The Sun.
London, England, 1853-10-26 00:00:00

grand jury of North Lancashire, which he said :
" We cannot look at such an interruption without
apprehenSion and without great regret, because we
know it must lead to very great loss and suffering—
to great loss on the part of the manufacturers, and
to great suffering on the part of the work-people and
their families." Mr. Addison adds—" Ido not
see in what manner it is possible to interfere, with
anything like authority, in the making of these
contracts, which must necessarily be voluntarily
entered into by both parties. We cannot compel
the workman to labour. He labours for his own
benefit, for the support of himself and family. If
he does not choose to labour, we may regret it, and
we may think him ill-advised, but it is not in our
power to put compulsion upon him ; neither on the
other hand can we compel, nor is it desirable that
the law should compel, the master-manufacturer
to carry on a trade which he in his own judgment]
does not find it desirable to carry on. We may be
sure that he does not stop his works, that he does
not allow his capital to lie idle, that he does not
forego the profit which his trade would produce
him voluntarily, but that he does so from a neces-
sity of which he is the judge, and in which it is
not for other persons to interfere or tell him that
he forms a mistaken judgment." We say, that
there is nothing to object to in these remarks,
which recognise the truth that these disputations
are between the employers and the employed, and
that officious interference between the parties is to
be deprecated.
It is a very easy thing for us to tell the opera-
tives that they are not going the best waft° wok
in order to secure a proper adjuatment of wages
for themselves; or for us to tell the employers that
they ought to encourage a full representation of
the views of their work-people—such representation
to be given by any parties in whom they have the
greatest confidence. This is, indeed, the sort of
advice we should be disposed to tender, if we
thought that any advice, ab extra, were likely to
be acceptable and useful to the contending parties;
for we believe that there is much to be said by way
of explanation on each side, which ought to be re-
spectfully and patiently heard.
To our thinking, the employers are not sufficiently
respectful to the voice of the people. That voice
may not be sufficiently regulated to please the rich
men to whom it is addressed ; but they ought suffi-
ciently to understand honest and earnest opera,
tives, to allow for a little more roughness and de-
cision than are quite agreeable.
On the other hand, we are quite satisfied, as we
have already stated, that the present position of
employers is not exactly understood by the work-
people they employ. It is most natural, when
there are such large demands for production, such
attractions for skilled labour to the new territories
which have been opened for it, and such an increase
in the price of food of every description, that the
operatives should expect to have the benefit of the
general rise in prices, and find that labour is not
the exception to the rule.

The employers, however, could tell the operatives
of the injustice which is done to them in conse-
quence of the artificial famine of money which is
the result of a grand legislative error made in 1819,
and re-made in 1844. We should expect that the
people in our manufacturing districts would per-
fectly understand that the masters are deprived of
much of the property which they are supposed
to enjoy, in consequence of money being raised to
such an artificial value, by the fact that our banks
are being cleared of their gold to send to foreign
countries for bread, and that at a time when wealth
is being rapidly created day by day. It might be
shown to the operatives that the quarrel ought not
to be so much between themselves and their em-
ployers, as between both these parties and the dun-
derheaded legislation by which they are repea,te•A'iy
thrown into collision with each other ; aria that,
before matters can come right, they must unite
their forces for the purpose of repealing the inju-
rious law under which all parties are doomed to
suffering and misapprehension, and the whole
country periodically to a commercial crisis.
The manufacturers, it may be, in many cases do
not understand the real cause of all the confusion
and interruption to their career of prosperity which
they have to endure. They certainly have failed to
have their true interests represented in Parliament
on the important question of the currency. They
ought to send to the House of Commons a number
of men who will go into Parliament for-the express
purpose of getting this most iniquitous, absurd,
mischief-making, and destructive law repealed.
There is no great profundity of political wisdom re-
quired in showing the downright folly of the law
which enacts, that whatever be the substantial
wealth of the country, it shall have no bank-note
representation, except in as far as it consists of one
particular kind of metal. That metal has been
presentedin larger quantities than usual since its
discovery in California and Australia ; but there is
no reason whatever to expect that it exists in quan-
tities which will prove sufficient to make it the re-
presentative of the whole wealth of this country.
Our present law says, you may take credit for your
wealth in the form of currency, if you should hap-
pen to have in the cellars of your bankers a corres-
ponding amount of gold ; but if not, if there be no
gold, there must be no money.
We must hope, therefore, that the manufacturers
will fight their own battles, and be joined in the
conflict by the employes, and that every opportu-
nity will be embraced for sending into Parliament
men who will expound the subject of the currency,
and not allow the country to remain in the anoma-
lous and dangerous position in which it was left by
the law of 1844. The present representatives of
the manufacturing districts and commercial cities
should have their attention called to this great
question, and they should be instructed by their
constituents that there is no subject which more
imperatively calls for their most energetic efforts.
As the result of that healthy impulse given to the
industry and enterprise of this country by Free
Trade, it is now found that we can no longer en-
dure to be restrained by any laws which press un-
duly on the development of that industry and en-
terprise. If we had submitted to the discipline of
the Protectionists, we must have submitted to all
the bandages and fetters which that class of politi-
cal doctors would impose. We have now liberty
to grow, and we must have liberty also to lay aside
the elegant golden armour, which is painfully op-
pressive, and which must, like all metallic armour,
find its place among the curiosities of the past.