The Sun.
London, England, 1841-06-02 00:00:00

co—trg urG

LONDON:
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 2, 1841.

time congratulate the City of London on its re-
covery. The meeting yesterday shows that it
is again awake and restored to its senses. We
.cannot flatter it by saying that it has taken the
lead in the good cause; it is far in the rear;
131-47 the well-conducted, unanimous meeting yes-
terdiby-will carry it forward towards the first
ran -IE7; It was both numerous and well ordered.
The speeches, particularly Mr. GROTE'S and Mr.
Tit,?evits's, were excellent ; and altogether it
(cp'nitrs honour on the City. It will stimulate
other towns, and be the herald, we hope, of con-
ancl rapid progress.
It Will be observed that none of the speakers
advacated a fixed duty, but the purport of their
resolutions was to support Ministers. The meet-
ing ".highly approved of the proposed alteration
in the existing Corn-laws.'.' " The hand of sym-
pathy," as Mr. TRAVERS expreSsed it, " was now
held out to them from high quarters. Let them
seize the hand so 'held out. For his own part,
he .was for the total abolition of all the laws
which imposed. a tajr on human food." Mr.
GltoT4"tod, said " I hope, Gentlemen, we are not
to-lei:4'mi the 'duty- as invested with finality. I
hdpe: we are to look on it as a temporary
ex itie~it to secure' "a' transition from the
pr n.. EASAtew of monopoly to one of
.E.lFiet.irtttfit4qt, of trade? -All the speakers ex-
-- Rr4AtAile-• A•lre know that
• - •

~"'.

7.t4.-
F--1 -11-7.'-,.. ..;:"..-;
..,'-':l,-f,
ci Ci--:,,,--' 3--
.;;;...,
\..4
, la-_-....-.?, ..,,,,,
~,_ k. ,,,,.......,
, '.F..-
..,
lII' ll' SI

the League and the bulk of the manufacttrring
population are for the total abol4tion, and it ought
to be highly gratifying to the Ministers, a proof
of the real confidence placed in them, to find
gentlemen like Mr. GROTE and Mr. TRAVERS,
and like those composing the great City meeting,
coaling forward to accept their offer, and, waiv-
ing their own opinions, to adopt the plan pro-
posed to Parliament.
We are disposed to honour their catholic spi-
rit, but we dread the consequences of the con-
tradiction between their expressed conviction
and their conduct. Such political expediency,,we
are afraid, is not calculated to impress the ear-
nest and hungering people of England with a
thorough conviction of the earnestness of their
leaders, nor will it excite that zeal, wanting which
success must be hopeless. That opinions are uni-
versally expressed at the meetings held by the
town population, in favour of the total abolition.
and that they only accept the fixed duty as au
instalment of the abolition, is a decisive proof Ciat
the Ministers' plan does not satisfy the town po-

pulation.
At the same time that plan is met by the
agriculturists with determined hostility. At all
these meetings they express the fiercest opposi-
tion to it. They declare Bs. is no protection at
all. The plan, then, has the misfortune of not
satisfying either of the great interests. It is not
what either the master-manufacturers, the
farmers, the landlords, or the labourers demand.
The fixed duty is something like a crotchet of
some theorist, a little bit of economical, so called
science, picked up, one hardly knows how, and
supported, as we think, by most insufficient rea-
soning.

The parentage of the opinion that a fixed duty
of about Bs. or 10s. is necessary to counteract the
peculiar burdens of the agriculturists, is due, we
believe, to Mr. RICARDO. Since his death, how-
ever, the tithes have been commuted, and as the
real charge is made to depend on prices, while it
will no longer be increased as cultivation is ex-
tended, we must suggest that the principal cause
why Mr. RICARDO advocated a fixed duty of Bs.
or Ios. no longer exists. Since his death, too,
the Poor-law has been altered, and the Poor-
rates in agricultural districts have been ma-
terially decreased. At the Chelmsford meeting
speakers' praised the New Poor-law. They be-
nefit by it. Since Mr. RICARDO'S death, too,
the agriculturists have been relieved by the re-
mission of taxes which pressed peculiarly on
them ; .so that nearly all the circumstances
which led him to the conclusion that a fixed
duty was required to counteract the burden im-
posed upon the land, have been changed. But
though the burdens no longer exist, the idle and
wealthy owners of rent are still to be indulged in
their vile and sordid desire of plundering the in-
dustrious poor,
In the preface to a second edition of Mr.
M'CuLLocn's pamphlet " Onthe Policy and Pro-
bable Consequences of the proposed Repeal of the
e.ristiag Corn-laws," a reason for proposing so
high a fixed duty is given, which strikes us as
extraordinary, and not likely to stand the test of
that searching investigation to which the whole
question will be subjected:-
1 "We have," says Mr. M'Culloch, " previously en-
deavoured to show, that a duty of ss. per quarter on
wheat would more than cover the excess of the peculiar
taxes falling on the land, so that the additional 3s. a
quarter may be regarded as a protection in favour of the
agriculturists. And though they do not certainly re-
quire any such protection, it was probably the more ex-
pedient course, considering the prevalent notions as tct the
extreme low price of corn abroad, to fix the duty at the
outset of the . new system at a higher rate than might,
under other circumstances, have been proper. At all
events, with such a duty, the idea that it is the intention
of Government to ' swamp,' as it has been termed, the
agriculture of the. United Kingdom by admitting un-
limited importations of foreign corn, is too absurd to
deserve any lengthened notice. The only good objection
that can be made to the Ministerial project is not that it
gives too little, but that it gives too much protection."
Mr. M'Cum.ocn, then, though he is for some
protection, states that the Bs. proposed by Minis-
ters, is 3s. too high ; but he says, proposing that
" probably was the more expedient course, consi-
dering the prevalent notions as to the extreme
low price of corn abroad." All legislation,
founded on prices abroad,. has a most unstable
basis. They vary in different countries, and in
different seasons ; and a law to protect our agri-
culture, founded on prices abroad, should vary
with the seasons, with the skill of different cul-
tivators, and as the wheat is imported from
Odessa or New York. A law founded on actual
prices abroad seems to be little better than a
piece of solemn quackery.
Now it is very remarkable that Mr. M'CuL-
Locu assigns the proposed high fixed duty not
to a knowledge of actual prices abroad, but to a
deference to some prevalent notion, implying
that it is erroneous, as to extreme low prices
abroad. Did any body ever hear before of -a
law affecting the whole subsistence of the
people being founded on a deference to
the acknowledged error of some theorists?
The people complain of starvation—the Minis-
ters profess a wish to relieve them—but out of
deference to an erroneous notion entertained by
their opponents, the offspring of idle fears and
abominable sordidness, they persist, contrary to
justice, and contrary to the demands and. wishes
of those on whom they reckon for support, in im-
posing a fixed duty of Bs. per quartet on the
people's food. Such a law so defended may be
matched, we think, amongst our old statutes con-
cerning witchcraft or prohibiting the feeding of
spirits, but nowhere else. Such a law, too, so
defended, will not, and cannot enlist the sympa-
thies of the people heartily in its favour, and will
not be a sufficiently powerful instrument to con-
quer the Tories.

We notice with pleasure that the agitation on
the subject of the Corn-laws is very active in the
agricultural districts. In the Essex Herald of
yesterday we find reports of no 'less than three
meetings; and though they were all unanimously
fair maintaining the Corn-law as it now exists, we
are so convinced that our cause must gain by dis-
cussion, that even these meetings give us satisfitc-
tion. Some of the subjects mooted at them are
worthy of notice, and we should think our cause
on the verge of success if the agriculturists would
only really think of what they themselves say
and do.
At all these meetings, as in Parliament and ts
in Lincolnshire, the speakers say that Ss. is no
protection at all, and one and all cry "away with
it." At the same time the fact is, as we have
more than once mentioned already, that the
actual duty paid under the present system has
been only ss. 9d. The proposed plan offers
them, therefore, a protection of 2s. 3d. per
quarter more than they have received, and yet
they cry " away with it." They are deceived by
the working of the averages, by which alone the
gamblers profit. They have appeared to receive
a much higher protection, but the corn-dealers
have taken care to work the law to their profit,
and to the deception of the corn-growers. If
the farmers, then, say that Bs. is not7a sufficient
protection, how miserably they have been de-
ceived by the present law, which has cheated
them into a belief that they were to have an
average protection of upwards of 205., and
mocked them with a protection of ss. Od.
The farmers have made their agreements ex-
pecting to receive what the law held out to them,
and all between that and the actual protection
afforded them has been, as it sere, filched from
them by the law and the landlurcs.
We are not surprised, therefore, to find Mr.
ROBERT BAKER, an intelligent tenant- farmer, at
the meeting at Chelmsford, on Friday, de-
claring—
" From 1828 we have had the present scale, and I
leave it to the farmers to say whether under that scale
they have realized capital. I say there is 'lot a farmer
amongst us who has realized capital."

This is quite in conformity with•what we have
repeatedly stated in The Sun; but while the pro-
tected farmers have realized no capital, the un-
protected manufacturers—for exporting the com-
modities they really have no protection--have
realised such immense sums that they_have sup-
pliect„. as Lord A. 1.181-; ftrgzi - -correctly . stated;

TILE SUN, L

three-fourths of the 60,000,0001. sterling. which
have been employed In making' railroads. It is
plain, then, that the law puts a cheat upon the
farmers, and lures them to poverty and decay.
Mr. BAKER went on to say of the farmers,
" As a body they have not realised further than by a
reinvestment of it in the land, where they expected to
find it, and where they would have found it but for this
breach of good faith towards them."
The farmers depend, therefore, on the preserva-
tion of the law as it now exists, and depend on con-
tinually starving, as we have repeatedly proved,
their humble fellow-countrymen, in order to
realise their poor and petty profits. At the
same time, they run a great risk, though that
breach of faith be not committed which substi-
tutes an Bs. protection for a ss. 9d. protection, of
not realising their investment. Mr. BAKER
showed that between 1817 and 1822, when the
farmers had Lord RIPON'S beloved Corn-laW in
the parish where he " resides, three-fourths of
the farms were abandoned, and every tenant left
it a ruined man." They have incurred almost as
great a misfortune under the present law, and Mr.
BAKER correctly anticipates another year likelB3s,
though the Corn-law be not repealed. Let the
farmers throughout England mark his words,
and let them be assured, if the Corn-law be no:
repealed or altered, to give a stimulus to trade,
that the first two favourable harvests in succes-
sion 77hich they have, if not the very first great
harvest, will reduce them to a worse condition
than in 1835. Mr. BAKER said—
" In the year 1835, under this very Corn Bill, we
were petitioning that we might have the support of the
House of Commons to protect us under the depression
which then existed—existed too, under this Bill, for
under it we then had wheat at 40s. in the face of a full
crop. . . . If wheat did not come down to the price that
it fell to in 1835, we should have no reason to complain
—(Hear, hear)—for it has now been on the decline for
eighteen months. In 1839 and 1840, from deficient har
vests it rose, but it has now descended 4s. to ss. in price
from that period, and there is every appearance from the
crops that it will still go OIL descending."
If the farmers look to the trade reports they
will find that stagnation and distress prevail in
the manufacturing districts, that men are giving
up their mills and turning off their hands; and
when they remember 1835, and look at their
own prospects in face of the ruin of their
customers, they will dread, not without reason,
a speedy repetition of disasters as great as those
of 1817-1822.

At all these meetings the speakers say they
rely on the Act of Parliament not being disturbed.
They over and over again spoke of their faith
that the law would not be altered, and
referred to the necessity, should it be altered,
of revising the Commutation of Tithes Act. To us
it appears singular that the brave and intelligent
yeomen of England should rely for prosperity on
the law. The time was when they worked out
their prosperity with their own hands, and all
that they required from the law was to he pro-
tected from depredation and violencg. They are
as bad now as the.boors of Austria, or the wooden-
shoe peasantry of France, who can only move as
the law prescribes, which ►nay be altered to-mor-
row. This is a total perversion of the ancient
English character, which resisted the law when
it interfered with private concerns, and thought
it a degradation to rely for prosperity on aught
but its own skill and industry.

When the farmers of England say that they
cannot cultivate so cheaply as foreigners, they
do themselves a great injustice. Why should
they embrace so disheartening, so dependent, so
desponding a faith ? They ask, they say, for a
protection in proportion to their burdens. They
want to be enabled, by taxing others, to pay
their share of the National Debt. But have not
other persons to pay their share ? Is not the
bulk of the revenue raised by customs, excise
duties, and assessed taxes, of which the farmers
pay no more in proportion to their property and
consumption than any other persons ? It is well
observed, in a pamphlet entitled " The Many
sacrificed to the Few, proved by the Effects of
the Sugar Monopoly," that other interests bear
their share of taxation, and bear, too, a share of
taxation for the landlords, and yet can compete
with foreigners. The passage is as follows :
The argument upon which the advocates for a system
of preferences most generally and most triumphantly
rely in favour of their theory, is drawn from the finan-
cial condition of the country. " Ilow is it possible,"
they say, " that a heavily taxed people, as we are, can
grow corn, or produce sugar as cheaply as other people
less heavily burthened ?" It is of no use to answer
them by pointing to the fact that we export every year
the products of our labour 'to the value o:4' more than
fifty millions of money, proving by the very fact of such
exportation that, burthened as we are with taxes, we
can and do produce manufactures at a cheaper rate than
they can be produced by any other people. It would
sorely puzzle the protectionists to explain why a heavily
taxed people can produce cheap cottons and hardwares,
and at the same time be therefore unable to produce
cheap corn. They are all unable to point out any causes
• which give to taxation a greater influence in the one
case than in the other, and the candid among them have
long since been driven from the position which they
falsely held, that the land has a greater proportion of
the national burthens laid on it than is borne by other
interests in the kingdom. This might have been the
case to some small extent formerly, but has long since
ceased to be true ; the last burthen peculiarly affecting
the' landed interest that could be found was a tax on
shepherds' dogs, and this has been removed. It would
not be difficult to produce a somewhat formidable array
of instances in which that interest is exempted from
burthens which are borne by other classes ;—we may
mention the duty on insuring farming produce—assessed
taxes on fitrm-houses,—and that crying injustice, the
exemption of real property from all probate duty.
If the farmers will but look at the manufac-
turers struggling under their full share of the
national burdens, and bearing, moreover, the
great burden of the bread-tax—which not only
shortens their supply of food, but limits the
market for the sale of their commodities--if they
can become sensible that the manufacturers
could still, up to this time, realise capital, they
will surely be ashamed of their great real infe-
riority to those manufacturers whom they pre-
tend to despise. Why should not farmers make.
fortunes, as well as money-lenders and manufac-
turers? Their industry is the main source of the
social wealth. Their whining despair—their
hopeless dependence on a law which can only be
maintained by annually starving a multitude of
their own customers out of existence, is un-
worthy of Englishmen.

At the Chelmsford meeting 'Mr. TOWER de-
scribed the corn monopolists as three-fourths of
the society. We know not where Mr. TOWER
picked up his statistics, but we never before
heard of the agricultural labourers being in-
cluded amongst the monopolists, and without
including-..them we cannot make out that the
persons connected with the land amount to
the tenth part of the proportion mentioned- by
Mr. TOWER. It is against the whole body of the
labourers, agricultural as well as others, that the
landowners have their monopoly, and it is a poor
fallacy of Mr. TOWER to include the victims of
the monopoly amongst those who profit by it.
Such strange exaggerations—such bald attempts
to delude--if the agriculturists will but reflect on
them, should awaken in them a strong suspicion
that their cause is not a just one. If they
also reflect on the moral' nature of the
Corn-law—if they can only be brought
to see that prices can only be raised by
limiting the quantity of food, that limiting the
quantity is withholding food from those who are
perishing, that withholding or preventing men
from obtaining food by their own honest exer-
tions is a far greater crime than refusing to give
it from a man's own store, which is not asked—if
the farmers will but reflect on the murderous
consequences of the Corn-laws, we are sure-
that they will repudiate the enormous guilt for
the paltry gain, if any, which they admit it gives
them, particularly as it is accompanied by the
sad and lamentable degradation of making them
tax-gatherers for the owners of rent.

Monday being observed as a holiday in France
very few of the Paris iournals were published,
and those which have reached us merely all 7
nounce the execution of the regicide ,DARMP.S:
Consecrated as Monday was to religious obstr-
'. vanceSin Catholic countries; the French Govern-
ment scrupled not to sanctify it by an
of humiii-blood, as if it followed, not the: corn--
memoration of the Ascension- of a merciful and
all-forgiAlpg Re.deenier,,but,thelcindlity;:_9,fitic. I

.. -