The Sun.
London, England, 1840-12-16 00:00:00

Zin gun.

LONDON:
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1840.

The Times observed, very properly, yesterday,
that " where downright oppression exists, without
justice religion appears a mockery to the poor."
" It would be wicked," it added, " at any time,
but is sheer madness in these days of Chartism and
Socialism, for anv man to think that he can with
impunity suck from the toils of a large population a
monstrous heap of wealth--,-and enjoy that wealth in
peace and security, while he leaves those whose
labours have accumulated it, in utter ignorance of
their own obligations, though not in quite such
utter ignorance as iron-masters and mill-owners
might wish, of their own power." We rejoice
again to see such language in the Times ;
but which should not be applied exclu-
sively to iron-masters and mill-owners. There
are other persons to whom it is more ap-
plicable. Our Contemporary quotes a passage
from a sermon of the Bishop of LLANDAFF, in
which that ecclesiastic makes it a special reproach
to the iron-masters, " that myriads have been
collected and settled within the compass of a few
years, in the neighbourhood of Merthyr Tydvil,
for the benefit of individuals who derive enormous
wealth from their labour." This ecclesiastic and
the Time-s, as the organ of the priests and the land-
lords, condemn the iron-masters and the mill-
owners for not having provided the people, who
hare contributed to their wealth, with churches and
chapels. Something may be said in favour of the
iron-masters and the mill-owners which cannot be
said in favour of the endowed clergy and the land-
' owners, and that something we shall endeavour
to say.

The iron-masters and the mill-owners do not
make the laws. The Bishops and the landlords
are the law makers, and for all the evils
which the laws cause or neglect to cure, the
iron-masters and mill-owners are not respon-
sible. Now the Bishops and the landlords
pass and maintain, not one, but many laws, and
notably the Corn-law, which, by restricting compe-
tition for labour—by lessening the quantity of food
offered to the labourer in return for his work, and
by subjecting him to a host of onerous restrictions
which the capitalist escapes from, degrade and
debase the labourer. For the general degradation
and poverty of the labouring classes, which place
them at the mercy of mill-owners, the Legislature,
-not the iron-masters, are to blame.

The Bishop says that " myriads have been col-
lected within a few years in those spots." Where
did the myriads come from ? They were drafted
from the possessions of the landowners and of the
Church, and have been carefully provided for, well
and well paid, and work found for them, and
nursed into a large and prosperous commu-
nity by the despised mill-owners and iron•masters.
Their plans, their ingenuity, their inventions, esta-
blished or extended a novel species of industry in
Wales, and, but for them, that great community
would have had no existence whatever. Can the
Bishops, one of whom launches a sneer against the
manufacturers, or can the receivers of rent, say they
have ever done so much for the public welfare ?
We have it admitted by the Times that in this
new community " wages are good, and that moral
and religious culture is almost the only thing which
is deficient." The iron-masters, therefore, pay
their men well—can that be said of the landowners,
including the Bishops ? From nine to twelve shil-
lings a week is the utmost their half-starved
labourers receive. If we take Ireland as the ex-
ample, there the lumber-fed labourers, who till the
soil for the landlords and the endowed priests, get
about half the wages of the serfs in England.
Many of the Irish have, we believe, found employ-
ment at Merthyr Tydvil and its neighbourhood,
and have preferred the rewards of the iron-mas-
ters, though wanting religious culture, to the
stavation of the landlords with it. In
fact, the mines and furnaces of Tydvil have been
in part supplied with labourers from the agricul-
tural districts ; and that the people leave the latter
for the former, is an unanswerable proof that there
the wages are higher. If men could get more by
workuig on the Bis.!:ops' lands, they would crowd
thither, instead of crowding to Merthyr Tydvil.

`'But there is no moral or ieligious culture."
Who says so ? A
priest ur two, who are despised
as workers of iniquity, who have made the people
irreligious by practising scandalous injustice in the
name of religion. The people of Merthyr Tydvil
may nut be priest-ridden ; nobody will believe that
their moral and religious culture does not surpass
that of the followers whom mad THONI found
within the shadow of Canterbury Cathedral,
acid living destitute of church or chapel, school
or book, on the lands of the Chapter of
Canterbury. Talk of " sucking wealth from the
toils of a large population," and negleeting their
culture i—can there be any more monstrous example