The Sun.
London, England, 1839-01-24 00:00:00

LONDON
THURSDAY EVENING, JANUARY 24, 1839.

The Chronicle denies, on authority, the statement
we yesterday made respecting the marriage of her
MAJESTY. We beg leave to inform our Contem-
porary that we place more reliance on the authenticity
of our information than on his contradiction.
Technically, perhaps, the Chronicle may rot he in
error. The event may not be announced in the Speech
from the Throne, but may be communicated to Parlia-
ment by a separate and distinct message ; but substan-
tively our information, and not the authoritative denial
of the Chronicle, will be found correct. We wait with
calm confidence for time to confirm the truth of our
statement.

Some time ago we adverted to the strong language
used by the Herald against the manufacturers, accusing
them of desiring to plunder the agriculturists, and af-
firming that the tax levied on the community by the
Corn-laws was the property of the landowners. We
then expressed our conviction that to such accusations
the manufacturers would disdain to submit. Nobly
have they redeemed their character, and convinced the
world that the robbery is committed by the landlords,
and that the manufacturers only seek protection for their
own property, and freedom for their own industry. The
Tory Journals, however, continue to blow the same bel-
lows, and a scorching, perhaps consuming, dissension will
be the consequence. That hitherto lady-like Journal,
the Post, is so carried away by the controversy that it
forgets altogether the language of the drawing-room,
and accuses the manufacturers and the Journals which
advocate the abolition of the Corn-laws of "misrepresen-
tation," "falsehood," and " enormous lying," and repre-
sents the repeal of the tax on food as a legislative confis-
cation of the property of the landowners. Rational men
would at once conclude that the true remedy for this
enormous lying" is the solemn investigation demanded
by the manufacturers, and that the surest protection of
the landowners' property against legislative confiscation
is not to base it on legislative plunder ; but the Tories
deny us both. Such language as that of the Post and
other Tory Journals brings the matter to a short issue.
We acknowledge that we use similar language, be-
cause we are convinced that the Corn-laws are
an unwarrantable act of legislative robbery, that
they violate the tight of property in all other
classes, which the Legislature is bound to protect, for
the sole advantage of the landlord, and impede the
exercise of honest industry, which the Legislature
is bound, if it interfere at all with the matter, to pro-
mote. The question, therefore, is no longer one of
expediency on either side ; it does not depend on prices
here and abroad, or on statistical tables, but of right and
justice, and neither party can allow it to remain as it
is without permitting imputations on their moral cha-
racter, which, if applied to individuals, would make
them worthy only of Botany Bay. We are glad to
find, also, that under this aspect the community at
large is beginning to see the question, and that it
will be decided by the principle of morals :

I will not (said Mr. Black, at the Edinburgh meeting) talk
of the immense pecuniary interests at stake; I will take higher
ground. I object to these laws on account of their immo-
rality—they are one unmitigated, superlative, and all-per-
vading evil.—( Hear, hear.) Their roots are selfishness,
their trunk is oppression, their branches are ramifications of in-
justice, and their fruit is poison.—( Long continued cheering.)

We rejoice to see the matter brought to this short
issue, because there is no end to the fallacies which
the perverse ingenuity of public writers, under the in-
fluence of strong emotions, continually coin, which they,
we admit, honestly believe, and which delude others as
well as themselves. An outcry, for example,- is made
about the great fall of prices which will ensue, should
the Corn-laws be totally abolished ; but on the moral
principle we at once see that the greater would be the
fall, the more impudent is the plunder of the land-
owners, the more gross is the violation of property
they commit, the more grievous is the injury
they inflict on individuals, and the more ex-
tensive is the mischief they do to the manu-
factures and commerce of the country. Again,
it is said that the abolition of the Corn-
laws would lower the wages of labour ; but that on
moral grounds is a question for the labourers, and not
for those to decide who, while they actually tax the la-
bourers' bread, hypocritically pretend to take care of
their interests ; and unless the whole of the labourers
ask for this tax, it is very scoundrel-like in the rich
landlords to impose it. It is also averred that several
past generations of landlords have been subjected to
unjust taxation, from which capital embarked in ma-
nufactures has been exempted ; and, admitting this
be so, for the sake of the learned Theban's argu-
ment who puts it forth, is it not plain that his own
condemnation of that injustice to past generations
of agriculturists, is an equal condemnation of the
unjust taxation by Corn-laws on the existing ge-
neration of manufacturers, which he advocates ? As
well might he, on moral principles, recommend the
manufacturers to arm their people and sally forth to
sack the houses of the squires, because the Barons,
the ancestors of the latter, levied a kind of black
mail on the ancient inhabitants of our towns. Further,
an advocate of the Corn-laws musters together a long
file of taxes to ‘A hie!' the landowners are now subject
more than the manufacturers, as he saws, and instead
of requiring, as he ought on principles of honesty, that
the unjust burdens should be taken off' the agricul-
turists, he argues that the latter should be relieved by