The Sun.
London, England, 1841-12-14 00:00:00

struggling to wring from Goverments and
monopolists a freedom to buy and sell
when and where• they like, as they have
already wrung from Governments the freedom
to worship GOD after their own hearts. The
solemn principle for which the free trade party
now contend is, that there must be no more re-
straints on trade than on conscience.

Unfortunately, however, there arises every
now and then from amongst the mass of free
traders, or professed free traders, some man
who, with a smattering of worldly knowledge,
reasonable assurance, and great ignorance of
principles, has formed some scheme of his own ;
or has adopted the scheme of some stronger.
headed and cunninger man than himself to im-
prove the condition of the Society. For this one
particular love of his, the hoarded experience of
ages, the wisdom of the wise, and the knowledge
of the learned, are all to be set aside. The ge-
neral principles of free trade, which can never
be enough admired on the hustings, are of no
avail against such a pet project. Though Col.-
BERT and Pier, though Parliaments and Kings,
have in all cases most egregiously failed when
they have undertaken to direct the employment
of capital and industry, the professed free
traders, who advocate the WAKEFIELD system of
emigration, think they are sure to succeed; and.
that, if they can only get the Legislature to
direct a large stream of capital and labour to the
mountains of New Zealand, the sheep pastures
of New South Wales, or the estates of the British
Land Company in Canada, the community will
be prosperous and happy.
The advantages or disadvantages of their
scheme we are not about to discuss ; we
only wish to make our readers aware that
in opposing it we are consistent, and that
its advocates, who at the same time call
themselves free traders, and ask for a repeal of
the Corn-laws, are inconsistent, or do not under-
stand, and therefore betray, that system of free
trade which they pretend to advocate. Thus a
writer in the Weekly Chronicle on Saturday,
with a kind of holy fervour, in favour of trans-
porting his 'countrymen, exclaimed—
Are we to advocate the "Let-alone" system, until the
whole fabric of society is broken up, because we cannot
carry our own peculiar views ? Or, must we not rather
ask, whether the object proposed to us be good, so far as
it goes ?—whether the means suggested for its attain-
ment be adequate ? and whether, it attained, it will af-
ford relief ?

The " let-alone system" which is here sneered
at, is the system of free trade, which this writer,
for the sake of his crotchet, would trample
under foot. Is he then ignorant that the " let-
alone system" wherever it has been acted on—
as in the supply of the markets with food—as in
the bulk of our internal trade— as in the growth
and extension of our vast 'system of combined
labour, commonly, but inaccurately, called
division of labour—has been productive of im-
mense good, and that it is acting on the meddling
system advocated by him, as exemplified in
Sugar Duties, Corn-laws, &c., &c., that society

is overwhelmed with difficulties? He does a most
glaring injustice, therefore, when he implies that
the " let-alone system," if followed, will cause
the whole fabric of society to be broken up. The
meddling system is bringing it to ruin. If it be
proper for the Parliament to direct capital to-
wards New Zealand, may it not direct it to culti-
vate our waste heaths? May it not, also, direct

it to improve the cultivation of the land already
cultivated? To admit that the " let-alone sys-
tem" will cause the breaking up of society is to en-
courage the meddling of knaves and fools with
the production and distribution of wealth, of
which they are more ignorant, while they are
selfishly interested, than of the laws of planetary
motion.

The writer in the Weekly Chronicle, in his
eagerness to justify the interference of the Le-
gislature with emigration, gives up the whole
case of the Corn-law repealers.

We may command, he says, no doubt, unlimited sup-
plies of food, but the extension of our markets must be
the result of more extended cultivation, and of a change
in the policy of many of the Continental States : and it is
upon the increased demand for goods that the increased
comforts of our manufacturing population will depend.
Besides, it is not to the manufacturer alone that we have
to look ; and a man must be blind, indeed, not to see
that however beneficial the change of system may be
ultimately (and no one can be more intimately convinced
of it than ourselves), it must cause, in the first instance,
a great disturbance in the existing relations of society,
and above all in the distribution of agricultural labour,
for which it will be as necessary to provide a vent, as it is
to afford rtlV to Stockport, or Paisley, now.
This is what the pro-Corn-law men say; and if
the repeal of the Corn-laws is to cause as much
distress to the agriculturists as is now suffered at
Paisley and Stockport, they should be maintain-
ed. But it is false to say that the extension
of our markets requires a change of policy in
many Continental States. Though not a single
alteration were made by them, our trade with
them would be enlarged by the abolition of
our own restrictions; while America offers us a
boundless market for our produce, would we •
only accept it. It is false to say that a vent
must then be found for agricultural labour.
There is not the slightest reason to believe that
any laud would be thrown out of cultivation by
the repeal of the Corn-laws. Such an increased
demand fbr food would take place in the manu-
facturing districts that our own agriculturists
would not be able to supply it, let them
exert themselves to the utmost. This advocate
of emigration, therefore, sacrifices the cause of
Corn-law repeal, which he pretends to support,
and he sneers, either from ignorance or silly
conceit, at that great system of " Let-alone" in
the employment of capital and labour, for which
men have been struggling since the days of
SMITH and FRANKLIN.

The passages we have quoted, appear in the
Weekly Chronicle, and that Journal is said to he
edited by Mr. WARD, M.P. for Sheffield. If he
have written the article, as we believe he has, or
he have sanctioned its publication, we must
plainly tell the honest free traders of Sheffield

that their confidence in him is misplaced. He
is unworthy to represent them. The writer of
that article neither comprehends nor heartily
supports the only system on which they can con-
sistently demand the abolition of the Corn-laws.

A letter which we insert from "A Metho-
dist,"states that the Sunday Schools of the Society
are deserted by many pupils, their parents being
able to provide only a scanty supply of the
coarsest food, but not to clothe their children
decently. The same fact has long ago been
stated of the hand-loom weavers, which brings
education
before us
an alarming cause, so far as school
can improve man, of the future dete-
riorationof our
people. Those who want food
cannot think of education,and
ing classes down by extreme poverty is to de-
grade and brutalise the next generation. They will
be fit, perhaps, for performing those mere me-
chanical operations to wl • itch the aristocracy wish
to limit them; at the same time it
will be neces-
sary to take care lest such a population should
at any time break loose, for having none of the
restraints of reason—being kept in subjection
by
terror, whenever that shall be at an end, even
for a moment—their furious passions will project
them like an avalanch.e on their masters, and
they will destroy all before them.
The Church of England may find its advantage
in this state of things. We do not say that the
clergy side with the landlords in order to thin
the schools of the Dissenters, and lessen the
incomes of their ministers; but if such were their
design, they could not have fallen on a more
certain method of accomplishing it. The Dis-
senters chiefly inhabit towns, and by starving or
impoverishing the townspeople, the income of
dissent must be extinguished. The income of
the Church, however, and of its schools, being
mainly provided at the public charge, will not
be diminished, and so the clergy will tower
higher and higher above the Dissenters, and
their schools will continue to flourish, though the
Dissenters' schools decay. The Corn-law may
serve the double purpose, therefore, of making
the next generation orthodox, while it starves
the present race into poverty and submission.
We saw it stated a few days ago in a Alan-