The Sun.
London, England, 1822-01-05 00:00:00

rdone in this pait .or the Island. Batavia is COR
the great depot •; there has not been a Govern.
men( sale of this jear's crop, but it is expected
daily to take place, and coffee will go high, say
.23 dollars, which, with auction duty of 6 per
cent., will cost on board about 2.7 ; sugars 8 a 8
on board, scarce, but crop near at hand ; there
are yet in the Island about 130,000 picals of cof-
fee. There are in Java one million and a half of

dollars American property uninvested, most o
which is designed for coffee. At Batavia, July 28
coffee was selling at 23 a 231 on shore ; the ric(
crop will fall short this yedr, and I fear it wil
cause much distrdss among the natives. The fal
of Palembang will make tin more plentiful."

The Agriculturists and their Landlords are
holditq Meetings throughout the country, on the
subject of theis. distresses. On 'Thursday last

one of these assemblages,, very numerously at-
tended, was held at Battle, in Sussex, the Earl
of ASHBURNHAM the Chair.—Mr. CURTEIS,
M.P. for the County, thought the country was-on
the brink of a frightful precipice, for pauperism,
penury, ruin, and
.beggary, seemed with rapid
strides to be pervading the whole land. The first
and leading cause of this, in his opinion, was the
want of a sufficient protection of British agri.
cultural produce against that o,f foreigners.--
He appealed to any person in the room,
whether we. were not in more peril from
the cheap and • untaxed corn of foreigners,
than we ever were from their , arms and hos-
tility. The protection' required by the agri-
cultural interest, and: for which it should
ask, was a duty of 40s. per. quarter. on wheat,
and so in proportion for other produce, whenever
the averages indicate the price 40 be at 20/. a
load. Ik wished to see the system of averages
and'warehousing entirely abolished, and the KING
in CounCil empowered, after we had obtained
the protecting tax of 40s. per quarter, to open
the ports, on the approach of scarcity, by his
Royal. Proclamation. The drift of that fallacious
document, the Agricultural Report, was to prepare
us for a- free trade in corn, which would be oar
utter ruin, for we cannot...compete with the fo-
reigner, the price of the best.wheat at Ilam-
burgh at this time not exceeding 20s. per quar-
ter. Another Cause of our distress, was the rash
and ill-advised return to cash payments. Mini-
sters had suffered themselves to he taunted into
this ruinous measure by their opponents: IVe
had abundance of produce and abundance of coa-
sumers, or of those who would wish to be con-
sumers, but we were in want of that which is
necessary to bring . theM together—we were
in a great measure without a circulating me-
dium: For this evil he knew of no remedy
but time, and their distress was, so pressing, that
they could not well wait for that. We could not
again recur to a ptiper currency, for that would
cause the exchanges to fall, and would expose us
a second time to the dreadful process of return-
ing to cash. The third cause of the distress, was
, the oppressive and grinding taxation. It could not
II be endured. Fifteen millions each quarter (a sum
equal to our whole circulation) were taken from
our pockets and carried into the Treasury. Eco-
nomy should extend itself to great as well
as to small places, and much might be done
for our benefit by a Tax under the name
of a Property Tax on the public funds. There
could be no reason, also, why the stockholders
should not contribute to the maintenance of the
national clergy, for they had souls to be saved as
well as the land-owners. There could be no
reason why they should not contribute to the
support of the poor, for they made paupers as
well as the landowners. The best remedy for
pauperism and poors' rates would be to increase
the wages of the poor, to better their condition,
and to render them independent of the over-
seers.--Mr. BRITTON/ said it was
.a fallacy
to talk of the importation of foreign corn as a
cause of the distress ; for we had had no impor-
tation for three years. Tithes and Pours' Rates.
were certainly grievous, but the ,Principal thing
was a reduction of taxation.--Mr. LANGFORD
read an extract of A letter from Lord GEORGE
'CAVENDISH, expressing his regret that he could
not attend the meeting ; and giving his Lordship's
opinion • that relief was not to be obtained
by repealing the Corn Laws, or substituting
a protecting duty ; but by the decrease of our
enormous taxation, and a corresponding reduc-
tion of our public expenditure. Resolutions
and Petitions were then adopted, declaratory of
the increasing distress of the Agriculturist, and
praying for relief.---Mr. CPBBETT having been
observed at the meeting, was invited by a depu-
tation to dine with the company, Mr. CURTEIS,
M.P., in the chair. Mi. CORBETT was hailed
with loud applause on entering the room, and
was called to fill the chair at the second table. On
his health having been drank, he addressed the
company in a long speech, contending that a
Corn Bill of no description could do any good
either to landlord or tenant, arid stating it as his
decided opinion that though prices were now low,
they must go still lower, until they reach 3s. a
bushel for wheat, where under present circum-
stances and measures they would remain. The
only remedy, in his judgment, was, that the stand-
ing army should be greatly reduced ; that all
pensions, salaries, and pay, issuing out of public
money, should be reduced ; that the public debt
should be reduced ; and that all 'mortgages, rent
charges, leases, and other contracts, for a time,
should be; raised and rectified on the basis of,
and in proportion to, the Ilse in the value of
money, occasioned by a return to cash payments.