The Sun.
London, England, 1838-12-27 00:00:00

071,

WITH WHICH
THE " TRUE SUN" IS NOW

INCORPORATED.

LONDON :
THURSDAY EVENING, DECEMBER 27, 1838.

The average price of corn for the week ending the
21st inst., published to-day, is 78s. 4d. ; the average
of the six weeks is 755. 5d.; the former is the same as
last week, the latter is 11d. more. The average price

recorded for the London market is 803. 10d., which st

makes us apprehend that the price of wheat has not vet
reached its acme, though it has not attained to-day,
as we expected last Thursday it would, the price of
80s. WaLies in the agricultural districts being from
7s. to 9s. per week, the price is quite high enough
for the advantage of the labourers. Their sufferings,
however, and the temporary effects of the present high
prices, are all independent of, and must be added to,
those astounding effects which were first brought dis-
tinctly before the public by the Manchester Chamber
of Commerce, and which were caused before the pre-
sent high prices alarmed the bulk of the people for
their subsistence.
'We copy from the Chronicle an article on the dinner
given by the Norfolk and Suffolk Agricultural Associ-
ation to the Marquis of Chandos, and recommend our
Contemporary's remarks to public attention. The land-

owners are summoning their vassals to the rescue, and
declare aloud, that they are resolved to fight to the last
for their privilege to plunder the rest of the community.
Between them and the manufacturers, the battle
waxes hot, and will, we believe, in the coming
Session, cast party and personal politics into
the shade. Their difference does not concern
the Treasurer's staff, though its possession has before
now provoked no trifling hostility—but the wealth,
the station in society, and even the subsistence of large
classes, and will be contested with the zeal and vigour
suitable to such large and living interests. That the
landowners will find considerable support amongst the
monied classes, to whom they have mortgaged their
property, we are convinced ; that many of those
who dread the depreciation of all kinds of wealth
from unrestricted intercourse with other nation's,
will join them, we believe; but that the agricultural
labourers who are starving on seven or nine shillings per
week, or the humbled farmers who have been reduced
by the Corn-laws to a state of pauper dependence on
the land and tithe-lords, will be so stupid as to serve
under the banner of those who plunder and degrade
them, we shall be slow to credit. The contest will,
nevertheless, be a severe one, and will require all the
energy of the manufacturing and commercial classes, and
the combined exertions of all reformers) animated
by a conviction that they must achieve a victory, or
submit to poverty and hunger, and to the mortifica-
tion of seeing Great Britain lose all her national su-
periority. We are glad, however, to know that they
are not idle, and we trust it will not be long before
we shall have to announce that public meetings are to
take place in all the boroughs, and even all the parishes
of the metropolis, and that the Corporation of the
City of London will agree to present an address to
her MAJESTY on this vital subject. Now that the
working population of London feel the effects of the
Corn-laws in their own and their families' sufferings,
is an excellent time, which we hope will not be lost,
for imbueing them, by public discussion, with sound,
political—economical principles.
At the Bury meeting the Marquis of CHANDOS
complained of the landowners being held up to public
odium. The proud and rapacious landowners feel the
pangs of public scorn, and the epithets we and others
have applied to them, will, in spite of their assumed
contempt for the public Press, rankle in their bosoms
and embitter their existence. Their Corn-laws avail
them nothing for peace and happiness, as long as the
Press, the HAMAN of their envy, has the courage to
hold up their scandalous conduct to the reprobation it
deserves. The complaints of the Noble Marquis
reminded us of the honourable fraternity of pick-
pockets, who say that Police, Juries, and Judges, are
engaged in one great conspiracy against them. In
such a general opposition consists the public pro-
tection against fraud. When the landowners
keep their " hands from picking and stealing," for
which they were possibly, i❑ their younger days, taught
to pray, when they cease to pervert legislation from
its legitimate end to the nefarious purpose of plunder-
ing the rest of the community to enrich themselves, we
can answer for ourselves that then we shall cease, and
not till then, to hold them up, as they richly deserve,
to public odium.

We must, in conclusion, say one word of the Mom-
ing Post, which, like the rest of the Tories, at present
pretends to be smitten with a deep love of the canaille,
as they call the working classes when they
do not want to seduce them to their ruin.
Following in the wake of the Mornina. Herald,
though without capacity to state, like that Journal, a
mass of fallacies to support its assertions, the Post
dogmatically affirms that " the agitation which some I
manufacturers and journalists are trying to get up, is
a piece of rank imposture," to supply " an excuse for
the reduction of the wages of the working people."
We have seen no recommendation of the agitation,
coming as it does from the Tory advocate of coercion
and oppression, so effectual as the assertion of the
Post, that " the association of manufacturers against
the Corn-laws are nothing better than foul and frau-
dulent conspiracies against the interests of the work-

ing men.
The Tories are desperately afraid, and therefore
they make these strange and false assertions. They
require no refutation, however, for happily the absur-
dity of declaring that those who seek to place a greater
quantity of food, and at a cheaper rate, under the com-
mand of the working classes, have entered into a con-
spiracy against their interests, is as palpable as its
error and its impudence.

We copy a few observations from the Scotsman on
the operation of the Corn-laws. They were accom-

panied with some others in which we do not agree
with our Contemporary. The first of these is, that
the present advance of price is not warranted by the
shortness of the crop, and that it will decline. Our
Contemporary's prediction was not verified—corn
continued to rise in price after he had written.
As he states that no supply can be got from
the Continent, when he reflects on the circumstance
that our country does not grow enough for her own
consumption, and that there is now a necessity to
husband our store to prevent possibly a still more
dreadful famine next winter, he will begin, we think,
to doubt whether his assertion is not as incorrect as his
prophecy.

The other assertion of our Contemporary is that
the high price of corn is much less . injurious to
the poor than its frequent and great fluctuations.
The latter is an enormous evil, but the former,
we believe surpasses it. A high price, if it mean
anything, is equivalent to a deficient quantity. A
deficient quantity of food curtails employment, stints
comfort, stops the growth of population, which is the
essential condition of a prosperous people, and starves
multitudes out of existence. Both the effects men-
tioned by the Scotsman are withering, ruinous evils,
and we only demur to his comparison. A high price
of corn is synonymous with uninterrupted privation,
and frequent and great fluctuations imply alternations
of prosperity and enjoyment. The experience of the
latter is not only a good of itself, but it prompts the
people to desire always to obtain and keep it. For the
moment it is
ea benefit, and it leads to permanent im-

provement. •
The following table, from the British Almanac, shows the
operation of the present Corn-law since it was passed in 1828.
Highest and lowest price, (weekly averages, we presume, are
meant) of wheat in each year :-
Average for Character of
Years. Highest. Lowest. the year. the Crop.
1828, 75.3 51.6 60 5 Scarcity.
1829, 75.3 56.3 66.3 Average crop.
1830, 72.11 56.1 64.4 Full average.
1831, 73 5 60.5 66.4 Nearly do.
1832, 63.5 52 5 58.8 Above do.
1833, 55.5 49.10 52.11 Do.
1834, 49.6 41.5 46.2 Do.
1835, 42.10 36.8 39.4 Do.
1836, 61.9 36.0 48,6 Do.
1837, 60.1 52.6 55.10 Under average.
1838, 77.0 52.2
1828 to
1838, 77.0 36.0
The real übject of the present Corn.law, as of its predeces-
sors of 1815 and 1822, was to force up prices above their na-
tural level, or, as Lord Fitz william expressed it, to keep up a
"modified scarcity" in the country. Its professed object was
to protect both the farmer and the consumer, by producing
steadiness of price; and it proposed to accomplish this by
making the duty and the price bear an inverse ratio to each
other. It was to protect the farmer, by making the duty high
or prohibitory when prices were low,' and the consumer, by
making the duty low or nominal, when prices were high. The
preceding table shows that it has failed signally in both ways :
it has neither protected the farmer against low, nor the con-
sumer against high, prices.
In the very first year of the present Corn-law, the price of
wheat varied from 51s. 6d. to 755. 3d., a difference of 46
per cent. In 1829, the variation amounted to 33 per cent; in
1830, to 30 per cent. ; in 1836, to no less than 71 per cent.,
and in the present it has amounted to 47 per cent. Let it
be recollected that these are the variations within one year.
If we extend the comparison over the first six years, the varia-
tion is from 495. 10d. to 755. 3d., or 51 per cant. ; if we
extend it over the last five years, the variation is from 365. to
775., or 113 per cent. If a bounty had been offered for the
best method of producing rapid and great fluctuations, we
doubt if anything more perfect could have been found.
There are reasons for exempting the trade in corn from im-
port duties, which are little applicable to other things. First,
the other articles of foreign growth are merely luxuries, or at
best conveniences, to the mass of the people, but corn at a
moderate price is indispensable to the very existence of vast
multitudes. A very high price of the prime necessary of life,
consigns numbers of those who are at the bottom of the social
scale, to a severity of suffering greater than the law inflicts
upon some malefactors. To many it may be said to be equi-
valent to a sentence of death ; for numbers are carried off by
the epidemics which always follow in the train of a dearth. It
may be truly asserted that the Corn-laws have made widows
and orphans by thousands. In the second place, the great
bulk and weight of corn, compared with its value, operate as
a protecting duty to the British farmer, by rendering impor-
tation expensive. It is certain that the charge for freight,
insurance, and port-dues, amounts to Bs. per quarter upon
grain imported from any of the larger continental markets.
The foreign grower must therefore submit to a deduction of
that amount before he can came into competition with the
home grower in our markets. Ought not this to be considered
a sufficient protection?

The Corporation Reform Society held their weekly
meeting on Thursday evening, Mr. lANNEN in the
Chair. Before entering on the discussion of the plan
of reform proposed for adoption in the Corporation

of London, the Chairman drew the attention of the

Society to the state of the coal trade. In consequence
of what had passed on this subject at the last meeting,
Mr. HANNEN has received a great many applica-
tions, strongly urging the Society to continue their
efforts to break up the monstrous monopoly which still
exists in the coal trade, and which presses so hard upon
all, particularly on the poorest classes of the community.
We are extremely glad to find that the Reform Society
have,warmly entered into the public feeling in regard
to this highly important. matter, and have no doubt
that their exertions, if perseveringly continued, as we
are sure they will be, will produce the most
beneficial effects. They must, however, be backed
by the exertions of the people themselves. Meetings
should be held in the City ; the subject should be
prominently brought forward at the Wardmotes ; every
means, in short, should be adopted, to rouse the Cor-
poration from the sleep of death which seems to have
overtaken them, and to impress upon them the
necessity of protecting the citizens against the depre-
dations of the coal-conspirators. Thus supported, the
Committee of the Corporation Reform Society, which
was last night appointed to investigate the subject, will
act with an authority which the City grandees will be
compelled to respect.
What must the public think of the management of
these sage Corporators, when they find that the coal-
factors, the very monopolists whose first interest it is
to keep a short supply of coals in the market, are per-
mitted to have the appointment, and to regulate
the number, of the weighers. Can we be sur-
prised that, under such an a►rangement, no more
ships should be unloaded than can just feed the
market, and maintain the commodity at the price
which suits the seller. How comes it, but by such
malpractices, that the coal factors can keep the
price of coals to the public at fifty per cent.
above what the Gas and Water Companies
pay ? These Companies go the right way to work.
They take their coals at once from the pit's
mouth to the wharf, without being impeded by any
of those restrictions with which the monopolists
have contrived to fetter the trade to the
public, who are not able to protect themselves, and
whose natural protectors, the Corporation of London,
have deserted them, or at least grossly neglected their
interests.

The Corporation people have indeed made a pre
tence of doing away with the monopoly. They have
aimed a sort of make-believe blow at it, and that is all.
What has been the result of their harbour regulations
which they have taken so much pains to parade before
the public ? One effect of these highly lauded regu-
lations has been to throw obstructions in the way of
those who have had the courage to set the monopolists
at defiance. It appears from the proceedings at the
Mansion House, on Thursday, that Captain YOUNG,
who has never aubmitted to the tyranny of the com-
bined coalowners and factors, but has always un-
loaded his ship as soon as he arrived in the port of
London, without regard to the system of turns ap-
pointed by the trade, complained to the LORD
MAYOR of the pernicious working of the new rules in
his case,
YOUNG, in
oinf other captains, similarly situated.
Captain of his resistance to
the Inonop°lists, has been excluded from the privilege
of loading his vessel with any coals belonging to the

coal confederacy. He has, however, been able to
obtain coals enough for his purpose from owners who
have not entered into the conspiracy af,ainst the
public, and to make twelve voyages in the same time
that market feeders make nine. He now feels the
pressure of the new regulations, which, let him be
ever so 'expeditious on his voyage, compel him to
wait his turn in the River ! He used to go directly
to the brewery for which his cargo was intended; he
must now either go into a dock, paying 6d. a ton for
accommodation, or, if allowed to unload in the fiat
section into which he is put on arriving in the River,
pay 2s. a ton to barge-owners for conveying his cargo
to its destination. Such are the happy effects of the
new by-laws. They show how well those who made
them understood the nature of the trade for which they
took upon themselves to legislate.
The remedy for this is obvious enou4h ; but whether
the ruling powers of the City will allow it to be applied
is quite a different question. It is simply this, that
all ships carrying cargoes already purchased should be
exempted from the operation of the laws above men-
tioned, and allowed to proceed at once to the places
where they are to unload.

The Paris Journals of Tuesday announce the de-
termination of Ministers to hold out as long as pos-
sible. On Monday evening a meeting of their friends
was summoned at the house of General JAcQuEMI-
NOT, to consider the means of defeating the efforts of
the coalition to overthrow the present Cabinet, and
to afford a rallying point to all their zealous
supporters. Only 150 attended, and the written
adhesions amounted but to seventeen. After
some discussion it was agreed that the address should
contain an elucidation of the Ministerial policy, and
that the debate upon it should be conducted with
frankness and sincerity.
The number of suicides in France in 1836, accord-
inp;to the official return, was 6,529.

Of general news there is absolutely nothing in these
Journals.

Advices from Constantinople of the 7th inst. have
reached us. They bring no political intelligence of
any interest. 'The Ramazan had put a❑ end to all
business throughout the Turkish empire.