The Sun.
London, England, 1825-07-08 00:00:00

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economy, sophistry, nor any theorem of the new
school, to those who are pledging themselves to us
for the sound principles with which they* are illu-
minated, and for which they claiirea credit to di-
rect us in a new course !—they raised a whirlwind,
but could not direct the storm ! that dreadful
scourge, the French Revolution, that volcanic
eruption which spread death and desolation on
all sides, should be a warning- to us, not to be
easily led into a vortex of Reform; nothing will
be a sufficient warping to deter speculative phi-
losophers, they swarm and infest all countries,
ever on the alert, viewing with microscopic eye
structures to a mole-hill, and prying into every
dirty sink and sewer, in hopes something may be.
discovered that time has withered or defaced,
whereon they may be allowed to try their
experiments. The fate that befel Bailly, Con-
dorcet, Orleans, Mirabeau, Petion, and others of
the sect, only seems to have whetted their
appetites and their only palatable foo f is—change,
with which they are never satiated. They are
never at a loss for a subject to declaim upon (in
war or peace), now that we are at peace with
Europe; that there is- nothing to disturb the
public tranquillity, they have found out that the
laws of our ancestors, framed with so much care,
cramp our energies and circumscribe freedom of
trade ; that navigation and commerce need no na-
tive protection, in lieu of which, they apply a cos-
mopolite principle, which they term reciprocity,
in cases where no reciprocity exists. The laws
which checked licentious manners, which checked
combinations and riots, which prevented the will
of the, multitude from becoming law, to protect
the multitude in acts of insubordination—were
found to circumscribe liberty and cramp the free-
will of the operative classes ; but as it may be
necessary to refer more at length to some of those
topics (as a general revision is in progress), at
present, what is likely to, result from the abro-
gation of the laws which had been enacted for
preventing combination, either among masters or
men, will be more particularly considered.
It has been urged that time so alters human
institutions, that a revision of laws becomes ne-
cessary ; this is most certainly true, and had the
Combination Laws undergone a mature, calm,
deliberate consideration, and the necessity for
alteration been made clear, had they been so re-
vised, and\ that necessary check on the passions
maintained, then a service would have been ren-
dered. But, in lieu of such circumspection, in
lieu of a calm revision, what has been-done ? A
French author furnishes the most complete an-
swer—" We must renovate the people—we must
" change their ideas—we must,chattge their laws
cc _me must change their manner—we must
" change things—we must change words—we
" must destroy every thing. Yes, yes, destroy
" every thing, since every thing must be created a
" new." There has been a boast made that the
manners of the people are changed at any rate, a
theory has been laid down which has at once
loosened the bonds of society, and seems to have
destroyed all principle ; that firmness of cha-
racter, that vigilance to controul, that spirit to
command obedience to the law from all classes,
that our forefathers found a virtuous necessity to
enforce and maintain, have been by one fell
swoop radically swept away. And what was
substituted ? an Act, if Act it might be called,
the insipid of virtue—no, the insipid of weak-
ness, the precursor of internal mischief under
cover of which the hundreds are allowed to com-
bine against the units, and the units are told they
may combine against the hundreds, that is, man
against master, and master against man, at the
long odds of physical strength. If this is not' a
total relaxation of all authority, it is something
bordering upon it. Even the penalties in the
Act are only such as are calculated• to prove the
dexterity of those who are interested and inclined
to evade them, as if made to shew with what
complete impunity the labouring classes (or, as
the new school expresses it, the operatives) may
impede, impose upon, insult and baffle in every
way those who are unforturiate:y under the ne-
cessity of employing them; for whoever has to
employ them under such regulations must feel
the evil consequences. Yet this constitutes a
part of the healthy state so much boasted of, a
part of the sound principle so highly extolled
both by Whigs and Tories. Each party seems
eager to claim the merit of the thunder of ap-
plause as their own, while the unilluminated see
in it all the symptoms of an infectious plague
spreading a baneful influence, causing the most
destructive ravages, and threatening all the or-
ders in the State. The economists have long•
been endeavouring to impress on the mind of na-
vigators, excavators, and operators, that their
labour was the support of the whole community,
they forgot the links and gradations, they forgot
that those who applied capital • and talent were
the main spring which set the whole in motion.
That this capital and skill once withdrawn, the
motion of the machine stopped, and that then the
navigators, excavators, and operators would cease
not only to labour but to receive wages to sub-
sist on. The masters were represented as cruel
task masters, from whom the sophists were de-
sirous to relieve them, and they have succeeded
most admirably, so far as a total emancipation,
as all distinctions and superiority between mas-
ter and man is now at an end, all is on a fair
level, or rather

" Like the flea when gone to bed,
Raises its tail above the head."

Now idleness is their birth-right, uproar their
privilege, and licentiousness their vocation,
having gained this ascendancy, they have
been lately greeted as the " sovereign people,
from whom all power emanates;" and that
they may not be thought insensible to the

PR ICE SEVF,NPENC'E

high honour, they really shew a very violent
passion for sovereignty, this passion, which :is
not confined to any particular class ormen,
hut spreads like a contagion through the pow,. -
halm) in every part of the kingdom, all :anxious
and violent supporters of a system which is: to
secure them • the rule ! To maintain this vantage
ground they dictate their own terms to those.
whom they once considered as their Masters, they-
issue their mandates, and enforce their measures,
and there seems a disposition in certain quarteri,.
to allow them to combine to obtain any suni: of•
money so as they. do the thing genteelly. To en-
force their secret rules their means are,truly for-
midable. Those_ Who remember the affiliated
clubs as an Mstrument.of Revolution, will admit
them to be so, they are spreading en masse by
affiliated unions for the land, and Royal-Standard
unions for the sea, in this way they are united
from town to town, from village to village, and
from ship to ship without controul, and when
completely organised there may be some trouble
in controuling them. To cover these designs a
degree of secret mystery has been used as a shade
to screen the ostensible motives for extending
organized extortion, and to increase power by in-
creasing numbers. " These unions were profes-
sedly to raise. money for charitable and benevo-
lent purposes, but in reality was applied to many
dangerous uses, that of keeping Solicitors and
Committees as a sort of corresponding govern-
ment with itinerant delegates going from town
to town, promulgating the decrees by means of
which the masses are made to act on one com-
mon principle. Those who were the Masters are
no longer so, they are superceded and put under
a reign of terror, the Committees and Delegates
of the Sovereign People, set off a certain quantity
of operation for a certain sum of money, and this
order must be strictly attended to. Should any
of the operatives. transgress the rules, they are
punished by fine, or not allowed to operate any
more, which would operate on them as starva-
tion. They likewise take cognizance of who are
to be employed and who are to be discharged ;,
they allow none to operate but those who.are
brothers of the union conforming to all the rules
and regulations. Should any men they deign to
operate for attempt to infringe their rules, the
vengeance of the brotherhood is made to fall on
them—no further operations are to be carried for-
ward for such offenders. Therefore whatever are
their engagements or contracts as. to time or cir-
cumstance, or however it subjects the parties to loss
or ruin, they strike at such offenders as a punish.
meat for disobedience _to their sovereign
As the desire to rule is inherent..in the human
breast, and among the strongest of all the
passions that- infect it, it cannot. be: wondered
that the petty but numerous possessors of
new and unexpected power•should determine at
all events to preserve what to !Ahem: seems so
invaluable a treasure as to rule their.Jnaster.F to
dictate their own wages, and to apportion the
quantity of labour they are to perform. To
maintain those points which they have gained,
the great bulk of the population are coalesced in
one common interest and bond- of union-•-their
Masters are beaten, baffled, and dispised, and
there is no want of prompters to inform thie-Mul_.
titudes that they are the masses from whom ,all
power emanates, and they gladly hail the • cheer.
ing compliment. 'They are likewise informed
by their leaders that they are the masses who •
return the Members to Parliament, and by con.
bined union they will be abl6 to return such
Members as the affiliated societies approve. A•
few steps more may put them in possession -1)011e .
seat. When men are -thus tnartialled and
structed, might. not ambitious demagogues. turn.
these societies to cover designs of dangerou.sim.
port ; they are organised from one end
kingdom to another, acting in masses, directed
by secret committees and secret -rules,. and
pressed with that dangerous opinion that they
are standing out for. their rights. This opioicm
they unfortunately carry so far that they allow
no one to have any rights or privileges,bin them.
selves: If this is a true picture of the first 'fruits •
of the Repeal, we cannot. congratulate those who -
advocated the last years' act on the soundness of
the new principle ; on the contrary, it may safely
be said; that the repeal of the restrictive statutes'
has cherished and increased a most dangerous'
pheasy, so much so, that the Legislature have to •
retrace their steps, as they see before them'au
organised system, quite the reverse either of tlrf it
boasted free trade, conciliation, or• renrerity';
one years' growth has shewn strange monsters •
gathering into strength, ,and notwithstanding the
repeated boasting of the sound principles,,• they
will be found in more instances than one, not to
fit and dovetail into the habits of the .coontry
with the ease the economists and philosopherS.
imagined. The intended amalgamation does not
work well in their experimental crucible. 'Final•
ly, it is necessary that the faithful subjects of his
Majesty be informed that the prosperity and glory'
of the kingdom has not 'arisen from the promulga—
tion of the principles advocated by the enlightened
philosophers and
_economists of the present
_day-,
neither by' the wisdom nor exertions of those
who are claiming, the " thunder 'of applause"—
from those infected with a mania for 'change. that
change whiCh has yet to undergo the ordeali-aif
experience, but from thelaw and rule left us as
an inheritance by our ancestors, from which ema-
nated that true British thunder which spread the
glory of the Country to the remotest regions' or.
the Globe.

At another opportunity the effect likely to be
produced on his Majesty's Navy, and on the,
Merchants service by the Royal standard and
union among seamen will be considered.

x. xY.