The Sun.
London, England, 1839-01-19 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF TIIE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

Our Contemporary the Times has joi: ed in the cry, which
the manufacturing capitalists are now raising against the
Corn. laws. As the influence of our Contemporary exceeds
that of all the ether free-trade Journals in combination, we
shall be pal doned for pointing out, with considerable minute-
ness, the utter fallacy of all the arguments, by which the
Times seeks to support the present crusade against agricul-
tural property, end against the existing industrial system of
the country. Our Contemporary thus states the objections
to a repeal of the Corn-laws :
"It is argued, • that if we repeal the Corn-law, half the
tillage lands of Britain would become waste; that millions of
capital laid out in farm buildings, in utensils of husbandry, and
in complicated improvements, en thefaith of a protecting law-,
will have been altogether wasted ; and that landlords and
formers will be involved in a common ruin."
Yes :—" it is argued," undoubtedly, that these results would
flow front a repeal of the Corn-laws ;--but from such a fatal
rneesures, many other results would flow, more fearful even than
chose enumerated by cur Contemporary. Not merely would
hell' the tillage lands of Englaed be rendered waste" by a
repeal of the Corn-laws ; not merely would "millions of capital"
sunk in the soil, lie confiscated ; not merely would immense
numbers of " landlords and farmers be involved in a common
ruin"--but, in addition to all these . calamities, the whole
working population of the British empire vvould be reduced to
a state of slavery, more fearful than any of which history has
preserved the record. The agricultural population of Eng-
land, at this moment, greatly outnumbers the manufacturing
population. A repeal of the Cern-laws would drive nine-
'enths of the agricultural population into the market for ma-
nufacturing labourers. That market is already overstocked—
and although, through the influence of a free trade in corn,
the manufacturing market (so far as our foreign trade is con-
cerned) might be considerably extenthd, yet that extension of
the foreign trade would be, necessarily, preceded by a ruinous
contraction of the home trade. The grand result, therefore, so
far as the labouring population is interested in itewould be, that
agricultural labourers, by hundreds of thousands, would be com-
pelled to enter into deadly competition for employment in manu-
facturing pursuits, with the population which, under the existing
system, has been trained to manufactures. Competition fur em-
ployment, such as a repeal of the Corn-laws must render inevi-
table, would reduce wages, universally, to the starvation point
—in many cases, below the starvation point; and place the
great manufacturing capitalists in a position to dictate terms
of life and death to the whole labouring population of the
kingdom. But, in addition to these effects of a repeal of the
Corn-laws, the effects of that repeal upon all debts and en-
gagements, public and private, must not be forgotten. A
repeal of the Corn-laws would give the labourers of England
cheap continental bread, with low continental wages. A re-
peal of the Corn-laws would, in other words, lower, universally,
the value of labour, and of all the products of labour. To
fewer the. value of labour, however, is, virtually, to increase
the value of money. If wages, through the influence of a
free trade in corn, should fall one-third, the national debt
would be, in effect, increased to the extent of one-third.
The national debt, again, large as it is, does not approach
in amount to one-half of the mass of private debts and
liabilities. These private debts and liabilities, would, of
necessity increase in the severity of their pressure, in
obedience to that change in the value of labour, which
should aggravate the burden of the national debt. If, in
short the Corn-lasts were repealed, the whole debtor classes
of the country' must be crushed—and with them, of course,
the larger portion of the creditor classes. What, again, would
he the effect upon the Established Church, of a repeal of the
Corn-laws? Let us suppose the Protestant Aristocracy of Eng-
land subverted—the Protestant farmers of England consigned
to the Gazette—or, in the words of the Times, let us suppose
" landlords and farmers involved in a common ruin"—what
security, we ask, would remain to the Protestant Church?
The same influences that should ruin landowners and farmers,
by throwing the soil of England cut of cultivation, would
abolish tithe more effectually than assn/appropriation clause. A
repeal of the Corn-laws would, therefore, prove the natural
" PRECURSOR" to the establishment of Poway. Let us re-
turn, however, to the arguments of the Times. Our Con-
temporery having stated the objections which we have quoted, as
if they were the only objections which could he urged against
a free trade in corn, proceeds to answer them, thus :
The answer is plainly, that a large proportion of the lands
of this country now under tillage ought never to h eve been taken
out of pasture—that such soils arc fitted, nay, in the actual
state of England, have long been required, for feeding lean
stock ; the application of them to which essential purpose
would have tended to reduce the price of butcher's meat,
now almost inaccessible to the labouring classes, instead of
enhancing, as does their perversion to tillage, the price of
bread, on which the maintenance of human life itself is de-
pendent.

" How would our landowners like to see a portion of the
stiff clay soil of Wiltshire turned i,:to vineyards, with the
grapes thereon raised under glass, and a prohibitory duty on
all foreign wines imposed, for the sake of encouraging the
home producer, who would thus be enabled to charge these
same British landlords $0 per cent, more than the price of the
highest flavoured foreign claret, champagne, &c., for his
sour and unpalatable beverage? The just a parallel case
is that of bolstering up by bounties and prohibitions the
co;tly and inferior grain crops of our coarser soils, many of
which would supply our industrious countrymen with beef on
moderate terms.

The objection, therefore, to the existing mismanagement
of our resources amounts to this—that the withdrawal of
feceditg lands from pasturo, and their conversion to the
plough, for which they are not fitted, creates the twofold
evil of rendering both animal food and corn unnaturally dear
—the fist from actual scarcity, the second from the cost of its
production."

• The " answer" of our Contemporary is two-fold. One por-
tion of that answer is addressed to landowners : the other, to
fatmers. We shall deal with both. So far as the land-
owners are concerned, the Times declares that a case
"parallel" to the case of the Corn-laws may be found
in the supposition that " the stiff clay soils of Wiltshire
were turned into vineyards," and the landowners cotn-
polled to pay " 50 per cent. more than the price of the
nighest flavoured foreign claret, &c., for the sour and unpa-
latable beverage" of " the home producer." We might de-
mur .to the " parallelism" assumed by our Contemparary in
this matter. We might deny that English grain is at all in-
ferior in quality to the grain of the Continent—or that grain
in England is higher-priced than foreign grain in virtue of
any other than artificial causes. We might deny that the
Times has established the slightest analogy between any
effects consequent on the consumption of wine grown in Eng-
land. and the effects consequent on the consumption of bread
produced from the English soil! To make good his positions,
and to establish the " parallelism" which he takes for granted,
our Contemporary ought, as it seems to us, to prove, that
grapes, 03 em taiitly, and to the same extent, as corn, consti-
tute or ever could constitute, the food of the population of
England—ai,d that the price of grapes, enters, or ever
could enter, like corn, as an important element in regulating
the wages of labour. If these preliminary difficulties in the
wry of conceding to our Contemporary, the " parallelism"
which he claims, were got rid of, it would still be necessary to
assume, that " the home producers" of grapes in England re-
presented seven-tenths of the whole labouring population of
the kingdom ;--and it would be necessary, moreover, to as-
sume, that by abandoning the home cultivation of grapes these
seven-tenths of the labouring population would inevitably be
reduced to a state of abject dependence on the employers of
the other three-tenths. lf, besides, it could be shown that,
by the mighty changes consequent on the conversion of " the
masses" engaged in grape cultivation into manufacturers for
the foreign market receiving wages regulated by the foreign
standard, bankru,tcy and ruin (almost universal) must ensue ;
sea that, moreover, by the wide -sprsad havoc which we have
pictured, no classes of the community could gain, save idle
consumers and capitalists engaged in pursuits " which owe no
allegiance to the shores of Enyiends"—if all these various
points of resemblance between the actual culthation of Eng-
lish corn, and the imagined cultivation of English
grapes, could be satisfactorily established—then should we be
prepared to contend, that it would become the interest, no
leas than the duty of English landowners to drink home-
grown English wine, even at a price fifty per cent. higher
than that at which the best foreign wine might be purchased.
To say nothing of the great national interests which would
then be involved in the protection of English wine-growers,
the landowners v.euld feel that if the protective system which
the Times has supposed, cost them fifty per cent. additional
upon the wines which they might consume—still, to that very
protective system it was owing that they, in common with all
the industrial interests in the country, could afford to pay the
higher price supposed, with greater facility, than foreigners in
similar station could pay the lower price for the wines of fo-
reign countries. So far in regard to the landowners. Let us
now consider " the answer" furnished by the Times, in the
case of the farmers. If a repeal of the Corn-laws should ruin
the farmers of England, that effect (argues our contemporary),
will be traceable to the circumstance that farmers have grown
corn, when they ought to have reared beef and mutton. " The
withdrawal of feeding lands from pasture, and their conversion
to the plough, for which they are not fitted, creates the two-
fold evil of rendering both animal food, and corn unnaturally
dear—the first from actual scarcity the second from the cost
of its production." To these statements, we reply, that our
Contemporary seeks to prove too much. The uses to which
the farmers of England have turned the soil of England can-
not, by possibility, have produced both the effects assumed by
the Times. If we take for granted that too much pasture
land has been brought under the plough, then, it might, pos-
sibly, be true, that animal food has, in consequence, become
dearer. But the same cause which is assumed to have rendered
animal food dearer, must, in the nature of things, have rendered
corn cheaper. If the unduly diminished quantity of pasture
land involves " dear" meat, the undue extension of grain crops
must, e converse, involve cheap corn ! We argue, of course, on
the supposition, that both the " animal food" and the " corn"
required for British consumption are to be supplied from the
British soil. If the Times shall urge, that the cheaper corn
alluded to may be had from abroad—so, we answer, may the
cheaper animal food ; and in the event of a free trade in both
classes of commodities being assumed, our Contemporary may,
assuredly, spare himself the trouble of attempting to discover
in our mere agricultural arrangements, the causes of dearness
either in English animal food, or in English corn ! In refe-
rence to the arguments of the Times, the English farmer may,
in shut, take higher ground, and boldly deny that he is, in any
way, immediate or remote, the cause of " dearness" in
English meat or in English corn. The products of the
English soil are necessarily dearer than the products of Con.
Cner.tal countries, not rncre!y
because the burdens of the
1,2 ilia: cal t iv ato r ago ineen parably higher titan those of sg ri-
euk:lrists in any qua: ter uf the world bes:des, but because in
England, the standard of civilization is higher than elsewhere.
Civilization is costly, in the social arrangements which it in-
volves, and if cheap corn and meat were introduced from other j

countries into England, the labouring population of England—
and all the orders above the labouring population, excepting
the order of giant capitalists—would be under the necessity
of descending to the level of civilisation and of comfort esta-
blished in the " cheap corn" countries. The English farmers,
we repeat, have not caused the " dearness" cf English corn,
or of English animal food. They have not, within fifty years,
risen, like the membete of the Manchester Chamber of Com-
merce, to a level, in point of wealth, with the aristocracy of
England. Their trade has, in truth, been iseng an unprofit-
able one, in virtue of the fact, that the measure of protection
afforded to English agriculture by the existing ,Corn-laws, is
altogether inadequate to counterbalance the fearful leressure of
taxation upon their capital—taxation from which, as we have
recently pointed out, manufecturing capital is altogeth. re ex-
empted. To talk of the " monopoly" established by the C°rne
laws is preposterous. The only " monopolists" in Englat.'4,,
a:e the men who can apply their capitals to the purposes o.
manufacturing production, without paying any of those crush-
ing W.:es to which agricultural capital is subjected in all its
modes of application. The following are the sentiments of our-
Contemporary on the subject of a duty on the importation of
foreign Grain :—" Then, as to the combined scale and trre-
el2anism of the present fluctuating duty, must it not be cense,
dcred intolerable that when wheat is at 70s. in England, 2474
possibly abroad at 405., the tax on imported corn should be
10s. more, besides freight and other charges? Are the mil-
lions of bread-eaters in England, while corn waits to be pur-.
chased in foreign markets at 405,, to be debarred all access to
it at a less cost when it comes here than 805., because our
landed proprietors and farmers have so contrived their mutual
relations that we cannot have English wheat for less than 70s. ?
A fixed duty--but it ought to be a moderate one, if any—is
preferable to a varying one ? It must not, of course, be a pro-
tecting duty, and it ought not, we think, to be a duty for reve-
nue ; but Merely such a duty as will cover those taxes
om which the agricultural interest may fairly claim
to be relieved when the existing Corn-laws shall
be repealed." We must confess our utter inability to
comprehend the nature of a duty, that shell be fixed—that shall
not be a protecting duty—and that shall, notwithstanding,
" cover" all those taxes which press unfairly upon agriculture.,
To " cover" taxes of that description would require, as we are
prepared to establish, far higher protecting duties, than even
the present Corn-laws supply. We shall return, in our next
number, to the consideration of other arguments employed
by our Contemporary, in reference to this great questiox.
We cannot, however, bring our present observations to se
close, without the expression of regret at our inability (in con-
sequence of the space occupied by these remarks) to grace our
columns with the powerful and eloquent reasonings of the
Standard in reference to this all-important subject.—Morning
Herald.

Another, and not a Ministerial, Journal yesterday opened
its battery of big words against the Corn-laws. To do the Jour-
nal in question justice, however, it is upon this subject, if upon
none other, consistent. It has always been, whether openly
so or not, the enemy of the nobility and gentry of England.
Whether in advising that their legislative influence should be
torn from them under terror of the brick bat and the bludgeon,
or subsequently disgracing by its obstreperous friendship those
whom it had laboured to destroy, or yet again carelessly con-
signing them to ruin, that the money power might rule with
unmitigated despotism over the land—in each, and in all, of
these cases, the Times has been the enemy of the nobility and
gentry of this kingdom. In our opinion, whoever is their
enemy is the enemy of the whole people. Whoever assists
to break down the landed aristocracy and gentry of Great
Britain assists to drive the common people into slavery.
and to bring the universal nation into degradation and
decay. The battery opened by our Contemporary does
not consist of argument, but of assertion. This was
judicious, for our Contemporary is far more able in as-
sertion than in argument. We must concede to the new
ally cf the Destructive's, that, so far as the language of asser-
tion goes, what it has said is not without merit. There is a
coolness in its assumptions—a distinctness in its falsehoods—
en audacity in its conclusions, which must be allowed to go
far beyond the peers of the Ministerial and Radical writers
on the same side. We must not, however, allow ourselves to
be overcome, either by coolness of assumption, or distinct-
ness of falsehood, or audacity of conclusion. We believe it
it is not possible for greater or more gross injustice to be put
forward on any important qt onion than that which has been
put forward by the Times of yesterday against the Corn-laws,
and therefore, at whatever risk we may incur of giving dis-
p'easure to its friends and supporters, we feel ourselves com-
pe;led in the discharge of cur duty, to protest against this in
justice. We deny that the present agitation against
the Corn-laws is " a genuine and intelligent effort to
shake off a painful load." There is no such thing
as a load borne by those who are making the agita-
tion. It proceeds from men who say they are very rich, and
whose trade is notoriously as prosperous at this moment as it
has been for many years, when no such agitation has been
attempted. The aria may be genuine—in so far as many of
the gross and greedy manufacturing capitalists really desire to
ruin the landed interest, that they may reign in its stead. It
may Le called cunning, too, in so far as advantage is taken of
the visitation of Providence upon our crops to give an appear-
ance to the operation of our Corn-laws which does not really
belong to that operation ; but it is not an intelligent nor an
hanest effort. It is what we yesterday said it was, a mean,
money-hunting speculation—a dirty conspiracy of greedy
capitalists, or pretended capitalists, which their hired tools are
can:mantled to puff into a kind of importance. The Tortes--
the " Conservative" Times .I—not disputing the pleaof British
landowners and farmers, that they would be involved in a com-
mon ruin by the repeal of the Corn-laws, seems to think
dint a sufficient "answer" is given by stating that "a large
propartion cf the lands now in tillage ought never to
have been taken out of pasture." Ought they not indeed?
fi,, then should we have been fed when we were at war with
all the world ? Was it upon the European Continent, or the
American, or haply the hot soil of Africa, that we were to de-
pend for bread in 1811 and 1812 ? The prodigious capital
now vested in British agriculture, especially upon the less
favourable sails, began when corn from abroad was not to be
obtained. We then were thankful we bad a soil which could
be made to feed our population. The capital was sunk then,
and we cannot abandon it to unproductiveness without such a
tide of ruin flowing in as even the British nation would not be
able to stem. It is absurd and false to say that the tillage land
ought not to have been taken out of pasture. It was ne-
cessary to take it out of pasture. that our people might
be fed. The Times assorts that, by bounties and prohibi-
tions we have bolstered up costly and inferior grain crops,
thereby making both corn and butcher's meat unnaturally
dear. We deny that in ordinary seasons the corn of England
is unnaturally dear. Wah reference to the general scale of
prices which English habits, Eoglish currency, and above all
Euglisit taxation, have introduced, the general price of corn in
England is not inconsistently or unnaturally high. It is not
nearly so much above the Continental price as house-rent, the
wages of labour, and the scale of professional remuneration,
are above the same things on the Continent. But what sig-
nifies all this? Absolutely nothing to the Times, for it mo-
il,:stly affirms that the " altet ation"—that is the repeal of the
Corn-laws—" must be made," and must be made " at all
(vents !" Our reply to this may be very brief, and yet long
enough—the alteration must not be made.—Morning Post.
It was generally anticipated in the diplomatic circles that
the final award of the Conference of London on all the main
questions in dispute between Holland and Belgium would have
been signed on Tuesday last by the representatives of the
Great Powers, including the French Ambassador. This step
has not yet been taken ; but it is satisfactory to know that the
delay has not been occasioned by any difference of opinion
among the members of the Conference, or a disposition in any
quarter to listen to suggestions from either party, calculated
to entangle the proceedings, or retard the decision. Upon
the important points of territorial possession, and the separation
~f the joint debt, the representatives of the five Powers, in
oledience to the instructions of their several Courts, ad-
here immovably to the arrangement described in this
Journal several weeks. ago. Attempts to disturb this
arrangement have not been wanting, but they have
served only to strengthen the conviction of the Conference
that no alteration can be admitted without violating the pre-
cepts of prudence, justice, and honour. In this conviction
the Conference remains unanimous and inflexible. A week
or two may probably elapse before the signature of the final
award takes place. There are some minor points relating to
the river and canal navigation which connects Belgium and
Holland, or in which the two countries are jointly interested,
that were intended to stand over for future consideration. It
has been resolved, however, within the last few days, that the
award shall embrace these minor points, as well as the more
important and interesting questions of territory and debt ; and
the necessity of communicating with the Hague, Brussels,
and Paris previous to fixing the precise terms of the
award in
reference to the above questions of inferior interest we are
informed and believe, the sole cause of the postponeoentosie
Morning Post.

The Ministerial prints are exceedingly indignant with tig,.
because we have not changed our opinions respecting the
Corn-laws, and they give vent to their anger after their
accustomed fashion. They lay about them most lustily with
what Mr. C. Buller called their favourite weapon, namely,
" enormous lying." They seem to have profited by the ob-
jurgation which Sheridan is reported to have addressed to bit
son, who excused himself for going down a coal. pit, on the
ground that he wished to say he had been down one. " Could
you not have said so without going down ?" was the bland re-
proach of that easy moralist. So, when the Ministerial Swiss
informed their employers that the Times had not changed its
opinions respecting the Corn-laws, their moral masters appear
to have replied, "No ; but you can say it has." They have
proved their capability. They have said so. As usual, its
all dirty and discreditable work the Palmerston print takes
the lead, with this slender foundation for its falsehood—
namely, that from the very b-ginning we n arned the country
gentlemen that the New Poor-law Act must necessarily
hasten the repeal of the Corn-laws. We saw them eagerly
snatching at the miserable savings which were promised them
by that measure at the expense of the poor, and we told them
this would be the consequence of their unwise and unfeeling
conduct. At first the Ministerial prints, and especially the
Palmerston print, told us that this was a mere malicious in-
vention of our own. A few months ego, however, that very
print gave rather prematurely an indication of the game the
Ministers were about to play. We pounced upon the passage,
and called the attention of the agricultural interest to it, as
evidence of the truth of our prediction. This is called a
change of opinion on our part, and, by consequence, what we
said yesterday is represented as another change ; but every
reader of this Journal knows perfectly well that for twenty-
three years past we have invariably set our faces against
that enormous tax. which is levied by the Corn laws
upon the commumty t I.lr,ge for the benefit of a •
,aw. The crawling Courier comes next, and, with
its characteristic sneakingness, rather insinuates than
asserts the change of opinion which the other Treasury hire-
ling charges against us positively but as this poor blockhead