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

n.

The Morning Herald yesterday gave the fol-
lowing brief history of the vicissitudes of agri-
culture.under the modern Corn-laws ;
The present high prices of domestic grain are the re-
sultproducedrapid of the very low prices of 1835, '
ruin among the cultivators
extensive
clension in the amount of cultivation in the British
islands. Thence followed the deficient supplies of 18—
and 1838, when in the former year the import of foreign
wheat sprung from two hundred and sixty-three thou-
sand and seventy-four quarters to five hundred and se-
venty-eight thousand three hundred and fifteen quarter
and to one milliam three hundred and sixty-one thou,
Mad five hundred and eighty-four quarters in 1838; ithi:
t3eBed, andi
deficiency naturally begot the high
h
igh pricesave pro
of l
1839, and 1840 ; and these, ag
1841, more extensive cultivation and more abundant
produce, which have, however, been neutralised by the
vet and inclement harvest weather which has, we fear,
greatly injured what at one time promised to be a good
and ample supply.
The effects produced on the internal cultivation by
the alteration df prices seems to be invariable. The
high prices of 1816, 1817, and ISIS, ranging from 945.
to 845., with an average yearly import of one million
three hundred thousand quarters, were succeeded by ex-
tended cultivation of wheat and improved husbandry,
which produced low prices, abundant home supplies,
and greatly diminished imports for the next three
rars.w The very low prices of 1822 and 1823 again
2orse land out of eultivation, prices sprung up
a quarter in 1,8924 and 1825, and were only
kept down, in 1826. 'raid 1827, by augmented importa-
tions. In 1828 andiB29 the effect of the withdrawal
af the On
from
noes -pound notes became apparent ; prices rose
1831, and the average importation of
firoirileiiiglao_
six hundred
those four years was upwards of one
came six ea thousand quarters per annum. Then
and diml jsherds.of low prices, great a7ricultural distress,
hundred and imports—the latter averaging only three
by an incer:4.l7, enty thousand quarters per annum ; and
InB, 1839:""a_ ..'e
_sequence the diminished production of
have before
poltler
00, with the augmented imports we
Fromtothisit st elite
given
price, leads the productionby artificially raising the
than thefarmers to produce more in fer-
tile years
when, in consequeneconlinunity can purchase,
tion, prices fall very elof their excessive produc-
extensively ruined, mow' and the farmers are
is not the interested e in 1834 and 1835. This
tuella
law, but of a Pr, -co ent of an Anti-Corn-
journal which claims the": advocate, and of a
mer's friend. It should title of being the far-
impression on them, and wmake a corresponding
can enforce it by the follovve* shall be happy if we
When the price of food ,I, es onsiderations.
ithe consunr)tio.,

diminishes, and as there is always in society a
considerable number of persons who can barely
subsist, every such rise in prices • either di-
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, asin 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 plentifu I 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 oar 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
be nearly on a level with the average prices of
all the countries from which we should draw our
supplies; consequently, in scarce year's, 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
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 BALAAM, 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
!aw 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 501. or 231.
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
;ournals.

Some of the Anti-Free-trade Journals wish to

eneratc 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-
o
no ri ty—whi
eb
fortunately
wisdom—or fo r
theythe nation, does
ever
dream of attempting to
aot depend n their
weaken or destroyto maintain restrictions on
trade under the pretext
ournavtahat lfreeade would
greatness.
A map of the world tells us at a glance that
no great empire has a sea board equal to the
islands of Great Britain and Ireland. . Our po-
pulation is comparativel
any other people, by th y more m
e fact ofatrhitelmirelitvhinagn
on the borders of the sea. Our colonial pos-
sessions, our vast foreign and coasting trade,
the nurseries of our seamen,
are the
growth and consequences of our empir
being surrounded by the sea, a source of marl-
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 sup. neriamitity,
ifbutthenoltahnind..
nothing
else, ,we believe, can
lords will only allow the population tionto
extend our trade, and increase th
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, M
shipping ; by a recent increase foreign
but what does that arise from ? It

was given in evidence before the Import Duties
Committee, that English shipowners are vesting
their capital in foreign ships, because they can
be built cheaper, and navigated cheaper than
English ships. But why is this? Our
shipwrights are as skilful as those of
any country in the world, and our ships
are navigated by fewer seamen in proportion to
their tonnage than those of other nations. It is
because our exorbitant discriminating duties- on
timber nearly double the price of that commo-
dity, and our Corn and Provision-laws increase
the expense of victualling our ships 20 or 30 per
cent. Our Timber-duties and Corn-laws, and
our Cocxnunx-cherished claim to steal the sea-
men, when he and his colleagues choose to make
war, with various other devices which our law-
makers have fallen on to make sea-going hate-
ful, and building and navigating ships very
costly, are the true causes of the comparative
increase of foreign shipping, the true sources of
our maritime weakness, and will be, if they arc
suffered to continue, the effective causes of our
national decay.

The encouragement of our seamen, a subject
which is taken up by the Shipping Gazette, is
just now a proper object of national solicitude.
It will be best accomplished by setting our trade
free, and abolishing the hard usages to which
semen are exposed. An increasing demand fur
their services, and the increased respect shown
them by the Legislature, would elevate them in
their own opinion, and make them better and
wiser. We do not agree with our Contemporary,
whose reasons will be found in another part of
The Sun, in desiring for our mercantile marine
any recognised standing. Our merchants, bank-
ers, and manufacturers need no recognition by
the Legislature to add to their respectability or
their usefulness; neither do our merchant sea-
men. Let them find protection, not grievous
oppression, from the laws of their country, and
they will take a dignified station in society cor-
responding to their usefulness.

Wonders will never cease. Yesterday DANIEL
O'CONNELL was made a RIGHT HONOURABLE
Privy Councillor, and elected Lord Mayor of
Dublin! We guess that the darling project of
Repeal has got rather into a cleft stick.
With the left hand the Liberator will
advocate the Repeal of the Union—while
with the right hand the Lord Mayor of
Dublin will assert the dignity of the laws, and
maintain the integrity of the empire! Here is a
pretty kettle of fish for the LORD LIEUTE-
NANT'S dinner! Well, the spirit of contradic-
tion has at length found a resting place in
the patriotic consistency of O'CONNELL, whose
extraordinary public career has been one con-
tinued breach of precedent—the first lawyer in
Ireland, the only one to set all Tory rules at
defiance! Verily, none but himself can be his
parallel.

From the list of subscriptions for the suffering
work-people of Paisley, inserted in our adver-
tising columns, we are gratified to observe that
her Majesty the QUEEN has most generously
availed herself of the very earliest opportunity
for recording her name as a subscriber to the
fund. We believe this subscription has been
given spontaneously and unsolicited, and from
such an act her MAJESTY'S subjects have another
proof of the deep interest she feels in their wel-
fare, and of how very far it is from her wish
that any of them should either be suffering or
in want who are able and willing to provide for
themselves. We most sincerely hope that this
spirited and liberal example set by the QUEEN
will not be lost sight of by the Nobility, but that
the great majority of them will be ready to fol-
low the example of their SOVEREIGN in showing
their readiness to mitigate the sufferings of the
manufacturing classes, by devoting to that pur-
pose a small portion of the immense wealth at
their disposal.

The following letter from Mr. M'Luon, dated
from the prison at Utica, was unintentionally
omitted in our Afternoon Edition of yesterday.
Its publication will serve to dispel the
calumnies of the New York Sympathisers
relative to the alleged boasting about the de-
struction of the Caroline. As our previous im-
pression of his character was derived from them,
it is gratifying to us to have it in our power to
submit the following corrective to our readers :
"II am now in another act of this interminable
Wieod case.' When the curtain will drop, and the
last scene of the farce be played, I cannot say. You
will have seen the whole of the proceedings in the
papers, and are doubtless sick of hearing of the affair
from day to day, so I need not trouble you with the de-
tails. I may say briefly, that when the Judges decided
against the application I made, I at once decided on
having a trial as early as possible, to get out of this
dreary confinement. My counsel were and are appre-
hensive of the result—they think I may be convicted. I
don't think it is probable, although such an event is
within the bounds of probability. The Patriots will
bring as much perjury to bear as they can, and doubt-
less they can procure any amount to order, to suit, on
the frontier. If I had moved for a writ of error to bring
the case into the Supreme Courts, it would have had to
go into the Supreme Court of the United States, and
then I should have had to await a decision until July
next. My health has suffered much from the close con-
finement ; such procrastination would kill me ; and it is
such a lingering death that it is irritating and annoying..
" I was urged by friends and fellow-countrymen iu
New York to draw up a narrative of the M‘Leod case,'
as it had excited so much attention, and was so very im-
perfectly understood by all patties, and publish it, as it
would exonerate my character from the foul stigma that
had been affixed to it by the witnesses, the press, and by
the President, through Daniel Webster's letter to Mr.
Fox, of the 24th of April, 1841—viz., that I had, on the
American frontier, bragged of having been at the de-
strnetion of their pirate-boat. I need not say to you,
the vile calumny is an infamous lie.' You know me
too well to have ever given the slightest credence to such
a report ; but millions believe it, because it has never, I
suppose, been satisfactorily contradicted. The fact is,
I was arrested on the 24th of September, 1840, at Man-
chester, at or about noonday. In less than fivo minutes
there were at least 100 people congregated around
me. I mildly denied having any hand in the destruc-
tion of their boat ; but when before the Magistrate,
in the midst of a crowd, and bantered and taunted
with cowardice in denying the part they said I acted in
the affair, I said, I was not there; had I been, I should
not deny it. I considered the destruction of that boat a
laudable and praiseworthy action, and I will not lay
claim to an honour to which I have no title.' I have
ever held the same language. On the 12th of November
I was again arrested, at mid-day, in that rascally den of
iniquity, Lewiston, and immediately a crowd was col-
lected around me. If I had ever made such a boast to
their country, it was susceptible of proof. No proof of
such a boast has yet been given. One or two perjured
villains swore they heard me in Chippewa boast of hav-
ing been at the destruction of the boat; even they swear
they never mentioned such a story till after they heard
of my arrest.

" You have not seen all the stories they have got up
against me, to prejudice the world against me. I have
been held up as one of the greatest scoundrels that draws
the breath of life. The whole Press has been arrayed
against me, with very few honourable exceptions; their
members of Congress and Assembly of this State have
abused me in all manner of ways; and yet they keep
saying I shall have a fair trial ! "

We have read with alternate feelings of in-
dignation and disgust the explanations which
MARIA CHRISTINA MUNOZ ex-Regent of Spain,
wife of Life-guardsman MUNOZ, and very dear
confederate of Louis PHILIPPE, has deigned to
give to the demand of the Spanish Ambassador,
as to her participation in the rebellion in
Spain, and particularly in the attack on the Royal
Palace. The malicious and malignant effusion,
in which CHRISTINA states that she " did not ad-
vise the unhappy events"which now afflict Spain,
is concocted with an evident design to fan the
embers of rebellion to make known to all the
disaffected in Spain how cordially the Ex-RE-
GENT sympathises with them; and, above all, to
represent the present Government of Spain as
one against which it is highly meritorious, on
the part of all Spaniards and Catholics, to take up
arms. Her
sympathies are not confined to her-
self. She has; a tear for the POPE and the priests,
whom she despoiled of their property when
Regent of the
fueros, which she declared abolished when she
Kingdom, and for the Basque
promulgated the Constitution. Senor OLOZAGA,
by his diznified firmness, has succeeded in
severing all connection between Spain and
CHRISTINA
MUNOZ. He has unmasked the
treasons concocted in Paris. He has compelled
CHRISTINA MuN
oz
to declare herself—to stand
before the world branded with the confessed in-
famy of sympathising
with the ruffians who, at
dead of night, filled the Palace of her infant

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LONDON
WEDNESDA Y, OCTOBER 27, 1841.