The Sun.
London, England, 1830-03-25 00:00:00

SPIRIT .OF THE PUBLIC ;QVINALS

The termination of the debate on Mr. Daven-
port's motion suggests few remarks beyond those
which accompanied the progress of it. The oppo-
nents of the motion resisted it on two grounds—
either, in our judgment, a full justification of the
defeat sustained by the mover—lit, that the object
professed was unattainable ; 2d, that the real object
was pernicious. If any one specific evil had been
held up by Mr. Davenport as calling for investiga-
tion before a Committee, it is plain that a large num-
ber of gentlemen who voted with Ministers in this
instance, would gladly have supported the proposi-
tion to inquire; and it is not very clear to us that
Government would have shewn themselves at all un-
willing to adopt it. But when any tiling so
monstrous is insisted on as that the House of Com-
mons, whether in a Committee of 658 Members, or
by a detachment of from 15 to 30, should abandon
all its other ditties for that of hearing evidence col-
lected from every county, city, town, outport, ware-
house, parish—nay, hamlet—throughout the kin-
dom, touching the principles, the history, the con
dition, and prospects of landlord and tenant, master
and servant, manufacturer and jourtneyman, mer-
chant and shipowner, farmer and pauper, seller
and consumer, capitalist and adventurer, banker,
bullionist, import, export, currency, barter, all the
affairs which compose men's interests and the in-
terests which excite and stimulate them to action—
when, we say, a mass of subjects like that, only part
of which is comprehended in the above enumeration,
is gravely proposed for the text of Parliamentary in-
quiry, with a formal view to ascertain such remedies
as might be wanting to the ten thousand evils dis-
coverable through such a process, it really appears
to us astonishing that any House of Commons could
listen patiently to so wild and wanton a proposal ;
and much more, that by a series of adjournments,
a whole week of the time of Parliament should be
wasted, at that period of the session when public
and practicable business the most various and impor-
tant ought to have been employing diligently the at-
tention of every member of the legislature. If, ho„ -
ever, the avowed object was vague and immeasur-
able, what was the real one ?—the restoration of
paper-currency, not convertible into gold ! This
was the sum of all the remedies recommended for
our national distresses by the most zealous friends
of the inquiry—from Mr. Davenport to Sir Francis
Burdett. That Sir Francis should have made the
speech ascribed to him, would be deplorable under
any circumstances, and no less surprising, if we did
not know, by frequent example, how liable to perver-
sion are the clearest intellects, when the esprit du
corps, or any strong prepossession, seizes hold of
them. Mr. Western used to be called a clever sort of
man, until his brains were turned by these ludicrous
chimeras about small bank-notes and exaggerated
prices. The Hon. Gentleman has been very con-
sistent : he has sung but one note, and that was a
one-pound inconvertible bank-note, which tine
Member for Westminster now re-echoes. " High
prices, 18 years ago, were paid for every thing :
therefore, by all means," cry the country gentlemen,
" let us have high prices." But that is less than
half the subject, let us observe. Eighteen years ago
we had a war, and the general monopoly of which
that war, through a concurrence of unexampled cir-
cumstances, was the occasion. The country flous
risked then—so far as bustle was prosperity. Why,
therefore, do not the country gentlemen invoke war,
as the mother of high prices, instead of con-
fining their invocation to " bank-notes," -which
were only another consequence of the war,
through Mr. Pitt's deep inroads on the resources
of the Bank of England ? If prices rise, so must
the cost of producing British goods for exportation.
If the price of goods increases, our competition
with foreigners in the foreign markets must of ne-
cessity become less powerful every day. Then there
follows an enormous multitude of journeymen with
their families, thrown out of work by the masters ;
then succeeds an immense addition to the poor-
rates, and a proportional fall of rents ; so after de-
ducting fairly a fall of rents from the preceding ex-
travagance of the prices, we ask Sir Francis Burdett
how he likes his bargain, and what he has profitted
by tine change ? War, which separates nations,
admits of very opposite financial and monetary mea-
sures being resorted to by the nearest neighbours.
Each forms a world in itself—the transfer of capital
from one to another, is difficult—of persons
and of manufacturing skill and means, little
less so : force rules all, and disturbs the na-
tural equilibrium. But in a peace of long cOntinu-
snce, the tendency of all nations, contiguous and
distant, is towards a common level. Capital wi 1
migrate with the artisans whom it engages, front
high-priced countries to the low-priced. The prices
of the latter in consequence will gradually rise,
while those of the former diminish, and during that
approximation, the working classes who enjoy, and
are encouraged by, the increase of wages in the
younger manufacturing countries, will prosper;—
while those of the old countries must decline. If
there be not that eager demand in the home-market
for the produce of the English farmer, which for-
merly enabled him to obtain 80s. for his corn, it is
because the wages of the manufacturer do not
enable him to buy so much or so dearly. It is
vain for Sir Francis or Mr. Western to contend
with causes such as these. Tine season of low pro-
fits affects not the manufacturer only : the landlord
cannot bolster himself up by a corn-law, a foreign
market for British manufactures is as necessary for
him as for the capitalist who deals in cotton. If the
landlords would have back again their by-gone
grandeur, they must plunge the country into war,
and force the Minister to draw by loans yearly mil-
lions from the capital of the people of England,
wherewith to extend outlay and stimulate prices.
That, and that alone, will do their business. 'Why
have they not the courage to demand it ? They
can but be refused, and they still may raise their yell
about the currency.—Times.
We regard it as a matter of hearty congratulation
for the country, that a beginning has at length been
made to that greatest and most longed for of all re-
forms, a reform in the proceedings of Courts of Jus-
tice, having for its end the relief of the subject from
the miseries of delay and of expense. Lord Lynd-
hurst, himself, the bead of the English law, made
on Monday last a speech explanatory of at least the
outlines of the proposed ameliorations which embrace
many most important features in the pleadings and
practice of all the superior courts in the tribunals of
justice for Wales, and in the equity and bankruptcy
jurisdictions. If the Chancellor has not warranted
an expectation that all would be done immediately
which many have been hoped for, he has at least
broken that dismal spell under which the country
had sunk for so long a period,—the despair of ever
at tiny time witnessing an admission, on the part of
lawyers of rank, even that any portion of our whole
judicial system was short of unimprovable perfection.
Those who have been used to the mystificatioes
with which former Judges have either evaded or en-
veloped the alleged abuses in their profession, still
be struck with the plainness and perspicuity of the
statement of the present Lord Chancellor. We look
upon this speech, however, as only the prelude to
other and more important reforms.—Times.

revision
of
fsi o
all of
monopolies our sy s system
itnii
Sir George Phillips (of Manchester) is reported
to have said on Monday evening, that the " manu-
facturers
the monopoly of the East
gofaefentteuarxraealr:siaolooked
eftocoiratlrhleye l i etf t o a
abolition
India Company, and of that which existed in the
trade in corn." Sir George Phillips was far nearer
the mark than Mr. Davenport, with his currency
nonsense, and his plan for curing a natural fall of
prices, by a factitious rise in them, effected through
the old, vulgar, and tyrannical nostrum of a debase-
ment of the currency. If the mover of the inquiry
into " the state of the nation" had come forward
with a manly resolution against the continuance of
vexatious and costly taxes—against those systems
of licensed plunder termed monopolies, and in be-
half of a further diminution of the public eXpendi-
ture—he might have found support from men of ail
parties in the House of Commons, very different