The Sun.
London, England, 1830-01-20 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

The agricultural interest, or, to speak more
propsrfy, the country-gentleman-interest, goes
on complaining with much diligence and noise.
The Norfolk meeting would have a repeal of the
Malt-Tax,—an object which, if taken alone, we
have already characterized as equally useful to
the brewer and. the publican. Another class,
which must derive more than an honest share of
profit from such a reduction of our public im-
posts as embraced the Malt-Tax only, is that of
the proprietors of those soils which are fitted for
the growth of barley. The relief of the malted
grain from tax would be seized upon by the
landlords as a precious opportunity for laying on
some shillings snore of rent per acre. It is no
great wonder, then, that a race of gentlemen who
have, generally speaking, what is called " an
eye to business," should put forward the Malt-
Tax in the very front of their grievances, or as
that especial grievance to which they are satis-
fied that the redress of every other should for
the present be postponed, leaving it to Provi-
dence to distribute between brewer, publican,
and people, the several vexations arising out of
the beer duty and the licence monopoly, seeing
that they do not affect immediately the rent of
land, or the prosperity of • landlords. But why
the farmers should fight the battle of the Squires
who prey upon them, by- employing squire-like
arguments and notions on behalf of a repeal
of the malt or any other impost, is what we do
not understand so readily. There have been
reported to us the proceedings of a meet-
ing of the owners and occupiers of land in
the hundred of Grimslioe, Norfolk, where
vigorous resolutions were passed against the above-
mentioned tax, but where, also, much nonsense
was talked and listened to, concerning the mis-
crideYous effects upon the farmer of the metallic
currency, and the (falsely called) free trade sys-
tem. What the farmers lose by getting gold for
their ccrn, instead of paper often issued by in-
solvents in the disguise of bankers, is to us not
easily comprehensible ; or by what law of de-
cency the farmers drag the question of free trade
into their discussion's, when that trade which
they specifically carry on is hemmed round by
an impudent and inhuman monopoly, it would
be no less difficult to learn. This one reason
for repealing the Malt Tax is valid, as it concerns
the farmer, and others besides the farmer,—that
a towering, or rather an abolition, of the duty,
end an exemption of the making process from
the annoyance of the exciseman's inquisition,
would befidend the poor man in some degree, by
compelling the publican to sell better beer, on
pails of losing a large proportion of his customers,
Mio might take to brewing for themselves with
more facility and advantage than at present. Mr.
Western is once more in the field ; and always,
as it seems to us, without being able to satisfy
any body that he would not have saved more
credit by staying at home than he gains by
coming before the public. The Honourable
Member for Essex appears to have got but one
idea in his head, and that is one which most
other men have abandoned,—we mean the chi-
mera that the alleged decline of British prosperity
has arisen from ourreturning to that metallic cur-
rency which was the legal standard of value and the
current medium of all traffic between man and
man throughout the whole history of England,
whether as a Roman, a Saxon, or a Norman, a
Pagan, or Christian—an agricultural or com-
mercial—a rude or civilized and enlightened
state—with the single, and almost evanescent,
exception of 23 short years ! Mr. Western
thinks that money is wealth, or he means no-
thing; he thinks that paper, not convertible
into gold, is wealth, or he means nothing ; he
chinks that paper prices (the paper not being
eeovertible), and prices in gold coin, would be
the same, or he is the most elaborate nothing-
writer we have ever heard of ; at the same time
that he reprobates the law making paper pay-
able in gold, ts one which has so diminished
the amount of money, that there is not enough
to carry on the business of the nation, or, in
either words, to enable the landlords to screw a
war rent out of their tenantry. The greatest
difficulty with a letter-writer like Mr. Western
ys to understand his meaning. He fancies that
Bie has discovered something wonderful in the
identity of cheap goods and dear money ; and
complains of money being dear as pathetically as
his labourers do that bread is dar—the noto-
riety of which fact, by the bye, puts an untimely
end to the Honourable Gentleman's assumption
about the actual dearness of money. We ask, isl
net bread dear enough ? Is it not the most pro-
digious of all pretences to clamour about the fall
of prices, when we import from all parts
of the world the first great article of human
sustenance, loaded as it is with a duty in some
cases of 30s. a quarter ? But it is the peasantry
ve pity,—it is for them we feel. They, with
the;e wretched wives and children, are really an
oppressed and ruined people ; their bodily
powers are impaired, their moral qualities are
degraded, innocence and cheerfulness have fled
with the last vestiges of self-dependence and
comfort from their humble dwellings. Begin by
reviving the once frank peasantry of England,
sacrificed as they have been to the rage for en-
elosure-bills, for game-preservation laws, for parish
domineering, for petty legislating, for enormous
rents, for mechanical " production ;" —restore
that labouring population to its level, and you
raise al above it in due proportion ; for the
country gentlemen, and even the farmers,—even
the latter, comparatively—can take care of them-
!wives. We believe the distresses of the squires,
rti, least, to be most exorbitantly over-rated. The
sagacity of the late Sir Thomas Monro was not
imposeel upon by the outcries of 1822. " Your
agricultural distresses" (said be in a letter*,
dated February, 1823, from Madras), ,fc do not
;appear to me to 1..,e very serious they rule,
to consist very moth m the country gentlemen ;
and farmers not liking to return to their modes
of life before the French war, I should like
to see a comparative statement of the rental of
the land, of any one of the distressed ounlies,
for 1790 and 18205" e—rimer.

We have copied from Ow Western Times a
report of a meeting of the county of Devon,
held at Exeter, on Friday last. We rejoice to
see the country beginning to emancipate itzell
from the thraldom in which it has been so long
held on this question. During the greatest part
of the reign of the late King it was 4p under-
stood matter, that any man who ventured to
meddle in any manner with tithes, thereby pre-
cluded himself from all advancement in the
world. The late Arthur Young, who in the
early part of his life had strenuously recom-
mended a permanent settlement of tithes, found
that even the patronace of Mr. Pitt (to whom
he was of great use in the isbnurs preparatory to
the Income Tax) wes unable to
,avail him against
the persecution of the Church, backed by the
King ; and he had the mortification of seeing a
a See an interesting life of this able statesman and Bel-
zer (for he ryas botb), just retblisbell.