The Sun.
London, England, 1839-01-29 00:00:00

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LONDON:
TUESDAY EVENING, JANUARY 29, 1839.

We believe there is no chance of a moderate fixcll
duty on corn now being accepted by the manufactu-
rers. At the same time it may strengthen their deter-
mination to resist it, and increase the repugnance of
the Legislature to adopt it, if we state some of its
effects. It has very properly been objected to such a
duty, that it falls with peculiar severity on the people
when the crop is unusually short, and doubts have
accordingly been expressed whether, under such cir-
cumstances, it would be possible for the Government
to enforce the law against the famishing multitude. In
fact, the apprehension of scarcity compelled the
Government, in 1827, to admit of corn being
imported by its own authority, in opposi-
tion to the law, for which it obtained from
Parliament an Act of Indemnity. A moderate fixed
duty would put a considerable sum into the coffers of
the State, but it would be taken from the pockets of
the people when they could afford it least. In fact a
corn tax is a tax not on luxuries but on necessaries—
not on superfluities but on wants, and nothing short of
the most urgen't necessity on the part of the State can
warrant it in deriving a part of its revenue from the
people's bread. To give such a tax to the Govern-
ment, which is grasping and tenacious, would tend to
ensure, as the Glasgow Argus has demonstrated, the
continuance of -the evil.
The pretext, however, on which the moderate fixed
duty is defended, namely, that the landowners of Eng-
land are subject to several heavy burdens, particularly
tithes, an onerous impost, which the landowners of
the Continent have thrown off', will enable us to
demonstrate its impolicy. The amount of that impost
which goes to the clergy is estimated by themselves at
something more than 3,000,0001. sterling, and includ-
ing that which goes to laymen, it is seldom calculated
at more than 6,000,0001. To levy that impost on
bread, would take a much larger sum out of the
pockets of the people. It is estimated that the quan-
tity of corn annually consumed in the United Kingdom
is fifty-two million quarters. We believe it is more,
but for the sake of round numbers we will take it at fifty
millions. If we suppose the fixed import duty ss.
per quarter, that will raise the price, according to the
intention of the law, ss. per quarter on all the corn
consumed in the empire, which, on the 50 million
quarters, makes a round sum of 12,500,0001. levied
on the price of the people's bread alone, by a protect-
ing duty of ss. If the protecting duty be 10s., the
sum will be 25,000,000/. taken out of the pockets of
the people by an enhancement of ss. on the price of
every quarter of corn, to raise 3,000,0001. income for
the clergy. On the last supposition the tax will be
levied at an expense of 800 per cent., and on the first
at an expense of 400 per cent. What a monstrous
improvidence !

But this is the sum which will be levied on
corn alone ; and to make the whole improvi-
dence of the scheme palpable, we must include all the
produce of the soil. We apprehend as a rule there
can be no more two rates of rent for soil similarly
situated than two rates of profit ; in fact, therefore, the
rise of ss. per quarter on the price of corn would, if it
were operative at all, cause a corresponding rise in the
price of all the produce of the soil. Now if we suppose
that the corn grown on the soil is not more than one-
fourth of the whole produce, we must multiply the
sums above mentioned by four to obtain a complete
view of the gross improvidence of levying a duty on
corn in order to raise a revenue for the priesthood.
On the supposition of a ss. duty, the sum would be
50,000,0001., and on the supposition of a 10s. pro-
tecting duty the sum would be 100,000,0001. taken out
of the pockets of the people in order to continue
3,000,000/. in the pockets of the priests. Now we
will be bold to say that there is nothing in the
ruinous system of MEHEMET All more at variance
with all sound principles of political economy, than a
tax which takes forty times as much from the pockets'
of the people as the tax yields to those for
whose benefit it is continued. INIEttEmET ALI
ruins his subjects' commerce for the presumed benefit
of the State, but our Legislature robs the people to
pay a discredited priesthood.
The protecting duty being defended on the ground
that it is necessary to counterbalance the exist-
ence of tithes, let us remind the Irish Catholics
that for them to tolerate this protecting duty is
to neutralise all their own past noble exertions
against the tithe system. The protecting duty will
be the re-enactment, under another form, of the
tithe impost. Will the Scotch Presbyterians, be-
trayed though they be by their pelf-loving State
parsons, submit to the very worst species of tax
In order to continue the tithes now paid to an
Episcopal clergy ? Will they suffer tithes to be re-
enacted in Scotland in the shape of a tax on bread? Will
the English even, priest-ridden as they now acknow-
ledgedly are, put up with this ? When they enter a
church maintained by a tax on the people's bread,
will they not fancy its floor to be paved with the bones
of hand-loom weavers and starved agricultural labour-
ers ? Will they ever look on its walls without think-

ing of the votive offerings, which in other religions
are crowns, chaplets,
.and garlands of flowers, and
seeing in their ow►► church starving mothers and pe-
rishing babes. who seek nutriment in vain from the
fountain of human life dried up by a cursed bread tax?
No, even the English, for the sake of their humane
religion, will not bear that their churches should be
converted by a tax on food to keep up the tithes,
into horrid temples, worthy only of Moloch.

In our columns will be found a full Report of the
Public Meeting called at Birmingham, to petition for
the Repeal of the Corn-laws, and its termination, as
decided by the Chartists, not to petition the present
House of Commons. In that we see a striking evi-
dence of the deep-laid and wide-spread discontent of
the masses. That is no longer an evanescent
feeling to disappear with the first sunny clay, but a part
of their minds which can no more be rooted out than
the limbs can be cut from the body without grievous
mutilation. We saw in the Gateshead Observer yes-
terday, another and still stronger indication of the
exasperation of the people. A public meet-
ing was called at Newcastle to petition for
the repeal of the Timber Duties, and against the
existence or revival of impressment, in which that port
is peculiarly interested, and where we know that the
seamen a few years ago took an active part against
impressment, but the meeting decided by a large
majority that there was nothing whatever to be
hoped for from the present House of Commons,
and on that ground they refused to petition. The re-
peal of the Corn-laws, therefore, though it should
be now total and immediate, will obviously come too
N }hit% AR of the Legislature being on trial, as
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