The Sun.
London, England, 1841-10-20 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the !lUBLIC JOURNALS.

FROM THE Distay raaras OP YESTERDAY.
GLOBE.—Tb.,3 Times and Herald are recalling
attention—indirereetly, we think, for their party—to
the practical Political economy of their Food-Exclusive
patrons. T'siey are doing this, of course, in the shape
of attack. on the theories of " Political Economists"
who sore -snore commonly called by that name. This
has alleaeays been a favourite artifice of the Food-Exclu.
sixes, and of their tools. It must no longer be
suffered to pass without challenge, and without ex-
posure. We pledge ourselves (for our humble part)
that we never shall see this trick played off, without
taking occasion to unveil the hypocrisy of its actors, and
to prove that there is only one act of political econo-
mists in the country, who have possessed the power,
and have exercised it, to regulate the condition—as re-
gards material well-being, and even subsistence—of all
other classes. Those political economists are the Lords of
the soil. No other class bee possessed the power which
i they have possessed, by virtue of their absolute pro-
perty in that grand instrument of production. How
many should be allowed to live on the soil which as-
knowledged their ownerahip—how much produce, and
on what scale of culture, should be mired from it—
they have had power to dictate. To this immense
disposal of the natural powers of the country they
have arrogated all the art ficial additions law could
give them. So long as it was suepeoc.l possible (in the
infancy of that ec:_ence of political economy in which
the landlords have always enforced their doctrines)
so long as it was supposed possible to keep down the
wages of labour by law, such legislation was male
and enforced by the predominant order as that of the
Plarstaecnet and Tudor reigns. The " Statute of Le-
, bourers," passed under Edward 111., was confirmed
under Wchard 11. A fuittier attempt to reduce bus-
-1 bandry labourers to a hereditary caste of serfs, was
made by the 7th Henry IV., cap. 17 (1405). And these
were the benevolent preludes of the Acts passed in the
reign of Eizabeth, the intention of which has been most
ignorantly or dishonesqa construed by the Poor-law
agitators, as having been to establish a lax sad indul-
gent system of relief to paupers. It was no such
thing. The first statutes in that reign confirmed all
the severities which had been previously enacted ag iinst
those who, having no propeity but their labour, pre-
sumed to act as it they had a right to dispose of that
property ! The laws empowering the Justice., to regu-
late wages, made by the 14th El zabeth, 1572 (in the
sense of keeping them down, for the attempt to keep
wages up by the force of law is an idea started in the
most recent times only) rernaiee I in nomirial force until
the present century, and Sir Frederick Eden gives a •
regulation of wages in the county of Lancaster so late
as 172.5, whereby the Justices have the power to make
them. Now these were the times, this was the spirit, to
which the denouncers of modern political economy,
factory systems, and new Poor-laws, are perpetually
pointing
back, with loud invocations of the wisdom of
•
our ancestors! This was the purely landed legislation
for tie labouring classes—legislation with which we are
ridden still, though it now takes a different shape. Is
it denied that the landed interest has been lop; (",e nii;;lit
almost say always) guided by mercantile principles in
its disposal of the use of the sod? Is :t denied that it has
crowned those rnercant,le principles with monopoly ? Is
it denied that the landlords, ever since the clemanil for
food by a vast population, arid the demand for work by
eager competitors, have rendered it no longer necessary
to seek to fix labourers on the soil, have turned their at-
tention exclusively (we speak of themof course, as a bat'.: )
to clerking the greatest net returns from that soil, consi-
dered as an instrument of production ? Is it denied
that by this view they have h,en guided in regulating
the scale of farming, in imposing the terms of leeses, and
in keeping labour on, cr clearing it off the land ?
Why then, what effrontery is it to fall on manufac-
turers and economists far the state of society (as, for
instance, the increase of numbers in the towns ever the
country) which is, and can be, primarily, the work of
none but the landlords thernt.eves! The class com-
manding the sources of subsistence—the class pessess-
ing
the powers of legislation—the class which, by
property, bas been able to dictate bow many should
be fed directly from the soil, and has been able and
arrogant by law to dictate how many should be
fed at all—this is the class whose exclusive par-
tisans would shift the responsibility of the evils of the
present state of things to any shoulders but their own !
Manufacturers may not all be models of bounty and
liocrality—economists may not all be miracles of abse-
lute wisdom—but what have manufacturers or econo-
mists
had to do with the grand monopolist bread-ma-
nulacture—the grand rural economy of the landlords ?
Those who rule the production of food at borne, and
restrict its supply from abroad, are our masters.
STANDARD.—We regret to be compelled to de-
clare our dissent from the views of an article which
appears in the Times of this morning, touching the re-
markable event which is about to take place in the con-
secration of a Protestant Bishop of Jerusalem. Our
respected Contemporary appears to be doubtful upon
the point; but it is altogether certain that his Grace the
A-chbishop of Canterbury has consented to consecrate,
easily in November next, the Hebrew Professor at
King's College, as the Bishop of the Church of St.
James in Jerusalem The case doei net stand exactly
in the attitude in which it has been represented to the
Times. Instead of there being nne A.1,-..."-Ardgel Pa-
triarch, or Bishop of Jerusalem, belonging to the Greek
Church, and resident there, there are several. The
Greek Patriarch who bears that title resides at Con•
stantinopte. The Roman Catholic Prelate, called of
Jerusalem, resides somewhere else. In Jerusalem
itself there are, as we have said, several persons
exercising episcopal authority, of the Armenian and
other Eastern Churches. The Protestant Churches
are the only section of the Christian world that, to their
shame be it spoken, have had no representative in the
Holy City. Of late great changes have taken place,
and greeter are at hand. An English Consul has been
placed there, and Palestine is becoming the centre of
many hopes and expectations ; both among Jews
and Christians there is a growing disposition to
settle in that land. With Protestants, however, one
paramount want has always been the absence of any
known and recognised ecclesiastical authority ; so
that converts to Christianity, or members of Protes-
tant Churches, were considered by the Turks as little
else than vagabonds. This deficiency it is now pro.
posed to supply. It is to the honour of the
greatest Protestant Sovereign on the Continent of
Europe, that he should ue the first to perceive
the want and to propose a remedy. It is to the
honour of the Church of Eagland that a Conti-
nental Sovereign should have put himself wholly into
her hands in this matter. It is to the honour of her
rulers that they have so cordially entered upon this
great work. And the only thing to be lamented is,
that apparently, if we may judge from the .7 rues'
article, some few members of the Church of England
are inclined to look with jealousy upon the plan, from
a kind of morbid fear which we feel assured is utterly
groundless, of interfering with some supposed rights of
a Prel ate residing at Constantinople, and who has no
more exclusive right to call himself the Successor of
St. James, than any of the other six or seven persons
who exercise episcopal authority at Jerusalem.

MONEY MARKET and CITY NEWS

FROM THE MORNING PAPERS OF YESTERDAY.
CHRONICLE.—We have no accounts from the
United States at five o'clock this afternoon, and very little
business has been done on the Stock Exchange, the mem-
bers of the House being in anxious suspense for the ex-
pected tidings by the Caledonia steamer; but the impres-
sion entertained regarding our position with America
does not in the meantime improve, and even in circles
generally well informed, and hitherto confident that no
serious misunderstanding would ensue, opinions have un-
dergone some change, fir they look upon our affairs
with America as now so intricate and confused, that even
supposing the verdict of the Jury on M'Leod to be an
acquittal, and that the seizure of Grogan could be settled
quietly, they apprehend that fresh sources of quarrel
may arise during the winter.
The corn-market was firmer to-day, and prices on the
advance. The accounts of the harvest agree as to the
serious deficiency of the yield, and the sellers to-day from
Scotland give a most melancholy picture of the weather
—not more than half of the oats and barley having been
trictslawet"ifea..le
_ cured in that quarter. The potatoe crop has also suf-
fered k lty4
einr e
tnScotland,
na
absoluten di in the Highland dis-
tricts
food. It is to Iteof meal df.o r
weather to-day may
hoped that the improvement in the
`'or the land, even England,
general, and of some continuance,
unless we have a 'gland, is completely soaked, and
seed time for somethe days of hard blowing weather, the
accounts confirm theutrin• wheat will be in danger. All
be required in the spripnin.ior that large importations will
calculate the qutuitity wl, L'h but it is as yet impossible to
We still adhere to 10,00
anyopretension to accuracy.
2,000,000 before next harvest° quarters, and possibly
if the trade knew the nature aosf the lowest computation.
in the scale of duties the
modifications to be 1
seat abroad. ordere would soon be
lieifeS.—The dealers in the
shown little anxiety to do businese today,
funds have
readily accounted for by the uncertain nature
and this is
telligence lately received from Anierie
raature of the in
Lion to remain quiet till the arrival or the' n and a disP(:sei. news by which will, it is expected, give a ed° ia'
--e
notion of our real position with the United sometlt definite
Thus
will the opportunity be afforded (for which no '451;
are waiting) for the speculators to operate upontwthhei
they may judge the chances of the market, which is at
t
' present, having lately experienced such a shock, so sus-
ceptible that action to any extent is felt to be imprudent,
especially on the news of which we are now in pos-
session.
Among the rumours current in the city is one that the
the old system of lotteries is about to be revived, and
that a correspondence with the Treasury has already
commenced on the subject.
HERALD.—.Areport of the periodical meeting last week
of the Shareholders in the Bank of Manchester, which is
very briefly given the.i
in llanchester Chronicle, is calculated
to re-awaken attention to the subject of Joint Stock
Bank management. The brevity of the report itself is
owing to no oversight or omission on the part of the
managers of that ably conducted journal, whose re-
porter was duly in attendance to chronicle with custom-
ary fidelity the particular, proceedings of the meeting,
but wa4-refeeed admission. The Directors, however,
although unwilliii
rity for the purpolla, were aot averse to laying their Own