The Sun.
London, England, 1841-05-24 00:00:00

that the manufacturers have ruined themselves
while actively engaged in conferring, for the sake
of money, the blessings of cheap clothing on a
shivering population.
The competition of machinery with labour is
of a different description; but if that had injured

the labourer, it must have enriched the owners
of the machinery, who, however, complain as
much as the labourers. It has been stated at
more than one public meeting, and in Parlia-
ment, that the value of machinery has fallen
more than cent. per cent. The fact which tells
against the assumption of the Standard, " that
the competition of machinery with labour has
produced the distress" is, that as machinery has
come into use the population has increased in the
manufacturing districts faster than ever before.
The working population understand the matter
better than the Standard. One of them, of the
name of BARROW, at the Salford meeting on
Friday, said he did not wish to pull down ma-
chinery, but to extend it, while he watched it. He
knows that the more machinery is multiplied
the more hands will be required to attend it. It
is neither the competition of capital with capital,
nor the competition of machinery with labour,
which causes the distress, but the want of com-
petition on the part of the producers of food.
Mr. FIELDEN, in his unspoken speech, added
that in 1815, when the manufacturer got 965., he
could with that buy 11 quarters of wheat, and
now when he gets only 345. he cannot buy
with that two-fifths of a quarter of wheat.
But the principal article for which the ma-
nufacturers are made to exchange is food,
and it is because the manufacturer cannot
now get above one-third as much wheat in ex-
change for his cotton as in 1815, to divide be-
twixt himself and his workmen, that he and they
suffer distress. Why is this? Because food has not
increased in the same ratio as cotton cloth ?
Why has it not, at least that food which would be
given in exchange for the cloth ? The Poles are
unclad, or clad only in skins, and have food
which they are anxious to give for cloth. The
fertile valleys of the Mississippi only require the
hand of man to cultivate them to supply food
taster than it could be consumed. Already they
supply an immense quantity, which the inhabi-
tants would readily give for our cotton and hard-
wares. According to a statement we recently
met with in .an,. American Paper, the United
States now produce above 38 bushels of bread
stuffs annually, including all kinds of corn
and potatoes, for each inhabitant of the United
States, which is probably a full third more than
is supplied by England.
At the same time it is part of the case of the
Corn-law people that a large portion of England
is yet uncultivated. Why, then, we repeat, has
not food increased in the same ratio as cotton
cloth ? Is there not a law to prohibit its in-
crease ? Is it not the express object of the Corn-
law to prevent the manufacturers from buying
food in Poland and the United States? By this
law competition on the part of the producers of
food is prohibited. This narrows the supply
of food, and, narrowing the market for
the manufacturers' productions, it is the cause
why food has not increased in the same ratio as
cotton cloth—why the manufacturers cannot get
enough food in exchange, and why there is over-
whelming distress in the manufacturing districts.
The Corn-laws limit and destroy the manufac-
turer's market, and is it necessary, to seek out
any other cause for his distress?

It may be said that the law has been in opera-
tion with some modifications for twenty-five
years, that the manufacturer ought to be aware
of its effects, and that he is to blame for manu-
facturing too much for the narrow market to
which the Legislator arbitrarily limits him. But
one of the cursed effects of the arbitary and un-
just limitation, is to make the markets so irre-
gular that the manufacturer cannot foresee or
calculate effects.

The great reductions which occur oc-
casionally in the price of grain, stimulate
population, stimulate enterprise, make the manu-
facturer engage in new works, and then comes
a dearth which destroys his market and
plunges him into distress such as he now suffers.
'Whether the price of wheat were high or low,
there can be no doubt if we could draw our
supplies from the whole world that it would then
be much steadier than at present. Now it is the
unsteadiness in the price of food which causes the
alternations of prosperity and distress in the ma-
nufacturing districts.

The price of wheat, for example, was in 1822
down to about 435., and that low price was fol-
lowed by the excessive trading of 1824 and 1825.
In 1835 it was down to 365., and that was fol-
lowed by the prosperous years of 1836 'and 1837.
The increase of trade which takes place after
such years is a matter of necessity. The cheap-
ness of food, not only stimulates population, but,
leaving the industrious classes with a surplus,
which they expend on clothing, it also stimulates
manufactures. The manufacturer extends his
establishment only to meet the demand. At
the same time that the home demand increases
the fall of prices encourages exportation.
Foreign trade extends. But the cheap years of
1822 and 1835 were followed by the dear years of
1826 and 1838; then the high price checks foreign
trade, checks home consumption, and plunges
the manufacturers into distress. What the
Standard calls over-trading was the necessary con-
sequence of great fluctuations in the price of
corn : those fluctuations were caused by the
Corn-law limiting our people to the soil of Eng-
land for food, and therefore the Corn-law is
the cause why the ingenious manufacturers and
their industrious workmen, who have so multi-
plied the conveniences of life for their fellow-
men, instead of obtaining large profits and ample
wages, are plunged into deep poverty and distress.
It has of late years been customary, when any
derangement occurs, to talk glibly of overtrading,
of the fluctuations of commerce as inevitable, and
to express something like blame that nature
has exposed man to this inconvenience. We
always hear and read such opinions with mis-
trust. The true business of the merchant is to
equalize the variations of the seasons and prevent
fluctuations. Accordingly, great as may be the
fluctuations in modern trade, it is an undoubted
fact that the ups and downs of society have be-
come
less and less as trade has been extended.
There are no absolute famines now in trading Eu-
rope as there were in the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries, when Europe knew little or nothing of
commerce. Nor does the price of food vary
by one-tenth now so much as it did then.
Trade is only liable to fluctuation because it is
interfered with by Corn-laws, by bank monopo-
lies, by sugar-taxes, by discriminating timber
duties, and a thousand other similar enactments
which continually derange the markets, and
continually render vain the calculations of the
most expert and careful merchants and manu-
facturers. Free trade, causing extensive trade,
is the cure for fluctuations, which are not natural
to commerce, and are to be traced to the
meddling of selfish and ignorant law-makers.

The remarks we made on made on Saturday,
relative to the part now taken by the clergy, are
confirmed by the facts, that one clergyman was
the leading character at a great Pro-Corn-law
meeting recently held at Dorchester, and
another clergyman was the chief hand in getting
up a Pro-Corn-law petition at Wolverhampton.
The bulk of the priesthood are enlisted against
free trade. They are standing up for monopoly
and injustice. Hired by the nation to teach mo-
rality they have ranged themselves on the side
of wrong, and inculcate by their example a
shameless disregard of the precepts of religion.
There is no class of monopolists, no class of the
oppressors and enemies of the people, no class of
all the mighty hosts of corruption, who do not
now make common cause, and join the Tories in
taxing the people for the benefit of the land-
lords, the sugar planters, and the rotten-ship
owners.

What the bulk of the people complain of is

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