The Sun.
London, England, 1839-12-17 00:00:00

i putiT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.
'FROM THE MORNING PAPERS OF Tilts DAY.
(From the _Morning Chronicle.)
A report of the proceedings at the Uxbridge Petty
Sessions yesterday, at which a number of labourers,
receiving, with the earnings of their wive!, weekly sums
varying from Ss. to 125., claimed but were not allowed
exemption from the payment of' poor-rates, shows that
whoever benefits by the corn monopoly the agricultural
1 workmen do no not. In the summer these poor crea-
-1 ture, can barely subsist ; and vet, at this inclement
* sesason, and it may ea oily be conceived, after paying two
shillings a week for their rent, the sum remaining for
food, clothing, and fire, for a man, wife, and two or
three children, out of the balance of ten shillings a
week, must be very inadequate for that object.
These instances serve to show in what manner the
high price of torn diminishes the consumption of
t,srlauulaciares in the home market. Labour, like
other commodities, depends on demand and supply ;
! and it was observed at the Uxbridge meeting by
i
the overseers, that, small as the sums earned by
some of the men were at field labour, there were
men who would gladly accept a smaller remuneration.
I Charitable inilividua!s will, no doubt, consider the
i hardships of their poorer dependents ; but as a rule it
t, may be laid down tha t men do not choose to pay more
than the market rate for wages any more than for other
ithings. But what becomes, it will he said, of the im-
mense sums received this year by the agriculturists ?
The farmers will pay their rents, and arrears which had
been considered hopeless will this year swell the land-
glord's receipts. Both farmers and landowners will be
'1 enabled to live more luxuriously, and there will be a
' much grantere demand for jewellery and other articles
of high price. But the consumption of the great menu-
! factures of the country wilt be materially diminished,
because the consumers are the great body of the people,
'i whose earnings are almost exclusively required for food.
1 The home market is at all times insufficient for the
conseinptiem of more than a part of our menu-
)
fisetures, though this year the consumption will, no
doubt, he considerably below an average. With respect
to manufactures, then, we may say that the home
i. market is always glutted. One of the ablest and most
, intelligent men in this country, whose letters on the
Copu-laws, written in the beginning of 1804, under the
signature of Hs B. T., were afterwards published as a
pamphlet, speaking then of our manufactures, observes
that " the amount in real (not official) value of British
manufactures exported in each of the two last years wa&
'l4 rather uecte than 36,000,0001., and nearly the whole of
this eurn is constituted of labour. Cotton wool, fine
steep's wool, flax, and dyeing drugs, arc the chief of
those raw materials of our exports which we do not
t produce ; the metals and the coals are in our own mines,
i till labour extracts them. Making, therefore, ample
abatement for foreign materials, the quantity of sur-
plus labour in the country—that which must seek a
foreign market—may he roundly estimated at thirty
millions sterling a year." But our exports of manufac-
three have since considerably increased. On an average
of years, we now export cottons to the amount of
1 2,4 mildoas ; woollens to the amount of .^:). millions ;
i linens and linen-y; ra to the amount of ee millions ;
hardware and cutlery to the amount of 1,11 million ;
earthenware half a million, &c., making a total of about
Zet) millions. This enormous quantity of labour is over
aid above what is required for the home-market, so
;1, that the landowners have the manufacturers completely
I in their power, The price obtained for the surplus
which is exported determines the price at home ; for if
all could be consumed at home, none would be
exported ; and no mai would think of exporting
whet would be sold at a lower price abroad
I than he could obtain at home. It is the same
1 with manufactures as with corn, or, indeed,
1 any commodity whatever. The moment the supply
/ exceeds the demand, the buyer dictates his terms
`... to the seller. On are other hand, when there is
au abundant harvest, and the markets are glutted, the
firmei must often sell at ruinrsusly low prices. So well
is this understood, that it was gravely proposed by an
agricultural writer a year or two ago, when agriculture
was distressed from abundant harvests, that to make
the corn monopoly available, the Legislature should tix
I the propoition of land to he sown with corn. Tue
Corn-law, in so far as it raises the price of food in this
country beyond the average of other countries, is a tax
on the industry of the people for the advantage of the
landowners. The landowners may just as well, to all
j intents and purposes, pass a law, allowing them, when-
ever they arc in want of money, to put their hands
directly into the pockets of the people. 'they make
", the lr a', it is true, and, therefore, the injustice is legalized ;
but, in point of principle, the highwayman, who takes
your purse out the highway, does not act more un-
ii
,justly than he who compels the labourer to deliver
e over to hint, without an equivalent, a portion of the
fruits of his industry. But the robbery is not all.
Unfortunately the British manufacturer is compelled
to compete with his foreign rival burdened with the
spoil levied from him by the landowner ; and thus rivals
are fostered in every country to supply the market, and
to compete with us in every other market of the world.
The agriculturists themselves arc injured by the mono-
poly. Years of abundance will succeed each other, and
the markets will in consequence be glutted ; and then
the farmer, having his rent fixed, according to an artifi-
cial scale of prices, cannot relieve himself by exporta-
tion. But years of scarcity on the other hand, force us
,i< to have recourse to markets with which the monopoly
-Prevents us from having a regular commercial intercourse,
and the sudden demand must be liquidated by hard cash.
The Bank of England, to avoid bankruptcy, raises the
, value of the currency, and thus interferes with our
i commerce with our best customer, the United States,
and the cessation of demand for our manufactures in
that country follows as a matter of course. The dis-
tress in the manufacturing towns is the work of the
, landowners ; they are chargeable with all the evils re-
; suiting from commercal derangement and want of em-
ployment. To their blind cupidity alone is to be
ascribed the immense mass of suffering which now af-
flicts Great Britain. It is to their predominance in
the Legislature that we are indebted for a law the most
t iniquitous that ever was enacted--a law of spoliation--
a law for paralysing the arm of the strong man—a law
that covers the face of the land is it li suffering and crime,
and threatens to convert the most industrious people
on the face of the earth into a nation of paupers. We
call on the people to exert themselves once for all to
' put down the landowners. Too long have they pa-
tiently borne this wroag. Too long have they suffered
a set of selfish monopolises to sport with the welfare of
the country. If an effort do not he soon made it will
Come too late. Let the working classes of other towns
take an example from the men of Sheffield. Every
corporation, every public body, too, throue'nout the
country ought to be up and stirring. The .21st of De-
cember is fast approaching. The citizens of London
will, we trust, have an eye to this great question on St.
Thomas's Day. The agriculture of England was never
so flourishing as when importation was practically free,
during the whole of the last war. We became then
first a great manufacturing country, from obtaining a
new power in our machinery, and we imported largely
food in return for our maniefactures. The agriculturist
always flourishes in a country where the demands of a
manufacturing poplin...ion require importation from
' abroad ; for the isnoortation can only take place at a
large addition to the price in the forth ii market, and the
very impertati,,a iself is a proof of a strong demand.
Never was a, law so uncalled-for as that for excluding
importation, into a country forced to find a market for
the exec's of manufacturing labour beyond the wants of
the home-nearket. But unjust and impolitic as this law
is, it, will be persisted in if the people do not bestir them-
selves. Again, we repeat, let them resolve to be no
longer the slaves of the landowners,and they must succeed.
(From the Times.)
An Hon. Baronet, Member for Peterborough, has
been mixing himself in the business of the pending
election for Newark. Sir Robert Heron, for that is
the name of this gentleman—is an ancient Whig, with
the principles of a modern one, and enjoys the snug
privilege of being what, in common parlance, people
call . one of Lord Fitzevilliam's Members." In the
1 subscription 'Joni( of Brookes's and in the division list
1 01 the Hauge of Commons he has figured front times of
~high, "...Nulty ; but his merits had not advanced him
'"") dny. general notoriety till Mr. Thesig,er's canvass
for ewark afforded him occasion for exhibiting his in-
.47nuitY and discretion. It was obvious, from the begin-
kitig• to all the world, and particularly and painfully so to
the Whip, that the contest for Newark was likely to be a
were mairerrassing affair for the Melbourne Ministry ;
'.l n(I accordingly the Herons and all other birds of that
feather were strangely fluttered. To have again passed
over Mr. Sergeant Wilde, with his station at the bar,
and in Parliament, would have been impossible, and
„ice if possible, useless ; for it was not to be sup-
posed that, if sentenced by these Ministers to a per-
manent exclusion from the posts to which his attain-
ments entitled him, he would continue to waste in the
I Parliamentary' ranks of the Government the evenings
: which he could employ so much niore profitable in his
chambers ; and then his retreat to the Chiltren
Iluedreds would, equally with his promotion to legal
office, have induced the great evil apprehended by the
tile constituency of Newark.
Whigs—the appeal t)
Sa there was nothing for them but to make him Sei:ca :
or-
G noted ; end there they are, werking for his return,
with all the arts of cunning and all the energies of
,
despair. In this borough the Duke of Newcastle has a
large tsnantry, of whom almost all are zealous partakers
with him in Conservative opinions, while the remaining
.few, though but lukewarm in politics, are so cor-
dially attached to him as a landlord and a man, that
they gladly support, from time to time, the respect
aide candidates whom he may be understood to
fey° ir. But whatever influence may be enjoyed by
Iris Grace among hie tenants belongs to him, not by
their apprehensions, but by their goodwill ; being neither
more n; r less than what the Heron; of better times were
a ont to call " the legitimate influence of property."
rNow, it was highly desirabie for the Whigs so far to 1
l neutreltze " the legitimate influence of' the property"
lA:longing to the Duke in the borough of Newark, that
those of hie tenants who were at all indifferent about
political matters, or whose position rendered them ac-
e...