The Sun.
London, England, 1841-12-03 00:00:00

rtt

LONDON:
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 3, 1841.

That the people are in great distress is very
generally allowed. The Journal of the Work-
ing Classes, for example, a publication intended
to bring the people more completely, than they
now are, under the control of the landowners
and clergy, states that " there is great increase
of mendicancy in this country."

" The scenes of dirt," it says, " indecency, immora-
lity, destitution, fraud, libertinism, profligacy, sensuality,
and crime, now daily and hourly participated in, on the
part of the travelling poor or begging population of our
highways or bye-ways, can only be imagined or de-
scribed by those who, like ourselves, have examined into
their deplorable and awful condition."

In short, as we have already said, the land is
becoming overrun with an Italian beggary ; and
it is not a little remarkable that the land is at
the same time, like Italy, also overrun with a
great body of opulent, contentious, and ambitious
priests. While every other class is plunged into
difficulties and distress, their number and their
opulence go on increasing. They never feel any
of the difficulties which oppress other classes ;
and therefore we find them, as the rule, one and
all, supporting those bad laws by which the
people are driven to the extremity of destitution.
The monopoly which crushes the people is
forcibly upheld by the Ministers of the Estab-
lished Church.

They are closely allied with the landlords, and
the latter, like the clergy, suffer nothing at pre-
sent from the general calamity. On the contrary,
sundry statements have lately appeared in the
newspapers, that the value of land is increasing.
In a pamphlet recently published by the Rev.
THOMAS FARR, "On the Difficulties of the Sliding
Scale," an instance is given of four lots of land
which let separately in 1833 for a sum in all of
64/. 155., and which were let on the 15th of Sep-
tember last by auction, and on the same condi-
tions as before, for 124/. 55., "showing an increase
of more than 99 per cent. in eight years above
the rent of 1833." This is a well authenticated
and unexceptionable instance, which may be
taken as an index to the fact that the rental
of the whole body of the landowners has in-
creased in the midst of great national suffering.
But these two classes, who thus riot in opu-
lence while the industrious classes are ground
to the earth, constitute the real law-makers ;
they have no sympathy, and can have none,
winch touches them so re-
with a distress
in truth, an
motely ; they have,
isto the welfare of the people,
immediate
facie reason
in-
terest in opposition
a good prima
and therefore there
for distrusting all the laws which they make.
.
The source of legislation, as long as it
.flows
only, or chiefly, from them, must be pallid;
and the laws they make, and have made,require
a double portion of evidence to prove them of
national advantage, before they can command
the heartfelt obedience of the people.
Now, while the sources of our legislation are
thus open to strong suspicion, it also happens
that the public are quite at sixes and sevens as to
the causes and cure of our distress.
Her MA-
JESTY'S Ministers, we wilt be bold to say, are no
more in accordance with the majority of the na-
tion on these two important points, than are the
Birmingham advocates for an increase of paper
money. If they were thoroughly acquainted
with the causes of our deplorable condition, and
had they any means, or any hope even, of reme-
dying it, they would be most culpable if they did
not immediately announce their plans, and im-
mediately begin to carry them into execution.
In fact, they have no plans to remedy the dis-
tress, and their peculiar bias as landowners, or as
the servants of landowners, shuts their eyes to
the causes of the distress, and steels their hearts
against all supplications to apply a judicious
remedy.
Amongst the multitude there is also acorn-
plete division of opinion. The community ap-
pears to be all at sea. A large body are for
wholly upsetting the present Constitution, and
even re-dividing, the land. Another body de-
mand the atiolitien of the Corn-laws and a per-
fect ,free, trade.. The currency doctors think
that all the evils of society may be remedied by
an issue of irredeemable
clergy and their friendS call out for more
churches, and a stricter observance of the Sab-
bath. Sonic persons look to an increase of the

* Published by R►dgway.

army, and some foolishly think that poverty and I
hunger will be cured by bridling the Press.
A great confusion of opinion obviously pre-
vails, and none of those great and master minds,
which at remote intervals arise and gather the
diverging rays of knowledge into one focus, and
combine crossing and conflicting obscurity into
one steady light, now exist in the world. Po-
litical science needs its NEWTON, its BACON,
or its LUTHER, and he is not yet found.
When we look for any steady guide to those
Monthly and Quarterly productions which were
wont to influence the public sentiments and
bring before the nation the wisdom of some great
men, we find nothing but the most drivelling party
mediocrity ; one set advocating Tory quackery,
and the other set recommending Whig abortions,
with all the one-sidedness of those who, like our-
selves, are hurried on, day after day, by the
rapid current of events. The present want of
the nation is that of some master-mind to con-
dense, by superior knowledge and genius, not
coerce, the public sentiments, all the lately-
gathered political truths, into one clear, compre-
hensive, and guiding system.
Such a man, were he found, should occupY
the place which is held by Sir ROBERT PEEL.
If we could for one moment conceive that he
was at all likely to become such a man, he
should have our steady and best support. We
care not who gives the public good measures,
provided they be given ; and were Sir ROBERT
to offer them, he would be followed by all free-
traders, all honest politicians, and all true pa-
triots. His power is great, but his knowledge is
not equal to it, and his will is enslaved. Instead
of being the enlightened.servant of truth, the
honest Minister of a great nation, he degrades
himself into being the tool of a faction. He
gives up to party what might place him at the
head of the nation. A few years—not half a
century hence, for the character of statesmen
and heroes no longer waits for the judgment of a
remote posterity; it is duly appreciated before
they are well cold in their graves—a few years
hence Sir ROBERT PEEL will be impartially
judged; and as he continues the servant of a
greedy faction, bent only on enriching them-
selves though they ruin the public, or throws off
their degrading trammels, and shows himself as
wise as he is powerful, so will he be said to have
lost or embraced one of the finest opportunities
ever offered to mortal man, to achieve undying
greatness. He may be the political LUTHER of
the age—let him take care that he be not the
TETZEL.

By the Dutch mail, received last night, we
learn that on the 23d of November the Supreme
Court at Copenhagen sentenced a number of
Baptists to various fines and costs for holding
illegal religious meetings, and administering the
Sacrament. The following is from the St.Peters-
burgh Journnl of the 20th of November:—
" On the 14th there was no communication between Cron-
stadt and Oranienbaum. Ton ards the evening three barks
arrived from the latter place, and one left Cronstadt,
although the channel was covered with ice. On the 15th,
the ships which attempted to put to sea were at first hin-
dered, but a fresh wind springing up cleared the chan-
nel, and they were able to depart. Up to the 15th,
1,360 ships had arrived at Cronstadt."

The Morning Post has taken a fair advantage
of a hasty and incomplete expression of our
thoughts in Wednesday's Sun, to represent our
argument as confused and perplexed. We will
now reprint the sentence quoted by the Post, as
it ought to have been written, and we trust the
completion of it will take from the Post all pre-
text for misunderstanding us. We mark in
italics the additions we make to the sentence :

"The Corn-law avowedly compels the whole body of
the consumers to give more labour for their corn than
they would have to give if there were no Corn-law. The
abolition of the law would therefore lessen the quantity
of labour required to be given for corn, or lower the
natural price of corn, and at the same time, by feeding
mere persons, increase the sum of labour in the com-
munity, or means of paying for corn and all other things."
The Post denies, for the Pro-Corn-law men,
" that the law compels the consumers to give
more labour for their corn." What then do
they mean when they assert " that the abolition
of the law would lower the price of corn, and
drive large quantities of land out of cultiva-
tion?" That could not be the case were the
foreign corn to be imported with the produce
of less labour. Their whole case, all their ar-
guments, imply an avowal, and, therefore,
we used the word " avowedly" that the Corn-
, law compels the consumers to give more labour
for their corn than they would have to give were
there no Corn-law. The men of Manchester, for
example, would then purchase the flour of Ame-
rica for about one-third less labour than they are
now obliged to give for English flow.
The Post admits that " the Corn-law makes
corn dearer," but it asserts that " it makes labour
dearer." We cannot understand this proposi-
tion. Corn and labour are exchanged for each
other, and both cannot be made dearer. "La-
bour," to use the language of ADAM SMITH, is
the " first price, the original purchase-money
that was paid for all things." " What is
bought with money or with goods," he says,
"is purchased by labour as much as what we
acquire with the toil of our own bodies." Labour
was not only the first and original purchase
money; it continues now to be the only pur-
chase-money of all the wealth of the world. It
alone purchases and pays for corn, and to us,
therefore, it appears nonsense to say the Corn-
, law makes both corn dearer and labour dearer.
One is the measure of the other. " Dearer" ex-
presses a relation between them, and nothing
else ; and it is an impossibility that both can be
made dearer.

These few observations appear to us to prove
that the Corn-law, on the admission of our op-
ponents, enhances the price of corn to the con-
sumers, or increases the quantity of labour re-
quired to obtain the necessary supply of
corn; that it consequently diminishes in pre-
cisely the same ratio their means of pay-
ment; and that the abolition of the law
would reduce the quantity of labour required
to obtain corn, increase its quantity, and
augment the means of payment. If we have
established that point, we call on the Post to
surrender, for it admits if it were proved that the
abolition of the Corn-law would increase the
means of payment for corn, the case of the Pro-
Corn-law party must fall to the ground.

The Madrid Papers received are of the 23d
ult. On that day ESPARTERO entered the
`caPital in triumph, having effectually crushed
every
germ of the Christino rebellion in the
Northern provinces. Though pressed for space,
we cannot omit quoting the following graphic
description of his entry into Madrid, from the
pen of an eye-witness. The letter is dated the
23d ult., and was penned immediately after the
occurrence it records :

feeling
1 The
.Duke de la Viett; •is •
i set ; stopped there for theof night, the capital. He reached Guadalajara
ag.am quietly lodged in
and entered Madrid to-
day,Jara last night by sun-
.atEsph:rtfe-rpoa.s t
Theone
by the Gate
d his approach
o'clock. Only one
here the Spaniards now v
know,erhehll hung windows and balconies of the housesin the direc-
tion of the intended
and filled with spectators. The ofconcoursengwith tapestries,
was immense. The handsome arch persons abroad
skeleton of wood, covered with evergr'eecnosoned of a
at the top of the street of Alcala, received its? flowers,
of embellishment only a few minutes before theas t, touches
commenced. On a tablet above the arch,
supported
two allegorical figures, was the. simple inscriptionrted„ by
Pacificador de Espana—La Villa de Madrid." ToAl
the English reader understand this, I hare only to makere
re-
mark, that " villa" in the Spanish language means, as used
here, the "corporation." In the open spaces between the
columns forming the wings of the main arch, were also
placed statues of an emblematic character, the whole form-
ing a fine termination of the vista presented by the great
street of Alcala, filled with masses of the people, mingled
with their fellow-townsmen in uniform. At the particular
suggestion of her Majesty the young Queen Isabel, one of
the fine state carriages of the Palace and six horses were
ordered out to convey his Highness into town. I say at
the special instance of the Queen, because I have reason
to know the compliment originated entirely with her-
self. Otherwise, it was Espartero's wish and intention to
have entered on horseback. At one o'clock a long line
of carriages, proceeding towards the gate of Alcala,
announced the progress of the corporation of Madrid
going to meet the Regent, and officially welcome him
to the .
.capital on reaching the gates of the city.
By this time be had arrived at the Espiritu Santo,
and entered alone in the open carriage appointed for