The Sun.
London, England, 1841-10-26 00:00:00

tt -SAM

LONDON:
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 26, 1841.

We inserted, on Tuesday last, the Address of
the Leeds Parliamentary Reform Association,
which contained a very serious charge against
the landowners. They are said to be deliberately
bent on reducing the number and influence of
the manufacturing population by increasing their
distress. One of the reasons assigned in support
of the charge, was the impression made by the
"words which fell from Sir JAMES GRAHAM,
the present Home Secretary, in the interview
which the Anti-Corn-law deputation had with
him some time ago." A member of the deputa-
tion, Mr. EDWARD BAINES/ jun., has stepped
forward to deny that the words of Sir JAMES
_ GRAHAM left any such impression on him, and
injustice to Sir JAMES—for we like to do justice
to the worst of mankind, being then sure that he
is
Properly punished or rewarded—We are about
to lay before our readers the remarks of Mr. E.
8An,,,,,, ,
'''''') jun. Here they are :
The Part of the conversation ,
reautrk made b • alluded to arose out of a
repeal tii
cy Str James Graham, to the effect that a
dent upon -Laws would make the nation depen-
other°rn
food, which he countries for the supply of its necessary
this it was
replied' would be highly dangerous. To
measure depend , that England was already in a great
for the raw
matt
.nifon other countries, and especially
ent n
depended upon matt
.of its largest manufactures. It
many for its fitted States for its cotton, on Ger-
;hooel,non Italy for its silk, and n Russia
for its flax.
persons employed
cotton manufacture Irbil"' of
in the
which Sir James rejoin Britain was then mentioned, on
position." He addednit---" Yes, and I don't envy your
t he thought we ought not to
Increase our dependence on foreign countries. The con-
versation being prolon
t, the gentlemen forming the
deputation endeavourei show that this mutual de-
pendence of nations upon:eaceh other was essential to the
eery existence of forem
ma, and that it involved
no red danger, for that it would be impossible to prevent
England from receivingz:srupplies of corn which she
might want load could
regular caste growing pier of the corn especially if she were a
. -iwi States. The ne-
cessity under which a country was, whose extent of soil

remained the same, whilst its population rapidly in'
creased, to seek foreign supplies of food, was also dwelt
upon ; and it was added by one of the deputation, that if
those supplies were denied, the population would have
to be kept down by starvation ; in which case it was to
be desired that not the children of the poor only should
die, but that the rich should set the example by drown-
ing their own children in china basins ! Much more
conversation took place,—Sir James Graham taking no
very active part, but listening to the statements of the
deputation, and now and then throwing in an objection
or pointing out an apparent inconsistency. On their de-
parture, the Right Hon. Baronet said, " I do not con-
sider this at all a question of rent—l look upon it as a
high question of national policy."
Nothing was said by Sir James Graham, so far as
Mr. E. Baines's recollection serves, that even looked like
a wish or opinion that "the numbers and influence of the
manufacturing classes should be reduced by increasing
their distress."

But though these remarks may exonerate Sir
JAMES GRAHAM from having expressed any
opinion warranting the inference which some
other member of the deputation drew from it,
we cannot admit, even though Mr. En-
WARD BAINES, jun., asserts it, that the land-
owners are, therefore, wrongly charged with
entertaining a deliberate design of reducing the
number and influence of the manufacturing
population by increasing their distress. The law
of England, as a rule, infers a man's motives
from the effects of his conduct ; and, trying the
motives of the landlords by this rule, as their
conduct inflicts great distress on the manufac-
turing classes, reduces their numbers, and curtails
their wealth, we infer that their design is to pro-
duce those effects.

When we couple those effects with the known
and declared antipathy which the owners of
land have for a long period nourished for the
manufacturing classes ; when we add the defeat
on the subject of Parliamentary Reform, which
Manchester, Leeds, and other towns, inflicted on
the aristocracy ; when we think, moreover, of
the language continually used by the priesthood
—the great instructors of the aristocracy—re-
garding, the manufacturing population, the priest-
hood describing them as sunk in heathenism, as
no better than Pagans, and describing every
accumulation of human beings as causing great
immorality and great crime ; when to all these
circumstances we conjoin the language continu-
ally used by the organs of the landowners in the
press, we must affirm that the inference drawn
from the effects of their conduct, according to
the rules of the law of England, is corroborated
by such strong circumstantial evidence that we
pronounce the landlords, who make the laws,
guilty of the charge brought against them by the
Leeds Parliamentary Reform Association.
In a Court of Law, the plea that it is impossible
to believe in the wickedness of a criminal, when
facts, circumstances, and witnesses prove that
he has committed the crime charged, is never
for one moment admitted. Neither shall we
admit the plea for the landlords, that it is im-
possible that any large class of men in the
country can be guilty of deliberate and mur-
derous cruelty. We are slow to suspect indivi-
duals; but classes, like corporations, have no
conscience. They act by system, they are
guided by rules ; and if the system and rules be
complete contraventions of the most sublime
and highly cherished principles of morality,
classes and bodies of men follow out their system,
obey their rules, and cast morality to the winds.
We appeal to every army to testify to this truth.
The trade of war, however necessary in the eyes
of the politician—and we do not impugn it—is,
it cannot be denied, carried on in contravention
of most of the commandments. We appeal to
the body of the clergy to confirm it, who, as a
a priesthood, in the appropriation of great
wealth to their order, continually set aside
precepts of the Gospel. Each class of men has a
morality of its own; and whether called fashion, or
honour, or a spirit of trade, that morality guides
the conduct of the class. If there be, therefore, any
reason to suppose that the system on which the
landed aristocracy, in respect to legislation, habi-
tually act—if the rules by which they are guided
make them disregard the people, it is sheer se-
nility to exculpate them on the sentimental sup-
position that it shocks our judgment and our feel.
ings to suppose that they would be guilty of de-
signedly impeding the increase of the manufac-
turing population in numbers and in wealth.
What, then, is the system of the aristocracy,
what are the rules of their conduct ? One prin-
ciple lies at the bottom of both—to support and
maintain their class, or order, as Lord GREY
expressed it, at all hazards and at whatever ex-
pense to others. They do but act, in following
that principle, as all aristocracies, and as all
classes of men, have ever acted. They have
laboured and struggled for ages to keep down
the democracy by laws. They regard the de-
mocracy, they speak of the democracy, as canaille,
as unworthy beings, as destined to be the ser-
vants and the slaves of the aristocracy. All
their laws, from the law which requires
a landed property qualification to sit in Parlia-
ment, to the law which reserves for the land-
owners' exclusive use certain classes of wild ani-
mals, and which punishes the peasant more
severely for snaring a hare than a rich man for
perjury, distinctly prove that the landed gentry,
in making laws to keep down the democracy,
never have paid the least regard to the principles
of morality. Now the manufacturing towns are
the seats of democracy; they contain a new popu-
lation, which has thrown off the yoke of the land-
ed aristocracy'; and to imagine that the aristo-
cracy would stop short of any crime which they
can perpetrate by law to keep down the demo-
cracy, is to run counter to the whole tide of expe-
rience. Mr. EDWARD BAINES, jun., may rest
assured that no more injustice is done to the
landowners, when they are accused of delibe-
rately desiring to keep down the growth of the
town population, than has been done to them
since the history of Europe commenced.
If they have no such design, they must never-
less be responsible for the effects produced. They
knew when they made the law that such
would be the effects, or they did not. If they
knew, the charge is substantiated—if they did
not, how dare they inflict, from their rude igno-
rance, such a mass of misery on the nation ? In a
legislator meddling with what he cannot com-
prehend, ignorance is the greatest of all crimes,
for it involves them all. What is it to the people
whether the wretched ignorance of the Earl of
RIPON and the Duke of WELLINGTON, or a de-
liberate design to keep the aristocracy at the top of
the tree at the expense of the democracy, were the
cause of the Corn-law ? Their great sufferings,
their deep distress, their almost unbearable po-
verty, their great mortality, are the same, whe-
ther the landowners acted from ignorance or
design. We repeat, then, in conclusion, that
Npveartihiannt
inkte,Na vrityh Mr. MARSHALL and the Leeds
landowners Reform Association, that the
the democracy designed,rn atnod s
tnthoNmy
ids
seisoi
ng design,
osbtaeldwie-
ence ; and, acting on that design, they have for-
bidden all Parliamentary inquiry into the Corn-
laws. They have either turned a deaf ear to the
complaints of the people, or have asserted that
there was no cause for them. We believe them
to be guilty the more firmly, because the land.
owners persist in continuing the murderous law
long after it has been proved to have most mur-
derous effects.

The Spectator defends the PEEL bribery at
Tamworth by unjustly accusing the Whigs.r Our
ou
otht
readers will remember that the charge brought
against the PEELS was that they established and
maintained a school at Tamworth in which chil-
dren are gratuitously instructed, fed, and clothed
as long as a PEEL shall represent the borough.
Coupling that condition with the school, not
establishing the school, we call bribery. The
Spectator says the Whigs tried this trick (that
is, this sort of bribery) wholesale, with 30,0001.
for national education; but the Whigs, in pro-
posing to allot 30,0001. for that purpose, made no
stipulation that the grant was to be withheld
should they be turned out of office. The Spec-
tator, from its present great desire to defend Sir
Re PEEL,dilueenati does a gross injustice to the Whigs,
w
mo
tiptater etsri theirtrick
p r a
cconduct
by inth
ep promoting
education it
compares
Tamworth.

The Spectator had before it the evidence that