The Sun.
London, England, 1839-01-14 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

In another column will be found a report of the pro-
ceedings of a very numerous meeting of the Marylebone
Vestry on Saturday last, for the purpose of discussing the
propriety of presenting a petition to both Houses of the
Legislature for a total and immediate repeal of the Corn-
laws. It was stated by a gentleman at this meeting, that
a petition of the inhabitants of the borough had already
received upwards of 10,000 signatures. A meeting has
been called by the Mayor of Leeds, on a very numerous
and respectable requisition, for Tuesday next (to-morrow).
The Leeds Mercury, alluding to the proceedings at Man-
chester on Thursday last, at which it was determined to
tender evidence at the bar of the House of Commons, and
a subscription entered into towards defraying the expense,
observes—

" We are deliberately of opinion that the emergency calls
for this line of proceeding. We trust it will be i
Leeds, Huddersfield, Bradford, Halifax, Sheffield, and
Deputations and witnesses should be sent to London from
every town, and from every trade. There has not for many
years been so favourable an opportunity as the present for
urging a repeal of the Corn-laws ,• and it will be blindness in-
deed, if the great commercial and manufacturing communities
neglect to avail themselves of it."
The manufacturers of Kendal are, according to the
Carlisle Journal, taking measures for having a meeting this
week. In the interval between this and the assembling of Par-
liament meetings for a repeal of the Corn-laws will be the
order of the day. The Leeds Mercury justly observes,
that the enormous sum required this year, beyond the ave-
rage amount, for food, must be withdrawn from the pur-
chase of clothing and other commodities :-
0 If thirty millions of the national income is expended this
year on food, beyond the average amount, that immense sum
must of course be withdrawn from the purchase of clothing and
other commodities. A widow of very limited income said to
us the other day, Last year, bread for my family cost six
shillings a week ; this year, it costs ten shillings a week.' Now
as her family must have bread, the purchase of new clothing will
of necessity be very greatly restricted. The experience of this
widow will be that of hundreds of thousands of families in
the kingdom. This must soon be felt by our manufacturers ;
and if, from the state of the money market here and in Ame-
rica foe the last two years, there had not been a thorough
clearing oft-,?f stocks, and great caution on all hands in renew.
ing them, the inju&tts effects of the bad harvest would have
been felt already in a great depression of the markets for
manufactures."
Should there be a want of work in the manufacturing
disricts, at a time when prices are at their height, the
conseqoences may be serious. This is an additional rea-
son for urgirvr the repeal of the law with as little delay as
possible. The laTe of a brighter future would go far to
tranquillize the people under their privations. Mr.
Waymouth at the Marylebond meetmg observed, " that
nothing could be more groundless than the apprehensions
of the landowners, that a free trade in corn wCuld produce
a ruinous depression of prices in this country. It will
effect an approximation to an equalization of prices be-
tween tills country and the continent ; but this is very
different from ruinously low prices." The English land-
owner is led to false conclusions from not correctly under-
standing the cause of the low prices of wheat till the last year
in the ports of the Baltic. Wheat could not be raised by
farmers cultivating with a view to obtain a fair return on
their capital at a lower price than it could be raised at in
this country ; but it so happened that the wheat sent down
the Vistula to Dantzic, and obtained from other countries
on the Baltic, is obtained by the labour of the serfs, who
give so many days' labour to their lords. The lord must
dispose of this wheat for what it will bring, as it is his chief
means for procuring the luxuries of which he is in want. By
this wretched mode of cultivation the supply can never be
greatly augmented. But a free trade, by giving a
permanent demand, would gradually lead to the in-
vestment
of capital in cultivation by a more sub-
stantial
class of farmers. The cultivation of the soil
would now be conducted on the principles which go-
verns all trades : the farmers would expect by the prices
obtained to repay' himself the expenses of cultivation, '
and a. suitable return on the capital employed. Now
what Secret would the Polish or Prussian farmer have to
enable him to cultivate more cheaply than the British
farmer? Mr. Nimmo, long employed by Government as
an engineer in Ireland, observed in his evidence before a
Parliamentary Committee, that labour was in reality
cheapest when it appeared to be highest priced. Thus, for
instance, it was dearer in the county of Galway when it
was only fourpence a day than in the county of Down when
it was a shilling ; and it was dearer in the county of Down
than in the county of Middlesex. A good farmer would
never think of underfeeding either his men or his horses.
This is not the sort of economy by which he could expect
to thrive. A case which occurred several years ago will
illustrate what we have been stating with respect to cheap-
ness of labour : an English gentleman made an attempt
to introduce a manufacture for dressing and preparing
flax in three or four counties of the south of Ireland,
and, to teach the natives the processes, took with him
several Dutchmen and Yorkshiremen. The Irish were
sufficiently willing to work, but the experiment was ulti-
mately ahandoned, it having been found, on keeping an ac-
count of the work respectively done by the Yorkshiremen
and the best of the Irish, that the former in quality was to
the latter as 6to 1. No one would think of comparing a
skilled English or Scotch agricultural labourer with a Pole
or Russian. The quantity of work done, and well done, by
the former would be nut of all proportion greater than the
quantity done by the latter. The various implements of
husbandry are better in this country than abroad. In all
that regards system and distribution of labour, the Polish
farmer must y'eid to the British. From the severity of the
winter, too, both men and cattle must be unemployed for a
long period, which, of course, is the cause of more work re-
maining to be done in a comparatively short period. All
this is expensive. Then in such a severe climate as Poland
is in winter, a greater outlay on buildings is necessary. We
cannot therefore see how in the long run corn can be raised
at less expense in the countries on the Baltic than in this
island. A free trade in corn would produce some results
exceedingly gratifying to a man of humane feelings. At
present, the cultivation of the soil, being conducted by
serfs, agriculture is a degrading occupation. But to obtain
an increase of the quantity of corn, a different mode of cul-
tivation must be resorted to. The cultivation by serfs being
unprofitable, their place will be supplied by respectable
farmers and skilled labourers. In this way, the amount of
human misery will be diminished, and the amount of human
happiness augmented. The free trade in corn will r.o
doubt make the price somewhat lower than it can be under
a corn monopoly ; but its chief benefit will be the securing
us against ruinous fluctuations, and the causing the labour
of the people of this country and elsewhere to be more pro-
fitable than at present. The English will gain in their
labour being better rewarded more than in the cheapness of
corn ; and they will have the satisfaction of extending the
market for their manufactures, and converting rivals, driven
by necessity to manufacture for themselves, into customers
ready to exchange their food for the products of British
industry.—llforning Chronicle.
The Citizen-King, whom his flatterers absurdly desig-
nated the " Napoleon of Peace," has already had quarrels
with three republics—America, Switzerland, Mexico, have
all in turn provoked the hostile feeling of the " peaceful"
King of the Barricades. In the two former instances, how-
ever, the threatened hostilities evaporated in smoke. Pre-
sident Jackson cowed the " Napoleon of Peace," and Swit-
zerland defied iijm. The American President, by strong
language and energetic conduct, obtained the payment of
the debt which the Frisach Government would have shuf-
fled out of by picking a quarrel, if the American Govern-
ment had been as pusillanimous as our own, or the Ameri-
can State as weak as Mexico. If the Swiss, when a French
army was put in movement towards their frontiers, had not
shown that they inherited something of the manly courage
and patriotism which distinguished their heroic ancestors
when they smote the legions of Burgundy, and routed the
Austrian invaders, their magnificent country, rich in the
recollections of ancient virtue, would now be crouching
under the Gallic yoke, and the last continental asylum of
the exiled Poles would have been, like Poland itself, blotted
from the map of Europe. Thereby the King of the Barri-
cades would have established additional claims to those
which the betrayal of Poland and Italy gave him to the
favour of the northern despot. Mexico was weaker than
America or Switzerland, and Mexico has felt the full force
of the " pacific" arm of the Citizen-King. " I called,"
said Canning, with something of a thrasonical boast, " the
new world into existence, to redress the balance of the old."
Now may the Citizen-King say " England called the
South-American states into existence for France to knock
them on the head. Mexico, besides being a republic,
and a republic created by England, has the additional
crime to answer for of being a large purchaser of
English goods. The very fiat effect of the blockade of
the Mexican harbours by France was to prevent half a
million of ,merchandise from Liverpool of a market. Our
pusillanimous Ministers submitted to this, as they do to
every insult and injury offered to England by foreign
powers, with the most smiling submission. May we ask
Mr. Poulett Thomson and Dr. Bowring if this is the " re-
ciprocity" by which they assured us years ago that France
was about to meet the liberal folly of our free-trade system ?
What with her restrictive tariff at home, and her cutting
off our customers obroad, the ruin
well repaid for the liberal
legislation that has cause ruin of thousands upon thou-
sands of our ingenious worken and artisans, to enable rival
countries to pour their goods upan our markets while they
shut us out of our own. Let that folly-be consummated, as
the Whig Ministers seem to desire, by abo:Shing the Corn-
laws, and making England dependent for her suhsbtenco on
the Polish granaries of Russia, and the doom of EneXtd
will have been sealed, not by the armies of a foreign con-
queror, but by the suicidal hand of an insane Legislature,
The English flag has been deliberately insulted by the
French at Mexico. Neither in that matter will there be