The Sun.
London, England, 1838-09-19 00:00:00

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WITH WHICH
THE TRUE SUN "IS NOW
INCORPORATED.

LONDON :
WEDNESDAY EVENING, SEPTEMBER 19, MS.

All our Morning Contemporaries take notice of a
private meeting, which it is said has been held, of the
corn factors in Mark-lane, to keep up the price of
wheat. One of them gives at length a report
of what occurred at the meeting, which we decline
to copy, because we believe it to be an unjust
fabrication. At the same time we do not deny
that the corn factors and corn holders have had such
a meeting, and that their object was and is, by a union
amongst themselves, to get as large a price for their
corn as possible. The article which we borrow from
the Morning Chronicle makes some observations on the
meeting, and quotes from a Correspondent the asser-
tion, that this " is a most audacious attempt at corn mo-
nopoly." The Correspondent adds, " that if the
bread-consuming public submit to the exaction,
now their eyes arc ope.m, let there be no more
outcry against the Corn-laws." In the general spirit
of the Chronicle's remarks we agree, and cannot join
in any cry against the corn factors. I,3ut there are some
considerations arising out of these circumstances which
we think ought now to be pressed on the public at-
tention. The Chronicle says— _ . .

Who are the dealers in corn Not the mere holders of
bonded corn; but every farmer in the country who is not
obliged to send his corn to market as it can he thrashed out.
During the prevalence of a belief of a deficiency of supply
every farmer of capital will hold back. There is not a banker
in the country who will nut willingly supply the farmer with
funds during a rising market. But let there be the slightest
symptoms of fall from an excess of supply, the farmer of
capital will hasten to market, and bankers will be chary of
their credit.
We differ from the Chronicle on the point that the
farmer is not oblijed to send his corn to market as
soon as it can be thrashed out. The majority of them
we believe are so obliged. There are very few farmers
who, as Michaelmas approaches, have the means of
paying their rent and tithe-covuOsition, where a com-
position has been established, exctpt by first selling
their produce. Most of them have run in debt
during the summer to various tradesmen ; all their
bills are, we believe, to be paid at Michael.
mss ; but they have no means to pay them but
by first thrashing their wheat, and then sending it to
market. If the farmers were not obliged to sell their
cot n—if they could hold all their crops from one year to
another, or even for half a year, the subsistence of
the community would be at their mercy ; and we
should all be the slaves of the farmers. The reverse
is the fact ; and this, we think, benevolent provision
of Nature, by which the rest of the community
are exempt from being starved or enslaved by
the growers cf corn, arises front the fact, that the
majority of the farmers are and must be debtors, and
are obliged to send their corn to market- nearly as soon
as it can be thrashed out.

They engage to pay rent at Michaelmas; this is one
great debt. But one Michaelmas is no sooner passed
than another approaches, and they must begin to cul-
tivate their land, in order to have the means of meet-
ing next Michaelmas. They must sell the crops of
one year, in order to carry on the cultivation of the hcxt •
But the majority of their produce requires at least one
year before it can be perfected ; much of their produce,
such as cattle, requires a still rOnger period. They
mu3t wait a whole year for their returns, but they must
pay their labourers weekly. If they employ the smith,
or the wheelwright, or the tailor, or the harness-
maker, his job may be done in a week or a day, and
the farmer immediately becomes his debtor. Thus the
natural fact that different periods are required to complete
different productions, and the fact that those of the farmer
require a much longer period than those of other
productive labourers, necessarily make him their debtor,
and compel him to thrash out his corn as soon as
possible after he gathers it, and send it to market in
order that he may be able to fulfil his obligations. Now
this circumstance is a peculiar feature in the situation
of the farmer, which is overlooked by himself, and
overlooked by the psuedo-friendly Legislature when
he adopted the Corn-laws as an advantage ; and it
raised his rent by those laws, and made him still more
Certainly a
.debtor, and still more a slave.

But the Chronicle says, the bankers will supply the
farmers with funds during a rising market—that is, if
the farmer have a banker. Many of them have none,
ut we apprehend, too, that in the majority of cases
the farmer has drawn on the banker pretty nearly to the
full extent of his confidence, before the harvest begins.