The Sun.
London, England, 1830-12-01 00:00:00

sent be reformed." The enemy is ever watch•
tut, and may prove an overmatch for the most
virtuous Government; or at least may expose the
public cause to a very :difficult and needless struggle,
by leaving it to be defended by the unsustained and
isolated efforts of its official friends. Now is the
time to co-operate with the Government for an ols.
ject which is equally valuable to it and to the
people. When the old retainers of t close bo-
rough and corporation system see,—thosgh we trust
they are not destined to rejoice at such a spectacle,
—but if they should discover the least symptom of
apparent apathy in the mind of the nation towards
Reform, we may be sure that a fatal use will he made
them of a circumstance so disgraceful to the
country. " You are volunteers," they may say to
Ministers—" you are busy, meddling, efficious in-
truders upon this occasion. What proof can you
bring that the King's subjects are desirous of any
change in the constitution of Parliament ? Where
are your public meetings ?—where your peti-
tions ? Why is not the table loaded,' as it
would be if the people felt the slightest concern in
this matter ? They neither meet, nor murmur, nor
remonstrate ; so that time Duke of Wellington was
right after all, when he said there must be no Re-
form." Such, and not a, whit less outrageous than
this, will be the conclusions of the virtual represen'
'wive party, against th e, existence of any necessity
tar Reform, unless the-people speak out, and show
that the Ministers who have pledged themselves to
accomplish it, have but echoed the public voice,
while the supporters of abuse, which has the merit
of. being inveterate, were In utter discord with it:—
We trust there is not a county, town, or village in
the United Kingdom, which will not meet ant peti-
tion for a Reform in Parliament. The defeat or
triumph of the cause may turn upon the national ,
unanimity and energy.-7nses.
Lord Wynford submitted last night to the House
of Lords, a Bill to diminish the expence and (Hays
of Courts of Justice. His Lordship observed, that
the pleadings were of no earthly use in affording
information with regard to the cause of action. So
sweeping a condemnation of our technical :proce-
dure, from a retired Judge, is one of the wonders of
the age we live in. He proposes that, in the outset, '
the parties shall know fully their respective cases;
as " if every suit of each party was disclosed before-
,hand, ho was convinced that, in nine cases out of ten,
the parties would be advised not to •go on." We
'like the tone of the speech, which reflects honour on
this Judge.—Morning Chronicle.
Of all the attempts at mystification aver made in
this credulous country, we know of none more
glaringly absurd than that which has been again and
pin merle in both Houses of Parliament, namely,
the attempt to persuade the world that the peasantry
of the land, as Sir Edward Knatchbull termed Jima,
have nothing to do: with the fires throtighout
the country. We can easily conceive that the
country gentlemen of England, who have made
it their constant boast, that to their,residence on their
estates we are indebted fur advantages possessed
by no other country ; and who have even urged in
Parliament as a reason for continuing the Game
Laws, that without them England could not ex,
pect to possess this inestimable advamage—should
feel somewhat mortified at so irrefragable a proof of
the rancorous feelings of the labouring classes in the
country towards their superiors. Again and again
have we heard from them that the town population.
might be disaffected, but the agricultural population
was sound. The Rev. Mr. Jirereton, Rector of
Little Massingham,,in Norfolk, first drew attention,
in a pointed manner, to the falsity of the opinion,
that the rural population were generally better
effected than the town population. He soon learned
from experience, that time population of the country
were almost universally discontented, and that the
contrast between them and the inhabitants of towns
in respect of morals, was greatly in favour of the
latter. The delusion, however, is now confined to
those %who take their ideas of rural life from old re.
mimeos, it may be worth while to copy' at this
time from Mr. Brereton'is first pamphlet, the con.
dition of the agricultural labourer in that county, in
which time labourers have long been the most skilful :
" English able. bodied paupers (says the Rev. Gentle-
man) must be classed es to their condition with the Afri-
can negro, the Arabian shave, or the Russian peasant in
vassalage. The degree of slavery may vary with time
nature of the law, the customs of the country, the force of
public opinion, or time character of the roaster; but the
principle is the iourie, Wherever the labourers heve not the
free power of selling their Own Idionr. The lsw of 'mettle.
meet in England atteches a WWI, number of labeutors to
a csrtsin district of time country, and the proprietors and
oceupiers of Wei have the power of regulating. the work
and wages of those labourers--ter, to state the casS in a
more simple form, a country gentleman is the pro-
prietor of tome of those divisions of the county which we
cell parishes. Pita is put in the ceennission of the
peace. fie is the occupier of all the property in the
pariah. A certain number of agricultural labourers ore
attached to the soil by the tats of settlement. Tables
ale filmed, by computation 4 of iireamtip to fix time
Nedetiliary Maintounce of all the flunilleit, and all the in-
mates of time families in this village. As proprietor anti
occupier of the soil, this gentleman requires the !demur of
these peasants. He offers them the work at his own
price; they refuse to accept it, as being below time reel
and customary value. They then apply to this gentleman
cs overseer, who refusea them relief because they refuse to
work. They then apply to this same personage as' ma-
gietrate for relief, and he, invested with the unheard-of
powers of time magistracy, sends them to prison, for refus-
ing to do the work. The only difference between the
eertwhip and the treadwhcel is this, that the poor man
with five or six children may remove ; but whither is he
to go, with the law of removal and settlement staring him
in the face ? Hew does this gehtleroan differ from a
West India planter?. How does his estate differ from a
sugar plantation ? Or what in point of pried* is
the difference between the peepers, time negro, the elm% or
the vassal ?"
That in this condition the peasantry_ 'haul:! be '
ripe for outrage, tiny even insurrection, can aurprise
no one. Mr. Iltereton remarks, with reference to
the insurrection of Wat Tyler, Ike, that
" We have bad in the nineteenth century iesurrectione
and reports of insurrections among the peasantry, arising
from similar causes, though not dirented with the same in-
tilliglittem and good sense. A few years ago some of the
peasantry in this county attacked the house of a Magi*.
trate, end committed other acts of violence, in cones.
quince, I believe, of some misunderstanding respecting the
modern setni4eudal regulations fur their maintenance.
Three olthe Utifottittlitt4 urea ware executed at 'Norwich.
I happened to attend them in their condemned rill, with
time We worthy . Chaplain of Norwich Castle. Their ben-
slate wdmi just, fur tiny WIMP
of great Violeage;.
at that tune, though I was then unacquainted with the
nature of rural regulation's, I felt, in common with the
misguided **for than depr'eved
Chaplain, that they were
slam I can flow undaratend bow they fel( a Neeetfiea,
as much to a mistaken interferoce witfm theirlibertleieand
*netts, as to evil passions or abandeneal lives."
Magisterial interference has boon the cause of
most of the demoralization of our agricultural :pa-
pulatimo Without time interference of busy, med.
sling Magistrates, we eillinOt conceive how the po-
pulation should have become so reduedatit in Most
of the agricultural districts. Generully speaking,
wages have always been considerably higher in Eile.
land than in Scotland. 'At present, even in Berk,'
shire, Oushingbamshire, Wiltshire, Sutotex, the very
won't counties of Eoglatill, wages are higher than it
Scotland. But the Scots:Wien its a free Writ, end
the Englishmen is a slave. tie has beets so con-
stoutly interfered with by all manner of functien-
aries, that he attributes all the cella be suffers to his
aunerims, The- Attempt to raise wages .wbere,ver
the population is redundant will assuredly fail. A -
cerrespondent from the Weald of Kent gives tr, mm
curious instance of an -attempt of a Clerical Mag 4.
trace to raise wages to two shillings, which recoiled
tat himself as tithe-bolder, the ferment employing
only the labourers they wanted, and throwing the
rest on the pariah. :No legislation can produce army
other result, hlc impossible to melte a farmer em
ploy more, halide than he requires. That the out.
tutted are the . fruit of the hatred borne, by the itt,.
ba„ren, to their superiors Coburn be -doubted. This
ji a lamentelmie stator of things, sin doubt;: but the
midi must be told.. Time insurance Mete, which
have such a deep interest in getting met the truth,
tree