's money. It is worse than idle to waste
one word rnore upon British landowners. On this subject
they are given over to the curse of judicial blindness. In la-
boriously undermining the manufactures and trade of their
country, while they half starve their countrymen, they must be
left to kill the goose that laid them golden eggs in their own
way. Their sin will then find them out ; or the sins of the fa-
thers must be visited upon the children, if the iniquity last so
long.".
It is not idle to waste words upon British landowners.
Words are signs, and they may be made expressive signs.
Powerful as the landowners are in the Legislature, they
are not so powerful in the country as all the industrious
classes united whom they now oppress. Let the people
manifest, in a suitable manner, a determination no longer to
submit to a system of legislation which is undermining the
prosperity of the country, and the landowners must give
way. This is the time for making the effort. There is
yet hope that a return to a better system of legislation
may save the country ; a few years' delay and the evil may
be remediless. As men of business, the trading and ma-
nufacturing interests of the country must see the wisdom of
striking such a blow as may be effectual now. Conti-
nued agitation canrot be borne, and therefore prudence
dictates that short work should be made of the monopolists
by a concentration of efforts. If ever there was a country in
which the landowners were without justification for imposing
a tax on food, this is that country. They have a constant
protecting duty in the charges of importation to a consi-
derable amount, whilst they obtain all manufactured
goods cheaper than the rate at which they can be ob-
tained by the landowners of other countries. The country
which habitually exports manufactures is the best of all
countries for a landowner ; for it enables him to sell the
commodity which he produces himself at the highest rate,
and to buy the commodities of which he is in want at the
cheapest rate. He has besides a constant market for a
number of bulky commodities which cannot be obtained
from a distance, and which are consequently nearly value-
less as merchandise in the countries which export food.
That the landowners of such a country should, in addition
to the advantages of which they cannot be deprived,
seek to tax consumers by forcing up food to a mono-
poly price, only shows that there is no injustice which
men will not attempt when .they think it can be per-
petrated with safety. The landowners strive occa-
sionally to perplex the question with statements of the ex-
pense of cultivation, and the impossibility of competing
with foreign agriculturists. They may make the expense what
they please. If corn and other food be forced up to a high
price, the farmers' expenses must of course be high also.
The fallacy lies in first forcing up the food, and then basing
all the calculations on this artificial price. The farmers'
necessary expenses are the keep of his cattle, the wages of
his workmen, and the tradesmen who make and repair his
implements. In some parts of the country, and those the
best cultivated, as in Northumberland, for instance, the ac-
counts of the farmer are much simplified ; for the labourer
is paid by the food of his cow, his house, and a certain
quantity of corn, the surplus of which, beyond his own
wants, he sells ; so that the expense of cultivation reduces
itself in a great measure to the iron, timber, and leather
necessary on the farm, and a certain deduction from the
produce for the keep of cattle and men. If landowners
first artificially raise the price of corn to double the price
on the Continent, the expenses of cultivation, calcu-
lated on the basis of such. prices, cannot be so cheap as
on the Continent. But the landowner first makes his giant,
and then kills him. If there be one class who ought to be
taxed more than another, it is the owners of the soil ; for
they originally received the land on condition of providing
for the defence of the country, its police, the administra-
tion of justice, &c. These services were in time com-
muted ; and they have so contrived matters as gradually to
make the tax on land nominal, and to throw their fair
share of taxes on the industrious classes. The meaning of
the life-and-fortune addresses, of which they were so pro-
fuse during the war, meant—we will spare our own for
tunes, and apply the fortunes of all others without stint to
the services of the State, and to the swelling of our rent-
rolls. It will be see. by a paragraph elsewhere, which we
have copied from The Sun, that the manufacturers of that
town have come to the resolution of renting an extensive
room for the practical demonstration of their statements,
by the exhibition of the productions of foreign countries,
consisting chiefly of cotton goods, woollens, silks, hardware,
&c., with the prices of such articles duty paid, as well as
the cost at the place of their manufacture, in juxta-position
with articles of British manufacture of the same price. This
will enable both masters and operatives to see what their
prospects really are. We do not appeal to the honesty
and sense of justice of the landholders ; but we appeal to
their prudence. A crisis is approaching in which it will be
dangerous to push the people too far. High prices of
food and low wages are hard trials. The evil spirit must
soon be roused. Let them take warning in time.—Morning
Chronicle.