The Sun.
London, England, 1838-12-28 00:00:00

Those tenants who suppose that the landlords will not
make the present high price of corn a pretext for imposing
a permanent burden on them are very simple indeed. A
Correspondent informs us that all the Duke of Buccleugh's
tenants, on the Kettering and Boughton estates, have been
served with notices that their rents are to be raised, some
of them as much as 2001. per year. In no case is the rise
less than from 20 to 25 per cent. We state a fact—we
blame not the Duke ; for high prices mean high rents. So
that the farmers, who have been chuckling at the present
high prices, will find to their cost that the burden for
which the present high prices serve as a justification will
press on them when prices fall, and they will purchase a
year's prosperity by the Gazette and the workhouse. The
Corn-laws have made agriculture a gambling pursuit ; but
in the long run the landlord wins, and the farmer
loses. While we are on this part of the subject, we
may observe that the Standard does not under-
stand the gist of our reference to the Marquis
of Tweeddale's speech at Eye. " Any one ignorant of the
actual state of the law," says the Standard," reading this,
would naturally suppose that the Corn-laws do not extend
to Scotland ; whereas the fact is, that the Scottish and
English farmers stand upon precisely the same footing as
regards the protection of their interests." The Corn-
laws do extend to Scotland ; but the Scotch farmers soon
perceived that though professedly passed for the farmers,
they benefitted only the landlords. Of course the Scotch
farmers suffered severely from the transition to low prices
at the end of the war ; but they reconciled themselves to
their lot, and knew better than to trust to such farmers'
friends as the Marquis of Chandos. Tne evidence taken
before the late Parliamentary Committees on agricultural
listress shows, that the Scotch farmers did not con-
und their own interests with those of their land-
lords, and were sensible that what they had most
to dread were great fluctuations in price. Ever since
the peace, the cry of agricultural distress has con-
stantly resounded in Parliament ; but it is on evidence, that
precisely during this period of agricultural distress, more
capital has been laid out on improvements in Scotland than
for a century before. It is the interest of the farmer that
the landlord should leave rent to follow the natural
prices of food, instead of attempting to create artificial prices
for the sake of keeping up rent. The landowners at the
Eye dinner dwelt much on the spirit of the yeomanry dur-
ing the last war. To hear these men, one might suppose
that agriculture ceuld flourish without the aid of rich con-
sumers. The prosperity of agriculture in England began
with the improvements in manufactures. We showed on
Tuesday last that the population of England increased
very little during the first three quarters of the last
century. The reason why the population did not in-
crease was, that we were then exporters of food and
importers of manufactures ; and the landlords, always
selfish, and always disposed to rob the rest of the
community, kept down wages by the facilities given to
import manufactures, while they kept up the price of food
by a bounty on its exportatio which only ceased in 1773.
The landlords knew better than to feed mouths which
could not pay for them, and rigorously enforced the laws
of settlement, while they took care to prevent the erection
of cottages by all manner of stipulations in leases. It ap-
pears that even so late as 1720, the greater part of the
copper, brass, and cast-iron utensils for culinary and other
purposes, porcelain, stone, deif, earthenware, fire-arms, and
other engines of war, were imported from Holland and
Hamburg ; while velvets, silks, mirrors, and crystal-glass of
all kinds, bottles,watches, jewellery, coaches, chairs, gold and
slyer laces, paper of all sorts, for writing, printing, and
rooms, were imported from France and Italy ; and
linen, cambrics and laces were imported from Flan-
ders, besides toys, and many other articles from
Nuremburg, Frankfort, &c. The labouring classes
were, by this lessening the demand for labour, and the
raising the price of food, in a most miserable condition.
Stephen Duck the Thresher Poet, whose verses were first
published between 1730 and 1740, received 3s. a week, the
common wages. While wages were lower in England than
on the continent, the bounty on exportation enabled the
manufacturers of Holland, Flanders, and France to buy
food cheaper than the rate at which it could be bought by
the manufacturers of England. The Dutch lost their ma-
factures by taxing hread enormously, which operated as a
nounty to English manufactures ; and about the year 1760,
the exports of manufactures became nearly equal to the
imports. Several important inventions shortly after that
period gave new life to manufactures, and England ceased
to be an exporter of food, and became gradually a great
exporter of manufactures. British prosperity dates from
this new era. The population of England has tripled.
Millions of well-paid labourers created an extensive demand
for agricultural prodnce ; and while the cry of distress was
universally heard during the American war, so great
had been the increase of wealth, in consequence
of the astonishing increase of the productiveness
of labour through machinery, that the nation was
able to support the high prices of corn and other food in
1795 and succeeding years. Holland lost her manufactures
by taxing bread, and raising the necessary cost of labour.
This gave a bounty to the English manufacturer. With
the progress 'of manufactures in England the condition of
the labourer has hitherto kept pace, more especially i❑ the
manufacturing districts. The wages in the purely agricul-
tural districts. have not, it is true, improved in the same
ratio as in the manufacturing dsstricts; but even in the
agricultural districts labouring men are much better off
even now than before the era of manufactures. If
Stephen Duck received only 3s. a week when wheat was
40s. a quarter, the Wiltshire and Hampshire labourer,
who now receives Bs. a week, is better off with wheat
at 80s. Wages in Yorkshire and Lancashire were,
however, in the early part of last century lower
than in the 'West of England ; for the lowness of
wages was the chief cause of driving manufacturers from
the west to the north. But at present, the out-door
labourer in Yorkshire and Lancashire receives 15s. a week
and upwards. Were it not for the demand for labour in the
manufacturing districts, the labourers in the west and south
of England would soon become more wretched than they
are ; for, though they are now at the mercy of the landlords,
yet it is impossible to reduce to the very lowest plight the
labourers in any part of a country in which high wages are
given. A higher standard is constantly before the eyes of
the labourer, and the attempt to take too great an advan-
tage of him leads to depredations, and such means of in-
timidation as were resorted to in 1830. The Manchester
Guardian, alluding to a strange sentence in the Standard, is
naturally led to contrast the labourers in manufacturing dis-
tricts with the labourers in agricultural districts :

"' Ay I" says the Standard, " give cheap corn by all
means I Ruin the landowner and farmer, and bring down the
condition of the agricultural labourer to that of the factory
slave, who must sell the flesh and blood of his infants.'
" Now, considering that the men employed in factories
earn, on an average, more than twice as much as able-bodied
agricultural labourers, and that women, so employed, earn
four times as much as when employed in agricultural labour
—and considering also that the Editor of the Standard must
be perfectly aware of these facts, from the reports of the Fac-
tory Commissioners—it must be admitted that the preceding
remark is tolerably impudent. The agricultural labourers, if
we mistake not, are now experiencing in full force the benefits
of that dear corn which the Standard is so anxious to perpe-
tuate; and by and by they will be pretty well able to judge
bow far it answers their purpose. The object of those who
contend for cheap corn, is to prevent the manufacturing popu-
lation from being reduced to the state of the agricultural la-
bourers; and, if possible, to rescue the latter also from their
present miserable condition.
" We would advise the Standard to try to answer the facts
and'the arguments contained in the speeches delivered at the
Chamber of Commerce : it will be not, perhaps, quite so easy,
but certainly much more reputable employment, than giving
currency to misstatements which every man of the slightest
research can detect in a moment."
The manufacturing population must soon be reduced to
the state of the agricultural labourers, if the landowners be
not prevented from destroying our manufactures. The
manufacturer cannot give higher wages than theprices he
receives enable him to pay, and r p
no act is more evident
than that his prices are regulated by competition with fo-
reigners. The foreign manufacturer brings into the market
goods wrought by labourers fed on cheap corn, and it is the
superiority of English machinery and
skill which has
hitherto enabled the manufacturer to struggle against the
advantages possessed by his rival of cheaper food. But it
appears that the superiority has left us in some branches—
and in all the rest our rivals are every day making
close approaches to us. During this painful process, the
landowner looks on like a cold-blooded tyrant, and says,
" I care not whether you go to ruin or not ; I will have
my unjust tax from you as long as you have wherewithal to
pay it, let what will come afterwards." When competition
reduces profits and wages so low that the present prices
cannot be paid, the produce of the soil will be consumed
by unproductive labourers ; for it is not to be supposed that
the millions of men who have been called into existence by
manufactures will receive with submission the intimation
that their only title to be a guest at Nature's feast is the
posfession of the means of paying their reckoning. When
capitalists have abandoned the devoted country the land
willremain, and the increase of poor-rates will beat the
landlords who are really the owners of the soil. The fa-
vourable change in England began with the reign of George
111., and the condition of all classes gradually improved
with the increased demand for employment. But with the
diminution of the demand for employment, caused by the
loss of foreign markets, will come diminished wages, and,

, .
consequently, diminished means of purchasing food. Agri-
culture cannot flourish without flourishing manufac-
tures. This question, be it observod, is one between
all t''e other classes of the country and the land-
owner. The decay of our trade leaves en all classes the
same burdens with diminished means to meet them. The

nation will be but a factory calculated, for instance, to pro-