The Sun.
London, England, 1830-12-28 00:00:00

SPIRIT OP THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

The vile truck system must be abolished by law,
although it has the support of the "political eco-
monists," who, regarding with supreme contempt
the homely maxim, " live and let live," make it the
great principle of their liberal philosophy to pamper
capitalists, and starve the poor. The truck system
is a fraudulent scheme to deprive the workman of a
portion of even the scanty wages which he earns
at the present day, by paying him in some commo-
dity the nominal amount of his wages, or a part of
them, and which commodity he cannot tutu into
money but at a certain loss. There are two ways
in which the poor lose by this sort of fraud—one as
to money, the other as to time. The trucksters
only consult their own convenience and cupidity
as to what articles they make the workmen take
in place of money. They cure not whether the ar-
ticles are such as they may sometimes want, or such
es they never use at an ; for instance, we are in-
114rmini by • country pryer (the Leeds Mercury)!
that one of those trucksters, some time ago, com-
pelled each of his weavers to buy a set of china for
the tea-table, but the poor weavers, net being in the
habit of using china, mid not being able to eat it,
sold it to their neighbours at a heavy loss. The po-
litical economist will, perhaps, ask, " why did the
weavers take the china ? They were not compelled
by law to take it—they were free agents, and might
have refused, and insisted on being paid in money.
Why should the law interfere to prevent freedom of
action, and inhibit the rich from mak:ng what terms
with the poor they please?" We will tell the poli.
ticel economist that this is a case for the interference
of the law, because there is no freedom of action—
except the freedom to oppress and defraud on the
one side, with the necessity of submitting to such
oppression end fraud on the other. The paper to
which we have already alluded states that the truck-
masters in Leeds have two rooms contiguous to each
other, the first being a shop or warehouse well
moch' with provisions, groceries, wearing apparel,
&e. Through this room every perion bringing in
work must pass into the taking-in room, where the
work is examined, and paid for in money ; but if
the person receiving the money does not leave a
great portion of it in the shop as he returns, he can
have no more work there. Such is the freedom of ac-
tion which characterises those dealings between
power and poverty—between wealth and destitution.
Nu, the poor workman is not free to act, but he is
free to infer--r' fur sufferance is the badge of
all his tribe." If he does not submit to be
defrauded of a portion of his wages, he must lose his
employment, and run the risk of actual starvation,
or apply for the wretched dole of the pauper, or
make his election between mendicity and crime.
Will an industrious and' honest man hesitate as to
the choice he ought to make? Will he not rather'!
submit to the impositions of the truck system
than to place himself in the situation of being com-
pelled to enter either a workhouse or a gaol ? But
the law ought not to leave the industrious and honest
man exposed to such a necessity; it ought to secure
to trim the full benefit of his contract with his em-
ployer—the full wages in money which one has
pulated to give, and the other has agreed to receive.
if the rich man violates his contract with the rich
man, the ore can put the law in motion to oblige the
other to do him justice ; but the poor man, if his
employer does not act fairly with him, is bereft of all
resource. It is true he can summon his master to pay
him his wages in tnoney but if he does so he leas
reason to apprehend that the demand for justice will
be followed by the infliction of vengeance; arid it is
no small degree of vengeance which deprives a
poor man of his means of livelihood. Theemployer
Can do this, and the poor man must submit to it,
end this is what the political economist calls freedom
of action The poor man who is obliged to take
chins, or other goods equally useless to him, iniottad
of wages, must lose a portion of his time in seeking
a purchaser for theta, and lose a portion of his wages
for prompt payment. Thus he is a double loser,
while his wealthy employer is a gainer in a two-fold
WWI, for he bee not only his regular profit upon
*heifer man's labour, but he has an exorbitant
protlr on the goods which he makes him take in ex
n6,,4it for that labour. If that be the greatest, the
Leer, the most flourishing country, where bloated
capitalists revel in sordid luxury, tied the miseries of
o mendicant population, then let this, and every
*edicts which, to satisfy the grasping cupidity of !
the tich, beggars the industrious classes, be perpe-
: toisl; but, if the moral and political property of a
nation be more dependent upon the comfort nod
contentment of the many than on the riches and
*elfish enjoyments of the few, such a system cannot
be too soon put down by law, not only as a fraud
upon the poor man, but as a crime against society.—
aiforning Herald.
Several of the most respectable members of the
Catholic Associution, so soon as they obtained the
object for which they had embodied themselves,
namely, Catholic Emancipation, withdrew from the
faction which had kept Ireland for years in a state
of confusion and discontent. They knew that the
junta would devise new means to perpetuate tur-
moil and trouble—they separated from their con-
federates, and are now become the marked objects
of invective and virulence. Wherever the grand
Agitator appears, his movements are landed by the
rabble, and he seems to look upon himself as little
lees than a demi-god. In fact, he reminds us of
the metrical address to Jove, in the Imrletta of
Afidas

" Jove, in his chair, of the sky Lord Mayor,
When be nods, men and gods stand in awe;
When be winks, Heaven shrinks,
When beeped', earth quakes;
Bis word, though absurd, is a law."
Vain men are exalted in their own opinion and esti-
mation above mortals, and the applause of the
thoughtless and giddy multitude will often " set
their brain a madding.' The man who is fond of
popular praise always expects servility frmn others,
and, while inhaling the incense of adulation, scarcely
knows what ho says or does. When cool reflection
returns, he is apt to unsay what he has said, and to
expostA;mself to the perpetual charge of inconsis-
tent/. Among an undiscriminating mob such a
man will have a number of votaries; but, instead
of listening to the ephemeral applause of the multi-
tude, he should curb his vanity and ambition, and
listen to the dictates of sober remote, otherwise be
may hare cause to tausent his vanity, folly, and in-
temperance.— Mot Wag ddvertiser,
We can scarcely yet contemplate calmly the his-
tory of the past week in Paris, with the fearful crisis
which threatened to sweep away all the institutions
most favourable to human happiness, and, by the
destruction of property and the annihilation of law,
to plunge Frence and Europe from a high state of
civilisation and refinement, into all the horrors of
anarchy and barbarism. From all the accounts
which brave reached us, we think there can be little
doubt that a detestable conspiracy had beau formed
by the enemies of freedom and order, to take ad-
vantage of the popular feeling against thnt wretched
tool Polignae and his colleagues, and, under the
pretext ot taking vengeance on them, to rouse all the
worst passions of the mob to the work of plunder
and devastation, and to restore the reign of the Je-
suits and a military despotism. We know that the
furious and infatuated adherents of the old regime
have adopted as their creed " de l'exces du ma! den-
dra k hien,"and that the lanais they moat take for the
accomplishment of their objcet is simply to push
things on to anarchy; that will produce despotism,
veluels will bring back the Due de Bordeaux. To
the folly and wickedness of (hit design it is in vain
to seek to open their eyes: but we Cannot enough
rejoice that their atrocious purpose bus been baffled,
and that the recent events inTaris, and the success
of King Louis Phillippotaythsvernment, in keeping
down tumult and sinforeliti obedienee to the laws,
have strengthened the present -order of things in
France, and confirmed the power of the Citizen-
sing and his Llovernment. We are well persuaded
that our own Ministers *hare this joyful feeling in
common with us, and ail atlases of the community
in this country And that the result of the events of