The Sun.
London, England, 1841-10-28 00:00:00

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LONDON:
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 28, 1841.

W.e took up a pamphlet, recently published
by It: IDGWAY, entitled, " The Sliding Scale, or
a Fi 1c.2.d Duty," by the Rev. CHRISTOPHER NF,
VILE, expecting and hoping to see the Chris-
tian ...spirit predominate in a work written by a
mini s ter of the Church. We remembered how
muc- hi has been said about the clergy having lent
their, aid to support an enactment which swells
their income, at the expense of the health, mora-
lity, a ad lives of the people. We know, from the
mee; d ngs at Norwich and other places, how un-
pop! dar they have made themselves by their
prac e.cal disregard of the principles which they
incu4l,7.at! on othero, and we expected, at least, to
find i n the Reverend Gentleman's pamphlet sonic
atte! r pt to explain or justify the conduct of the
eler br. We have been much disappointed. The:
pamp Idet is confined exclusively to a narrow
pounils, shillings, and pence view of the Corn-
law, and never by any chance diverges into
the .:high moral and universal considerations
whici I are connected with the abolition of that
suici C:al restriction on the trade, civilization, and
well•=,being of mankind.

T; 2.e objects of the Rev. Mr. NEVILE'S pam-
phlet are to show, first, that, for nearly 200
years, the landowners, in whose hands the legisla •
tive power has been placed, have acted on
the principle of impeding the importation
of clam, and of levying, as at present, a tax oil
the p -2ople's provisions to fill their own pockets.
Two hundred years' prescription hallows this
system to the mind of the Rev. Gentleman, and
converts wrong into right. He deprecates a
change to free trade in corn, not because it
would be a departure from justice, not because
it would inflict a serious injury on the toiling
milli ons, but because "it would seriously affect an
enormous amount of capital" "invested in the soil
unde r the system of protecting duties." Becaus,.:
the landowners have plundered us for 200 years
and :more, they are to be allowed, according to
the I reverend Gentleman, to plunder us for ever.
Such is the morality taught by the Reverend
CHRISTOPHER NEVILE.

Secondly, the Reverend Gentleman criticises
the contradictory arguments of some Anti-Corn-
law writers and speakers, and goes at consider-
able length into prices, rent, cultivated and uu-
culti'vatedland, &c. &c., with a view of showing
that -those who propose the repeal are as ignorant
what will be its effects as those who made the
law -thirteen years ago were of its wesent conse_
quences. The Reverend Gentleman proves,
at least, that l►e knows no more than
othrs, for he supposes that " a reduction of
rent of '2O per cent. would actually stop the cir-
culation of no less a sum than 9,400,0001." He
impties, therefore, that the extortion of the
landlords creates a sum of wealth equal to their
increased rent. But they only extort, they do
not create wealth; and the sum which the aboli-
tion of the Corn-law would keep from the land-
lords would be circulated by the body of the
consaimers. It is an idle dream to suppose that
the abolition of the Corn-laws would lessen the
national resources; and if it increased them, as
we believe it would, there would be more, not
less, circulation than at present ?
The Rev. Gentleman, in the third place, de-
fends the sliding scale as better than a fixed
duty. We will allow him, undisturbed, to con-
tinue that contest with the advocates of a fixed
duty. We must, however, mention that he pro-
poses a modification of the sliding scale, and
another system of taking the averages. " When
wheat was at 705.," he says, " foreign wheat
was to be admitted duty free; when it was 695.
the duty to be ls., and so on increasing a shilling
as our prices decreased to 515., and there
to stop. The duty would then be 205., at
which duty wheat would be imported
under any depression of price at home." The
averages, the Reverend Gentleman pro-
poses, should be made up by returns taken
from the grower, and the buyer from the grower,
only. The same sample of wheat could never
be returned twice over, and these two parties
would be a mutual check on each other." With
such details, with the bearing of poor-rates and
the value of tithes, the Rev. Gentleman appears
to be intimately acquainted; but his pamphlet
does not contain one word of the influence of
that law he discusses on the welfare of the mil-
lions. He seems ignorant that both sliding scale
and fixed duty are as murderous as war or pesti-
lence. He looks at the subject only as it may
affect the wealth of a few thousand land and
tithe owners, and the rest of the community is
as much forgotten as if these few thousands con-
stituted the whole of society.
The pamphlet is nevertheless valuable, not for
its statistics, for they appear to be erroneous—
not for its political economy, for that is shallow
and preposterous—not for its recommendations,
for they are consistent neither with the stern
principles of justice, nor the expediency of com-
promise; but for the insight it indirectly affords
us, at this critical and agitating tune, into
the mind of the ruling classes. It is there
plainly and legibly printed, from beginning to
end, in every page, in every paragraph, in every
sentence, that all they think of; all they care
for, in matters of legislation, all they have
thought or cared for during the last '2OO years,
has been how to enrich the aristocracy, and how
to maintain the wealth of the priesthood. If,
perchance,' the national welfare coincided with
that, as for a large portion of the 200 years when
England was a grain exporting country it might,
no great harm accrued from embodying their
selfishness into laws; but when they do not co-
incide, as they have not coincided of late, the
aristocracy and the prieshood give effect to their
own selfishness, and secure their own ascen-
dancy at the expense of the rest of the community.
The thing is natural enough, and easily ex-
plicable. Every man and every class prefer.
himself or itself to others. The priesthood and
the aristocracy deem themselves, not the sculp-
tured outside ornaments, but the foundations and
solid frame-work of society. But for them the
whole community of mankind, the division of
the sexes, their union by marriage, the birth of
families, the increase of population, the divi-
sion of labour, the invention of arts, the
progress of science, the extension of trade
-Ti political contrivances,

/would not
Xis an t sere wool o e an aggrega-
tion individuals, and no society without their
car , skill, and guardianship. Having such a
high opinion of their functions, in which they
are too often countenanced by other men,
their selfish - aggrandisement by legislation
appears to them synonymous with the welfare
of the whole; and they practically conclude, if
rents increase, and tithes become more valuable,
that society prospers, and civilization advances.
That they embody their own selfishness into