The Sun.
London, England, 1839-01-16 00:00:00

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WITH WHICH
THE " TRUE SUN" 1S NOW

INCORPORATED.

LONDON :
WEDNESDAY EVENING, JANUARY 16, 1839,

It is not a little curious, that the Tory Journals in
their zeal to uphold the starvation laws, make vehe-
ment attacks on the cotton lords, seeing that their
great leader owes most of his consideration to the fact,
that his father was one of the greatest of them. If
we acre not mistaken too, some of the brightest rising
*lights of the party, such as the Messrs. GLADSTONES,
MILNEs, and BA RINGS (Lord ASHBURTON'S son),
owe their wealth to commerce and manufactures, which
the Tories are at present so eager to decry. Are these
gentlemen and their allies, anxious to kick down the
ladder by which they have scaled the aristocratic heaven
and are seated with the lords 01 the soil in the
aristocratic elysium ? • We are inclined to think
by the zeal with which the Tory Journals, from one
end of the land to the other, at present depreciate
commerce and manufactures.
One of their great arguments, for example, which,
though it was refuted and exposed when it appeared
two months ago in"Blaekwood, has since been re-
stated by the Carlisle Journal, the Morning Post,
the Morning Herald, aided by scores of subordinate
copyists representing the clodpole interest, is
that the agricultural interest is of infinite
more importance, that its wealth is greater,
its population more numerous and moral than
those of the whole of our manufactures and commerce.
Let us grant this assumed importance, for argument
sake ; does it, therefore, follow that manufactures and
commerce are of no importance ? Can it be con-
cluded, will any man dare avow, that commerce and
manufactures are to be sacrificed to promote the pro-
sperity of the agriculturists ? To that conculsion, how-
ever, these comparative statements directly lead ; and we
beg to remind our so-called Conservative Contempora-
ries, that they are pregnant with more disastrous and an-
.' -archical consequences, than any of the doctrines pro-
t - el I • • • • ••
gave always been willing to believe that the interests
of all men in society are the same, that one helps for-
ward another, that it is by mutual and reciprocal
exertions; WhiCh are equally beneficial to all, by the
great principle of division of labour, that the majority
- are comfortably fed, lodged, and clothed, and the na-
tional prosperity promoted. That commercial and
manufacturing aggrandizement enlarge the market
• for the produce of agriculture and promote its
prosperity, in accordance with this general principle,
cannot, in Lancashire and Middlesex, or in any part
of England, require a single observation to demon-
strate it. The increase of commerce and manufac-
tures is, therefore, a great and a direct benefit to the
agriculturists, and all that the commercial and manu

. facturing classes ask is to be allowed free scope for
.their, industry, which will be sure to enlarge the de-
mand for agricultural produce: They do not ask a
„ penny from the agriculturists, or for any restriction
on them, or to impede in any manner their free agency
in supplying themselves or cultivating the land as they
please. But thelandlords do insist on taking agreat many
pennies from the manufacturers, traders, and shipowners;
they lay on them a most onerous restriction, and will

not allow them to prepare their manufactures for the

best market, nor purchase food where they please with
the produce of their own labour. In short, they insist,
because, as their advocates say, they are much more
powerful, more opulent, and more numerous than the
manufacturers, on sacrificing the prosperity of the others,
in order to promote the prosperity of the landowners.
That the whole scheme is most short-sighted, and must
be in the end most ruinous to the landlords themselves,
does not at all abate the anarchical iniquity of the
principle on which it is founded.
Government is organized to protect property,
which is altogether of private growth and individual
formation. Its duty consists in giving equal protection
to property of all kinds, and it violates its duty when it
sacrifices any branch of society, however minute, to say

nothing of such main trtmks as those of manufactures

and commerce, to enlarge or enrich another. We
deny that the agricultural interest is promoted by
any restrictions whatever on trade ; but the argu-
ment of the Tory Journals is, that the Corn-laws
promote that interest, and they justify the sacrifice
of trade and commerce, by claiming for agriculture a
great comparative superiority. Thus they call on the
Government or the Legislature to continue that vio-
lation of its duty towards the manufacturers, which it
sometime ago. adopted under a short-sighted ignorant
notion, that it was expedient to establish a system of
enriching one class at the expense of another. But if
' the manufacturer is not to have from the State equal
protection with the agriculturist, he will owe it less or
no obedience. By what arguments addressed to his
interest or self-respect can he be persuaded that
his occupation is not as useful, as honest, and
as deserving of that protection he enters into society
to obtain, as the owner of land or the grower of corn ?
No such argument can be adduced and the advocates
of the Corn-laws, by proposing to continue the
sacrifice of one interest for another, strike at the
root of all good government. Their principles
lead to separation and dissolution ; they would intro-
duce anarchy as well as decay, and would cut asunder
the bonds which hold men together in society in
peace by mutual service.

Strange conduct in statesmen, and strange social
facts have of late forced some unquestionably strange
doctrines on public attention, but none surpass in
• absurdity and mischief the doctrine that commerce and
manufactures, however humble, may be impeded or
sacrificed to promote agriculture. The Tories even go
so far as to chuckle with delight at the announcement ,