The Sun.
London, England, 1840-03-26 00:00:00

neither the tenants nor the peasantry get a farthing
of the extortion) so much for corn as at present—
the English would be relieved from an odious tax
levied on them by Irish landlords—and of this
alteration the Editor of the Evening Mail writes

thus :
"We are disunited enough on other subjects—let us at
least be unanimous in this, that we will not be robbed.
Let the owner and the tiller of the soil put their backs to-
gether and declare that they will not part with their com-
mon interests. Between landlords, middlemen, occupiers,
and labourers, there are thirteen hundred thousand families
—husbands, wives, sons, and daughters—directly and im-
mediately concerned. It is affluence or penury, comfort
or misery, lire or death, to two out of every three of them,
that is at issue. Divided as they are on other questions,
they can all sympathize with one another in pecuniary loss,
in a want of the comforts of life, in the actual sense of
privation. Though they worship at different altars, they
pay their debts in the Queen's coin. Though they are
actuated by different political motives, they obey a common
impulse in desiring food when hungry, and warmth when
cold. On these common grounds they are now called to
act together—back to back—shoulder to shoulder—for the
protection of their hard-earned and scanty means of sub-
sistence. Hold fast by what you have, Irishmen. Ask no
man's goods or substance from him, but hold your own
wi-h the grip of eight millions of vises. You are now
fighting the battle of the belly : the most momentous con-
test you ever were engaged in. Fight it, tooth and nail,
and may Heaven defend the right."
The reasoning to which the passage we have
quoted is the tail-piece, is worthy of it Here is
one passage to show what sort of garbage the
Evening Mail thinks worthy of its readers. The
italics are the Mail's:-
6. The annual value of the present agricultural produce
cf Ireland can be nothing short of forty millions ; it was
estimated at thirty-six millions in 1833. Strike 25 per
cent. off that, and for a moment calmly consider what the
consequence would be The amount struck off would
greatly erreed the whole of the earnings of all the agii-
cultural laoourers in the country !
These, in 1836, were estimated at no more than
6 F 44.600/. In 1831 there were in Ireland 567,441 males
of twenty years of age, employed in agriculture, as la-
bourers, and 564,274 small occupiers, who laboured their
own lands, having dependent on them, in all, 884,339
families. Strike 25 per cent. off the value of Irish agri-
cultural produce, and you either bring downright starvation
to every one of these eight hundred thousand doors, or
else reduce us to the necessity of a general division of
property. The whole rental of Ireland is not equal to '25
per cent. on its agricultural produce."
Badly as the Irish are fed, or rather cruelly as
they are starved, under the present system, all that
pa:t of the agricultural produce of Ireland which is
consumed at home, amounting probably to four-
fifths of the whole, would not be affected
by the abolition of the Corn-laws. It would be
only that portion of it which is exchanged for
English manufactures. We take the quantity so ex-
changed at one-fifth, so that the presumed reduction
of 25 per cent., which is a gross exaggeration,
would not be on 40,000,0001. but on 8,000,0001.
The dreaded loss, therefore, instead of exceeding
the earnings of all the labourers and all the rental
of all Ireland, would not be snore than 2,000,0001.,
to be deducted from rent and tithes, even adopting
the exaggerated statements of the Evening Mail.
The quantity of aericultural produce in Ireland
wculd not be diminished by abolishine. the Corn-
laws, anti among a people who live almost exclu-
sively on their own produce, it is of no consequence
whether its price in the foreign market be
as one or as ten. If the Corn-laws were abo-
lished England would obtain supplies from other
countries, and there would be less temptation
to import from Ireland. The probabilities, there-
fore, are, that more would be left in Ireland for the
use of her own people. All the rack.rented, lumper-
fed peasantry would keep a portion of that pi oduce
they must now send away to pay the landlords ex-
orbitant rents, and though the Protestant land
owners and tithe-owners might suffer—as we believe
and hope they would, because they most richly
deserve to suffer—for the poor half-starved people
nothing better could possibly happen than an in-
crease in the quant.ty of food remaining in Ireland,
and a great fall in its price. So far as the interest
of the people of Leland is concerned, the article in
the Mail better deserves the name of raving than
of reasoning.
The writer begins the article by saying very
oracularly, " The poor man's means of livelihood
consist in his earnings, and these earnings are wore
or less, according to the state of the market."
The state of the market for those who have chiefly
labour to sell, is the quantity of food, or means
of purchasing food, which those who want labour
are willing to give for it. However the question
may be disguised, the real things exchanged, or
bought and sold, are labour and food ; and it would
inuzzle any person but an Irish Editor to find out
how' an increase in the quantity of food and a re-
duction
in its va ue or price should be disadvanta-
geous to t...lie labourer. In fact, no class have such
a strong pec7lniarY interest in the repeal of the
Corn-laws as the labourers, though it pleases some
()gland to excite them to forego
of their leaders in 1...
the chance of obtainic' that advantage, to the
f:
chance of obtaining the Charter.
We eu
meetingt e xcelle tat presume that the re
for the abolition of the Corn-lacFs, held Dubli
has frightened the Editor of the Evening Mail
out of his senses. Of the great advantage which
the total and immediate repeal would be to. Catholic
Ireland, the language of the chief organ of the
Protestant parsons and the Orange landowners of
Ireland is a strong proof. Now that the Mail takes
such a decided part, we are sure that we shall have
the co-operation of the Catholic priesthood and
the Catholic peasantry to procure the total and im-
mediate abolition of the Corn-laws.