The Sun.
London, England, 1841-06-22 00:00:00

EVENING EDITION.

TOTAL REPEAL.
We have on more than one occasion e:zpres.
Our strong conviction that a duty on wheat of Ss.
a quarter is preposterously -high. The compari-
son we have Imre than once:drawn between the

amount of duty actuary paid under the
law and the • proposed rate would sna:tia
ciently jostify us in this opinion. But kl'e
are not disposed to leave unanswered the
very natural question—if Ss. a quarter be
too high a protection, what amount of duty cant
be considered adequate and .proper? To this
question we reply frankly. If it can be proved
necessary to lay.a small -tux upon corn, for pur-
poses of revenue, let that tax be imposed ; but
for purposes of protection not one farthing should
be imposed, unless it be to render the total
• repeal safer, - by makiiig it a gradual process.
Any tax imposed for protection tve consider
grossly and flagitiously unjust..
From the very existence of our modern so-
ciety, the land has been subjected to certain pe-
culiar burdens or charges, stbic.h, instead of hay-
ing augmented in proportion to the auginenthoe
wealth of society, have been gradually diminisla-
ing and being mac W less by the criminal inee-
nuity of the landed legislator, who has contrit'ad
fraudulently to shift upon the pour and needy,
by every variety of device, the burdens which of
cid were borne by the, class to which he belongs.
We need not run.. ver all 'these particulars,
more especially as we haven-ery recently made
an enumeration of these cunning practices, Ashen
we showed 'how • large a proportion of the na-
tional revenue was now raised from the poor in
the shape of duties upon the necessaries of life,
in place of the old direct taxes, and burdens
which fell almost alone upon property. Poor-
rates, countyarateso and tithes, have, in some
shape or other, been charges upon the land
long before the Norman 'Conquest. What the
reformed landlords of this Protestant country
have been doing ever since the Reformt.tion is,
to shift these burdens from the land, where theY
were unfelt • (eicept •.by a baleful cupitiltot
which has never gnova weary in plundering the.
patrimony Of • the poor), and' to supply the old
forms of revenue by new and burdensome expe-
dients, which arc now eating into the Owls: of
society; impoverishieg all classes; placing; all
classes in hostility to each other ; and, by a just
and stern.. retribntkm, arrayed in a phalanx,
which becomes every clay more numerous and
better disciplinedethapoor whom the rich have
pillaged, neglected, and trampled under foot,
against the men who ought to have been their
guardians and protectors, but have been, by their
selfishness and cupidity, the authors and nourish-
ers of their crimes.
We sayethen- that the land, that is, the land-
lord, groans tinder no heaVy taxation for which
he is entitled to take credit in theoarrangement
our fiscal system., On the contrary, having
created the preseht fiScal system himself, the
landlord has so contrived it as • to shift, by
every possible contrivance, his own thne-esta-
Wished and; therefore, tinfelt burdens, upon the
shoulders of all otherclasses in the State.
But, supposing there were, peculiar burdens
which, by the • help of • a political algebra that
works out its calculations by unknown quantifies,
could betestimated 58. a- quarter—what then?
No one, ilte suppose; will have the hardihood
to pretend'that these peculiar burdens of tithes,
county-rate, and poor-rate did not exist in 1273.
Now, throughotiathe whole of the last century,
up to the date we htive just named (which may
be taken,as an era in the history of the cond
trade, as it is in the history of the laws affecting
that trade), this country habitually exported a
surplus -produce of. corn. It is true that a
bounty of five shillings a quarter was paid upon
the exphrtatiott .of wheat, when the price fell
below a certain' point; but, as the bounty
could not`quite cover --the- expenses of exporta-
tion, it is clear that the price of wheatin England
must have been generally cheaper than it was in the
surrounding markets to which it was exported
S; -cc that time what a change has taken pleeo.
En lair is now ed
hahitually an importing, inste
tin coontry. Supposing that;
of an e'a-phe
Year- also, our markets we r,:
Seventy or eighty.
only on a eery with - th
e
only Continent th,
,
• that the protectitto
are noW; so nil:el dearer, htnenses on impor-
afforded -to the landlord, by
e oar is con-
ectter,
of his
u
teflon to the tune of 10s. or Ete. a ilt
sidered a ruinous and wicked neg,
interests.
provit2ed
See, then, how bountifully nature has
without the help of artificial duties, to save tlies6
unfortunate landlords from the weight of burdens
which they have borne for centuries, and whicfif:
they have contrived •to diminish by degrees.
Mother. Nature has, in these ith'ter days, created
a barrier of Ns. or l2s. a quarter fol. thcirespcciai
defence' and protection. The rapid b..crease of
populatioaltas given them an advantage g-yeater
than the burden is even pretended to be. A-'l4
now, while this enormous advantage iasecuaed
them by the operation of physical causes, ilkC:"
and their advocates have the presumption to as-,
sert that they , will be treated unjustly unless a
further protection of as. a quarter is given them ;
thus creating an effective protection of Ids. or
17s. to counterbalance a burden which in 'reality-
does not exist, bat whieb, by those who think
they perceive ita existence, is admitted to be less
than ss.
It is difiictt to
.express with sufficient em-
phasis our indignation at the atrocious iniquity
of these pro-landlord proposals.. Within the
last seventy years, the nations of the Cuntinent
have''been exposed, for above tive.ea.nd-t.henty
years, to all the horrors of war raging in theirconfines, and carried by a most relentlss foe to
their own hearths and altars. They have
been plundered, wasted, ravaged, by the
fellest instruments, of devastation. TV have
been enjoying the advantages of' internal
tranquillity, while others have been suti'ering to
the extremity of human endurance. But
in spite of all this contrast, theprice of the prime
necessary of life,- instead of being cheaper in Eng-
land than on the Continent, as it then was, has
now become dearer. The most favoured country
hassukained the greatest loss; and with all our
wonderful improVements in tillage, we have only
contrived to *changeoplaces with those who have
been exposed' to .every possible disadvantage
from which we have been free. By this
comparative increase of price, the landlords
have received an enormous protection, greater
than they ever thought of asking for hetbre.
seeing the prospect of a greater gain, even
this does not content them : for, having been
once fleshed in plunder in the days of the fatal
apostacy, their order has lost none of its keen
rapacity in the interval which has since elapsed.
Nothing will now content them but the absolute
power of cooping up a population which is increas-
ing with unexampled rapidity within the limits
of an island. whose powers of production they
have already outgroWn. Miserable, shorts
sighted men! When will they learn that ava-
rice and fraud are impolitic, as well as rialteo. `Y.
—that injustice carries its own vengeance 01. .:e
with it''—that extortion and hardness of I,• :t;
will meet with their allotted punishineli"
that those who have robbed the poor,
are resolved to perpetuate the robbery,
receive, at The hands of the poor, a fearful and
mendtius recompence? Once more, we tell this coot
and icy aristocracy of Protestant England,
the curse .ot' the Reformation is upon, them.
Their ancestors dug- a pit beneath their feet
when they confiseated the abbey lands.) and
changed the condition of the poor, by converting
poverty, which once had been honoured as a holy
.
state, into -a crime, to be punished by the niisou,
and. the Stocks, and the lash. Let them beware
lest the fabric of their power, now tremg
with its hollow foundation, fall down into ablin hor-
rible destruction.'
are likely to pur-
sue. The Corn-laws w
in. a great system • ity. The conduct of the
of iniquity. e consider as but one point
ws regard chiefly as
oristocracy upon those ot v
symptoma Ba ‘o, tread once more in
repentance the steps their fathers have trodden
in sin, Or the days of their order are numbered.
They must once more learn the lesson of ruling
the poor by love,or the poor will one
rtdhethce°,ll,,rgutbhey
day—
sooner, perhaps, than any of us imagine—learn
the lesson of ruling them by vengeance.—Tablet.

AAI ERICAN .
VERY LIKE A
NyrizAL&-.,-IVe. take from the Buffalo cionnnercial Ad-
v.:His& the. following letter, dated :Tonawanda, May 24,
frdin aTiNeatov.gemtleman to a "Brother Bob" in this
city, describing an amusing manner Of taking the
finny tribe, presuming the process may be new t.',
nutny of our readers :—" I have just returned froth
rare fishing sport—catching bass in a canoe. You
know I have had 'the impudence, when inquiredof, to
say that. black bass were so plentiful here, that they
would voluntarily jump into a canoe when row id
=or paddled near the shore. Though I have en-
joyed ' this 'singular amusement every - 4;pring, for
ten 'years, the fact, is so ineredibk— s== Dig
fish. story—that I have avoided telling it Itl7enevr
could. it you doubt, you have an opi.yrtunity of
tesiing its truth :by coming here ; and you m,y bring a
dozen-wituess'es .at my expense, unless I. prove to your
entire satisfaction that what I here state is literally true
-;--that you May catch a good string of the best fish (bass
and spotted pike) without any fraud upon them what-
ever, either. by cheating them with a covered
,lioak or
'otherwise, but by their own voluntary- act.:. For several
evening 6 we have caught from ten to thirty of -an oven-
cslogti;
lug, by simply 'paddling our canoe within about fifteen
rods
g I 1 j-
startle eb :ape lnkte.s ,
feet from the shore, ab-oat thirty
'cao nneoem, owmhenute, j,outmh
eprlisn
an agreeable
. and exciting arauseraent to see ten. or twelve
enastisrelnlyth=rtha;.
gioaly with a rap aside of the head. C
omo • and see for
yourself."