The Sun.
London, England, 1838-11-01 00:00:00

LONDON :
THURSDAY EVENING, NOVEMBER 1, 1838.

The weekly average of the price of wheat, pub-
lished to-day, is 665. 4d. or 11d. higher than last
week. The price, then, is again looking up, which
supplies an answer to a statement in Blackwood's
Magazine just published. The writer there says—
" The apprehensions recently entertained of scarcity
and high prices may be considered as in a great degree
dispelled, and with them the pressure which it was
expected would have been brought to bear next winter
upon the landed interest." He halloos too soon, for
his clients are not yet out of the wood. It appears by
the Table of Averages for the week, that the price in
London is 675., in Guildford 775. 7d. The dis-
tance between these two places is thirty miles, there
is an easy conveyance betwixt them, and the difference
of 10s. 7d. between the price at the two places is
therefore to be attributed to the different quality of the
corn. Much of the 5,344 quarters sold in the London
market was no doubt of an inferior quality, while the
675 quarters sold in Guildford were all of an average
quality. The inference, therefore, is that for good
wheat the price now is not less than 775. per quarter,
or almost A famine price. In Cumberland, too, we
see the price is 775. per quarter on 370 quarters ;
while the average price for all Warwickshire, the seat
of one of our most important manufactures, on
1,222 quarters, including the inferior, was
725. 10d. Now, with our gold standard and
very limited Bank of England circulation, we are en-
titled to say that we ought to add one-fourth to the
725., to institute a just comparison between prices
now and during the existence of the Bank restriction,
which would make the present price of wheat, calculated
in the currency of 1814, 90s. the quarter. But 90s.
the quarter, during the war, was a famine price, and
to have it now, or what is equal to it, while our manu-
factures are everywhere exposed to the most intense com-
petition, is for us a full assurance, unless we could sup-
pose that the manufacturers meant to lie down and
perish, that the landowners will be very severely pressed
upon this winter.

The writer in Blackwood tells us, also, that, in
1835, the average price of wheat for the year was 395.
4d., and that the average of the five years ending 1838
was 48s. The average at present, tested by the
latter, is 37 per cent. higher, tested by the for-
mer, is very nearly 70 per cent. higher than in 1835.
But within the last few months the average cif all
places has been 735., which is nearly 100 per cent.
higher than the average of 1835, and very nearly 50 per
cent. higher than the average of the five years. Fur-
ther, it is to be remarked that, within these three
months, corn has been sold in Nottingham and Wake-
field at 88s. per quarter, which is 110 per cent.
higher than the average of 1834, and nearly 80 per
cent. higher than the average of the five years. Now
we apprehend that such terrible variations of
price within such short periods, and in a coun-
try possessing great facilities of communication
distinctly prove that the corn trade is subject to alarm-
ing fluctuations, which inflict the most serious injury
on all those who live on wages, and introduce extraor-
dinary fluctuations in the value of all property. Such
an important fact, even if the price of corn were not
to rise any higher than at present, and we believe that
after Christmas, if not before, it will rise very consider-
ably, is quite sufficient, unless the manufacturers con-
sist only of doomed madmen, to cause a very serious
pressure next winter on the landed interest. The price
of the last five years, and the price of 1835,
will be too fresh in the recollection of the labouring
classes to make them contented with the prices of the
winter of 1838. They will not compare the present
year with the high prices of the war, but with the low
prices, to which the landlords refer as a proof of the
utility of the Corn-laws, of the last few years. We are,
therefore, clearly of opinion that a very severe and
well-merited attack will, during the next session of
Parliament be made upon the Devil's laws, and under
that conviction we shall subject the laboured defence
of them which appears in the present number of Black-
wood to an examination in a future article.

From a wish to make our readers acquainted with
all that is urged for and against a war with Russia,
we have given insertion in our columns of this day to
a long incoherent article from the Asiatic Journal
upon the question, with a stupid commentary upon
it from the leading columns of the Morning Chronicle
We never thought highly of the Chronicle's sagacity
upon questions of Foreign policy, and our estimate of
its worth is not likely to be raised by seeing it publish
.articles which have all the marks of Russian
diplomatic manufacture, with the exception of the
readiness, the ability, and the art to mislead,
which distinguish from spurious imitations all
documents emanating from the accredited agents
of the CZAR. A cursory observer might be led to
mistake the shallow sophisms of the Chronicle, put
forth to hood-wink the British people, for extracts
from the diplomatic notes addressed by Russia to
England when first attempting to gain a footing on
the eastern shores of the Caspian !

The Times accuses the Ministers of being resolved
to preserve their places by sacrificing the Irish
Church. We wish the accusation were true. That
Church is the greatest political nuisance in the empire,
and if the Ministers have really resolved to abate it,
they will deserve the support of all rational politicians.
We believe, too, that they will receive the support of
seven-eighths of the Irish, three-fourths of the Scotch,
and more than half the English. If we saw them
setting zealously to work to put an end to that Church,
the bare suspicion of which has thrown the Tories
into a fever, and placing the living priests for small
pensions on the Consolidated Fund, or letting them
rely, like the Catholic priests, on the zeal of their
flocks, we should be disposed to give them a cordial
and zealous support. For the Times, it now seems
enough! to justify every enormity that it can be called
Protestant ; and because the Irish Church is Protes-
tant, the Ministers, and all who propose to abate the