The Sun.
London, England, 1841-10-25 00:00:00

ett

LONDON:
MONDAY, OCTOBER 25, 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
4. 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 Mr. EDWARD deputa-
tion, BAINES, jun., has stepped
forward to deny that the words of Sir JAMES
GRAHAM left any such impression on him, and
in justice to Sir JAMES—for we like to 4j, ice
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 Air. E.
B AINES, jun. Here they are :
The part of thecoi2vasmrseasti,9 alludedtotoarose out of a
remark made by Sir
,J....,
would
maize _ the effect that a
.1 f the C"'"' the nation depen-
repew- 41 r countries for the supply of its necessary
dent upon other
hhe thought would ha highly dangerous. To
food, which --6.
this it was replied, that England was already in a great
measure dependent upon
~o.tthser countries, and especially
largest_ manufactures. It
for the raw
United States for its cotton, on Ger-
many of
depended upon the
Italy for its silk, and on Russia
many for its
The number of persons employed.
wool, on
in the
for its flax. .
cotton manufacture. .
d I don't envy your
in Britain was then mentioned, on
d that he thought we ought not to
which Sir James rejoined—" Yes, an
position." He ad ed
increase our dependence on foreign countries. The con-
versation being prolonged, the gentlemen forming the
deputation endeavoured to show that this mutual de-
pendence of nations upon each other was essential to the
very existence of foreign commerce, and that it involved
no real danger, for that it would b
England from receiving any supplieseimpossibie to prevent
of
corn which she
might want and could pay for,
especially
if she were a
regular customer of the corn-growing 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 sulies of food, was also dwelt
upon; and it was added bygone of the deputation, that if
tthosesupplies were denied, the copulation would have
ttl "eA kept down by starvation ; in which case it was to
ueahm that not the children of the
die, but that-the rich should set the example by drown-
poor only should
in; their own children in china basins ! Much more
conversation took
lace
`Sir James Graham taking no
dvery active part, but listeninc, to the statements of the
eputation, and now and then throwing in an objection
or pointing out
garihtapiroanren_t inconsistency. _ 0_ n their de-
parture, the Ri
sider this at all Baronet said, " I do not con-
a question opolficr,Tt—l took upon it as a
high question of national
Nothing. was said by Sir ja.mes Graham, so far
like
as
Mr. E. Baines's recollection serves that even looked i
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. ED-
WARD BAINES, jun., aaseTts it, that the land-
owners are, therefore, 'wrongly charged with
entertaining a detiberatelesiglyof reducing the
number and influence of :.thi- manufacturing

r,

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 laudownerain 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 aCourt of Law, the plea that it is impossible
t') 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 fur 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-

ess be responsible for the effects produced. They

knfw 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
we think, with Mr. MARSHALL and the Leeds
Parliamentary Reform Association, that the
landowners designed, and now design, to starve
the democracy down to submission and obedi-
ence; and, acting on that design, they have for-
bidden all Parliamentary inquiry into the Corn-
laws. They have either turned a deaf car 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. Our
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.
C°llPliiig that condition with the school, Ad
establishing the school, we call bribery. The
Spectator
rattt- Yosf(that
tbiribli%er-3,h-)igwshtorileesdaltel,liswittlriick
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-
tat O, from its present great desire to defend Sir
J, PEEL, does a gross injustice to
when it compares their Conduct
in
the Whigs,
n promoting
education to the trick practised
by the PEELS at
Tamworth.
The Spectator had before it the • evidence that
this gratuitous instruction of the PEELS has
made to serve a political purpose. One boy been
taken to task fbr signing a memorialwas
displeasing
to Sir ROBERT, and it is acknowledged by Sir
ROBERT'S advocates that several dismiss:els from
the school have ensued from that memorial. it
bad been stated, too, that some of the electors
had felt themselves aggrieved and ashamed by
the use made of the school to influence their
votes ; yet,
in spite of these bad effects of the
PEEL bribery, the ,Spectator advocates it, and
expresses a wish that such bribery should be
tried more extensively. It would have education
• s livings are given to
given to the people, a
hat they entertain one se-
priests, on condition t
ries of opinions. A scheme better calculated to
substitute falsehood for truth cannot be con-
ceived; and if the Whigs had, as the Spectator
implies, acted on that principle, they would have
deserved general execration.
Our Contemporary seems to have grown lax
in his stern morality, as he has become a Pcelite
in order to adapt himself to his new principles.
Besides sneering. at our chitrac teridinn. the scheme
of the PEELS •
as bribery; he undertook to show,