The Sun.
London, England, 1841-05-31 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, MONDAY, MAY. 31, 1841.

POVERTY AGAINST PROPERTY.

There is but one ground upon which the power and
peculiar privileges of the rich can be justified against
the complaints of the suffering poor, and that is, their
utility. That the)' spring naturally from the heart of
society, and that they tend to promote its well-beings-7
it is upon these two conditions that the prerogatives of
an hereditsry aristocracy are alone capable of being de-
t'ended. An hereditary aristocracy in the United States
would be a monster of abSurdity. It could only exist
there as an iwi ation of foreign institutions, forcibly and
pe,lantically iraposed upon the people ; and, as they are
at present situated, it would in all possible ways work
them evil.
The English aristocracy still exists amongst us. Many
of the suckers, it is true, by which in old times it drew life
and nourishment from the entire community, are hacked
arithhangled ; Many of them are severed outright. But it
still exists, though in a very questionable position. Vehe-
mently supported on the one side, more vehemently op-
posed, and more desperately hated on the other, than many
persons are willing to believe, it has no particle of life
to throw away ; no element of vital strength .can it
sffifrd to squander or destroy. Like all other aristocra-
sies, it stands, and-can only stand, in the long run, upon
its utility, upon its conformity to the inward spirit by
which society is permanently possessed, and upon the
addition which it contributes to the permanent well-
being of the people.
In all sorts of pecuniary ways, a richly-end Owed
landed aristocracy • may be a curse instead of a blessing
to the people among whom it exists. It is quite certain
that in France the generation of poor men which has
followed the melting away of the old families, their titles
and estates, in the revolutionary crucible of the last cen-.
tury, has been far better off as to the mere outward
comforts of life than the -poor toilworn and famished
wretches by 'whoni they were preceded. It is quite cer-
tain that in France the breaking up of the old lauded
monopoly, and the subdivision of property, have added
very materially to the physical comforts of every two
Men out of three in the kingdom. This social revolution
may have been productive of evil in other respects ; but
in this respect it has, after much suffering, produced
good.
How this should be it is not veiy difficult to under-
stand. The accumulation of 'wealth, in any shape, in
the hands of one individual, confers upon him an im-
mense power over all around him. . Accumulation is not
a mere question of political economy ; it is a question of
politics ; a, question of social philosophy. If you decide
to encourage the accumulation of wealth, whether landed
or commercial wealth, in a feW hands, you decide prac-
tically to vest the powers of society in the hands of a few
also. The possession of great comparative wealth, espe-
cially where there are many poor, involves the posses-
sion of great social influence ; and social influence
speedily becomes, under some form or other, political
power.
Now, by what considerations can any. wise man be
justified in recommending this accumulation of wealth,
influence, and power ? By considerations of political
economy ? By any hope that by virtue of the princi-
ples of pecuniary competition. supply and demand, and
mammon logic, society will be made happier by means
of one man being 'made very rich aad thousands being
left very poor ? By no means. Upon these prin-
ciples, it is clear that the arrangement is an un-
mitigated evil. Preponderating and overwhelming
wealth enables a, man to disturb fair competition ; to
beat down the poor.and the needy; to command the mar-
kets, whether of labour or commodities ; and generally
to place those of less wealth on an unequal footing with
him as far as regards the business of money-makinff. .
Great wealth is great power. Great power may be used
either for good or for evil. If a landed proprietor wields
his great powers according to the principles of supply
and demand—that is, for his own exclusive pecuniary
benefit, he wields them like a tyrant, and the whole in-
stitution becomes a nuisance and a curse.
The wealth, then, of the man of rank is given him for
other purposes than to enable him to live in splendour
and luxury. It is given him to be employed for the
poor, and-not against them. It is given him as wages for
labour to be done, as truly as the scanty earnings of the
artisan. It is given him to make him the protector of
the needy ; the guide into moral and physical well-being
of the ignorant end debased ; the adviser and instructor
of those over whom he is placed in authority. •it is
given him to enable him to practise self-denial ; to ac-
custom him to neglect his own pecuniary gain in zeal for
supplying the greater necessities of others ; to induce
him to set a bright example of every virtue ; to make
him watch and think for the good of society, while the
poor work and toil for it ; to hire him to be the servant
of society, as the only honest means of becoming its
lord and master. We say again, that unless. the owners
of property—landed and manufacturing—use their pro-
perty in this spirit, the encouragements to its accumula-
tion, which exist in this country, have become a nuisance
and a curse. Let " the respectable classes" look to it
narrowly ; for that which is accursed they may be as-
sured is " nigh unto burning."
To us, we confess, this is a melancholy subject, be-
cause, wherever we turn our eyes, we seem to ourselves
to see too abundant evidence of the shameful neglect or
positive violation of these duties, and 'consequently of a
most fearful insecurity to the tenure upon which rank
and wealth are at this day held. . These symptoms are
to be traced on every side. Take the very subject
upon which the entire country is now agitated—the
case of taxation. - See how for the laSt three centuries,
there has been a current flowing uniformly in one
direction, drifting down the patrimony of the poor into.
the garner of the wealthy. We speak not of the amount
of taxation, for the riches of the nation have perhaps in-
creased more rapidly than its burdens ; but we speak of
the manner in which those burdens are distributed.
Look back to the times in which the main portion of ths
regal expenses were borne by the Royal patrimony ; in
which other public burdens were supported out of fines,
fees, and forfeitures imposed im the estates of the great,
nobles and feudatories of the Crown ;- in ,which military
services were borne in kind by persons of property, as a
condition of their tenure ; in which supplies were. voted
by the Commons.at wide intervals of time, and were not
required except on special occasions and for extraordi-
nary purposes ; in which taxes—tenths and fifteenths—
were a direct impost (like the assessed taxes) upon
property, real or personal, and the exceptions of
one suit of clothes for the husband and one for
the wife, one bed, &c." exempted from direct taxa-
tion all the poorest of the people ; in which customs and
exercise were—not indeed unknown, but—in their ins
fancy—light in amount, and imposed upon but few
artkles ; in which ecclesistical landlords managed their'.
estates leniently, and upon the avowed principle of en-
couraging their tenants to become prosperous and
wealthy, and held so large a portion of the land that
their example must have had its influence upon the pro-
ceedings of lay landlords, in which a large portion of
the rent was paid by the Church, and other pious land-
lords—not in purchases of luxury and idle ostentation,
but paid back to the poor, from whom it originally
came, in the shape of liberal and charitable alms ; look
back to these times, and compare them with our own.
The patrimony of the Crown' is exhausted. The feudal
burdens, which fell heavily upon the great landowners,
were knavishly taken away on the restoration of Charles
11., and their place supplied by the taxes which now fall
upon the poor. The burden of the army is shifted in
like manner from the persons of property, and is
now paid out of the taxes which fall upon the
poor. All the current expenses of the State, enor-
mously increased, and doubled -by- the . interest of
an enormous debt, which knavery and mismanage-
ment' have combined to accumulate,—all these are dis-
charged out of the taxes which fall upon the poor ; and
which are now not occasional but annual. Customs and
excise are not now in their infancy, but have reached
a gigantic manhood ; and compared with the other taxes
which fall more directly upon property, they compose.
three-fourths- of the whole net revenue of Great Britain,
—32 millions out of 44 ; and from them. there is no ex-
emption, except for total famine and total nakedness ;
all the clothes sf the husband, all the clothes of the wife,
every bed, and what is more horrible, every mouthful
that the poor beggar receives from charity, all are
taxed : the rich man has wickedly shifted from his
own shoulders to the shoulders and • even to the
unfilled bellies of the poor,. the burdens " which of
old belonged to himself. • Out of these taxes, which
fall principally on the poor, are paid, in addition to
the whole current expenses of the State, a great por-
tion of the interest of that tremendous debt which
was incurred by the -folly and mismanagement.
to say no worse, of the rich men of former times. The
Church is no longer the great landowner, but the land
has passed into lay hands ; into hands which scorn the
obligations of a trust ; into hands which wickedly profess
to" do as they like with their own;" into hands which
are employ,sl in grubbing about to raise rents as a sup-
'port to ostentation and luxury, not in devising means to
increasethe comforts and promote the prosperity of their
dependants ; into the hands of men whose ancestor hav-
ing, in past times, confiscated and appropriated to them
selves the patrimony of the poor, have found out that the
very Poor-laws which they:Set up in place of the volute-
tary and graceful.charity of past times are an unendura-
hie tax, and that the poor, who;n, from the first moin'.tut
of January to the last of December, they are robbing by
every means that an ingenious exchequer prodigal of such
devices can imagine 'or invent—must be coerced into pru-
lence, into savings against old age, oat of the famine of
lie morning of life, by harsh. treatment, workhouse tests,
fliSonuniforins, and all the studious contrivances of a
sect of philosophers of whom Burke spoke when he Said
• that `` there is no heart so. lord as that of a thorcngh.p wed
metaphysician."
Shame, shame upon you rich men and nobles! One by
one you have set free your own lands from the burdens
which they justly bore in the old Catholic times—the bur-
dens of war. of peace, and of charity ; one by one you have
transferred these burdens to the poor whom you have thus
vilely plundered. You have demoralized the country, as
far as in you lies, by your rent-raising, money-scraping
propensities ; and now having brought us to a state in which
insurrectioas of the famished poor under King Lail, or
Captain Swing, or the banner of the charter, are par-
dons of our system constantly recurring year after year,
under more frightful and monstrous shapes, you resist
.every attempt at . alleviation of this misery, and even
threaten an augmentation of the evil if your advoin to
power be not delayed,
• Once more, then, wo warn the aristocracy of this em-
airy, as their •best friends, as heartily praying for their
?I'urolonged existence and power. They have .shionefully
betrayed their trust in past times, and they have now come
to such a pass, that their quiet and peaceable existence in
time to coon. depends upon their correcting and amending
the
wealth
error n
•s.
g them as wqges.w
which are to: aodf
p their n e ArNb- a.) y,
Ili earned LI faithful work ; not to. be gluttonously
swallowed in an epicurean indolence. They milk. sur-
render all such abominations as Corn-laws, all such
ghantielgfutlopirnoatiencttn now .strug-
i. They must restore to the poor whats as those which they are.
they have robbed them of. They must 1earn40,4e,„,,,,,
the nursing fathers of thosedestituteoyNsi :Tit)
4.ce
in the comm mwealth, they 41Te hound ti 4 4etisli:andPrOs

;,ecL. Unioss they: consent to themselves after this
fashion, they or their successors will one_day have bitter
roason to remeiqber these words of inspiration : "Go to
now ye rich Mem ; weep and howl for the miseries which
shall come upon. you."— Tablet.

ANTI-CORN-LAW ADJOURNED

MEETING.
On Wednesday last the adjourned meeting to receive
the deputation of the Anti-Corn-law League was held.
The stage .was crowded with gentlemen, amongst whom
were many members of the Town Council.
On the motion of Mr. Alderman BLACKBURN, Sir
Joshua Walmsley was again voted to the Chair, amidst
thunders of applause.
HENRY ASHWORTH, Esq., was again introduced to the
meeting. For four years past the trade in the manufac-
turing districts had been very distressed, and it would not
be long before Liverpool felt the effects of it. The advo-
cates of the Corn-laws said they were a protection for equa-
lizing prices, but there was no Act of Parliament to pro-
tect mill property or the price of labour. As a proof of
the depressed, state of the manufacturing districts, he
stated that there were 2,900 houses empty in Manchester,
from 1,200 to l,hoo in Stockport, 1,500 in Bolton, 1,220
in Preston, and 1,000 in Oldham, and about an equal
number of houses tenanted, the occupiers of which could
not pay rent. On coming down to Liverpool that day he
saw a removal of furniture, and on making some inqui-
rie, he found that a man, With his wife and ten child-
ren, were going to the workhouse. The day before they
had pawned their last bed, and that day they had not
tasted food. He maintained the Corn-laws were not
so beneficial to the agriculturists as they would make
them believe. In passing through Devonshire a few
'years ago he saw beautiful looking little, cottages with
the myrtle and hawthorn growing around them. He
went inside of them, but. what did he find? There was
a clay floor, very wet, and no furniture? There were
men with only 7s. or Bs. a week, with which they
could scarcely keep soul and body together. These
were the class of men whom the Corn-law • land-
lords considered their .country's pride—(Hear, hear.)
Would they consent to be their country's pride ?—(No,
no.) He then proceeded to state in the course of advo-
cating the repeal of the Corn-laws, Chartists, when they
were made properly to understand the question, becanal.
Anti-Corn-law lecturers. In 1835, when the corn was
cheaper by nearly one half than it was in 1841, the work-
men's wages were raised nearly five per cent:, whilst in the
last named year the wages of the manufacturing popula-
tion were reduced 10 per cent. These were questions
which they ought to consider well, especially as they
would be called upon soon to exercise their franchise.
They would, doubtless, be canvassed by all parties, and
if they 'should go home and find their wives and daugh-
ters weeping for the black of the Brazils or the West In-
dies, they should ask them if they had began to weep
fur. the bleeding industry of their own neighbours.
Mr. Alderman BROOKS, from Manchester, was re;
ceived with loud applause. 'He said the Whig,- Tory,
Chartist, and Radical party were united in the manufac-
turing districts against the- Corn-laws. They had all
heard•pf the story of a man. and wife fighting, and when
some person came in to separate them they both turned
on him and beat him off. That was just the way they
should do—they should leave offfighting with themselves
and fight against the Corn-laws. They talked of protec-
tion. Wily, anything that wanted protection showed a.
weakness to start with. If they saw a strong healthy man
going along the street, they would never say he wanted
protection ; but if they saw a poor old woman crossing the
street, and a coach coming, they would say, "Go away, old
Woman." What they wanted was trade, and the sliding
scale prevented them from making any calculations
with regard to corn, and, in consequence, they were de-
prived of trade in that article, for which they could send
out their goods, and when a scarcity came they were
obliged to send out their gold, thereby crippling their
trad. He had had a letter the day before from his tra-
veller at Walsall, and he was told he could get no orders,
for there was nothing doing. There were fifty furnaces
stopped there, and all this was caused by these laws. He
believed that the manufacturers in his district had not
made a shilling for the last three or four years, and he
only wished the merchants and brokers of Liverpool would
make inquiries as to the cause. After calling on the
electors to act conscientiously at the next election, and
" do unto others as they. would be done by," he said they
asked for justice and a total repeal of the Corn-laws, and
then sat down loudly applauded.
Mr. Alderman COBDEN, from Manchester, said, in
looking over the Mail, which some friend had been
kind enough to send him, lie found that the meeting was
described as having been attended by a few hundreds of
people, and that they were chiefly of the " lower or-
de.rs." He was very glad to find that they had the
" lower " class amongst them. He was glad
to find it admitted that all the rubbish the
bread-taxers had put forth about high and low
wages had . not succeeded in deluding the work-
ing classes.—(Applause.) This brought him to remark
upon a placard industriously posted in his town, and lie
fancied they had had some of them in Liverpool, calling
on them to remember that the low price of bread in Po-
land and Russia brought very low wages. Surely that
must be the very last resource when they were obliged
to draw a comparison between the condition of the workL.
ing class of England, whom they attempted to persuade
that they were well off, and the Polish serfs. He
though they had a glorious Constitution and that their
country was the envy of surrounding nations, and the
admiration of the world.—(Loud cheers.) He thought
that the persons who made this comparison always
argued. that the working classes of this country were
under the benign Government of a Church and State, who
especially looked to their interest.—(Cheers.) Than
connection had been enjoyed by them for a century and
a half, and yet, when they wanted to prove that the
working classes were not so bad as they were, they went
to-Poland to compare them with the Polish serfs. Was
it not a little strange they did not go to a place more
familiar .to the people of Liverpool,—was it not
strange they did not go to a place called America ?
The bread-taxers asserted that bread governed the
rate of wages, to prove which they went on the broad
scale ; they went • north and south ; they said they
did not care where they went, because the rule ap-
plied universally ; but how was it they did not get
across the Atlantic, and test their rule by the rate of
wages in New York ?—(Applause.) They might have
called on the Irish in their way, and made their inquiries
there too.—(Hear, hear, and loud applause.) He thought
he saivone of those bread-taxing Commissioners going
out on such an inquiry—going out on account of the
Duke of Buckingham, who asserted that the price of
bread governed the rate of wages. He crossed to Ire-
land, went to ~Tipperary, and at last came to Mourne],
and inquired :the last market price of wheat. What
would it .be, -Sir' Joshua ? How much was wheat in
Clonmel?"-7-(A voice, "695.") What was the rate of wages
in Clonmel ?—(" 4d. a day.") And had they full work all
the year round, for lie always liked to inquire that ?—(No,
no.) Well, then, let him take his passage in the beau-
tiful Great Western, and land at New York. What
was the price of wheat per quarter in New York, Sir
Joshua ? (Sir Joshua—" 365. per quarter.") Well, lie
knew something about the rate of wages in America,
and made inquiries about it, but he had no doubt there
would be some American citizens in that vast assem-
blage who would be able to tell them. They had lately
had before them a statistical paper published by the cor-
poration of New York, in which it was shown that po-
licemen and watchmen, of whom the corporation em-
ployed
about 700, got a dollar and a quarter per day, •
or about- ss. 6d. ; and that was not a bad estimate of
the rate of wages for unskilled labourers, but they would
come down a little and say that the rate for unskilled
labourers was four shillings per day ; and now they
came to the perplexity of the commissioner in writin:::
to his Grace ‘the Duke of Buckingham—" May it
please your Grace, stopped at Clonmel, found the
wheat G3s. a quarter ; wages 4d. a day ; men not fully
employed. \Vent on to New York—wheat 365. per quar-
ter ; wages ought to have been 2i-d. a day, found' them
4s."—(Great applause.) He (Mr. C.) thought that must
puzzle the philosophy of the Duke of Buckingham.—
(Loud laughter.) But they would be told that if they
went to America there were many things to be Coils
sidered, and that it was not the price of bread, by many
things that governed the rate of wagPst Ile Oft%
would tell what it was ; it was supply and demand that
regulated the rate of wages, Dl the AntizChmt.htw
party want to diminish the rate of wages when they
called out for more trade ? How could they get
more trade unless they got more employment for every
class of labourers ? Would they not need more por-,
ters and labourers, if they imported more gacids
Would they not need more ships, and that watt d give
more employment to carpenters And if they built more
ships, would there not be a greater demand for sailors,
and would they not get better wages.—(" Hurrah, thaca
good," said a son of Neptune, who happened to lie scatad
in the front of the gallery.) Thp InMtigtl c$ Inge%
after all, was the whole nas34l€lll i 411(1 tila§ the bread
taxers, although they had ao consciences, were shrewd
enough to know that' the whole question rested an the
rate of wages ; and they knew that if they oßld not, codt
vine the working man that their \Ng I'VoAtld f.1.41t Alto
bread-tax would soon come off, (mr. Q,) ham. they
could not do that, and illerk
ee
. , Wurliing men would
soon do away with VPlll,ltlWi4.—(Great applause.)
183 ti,. when wheat was 395, per quarter, he paid his
men the same rate of wages as he did in 1838-9, wkla
wheat was nearly double that price. He paid kkw.piA by n
scale or rate, andlit never was altelvi,-74wns itlways the
same.- - Did the Duke ever make
any allowanCo is paSIM hii. servants when the
bread was clear ?---(‘';4o, ho.") In some ekk.U4
the rate of wags- was settled by an Act of
Parliament. . In London and other ples-ea the fares of
hackney coaches were settled by the Corporation. Thou
sands of people, were dependent upon such employment.,
but did #iti ..4c4 say you shall have Is. for such a
ftlWl itV.l when wheat gets up to so much you shall have
Is, 6d., and when it rises still higher you shall have 2:3:?
No : the law did not commit such an absurdity ; the law
itself convicted them of falsehood .in laying down awl% A
propotitlon. In agitating for the repeal e,f' the Corn-
laws, he was not advocating all (a.kiic.i.)Ao]ft of his own trade
especially. He had lIP.N.`g. Watered into foreign trade,
although he eatic4ldered that his home trade wa,i
as innell dependent on the repeal of the Coro_
laws -as the foreign trade. After alluding to
the sneering manner in which the Mail spoke
of the " lower orderS,l4 C. said he knew. of nothin
that way mean except a
. when a man prostituted hia talents
avid stated what was falsehood.—(Hg % hear, "Die.")
He did not allude to Mr. Dix whati he mentioned talents.
___-(Loud laughter. and swl‘ause.) The Earl of Winchil,
sea, at an azaAealhiqal meeting, the other daffy, squires
Inc 1,0,11-frog farmers.—(Laughter,) lie called them
4.17.1*0 'Or the 41W reason that Cobbett did,
aiu, lie VVB,S a e0s(1 %me fbr giving names. They were al-
ways cr,oattilig. at the same time they were eating all
nr,......(Laughter.) Well, what did Lord Winehilsea
say ? " They (the Anti-Corn-law men) pre-tad that
they will lose the foreign markets far AL.Ar manufactures
if they cannot obtain Om, latead fbr their artisans, but
their foreign tswla is a matter of perfect indifference
la:. they "lose it altogether, provided they turn thew
alitention to the home trade. Dins, apseapsethe
genuine feudal aristocrat. lie thin put out the
cloven foot of oppasi.tkan to commerce, before which
feudal 0410,004 u was destined to fall.—(Applause.)
1400 Winchilsea, and those who act with him, whether
they represent Liverpool or not—(liear, hear)—would