The Sun.
London, England, 1839-12-16 00:00:00

bolition of the m. The mechanics of Sheffield, for

example, have put forth an excellent address to

their fellow workmen throughout the kingdom,

which contains a srmary of the mischief inflicted
on ihe country by the Corn-laws, and this summons

to aid in the repeal :
" Friends and Fellow Workmen,---We, the Commit-
tee of the Sheffield Mechanics' Arti-Corn•law A'socia-

Lion, earnestly call upon you to exert yourselves on this
question, by forming associations of your own in places
where there are none ; and where they do exist,
by joining them heart and hand. We hope that cur
brethren, the agricultural labourers, will not fail to aid
us, as their own welfare is fast linked with our's. Let the
merchant, the manufacturer, the shopkeeper, the artizan,
and the labourer, join in one common league. Let it
not be said that the apathy or opposition of the working
class is the cause of these laws remaining to crush our
best interests. We would say, Arise, men of England,
and show the moral strength of firm bnt peaceable agi.

ration."

The Staffordshire Examiner states that the men I
of Wolverhampton are to give a grand dinner to
their two Anti-Corn-law Members, and that a great
exertion is to be made in that neighbourhood to
agitate for the Abolition. The Lancaster Guar-
dian, referring to the proceedings at Manchester,
echoes the recommendation to agitate. The Pres-
ton Observer, the Carlisle Journal, and, in short,
almost every Newspaper published in the manufactur-
ing districts, join in the advice, and the Newspaper
Press must have lost all its wonted influence—pub-
lic opinion, even when founded on justice, and
expressed with honest and earnest warmth, must
have become the mere shadow of a shade—if there be
not, at the commencement of the approaching
Session, such an agitation as will make the walk
and roofs of the Parliament Houses shake, and awe
even the unrighteous Bishops—who have never
lifted up their voices against the starvation laws—
into righteousness.
Great indeed is the distress, and great the glootn
in the manufacturing districts. There the people
will be astonished to think that they have struggled
so long when they see the last returns of the Bank
of England published in Friday's Gazette. With
a population increasing every day, with an active
and untiring people seeking employment in every
direction, with business greatly increased and in-
creasing—for the Corn-laws have not been equal in
power to the laws of nature, and have not wholly
arrested that growth of society which is consistent
with the decrees of the ALMIGHTY ; with all these
circumsances, requiring an increase of money, the
manufacturers will learn with astonishment that the
circulation of the great Bank of issue—the notes
of which are a legal tender, and the foun-
dation of all the currency of the kingdom—has
actually, within a few years, been reduced one
half. Not many years a;.o the circulation of the
Bank of England was 33,000,000/. ; now it is not
more than 16,732,0001. Within these eighteen
months it has been curtailed upwards of 2,200,000/.,
or, including the deposits as circulation, it has been
lessened, since June 1838, 7,154,000/. So that,
with an increased and increasing business, the cir-
culation has been curtailed, beating down prices,
and producing loss after loss to all the owners of
property. This great diminution in the quantity of
currency is mainly owing to the Corn-laws, which,
abstracting the gold from the Bank, compels it to cur-
tail its issues, and compels it to destroy much of the
property and much of the trade of the country. In
this state of the Money Market the manufacturers
will see such a convincing proof of the injury in-
flicted on them by the Corn-laws, and such a cer-
tainty that nothing better is to be hoped for till
;hose laws are repealed, that they will be spurred
:0 a last struggle to procure the Abolition.
We would have the agriculturists notice, too,
;hat this successive diminution in the quantity of the

currency depreciates their property far more than it
would be depreciated by the repeal of the Corn-laws.
In fact it tends to make the farmer's produce sell
for Continental prices, while its cost to him, tin-
eluding the rent, remains unaltered. We would
have him especially notice, too, that the curtailment
of the issues of the Bank, consequent on an expor-
tation of gold to buy corn, takes place at the
same period when his corn comes to market, so
that he is compelled, in the majority of cases,
to buy with a full currency and high prices, and,
greatly to his loss, to sell with a contracted currency
and low prices. He does not yet feel all the effects
of this limited circulation, but he soon will ; and he
will learn that the price he will receive for his short
crop will not remunerate him to the extent he ex •
pects for the cost of bringing it to market. His
day is coming, and the distress which now over-
whelms his customers, the manufacturers, is only a
shadow of that of the years 1835 and 1836 which
he will have to encounter.
Independently, however, of the pecuniary advan-
tages to the manufacturing capitalists resulting from
a repeal of the Corn-laws, let them remember that
at present their homes are not safe from the vast
discontent of the people. Never is that to Le
dreaded when they have plenty of employ-
ment and good wages, when prosperity gladdens
all classes, and a continual increase of masters
and capitalists is constantly bringing the most
intelligent and successful workmen, the leaders of
the fellows, over to the other side, as masters and ca•
pitalists. It is the duty of the manufacturers, there-
fore, to press on the landlords the propriety of
abolishing the Corn-laws, as the surest and best
means of restoring that prosperity, and with it that
safety of person and property, which once charac-.
tensed England.
We will, in conclusion, say one word to the
landlords—to the once high-minded gentlemen of
England. Not a little alarm exists through their
ranks for the safety of their property. One of the
most serious charges made against the Chartists is
that their doctrines attack property. Years ago,
however, Sir JAMES MACKINTOSH warned the
landlords that they would expose property to dan-
ger whenever they confounded it with taxation. The
Corn-laws confound property with a most iniquitous
tax, and expose it to all the danger of destruction to
which the latter is exposed. For their information
we will quote another short extract from the Ad-
dress of the Sheffield Trades, which will perhaps
convince them that their own injustice is the cause
of that danger to property which they dread ; and
that they will assuredly lose their property unless
they abolish the Corn tax :
" If there arc some proud lordlings who consider they
have a right to do what they like with their own ; who
are not content with holding thousands of acres of the
land of these kingdoms, given to their ancestors by a bas-
tard usurper, or seized by force and maintained by the
sword, like those of the Earl Warrener ; if these men
saerrevieneotonccoentaetntat wehiet holding
dh
to
o their lands w
them,
when they weritehout the
obliged
to equip and maintain the military force of the realm,
which he
yn
are
esyt
ill dv ee t
enromwi
ntehdr otwo np
rue
vpeonnt yyoounr
fromshoulde xeerhsa
n;
gi.f
ing your labour for food for your families, with those
%vim would give you the most in return ; let them re-
fleet on the present condition of the once great
landed proprietors. of France, whose millions of acres,
owing to their tyranny, folly, and stupidity—whose mil-
lions of acres have passed into other hands, and their
families for generations have been reduced to abject
poverty. This was a just retribution for the evils that
had afflicted their country, and was in accordance with
the maxim of old Roman law, that whoever made his
property an injury or nuisance to the public, should be
deprived of it."

The war between the ecclesiastical and civil powers,
—that is, between Church and State—in Scotland, is
carried on with the most determined spirit on both
sides, and the Kirk, so long the proud boast of the
country for the usefulness, moral habits, and unob-
trusive conduct of her ministers, now exhibits the
melancholy picture of a house divided against itself.
The Commission sitting at Edinburgh, as we
stated on Saturday, have suspended by one vote
seven clergymen, thereby prohibiting them from
I)aptizing, preaching, fulininiFteriil! (1,„
Sacrament, or performing any clerical functions