The Sun.
London, England, 1839-02-07 00:00:00

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.

Si a,--To be an unconcerned and indifferent spectator of the effbrte
now making by the industrial or working classes to invest themselves
with a degree of power in the legislation of this kingdom, argue*
either a supr.rticial acquaintance with the intelligence that is now
to be found amongst those classes, especially In manufacturing die-
, tracts; or a dangerous fatuity in disregarding the evident symptoms
of a strong and determined effort to rid themselves of a state of
things which they consider galling an( unjust, and to establish thereon
a system more consonant with the enlightened and comprehensive
principles of justice and benevolence. Daily witnesses of the spirit
which now pervades the lower orders of society, and the progress of
political information amongst them, with the grinding oppression
under which they labour, arising from partial and unjust taxation,
and an exclusion from political power, it is impossible to draw any
other than the conclusion that unless our professedly Liberal Go-
vernment, and the Legislature take up immediately the subject of a
redress of grievances in a calm, unprejudiCed, and philanthropic
spirit, and with a firm and determined resolution to deal out a
full measure of justice to the over-burthened and distressed raillions ;
the consequences may inevitably follow that with an unsparing,and per-
haps an indiscriminating vengeance, all that is worth preserving of our
present institutions will be ruthlessly swept away, and the equality of
rights now sought for in a spirit of fairness and candour be supplanted
by a rigid and uncompromising democracy. Events thicken upon
us, and who that has read the history, or that is personally ac.
quainted with the outbreak of the first French Revolution, cannot
discern the analogy in some respects In the condition and other
lineaments of society in both countries prior to that disastrous pe-
riod, dearness of provisions preceded that eventful era, and bread
was the rallying cry of the men of the Faubourg St. Antoine. Ve.
rily hunger sharpeneth men's wits, and the advancing prices of every
necessary of life along with the prospects of a long and dreary
winter, will tell fearfully on the domestic comforts of the poor
man—then will curses both loud and deep be hurled at the men who,
in spite of the remonstrances of the thousands who have suffered
years of privation and misery, and in opposition to the fair claims
of humanity, have resisted to the utmost the repeal or modification
of the infamous Corn.laws, have kept bread from the mouths of fa.
mishing children, and bathed in scalding tears the eyes of wretched
and distracted parents. The abrogation of those laws is now empha.
tically demanded by all classes, except the class solely interested in
their maintenance, on the plain and obvious principle that to tax a
large majority of a nation for the benefit of a small minority, IA
grievous and palpable injustice. The reasons for which those laws are
continued, vie., for the benefit of the former, are found by experience
to be fallacious, and the arguments used to support them by the very
effects of those laws in falling to keep prices steady and remunerating
furnish a conclusive and unanswerable reply—prices have fluctu-
ated in three years from less than 40s. to more than 80s. the quarter
of wheat, or cent. per cent. Therefore, either the farmers, as the
price of wheat was four years ago, were immense sufferers, or now,
when prices are high, immense gainers.
That they were immense sufferers when the price of wheat was
low, is a truth which no one can either resist or gainsay, their capital
was In danger of being entirely swallowed up in rent and tithes, and
the abatements or returns made at rent audits by their landlords,
put the matter beyond disputa. A period of twenty.three years
has now elapsed since the bold and fraudulent experiment on the
comforts, and even existence of the poor was first made by the en-
actment of the infamous Corn-law, and what have the farmers
benefited by them, and what has the nation benefited by them effi-
cient for all evil purposes, and mighty only in the extent and magni-
tude of the miseries they occasion P Guiltless of any one redeeming
quality, no iniquitous law has been in well devised as this one, to
accomplish the breaking up of the social compact ; no one Act of the
Legislature bears on its front such decided marks of the evil
genius as this. A concentration of all that is absurd, and
ruinous, all that Is grinding and oppressive, all that is galling
and unjust, all that is relentless, cruel, and vindictive. Rather,
what has the nation not suffered in its commerce and manufactures ?
Have we not called into being in other countries, manufactures
to rival our own ? Have we not compelled, by our prohibitory
laws, nations, who, a few years ago, were engaged almost
solely in agriculture, to import our machinery, and trepan our arti-
sans, In order to furnish themselves with articles which our own
manufacturers could have supplied them with in abundance, instead
of keeping open those markets for our rapidly increasing population,
and as a sure and profitable outlet for our abundant artificial produc.
tions, we have narrowest the limits of our commercial operations, and
contracted the number of our most valuable customers? Notwith.
standing the rapid and constant improvements in all kinds of mach!_
nery—the vast, and still accumulating mass of steam power, and
the steady and unwearied industry of our workmen—notwithstand-
ing all those facilities, al the means and appliances which are brought
to bear in the manufacture of commodities at the cheapest rate, and
which are at present without equal in the world ; our labourers and
artisans are, when the price of provisions is considered with We.
rence to the price of provisions in other countries, the worst paid,
and, consequently, the worst fed of any highly civilized community in
Europe. What an untold sum of misery have these laws occasioned—
what destitution, in place of comfort, have they created—what an
aggregate of human wretchedness, in all its multitudinous forms—
wide-spreading demoralization, want, affliction, famine, desolate
hearths, enervated constitutions, pining and sickly infancy, prema-
ture old age, and death P
This eatalogue of horrors, true to the letter, and as Incapable of dis-
proof as that the night follows day, is the real and Inevitable cause
of the many and extensively ramified confederations which, under
various guises, and in various forms are agitating the whole length
and breadth of the land—despair alone Is the moving power which
excites the people to an eager desire for political change. Whether
such desire is manifested in favour of Universal SuflYage, Annual
Parliaments, and other sweeping measures, the reasons are palpable
and self-evident. " Hope deferred maketh the heart sick." And
truly the condition of the poor man Is as one that hopeth against
hope. Confidence in the wisdom and benevolence of their natural
protectors, they have none—left to the tender mercies of selfish and
unfeeling Legislators, without any prospects of an improved condi.
tion, they arc thrown on their own resources, and roused to *sense
of their manifold wrongs; they become loud and earnest in their de-
mand for change, as any change, they think, cannot bring more
miseries than they have long endured.
I might pursue the subject further, but I am aware of the incon.
venience of long letters, both on the part of the conductor of a news-
paper, whose columns are daily crowded with matters of deep and
universal interest, and on the part of readers in general who have
not leisure to wade through long disquisitions. Suffice it, there-
fore, for the present to say, that long periods of ex trava.
gance and misrule, and consequent deep and unmitigated distress,
together with the rapidly increasing information on all subjects, po-
litical and moral, so widely diffused amongst those classes who are
suffering most, increases immeasurably the momentum of that part
of our political machinery which Is sooner or later to be taken down
and reconstructed. These arc times to try men's souls—let not our
selfish and unfeeling landed.interest men lay the flattering unction to
their souls that the present strife and agitation is only
" Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
Let not our Legislators disregard the daily increasing evidence of
an all but unanimous deterraination to get rid of those baleful laws,
which have done snore to accelerate the ruin of our commerce, an 3
to sap the foundations of our greatness and our glory, than any Act
on the Statute Book. Let not the cries and prayers of the poor for
cheap bread pass unheeded, nor suffer longer the abhorred stigma to
remain, that,in the midst of abundance our industrious population
is doomed, by laws which outrage justice and humanity, to eke out a
wretched subsistence, or perish by all the uneonceived horrors of a
famine artificially created.—l remain, Sir,
Your's, respectfully,
PRO PATRI.M.

We arc requested to state that there is not a
word of truth in the report that Mr. Croswell is about to relin.
quiet his mat in rarliament,—Standard. ...