The Sun.
London, England, 1839-12-20 00:00:00

s ivage progenitors.
'lire practical question is not whether the Legis-
ature can stop the growth of a manufacturing and
.own population, for that, if desirable, is beyond
;Ls power ; but how such a population can be made
most healthy, most comfortable, most virtuous, and
!lost happy. Into the best means of accomplish-
ng that object we are not going to inquire ; we
-:hall confine ourselves to showing that the Corn-
!aws, even on the narrow ground taken up by the
Furies, are inimical to the welfare of that population•
They nece:isarily make land dear, and so limit
tie space into which factories and work people are
crowded. They tend, therefore, to contaminate the
fir and i,ijure health. Crowding people together
more than is necessary, and preventing them from
having the enjoyments of gardens and other similar
occupaions and amusements, the Corn-laws are
equally injurious to morals. But the way in which
!They operate to enhance the competition amongst
he labourers for food, keeps down wages, and pro-
duces all those lamentable consequences which the
hypocritical Tories pretend to lament.
There is a constant race between the increase of
the people and the increase of food. Whenever
the latter gets and keeps somewhat a-head of the
former all goes on well. The labourers get good
wages, the employers reasonable profits, the land-
lord a just rent, and all are happy. During the
war, when our population was of necessity almost
limited to our own soil for food, the manufacturing
Population suffered repeatedly. When peace came
trade was opened, and food was offered us from
every country. The landlords passed a law to
.;.eep food out of the country till it had reached a
very high price. The instant that law came into
operation, the tendency of population to increase
•ve.nt rapidly a-head of the increase of food.
But for that law the relation between food and po-
pulation would have been changed. There would
have been more food offered than there were at the
moment ii..)utlis to cat it, and the whole body of the
manufacturing labourers would have been placed in
the favourable condition of the demand for their ser-
vices exceeding the supply. They might have
made, and would have made, their own terms with
the manufacturers. By the great demand for
the produce of their labour, to exchange for
food, they would have increased in numbers
and in power, arid most probably would
ihave rescued themselves and their offspring from
the degraded condition into which they had been
reduced by the war. By the exclusion of food the
relation between it and population was changed,
the labour offered exceeded the demand, and
never, except for very short periods, has that really
melancholy condition for the labourers been re-
versed since the Corn-law was passed.
But for the Corn-law there is good reason to
believe—despite of Mr. MALTHUS'S one-sided
theory—that the supply of food would have con-
tinued to keep a-head of the population. The
active ingenuity of man throughout the commercial
world being called into full operation, and the
increase of the people continually generating
a fresh demand, there would unquestion-
ably have been a rapid succession of im-
provements in the production of food as well
as of cotton cloth, and all over the commercial
world, it would have been produced by a diminish-
ing quantity of labour. Those who have only la-
bour to offer in exchange for food have clearly
been the greatest and the most continual sufferers
by the supply of food having been kept below the
demand ; and they have been impoverished and de-
graded by the Tory Corn-law.
At the same time the masters have been grie-
vously injured. If they obtained an advantage by
the competition for employment being thrown
on the labourers instead of their competing
i with one another who should have labourers, they
suffered a great disadvantage in their competition
who should produce cheapest. Such a competition
is the source of improvement and the gratification
of the consumer. But while that could not be
checked amongst the manufacturers, who have
striven to undersell each other, no such competition
wag allowed in the production of food, by which
means its price was not lowered in proportion to
the
Price of manufactures, and the masters failed to
obtain a due return for their own produce. By the
Corn-laws shutting out a competition to supply
food at the cheapest rate, while it was impossible
to shut out competition amongst the manufacturers
to supply their produce at the cheapest rate, the
master manufacturers have been as deeply injured