The Sun.
London, England, 1839-10-02 00:00:00

un,

LONDON :
WED4ESDAY, OCTOBER 2, 1839.

Only two causes can be assigned, we believe, for
the considerable fall in the price of wheat which
took place in Mark-lane on Monday, and which is
a !kiihject of almost universal rejoicing.
First, that the harvest has turned out more abun-
dant at home than was anticipated. That a great
I breadth of land was sown with wheat, is known ;
' that the crops are generally abundant, Sir JAMES
GRAHAM has testified ; and the fine week we have
had, gives hopes that a large proportion of the
produce would be saved. Should this be the prin-
cipal cause, the demand for wheat from abroad,
and the necessity for exporting bullion, will he
'cliecked, and the crank, lop-sided old lady of Thread-
ne'ede-street may again be placed, for a time, on
a4netbiog like an even keel.
- The ether cause is, that the wheat brought to mar-
I;e. was ofa bad quality. Reports from various parts
Ereg,land mention that the grain has grown in
the: sheaf, and the farmers may have thrashed out
-and sent a considerable quantity of such wheat
hastily to market. This cause of the decline is
countenanced by the fact that foreign wheat main-
tained its price on Monday, and only that of the
:44atia' e arOwth fell. If this be the principal cause,
-tkiere pill be no relief for the Bank, and there will
suffering for the people by eating un-
'll.63leteme food. We are bound, however, to say
I 'lt 1111eirst mentioned is supposed to be the prir.-
4it.tit,,ute, :and that a further- fall in the price is
antiertiated;whl e orders sent abroad for wheat have
been, cpuutetra.
anded.
France has of late mad
e large purchases of wheat
j in
Catolonia. In Spain it is said that the harvest has
been most abundant and gathered in most favour-
ably. Nothing, therefore, but the Corn-law pre-
vents our people at this moment eating bread made
from the good wholesome corn of Spain, brought
and sold here at about 455. per quarter, instead of
eating the unripe sprouting wheat grown on Sir
JAMEs GRAHAM'S and the Duke of BUCKING-
HAM'S lands, for which those law makers compel
us by law to pay 255. per quarter more than we
could buy the Spanish wheat for. Though such
facts are daily brought to light, and the people
continually suffer privation and hunger, there is
not yet Much agitation in the country on account
of the Corn-laws. The Provincial Papers gene-
rally notice the subject : there has been a meeting
at Dundee of an Anti-Corn-law Association ; but
much more must be done before the grasp of the
powerful thief can be loosened, who insists on rob-
bing the pwple for the good of the people.

The political article of Blackwood this month
is an essay on Whig and Tory finance, which
is meant to be very profound. Of the writer's
expacity to perform his task, except as he
can add and subtract, we have a very poor opinion.
thle of his great objects is to praise the GOUL-
BURN, or as it is called, the patrician scheme of

keeping up a steady system of levying more money
annually from the people than was wanted for the ser-
vice of the State, and employing the overplus to pay off
the National Debt. This is contrasted with the
" multitudinous" schemes, the submission of the
Whigs, as is said " to popular clamour" for a
" reduction of taxation," which put an end to the
overplus, and left nothing to be applied to the re-
duction of the debt. Let the reader remark in
this Tory journal, as in the Times, that
the demands for relief by the people are
treated as the clamour of a multitude ;
and nothing is thought worthy of a Statesman's
solicitude, but to keep up the price of the Three
per Cents. To give ease and security to the fund-
holders, is on the Tory theory, a subject of paramount
importance ; to allow industry to obtain its reward, to
give the labouring people relief, is despised and
contemned as beneath a Tory Statesman's regard.
The great argument which the writer in Black-
wood levels against the multitudinous system is,
that by getting rid of the surplus, it failed to keep up
public credit, failed to raise the price of the Three
per Cents. to par, and therefore disabled the Go-
vernment from reducing the interest on the Three per
Cents., and so saving something from the annual
charge. He desires, therefore, to keep up the price of
the Funds ; he regards that as a good thinc, for the
nation ;he would operate to produce it. He praises
that sublime financier Mr. GOULBURN for having
effected it ; and it shall be our business to show
that it is not good to keep up the price of the
Funds, and that the system of reduction of taxation
from popular clamour, which lowered the price of the
Funds was, and is, beneficial to the nation.
If a monied man can get as much interest on
1001. invested in the Three per Cents. as he can by
employing that 1001. in the somewhat hazardous
operation of discounting bills, he will invest it in
the certain security. What is true of this
monied man and his 1001. is true of all the
monied men in the empire and their congre-
gated 100/s. They will all prefer the certain
security to the uncertain at the same rate of
interest, and as the interest on money lent on dis-
count falls, so the monied men will desire to become
possessed of Consols, so they will bid for that stock,
and the price will rise. Thus it is plain that the
price of the funds, which the Blackwood booby
would levy taxes to keep up, depends on the in-
terest which monied men can make on employing
their money in discounting bills, or in other com-
mercial transactions. For the monied classes a high
rate of interest is a good thing ; and thus a rise in
the price of the Funds is indicative that even the
monied class is less prosperous.
But the market rate of interest on money de-
pends on the profit to be made on employing it
in commercial, manufacturing, and other transac-
tions. When the merchant, the manufacturer, or
the farmer can make 10 or 12 or 15 per cent. on
his capital, he willingly borrows to augment his
capital at a proportionate rate of interest. High
profits in farming, in trade, or in manufacturing,
is prosperity to farmers, merchants, and factory
owners.

When all these, however, obtain large profits, it
it clear that they must be anxious to employ more
labourers, and consequently when profits are high,
and employers are prosperous, wages will become
comparativelvgood and the labourers be well off. We
are quite aware that there are exceptions to the
rule, but the general rule is that as profits are high,
which is prosperity to all the industrious classes,
so the interest of money is high, and the price of
the Funds is low. Of course a high price of the
Funds is the reverse of all this, and thus the pa-
trician scheme of finance, the Tory plan of levying
taxes to keep up the price of the Funds, by its
success diminishes the prosperity of all classes.
Now see how the facts as stated by Black-
wood bear on this. A low rate of interest is an in-

fallible sign of a profitless traffic. Under the patrician
system taus were kept on, trade was more hampered
than subsequently, profits were low, the interest of

. .
money was low, the stocks rose, and GOULBURN could
reduce the Four per Cents. The merit of the
Tories, according to the Magazine writer, is, that
they accomplished these financial wonders while
there was " the extreme of public distress." Let
the reader mark that admission ; but let us tell

him that the patrician scheme of keeping up taxa-
tion, which co-existed with it, caused that distress.
By that distress and excessive taxation, the Tories
got up the price of the Funds and lowered the an.
nual -charge for the •national debt, according to
Blackwood, about 2,000,0001. To do that
however, they extracted from the people taxes, in
15 years, to the amount of 52,474,0001., and ex-

posed them through all that time to extreme misery,
It is described in the 3lagazine as the demerit
of the Whigs, that there has been prosperity, not
extreme distress, since 1830. That is true to a

recent period. What is the deduction ? Why,
that the remission of taxation, which has prevented
the price of the Three per Cents. rising to par,
has increased the profits of industry, the interest of

money, and the public prosperity. In the debate
on the Corn-laws Sir R. PEEL'S great argument
was that the nation was prosperous, that every branch

of manufacture and commerce had increased wonder.

fully, and was increasing. This is true ; commerce
and manufactures have made a great start since
1830, which has rendered the produce of the land

insufficient for the people ; and because the tax on
corn was not also abolished, again trade begins
to feel hampered, as under the patrician system,
and extreme distress begins to be felt. Thus, the
facts of the case, as stated by Blackwood, fully jus-
tify the reduction of taxation which he condemns.
By this one series of remarks the writer shows
_ .

himself thoroughly ignorant of the phenomena he
_ ._

writes about ; and if— the whole of the elaborate

essay on Whig and Tory finance be like this spe-
cimen, it may, in one sentence, be characterised as a

farrago of nonsense.

In another part of The Sun will be found an ex-
tract of a despatch from the Marquia of No
NBY to a Captain HOBSON, who appeals to be
her Majesty's Ambassador, or Representative, at
the Court of the New Zealand Chiefs. We foresee
that this despatch, interfering, as we think, with
the rights of parties already located in that island,
and with those who have proceeded thither, will
produce no pleasant feelings. We shall not now
inquire into the right of the Colonial Office to ap-
propriate New Zealand, or to stipulate in any man-
ner the conditions on which it is to be occupied;
but the avowed motives for the despatch will expose
it to much criticism. They are thus expressed :
" It is an object of the first importance that the
alienation of the unsettled lands within its limits
shall be conducted from its commencement upon
that system of sale of which experience has proved
the wisdom, and the disregard of which has
been so fatal to the prosperity of other
British settlements." The Marquis of NORMA N-
By, therefore, is a convert to the WAKEFIELD
scheme of colonization. Now, it is one of the
strongest arguments against that scheme that it
cannot succeed as long as people can get land with-
out paying for it. To the success of the WAKE-
FIELD scheme it is indispensable that people can go
nowhere else but to colonies where they must pay
for land. It continues over them the power of
that very aristocracy from which they perhaps
seek to escape. The Marquis of NORMA.NEY is led
astray we are afraid by the WAKEFIELD crotchet,
as Mr. Fox MAULE was entrapped by the
HAWES' crotchet ; and his despatch goes to check
colonization elsewhere, in order to promote the
success of the colonies where the land is sold by
those who have no more claim to it than they have
to the Moon. An Evening Contemporary, which
seems an advocate of Mr. WAKEFIELD'S scheme,
explains the matter more fully :
" It is obvious that in countries so contiguous as New
South Wales and New Zealand, the wages of labour mus
approach to a common level ; and that if the settlers pro-
ceeding to New Zealand were permitted to take possession
of the lands of that country without being made to contri-
bute their due proportion towards a labour fund, they would
obtain the large supply of labour which they will require
at the expence of the emigration funds of the adjoining
colonies."
Thus, to keep up the factitious prosperity in the
colonies founded on the scheme of selling the land,
no other scheme can be tolerated in their neigh-
bourhood. It is the Popery of colonization.

The conduct of Dr. LUSIIINGTON is
severely
animadverted upon in a letter of Mr. JOHN
Cimps, which appears in another column. The
Learned Judge has decided that a Church-rate is
not invalidated by the omission of rateable property,
even if the property so omitted should be of consi-
derable value. This may be law—good Church-rate
law—for aught that we know, but it is on the face
of it inconsistent with equity and common sense.
It appears also to be equally inconsistent with the