The Sun.
London, England, 1849-10-29 00:00:00

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LONDON, MONDAY, OCTOBER 29, 1849.

In alluding, on Thursday, to the numerous agri-
cultural meetings held in various parts of the country,
and the feeling of despondency prevailing among
farmers, we indicated the nature of the remedy by
which the distress and difficulties, not only of the
agriculturists, but of the industrious classes generally,
may be removed, and happiness and prosperity sub-
stituted. The great desideratum to be attained
is the establishment and maintenance of a circulation
sufficient to supply the wants of commerce and of
active industry—to provide proper representatives of
value, so as to facilitate the ordinary transactions
of mercantile men, and to enable every
p• r:on, able and willing to labour, to obtain remu-
nerative employment, to receive in fact "a fair
day's wages for a fair day's work." Under
the present unjust and impolitic system a considerable
portion of the " real floating capital of the country,"
that which is contained in the thews and sinews of the
labouring population, is suffered to remain idle and
unproductive. Its possessors are exp ,sed to misery
and privations of the most melancholy description. In
place of earning their daily bread by the sweat of
their brows they are driven by thousands and tens of
thousands into the union workhouses, where they add
to the public burdens and encumbrances, in place of
being the great producers of national wealth.
These untoward results are altogether ascribable
to the undue "appreciation " in the value of money
that has been occasioned by the Act of 1819, and the
still more fatal measure of 1844, which has been by
many regarded as its necessary corollary and supple-
ment. Through the operation of these statutes the value
of the pound sterling has been affected to the extent of
at least 50 per cent. That important fact has been
fully admitted by the great champion of the bullionists
among the public press, and corroborated by the
present Chancellor of the Exchequer. It is therefore
manifest that a single sovereign at present commands
twice the quantity of the necessaries or comforts of
existence which had been conveyed by a pound note in
the average of transactions previous to the enactment
of these statutes, and it follows that the pressure
•f all taxes, contracts, and engagements that
kAd been entered into have been increased
in a similar ratio. The burden of the
pablic debt, that incubus which weighs down the in-
dustry of the.nation, which paralyses our energies, and
cripples our powers, has been at least doubled.
Debtors are unable to meet the demands of their
creditors. The owners of estates can no longer keep
down the charges and encumbrances affecting their
properties, which were contracted under very different
circumstances, and tenants are wholly incapable of
liquidating rents undertaken at periods when agri-
cultural produce commanded more than double the
prices now to be ;obtained. If it require 100, quar-
ters of corn to satisfy the claim of the landlord, where
SO would formally have been sufficient for that purpose
it is clear that the farmer will have fifty quarters less
for other purposes, for the clothing and maintenance
of his family and for the employmext of labour,
than he had calculated upon when he entered upon
his holding. Ile is therefore obliged to curtail his
orders to the tradesmen and shopkeepers of the neigh-
bourhood, and to discharge many of his workmen.
The demand for manufactured articles, and for
labour, is thereby limited—the supply speedily
exceeds the demand, and prices of every kind are
i;x;l4, NS S 1 depreciated ; farms are thrown upon the hands
of the proprietors, mills and factories are altogether
closed or put upon half time, the labourers
Are driTim to the workhouse, rents fall, the preeitin
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14. isS

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of the taxes, in which there is but little variation,
becomes intolerable, and there is wide-spread ruin
and distress throughout the length and breadth of the
land.

These results, which are so painfully perceptible on
every side, are not the consequences of the want of
protection or the establishment of free-trade doctrines,
but rather because the principles of the system have
not been fully and fairly carried out. It is because
" free trade in money"—the medium of all exchanges
—is not sanctioned. So long as the price of gold is
fixed it cannot be asserted that our trade is really
unfettered and unrestricted.

The money jobbers, who alone benefit by the
atrocious system, who reap enormous profits from the
fluctuations in the money market, which have been
truly stated " to hare occasioned greater evils to the
trade and manufactures of the country, pecuniary,
social, and moral, than the direct failure of all the
banks of issue since they were first established,"
have a direct interest in the perpetuation of the
grievance, and will of course labour zealously and
indefatigably to sustain it. " The few " will still
desire to grind and oppress the many, if they
can be permitted to do so with impunity.
They therefore attempt to mystify the question, and
to mislead those who, if they could take a correct
view of their true position, would speedily enforce an
equitable adjustment of affairs. Glaring fallacies are
solemnly propounded—the acknowledged evils are in
turn ascribed to every cause but the true one. The
potato failure, and the enormous importation of bread-
stuffs thereby rendered necessary, over-produc-
tion by our manufacturers, and over-speculation
by our merchants, the vast expenditure on rail-
ways, &c., &c., have been reiterated usque ad
nauseam by these interested witnesses as the
sources of the monetary crisis, and of the general
distress that prevailed throughout the country ; and,
unfortunately, the people have suffered themselves
to be deceived, because they are unwilling to take
the trouble of sifting the matter to the very bottom,
and of entering upon a thorough and searching
investigation into all its details.
The failure of the potato crop was indeed a serious
calamity, entailing much misery and wretched-
ness upon the inhabitants of the sister kingdom, and
compelling this more fortunate nation to contribute
largely to their assistance ; but under a sound system
of currency the eight or ten millions sterling lent to
or bestowed upon Ireland in the dark hour of her
affliction and distress could not have materially affected
the position of England, with her five thousand
millions of accumulated and realised capital.
We have somewhere seen it well remarked that the
expenditure could have produced no greater effect
than if a man worth 5,0001. sterling were to bestow
81. or 101. to save his brother from starvation ; or,
than if a person worth 2501. per annum gave Bs. a
year to keep his sister from the workhouse. It could,
not, therefore, have been the cause of the commercial
distress which, according to the well-considered evi-
dence of Mr. Jour; TAYLOR, before the Committee of
the House of Commons, was "rather occasioned
by a peculiarity in our coinage, which
forbade our exercising the ability we ought to have
to counteract that calamity." Had it not been for
that grave and fatal mistake, the potato blight, by
opening a new demand for our manufactures, in
payment for the breadstuffs necessarily imported
from foreign countries, by introducing improved
modes of culture, and effecting a total altera-
tion of the social system in Ireland, might
ultimately have proved rather beneficial than
otherwise. It could not possibly have led
to the general distress and suffering, the monetary
crisis, the commercial embarrassments, the cessation
of credit, the failure of employment, and the sacrifice
of property to the value of more than 250,000,0001.
sterling—in other words, the destruction of 251.
worth of property for every pound contributed for
the relief of Ireland.
On another occasion we shall show that these
calamitous results were not in any degree ascribable
to over.production or over-speculation, which have
been put forward as stalking-horses to fright the isle
from its propriety, and to direct the public attention
from the real source—the foes et origo—of these
fearful calamities—the monetary code established by
the Acts of 1819 and 1844.

llow delightful it is to behold injured innocence
come forward and defend its pure and holy cause
against the libels and backbitings of the ignorant and
unenlightened world ! The members of the Oxford
Tradesmen's Association have lately thought proper
to offer, through their secretary, " A Reply to the
Accusations which have been brought during the Long
Vacation against Oxford Tradesmen generally." They
have made public the fundamental principles of their
association, which we take the opportunity of making
more generally known, because the inferred habits
of this band of honest tradesmen previously to the
following resolutions will give a pretty clear notion
of what respectable shopkeepers are, and open our eyes
as to the present character of those who cannot be
prevailed upon to join the association.
Ist. " The members are required to send in a full
statement of all claims upon resident members of the
University twice in the year.:
2d. " To abstain from personal solicitation for the
sale of goods.
3d. " Not to lend money at interest to under-
graduate members of the University.
" It is not the wish or intention of the members of
this association to find fault with other parties," but
merely to vindicate themselves; yet say they, in reply
to the charges brought against them, " There are
many who join in the outcry with no other motive
than having a pretext for withholding their money
who are willing that their sons should do as they
please, so long as their parents need not pay more
than they choose." The logic of the whole produc-
tion is, however, so admirable that it would be
sacrilege in us to comment upon it. As a proof of a
distinction in intellectual caste between town and
gown we can conceive nothing more admirably adapted.
But as their mode of reasoning has less interest for us

than their mode of reckoning, we will take a glance
at their three " fundamental principles," and while we
lament the sad cause, we will be hopeful as to the
effect, and most anxious that " great actions " may be
" true sons " " of great and mighty resolutions."
First, then, " members of the association are re-
quired to send in a full statement of all claims upon
resident members twice in the year." If any such
custom had hitherto prevailed, evidently no resolution
would have been necessary. The tradesmen of both
Oxford and Cambridge know very well that the greater
part of them not only omit sending in any half-yearly
statement of accounts to the college authorities, but
eve❑ keep back such accounts when they are asked for.
We know of tradesmen in both Universities who are
receiving capital interest on accounts of twelve or
fourteen years' standing, and who would be
anything but pleased were these bills to be settled.
We have seen orders from the Vice-Chancellor re-
lative to ready money payments, placed in the most
conspicuous manner on shop dooors, and yet laughed
at and derided by both seller and buyer. We know
of tradesmen who made a point of calling on " fresh-
men" the moment they perceived any slight signs of
extravagance, and telling them that they will not
think of sending in their accounts until after " de-
gree." And these very men, probably, are the
loudest in their hypocritical complaints and feigned
indignation. Far be it from us to say that there are
no upright and cautious tradesmen in the Universities.
We know of several, as respectable and honest men
perhaps, as any in the kingdom, but they are most
singular exceptions to the general rule.

The second resolution is, like the first, very
plausible, and, if actually carried into effect, would
be most admirable, viz., " To abstain from personal
solicitation for the sale of goods." But how long
will these less unprincipled tradesmen refrain from
their touting. habits ? How long will the well•disposed
tailors, for instance, be able, without envy and
jealousy, to behold their greedy brethren gadding
about from room to room unfolding with an in-
sinuating flourish their gorgeous and tempting yards
of patterns ? We confess our doubts. Snug little
college rooms are the paradise of " snips." " Uri-
sport your oak" for a moment, and in struts a little,
bowing, scraping
man, with a large black parcel
under his arm, and a most heavenly smirk on his
engaging countenance. Before you can pos-
sibly persuade him that you are sufficiently
well clad he has almost carpeted your room with little
squares of every imaginable description of cloth, Tell

him to go, he will gaze at his goods and look the
picture of content. Rise from your seat and show
that you really have coat, waistcoat, and trousers, he
will eye you like WRIGHT at the Adelphi, look at your
elbows and all your other weak points, and confiden-
tially whisper that you appear to forget that " the
apparel oft proclaims the man." No hint, no per-
suasion, no force, can drive him from your room.
You must put aside your mathematics for an hour or
two, at least; you must hear bim harangue all the
friends who may have accidentally called ; you must
submit to this almost every day, and consider your-
self very well used if he does not send Sou in coats
and trousers which you merely pretended to admire.
Comparatively few clothes are ordered in the shops,
and those few are, for the most part, necessaries ;
consequently, we wish the second resolution of the
Oxford Tradesmen's Association every success.
With regard to principle number three, " not to
lend (for the future, we suppose) money at interest
to undergraduate 'members of the University," we
must say we are amused with it. " Who," say the
tradesmen, in their letter to the Times, " can distin-
guish the poor from the rich ? " Who, indeed, can
half so well as the men who are asked to lend money?
And who have been the money-lenders, according to
the implied meaning of this third resolution? Why
the very tradesmen themselves. They give the poor
country "freshman" dandy " Wellingtons" instead
of his unsophisticated " Bluchers ;"they strip him of
his rustic garments, and array him in all the colours
of the rainbow ; they lend him money at exorbitant
interest; and then—perhaps rightly—they say that
they cannot distinguish him from "the noble and
wealthy." We will say no more; we will hope that
these Oxford tradesmen are acting honestly; but our
faith wavers, our prejudices are not quite extinct.

THE FRENCH REPUBLIC.

We have received the Paris journals of Saturday
and Sunday.
The Journal des Debats of Saturday publishes the
following important telegraphic dispatch announcing
the settlement of the Russo-Turkish question :
" GENERAL DE LAMORICIERE TO THE MINISTER OF