The Sun.
London, England, 1841-10-27 00:00:00

considerable number of persons who can barely
subsist, every such rise in prices either di- I
minishes the increase of population, or actually
extinguishes a portion of that which is in exist-
ence. In very high-priced years a complete
check is given to the progress of population, and
it is even starved below the level of the preceding
years. In such years, too, all kinds of substi-
tutes are had recourse to for the high-priced ag-
ricultural produce, so that the grower never gets '
a complete remuneration or an additional price
for the shortness of his crops. Dear years, from
deficient harvests, are notoriously not advanta-
geous to the farmer.
But after a short supply, continued during
two or three years, has stinted or starved down
the population to its own level, and after the
high prices of such years had led to extended
cultivation, there come two or three favourable
years. Although the existing population will
extend its consumption to the extent of its means
of purchase, neither those means nor the amount
of population can be raised at once to the level
of the increased and bounteous supply. The far-
mers cannot hold their produce in their own
hands ; they must sell it to continue their
cultivation and pay the demands on them.
Neither can their produce be preserved for any
length of time without waste and expense. In
fertile years, therefore, prices fall in proportion
below the increased supply, and below the proper
price which the farmer should obtain for his in-
creased crop, and he is ruined, as in 1834 and 1835.
There are natural effects; how does the Corn-
law interfere with them? The object and effect
of that law is to raise prices above the level of all
other countries; the consequence is, that in
scarce years a greater importation, above the
average, takes place than would otherwise be
obtained, and in plentiful years, no exportation
can take place to clear the glutted markets.
From both the farmers suffer; they do not get as
high a price as they ought to get in dear years,
and they get a much lower price than they ought
to get in plentiful years. Those laws aggravate
to the farmers all the evils which arise from the
variations of the seasons. But for the Corn-
laws, the consumption of our own popu-
lation would probably exceed the home sup-
ply, and then the only consequence of plen-
tiful years to the home-growers would be that
their increased produce would displace foreign
produce ; while in barren years there would be
no sudden increase in the supply from abroad to
deprive them of a fair remuneration.
With a free trade in corn, prices here would
ba nearly on a level with the average prices of
all the countries from which we should draw our
supplies; consequently, in scarce years, the in-
creased quantity above the usual supplies we
could command would not be so much as now
flows in, and in plentiful years far less would
come, or our own corn might even go abroad.
A comparative steadiness of price would be the
result ; the farmers would have a sure and cer-
tain rule to guide their operations by, farming
would no longer be a gambling speculation, and
if a few persons did not make great fortunes the
bulk of them would be comfortable, happy, and
opulent. We agree with the Herald—
Steadiness in the price of food is as desirable for the
agriculturists as it is for the consumers, manufacturers,
and the traders ; but it must be a steadiness of moderate
and not of high prices. We believe ourselves to be the
best friends of the landed interest, in at once and boldly
stating that prices cannot be maintained, that rents
ought not to be regulated by them, and that when they
do fall, if landlords do not so reduce rents as to prevent
land being thrown out of cultivation, as we have shown
has hitherto been the effect of low prices, no Corn-law
can be long maintained.

But steadiness of price, and moderate price,
can only result from a perfectly free trade in
food, and, therefore, we regard ourselves as the
best friends of the farmers when we advocate the
total abolition of the Corn and Provision-laws.

We should not have thought it necessary to
advert to Sir R. PEEL'S and Sir J. GRAHAM'S
subscriptions to the funds for relieving the dis-
tressed people of Paisley, had the Tory morning
journals not puffed off their contributions as Con-
servative merit, and drawn invidious comparisons
I reflecting on the Liberals. We pay no homage
to that charity which " which marks the marble
with its name ;" but, in the case of these states-
men, there is something more reprehensible
than building a church to Fame instead of GOD.
They are less inspired by a generous love of their
kind, or a desire to deserve and possess the
heartfelt approbation of their fellow-creatures,
which is the best sort of fame, than by a fear of
punishment. Like Sir BALA AM, they know they
have done, and are doing, wrong; and they
give a few pounds, as he went twice to church, to
atone for their criminality towards the people.
Both are great landowners, and both support a
law which swells their own rent-roll by taking
away the bread of the poor Paisley weavers,
amongst others, to the extent of one or two thou-
sand pounds per annum. To appease their own
conscience they give back to those weavers the
miserable pittance, being some hundredth part
of their extortions by law, of 50/. or 25/.
They filch a diamond from the people, and
fancy they can reconcile themselves to GOD by
going twice to church. Poor and wretched
superstition, which the DEITY cannot see with
approbation, nor the people respect. They are
no longer to be bribed by returning them a
small portion of their own, and calling it charity.
They demand justice, and it would be more be-
coming in these statesmen had they issued an
Order of Council to admit corn, flour, and bread,
duty free--that is, without paying a tax to
them—by which the Paisley men would have
been instantly both employed and fed, than by
sending their paltry mite to a public subscrip-
tion to make a crack paragraph for their party
journals.

Some of the Anti-Free-trade Journals wish to
generate an alarm for our maritime superiority,
should we abolish our restrictive laws on trade.
Foreign vessels, they say, would then carry on
our trade, our seamen and ships would perish,
and the security of Britain and her maritime
superiority would come to an end together. If
we could be amused by a glaring inconsistency
concerning a policy which affects the happiness
of millions, we should laugh at the Tories—whose
perseverance in maintaining in theory the scan-
dalous system of impressment, after peace has for
many years practically extinguished it, never to
be revived, has banished our seamen by thousands
from the service of their country--now pretending
to be alarmed for our maritime superiority by the
abolition of a kindred injustice to that !of im-
pressment. The Tories, however, must be ig-
norant of the sources of our maritime supe-
riority—which, fortunately for the nation, does
not depend on their wisdom—or they would never
dream of attempting to maintain restrictions on
trade under
weaken or detshe troyproeuterxntavtahlagt
rferaeten
etsrsa.d e would
A map of theempire worldhas
a tells us at a glance that
no great
the
islands of Great Britainseaandbolarredlanedqualouto
Our
po-
pulation is comparative) more
y maritime than
any other people, b the y fact of their living
on the borders of the sea.
Our colonial pos-
-1 sessions, our vast foreign
and coasting trade,
the nurseries of our seamen, are the
growth and consequences
of our empire
being surrounded by the sea, a source of mari-
time superiority to which all
the other contri-
buting sources are as our driblets of • rivers to the
mighty ocean. A cruel Policy, making sea-
going, which is naturally a glad and cheerful
occupation, more hated or dreaded than trans-
portation, or a suicidal and wilful extinction of
trade between this country and other countries,
may endanger • that superiority, but nothing
else, we believe, can ; and if the land-
lords will only allow the population to'
extend our trade, and increase the num-
ber of seamen as much as possible, they may
be sure that Great Britain will retain her pre-
eminence at sea as long as her configuration re-
mains unaltered. _ _

Some countenance is given to the supposition
of the Tories, by a recent increase in foreign
shipping ; but what does that arise from ? It
was given in evidence before the Import Duties