The Sun.
London, England, 1841-07-22 00:00:00

for farmers, rent for landlords, and tithes for
priests. As long as the law interferes with the
food of the people, it takes on itself the awful
responsibility, far greater than human power is
equal to, of providing food and employment for
the millions, and they have a right to look to it
for comfortable subsistence.

(The Monopolists say that the seasons are not
under their control; but they act as if they
were. If they are not, why not allow the people,
uninterfered with, to watch the changes, and
adapt their conduct to them ? Why interfere
with what they cannot control—with what they
know little or nothing of? Why rush between
man and the manifestations of his Maker's will,
disturbing and disordering those regular se-
quences of phenomena, a knowledge of which
is necessary to guide his actions. Unless the
whole of the circumstances connected with the
supply of food, including the seasons, the indus-
try of the labourer, the skill of the farmer, and
the appetite of the consumer, were under the
control of the law-maker, it is the height of folly,
or sheer madness, to interfere with some one of
the circumstances, and so take on itself the obli-
gation of directing them all. •
The rise in the price of bread, which we set
out by stating, will be a proper theme for Lord
STANLEY'S eloquence'. That agitator for dear
corn and high rents, who is to be Se-
cretary fbr the Colonies, and one of the
leading Members of the PEEL Cabine
who is also hereafter to be Earl of DERBY.
with an immense revenue, extorted by taxing
the bread of the factory children and famishing
spinners of Lancashire, that Right Hon. dema-
gogue and agitator for the starvation of the toil-
ing millions, by -whose labours he is enriched,
will, in consistency, ascribe this rise in the price
of bread to the exorbitant profits of the millers
and the bakers, whom he, with a meanness quite
worthy of himself, endeavoured at Lancaster to
make the scape-goats for the landlords. We
cannot assent to his doctrines. Whatever may
be the profit of the bake'rs and the millers, it is
the result of the competition of the market, nar_
rowed and influenced certainly by those Corn-
laws which Lord STANLEY maintains, but it is
not directly enhanced, or intended to be en-
hanced, like Lord STANLEY'S rent, by a tax on
the corn before it is made into bread.

The vulgar cry against the bakers and the
millers, which this demagogue Lord endea-
voured to revive after it has been ex-
ploded fbr nearly a quarter of a century,
is perfectly unfounded, for they get nothing
more than the proper reward of their labour,
settled, as all prices ought to be settled, by what
Dr. SMITH called the higgling of the market•
The idle demagogue Lord's attempt to excise
the prejudices of the vulgar against those useful
labourers who grind corn and make bread, was
equally unjust and mean. It was a base attempt
to screen the idle bread-taxers, by insinuating
false charges against those industrious classes.
Whatever may be their gains, they are the ap-
propriate rewards for their services, freely given
by other men, and do not enhance the
price of the loaf a farthing beyond what is
necessary. We deplore as much as most people
the present unfavourable prospects, arising from
an excess of rain. We deeply regret to see, as
bankruptcy advances and employment slackens,
that bread is rising in price ; but we cannot,
therefore, neglect to direct public indignation
against the true causes of these calamities, and
we dare not forbear from holding up to merited re-
probation the hardened men who persist, for their
own selfish purposes, in bringing calamity on the
country, meanly accusing others, to screen them-
selves, and falsely ascribing it to Divine wisdom.

Since we adverted yesterday to the tendencies
of society, which the Tories are to oppose, we
have met with a pamphlet, by Dr. CHANNING,
entitled " The Present Age, Scc." the object of
which is-to dilate on the fact, that the present
tendency of society is " directly opposed to the
spirit of exclusiveness."
' In looking at our age lam struck immediately (he
says) with one commanding characteristic, which is the
tendency in all its movements to expansion, to diffusion,
to universality. This tendency is directly opposed to
the spirit of exclusiveness, restriction, narrowness, mo-
nopoly, which has prevailed, in past ages. Human ac-
tion is now freer—more unconfined. All goods, ad-
vantages, helps, are more open to all. The privileged
fettered individual is becoming less, and the human race
is beceming more. The multitude is rising' from the
dust. Once we heard of a few, now of the' many—once
of the prerogative of a part—now of the right of all. We
are looking, as never before, through the disguises, en-
velopments of ranks and classes, to the common nature
which lies below them.
He goes on to say, " that if we look at the va-
rious movements of our age, we shall see in them
the tendency to universality and diffusion ;" and
he illustrates his position by science, no longer
" locked up in a few Colleges or Royal Societies,
or inaccessible volumes "—" having its portals
guarded by a dark phraseology," but, " with fa-
miliar tone, having left- her retreats, begun
the work of instructing the race." lie illustrates
it also by the tendencies of literature, by the fine
arts, in which, though "the spirit of the great
artists has died, still the taste for their works is
spreading. By the improvement in engraving
and the invention of casts, the genius of
the great masters is going abroad. Their
works are no longer pent up in galleries
only open to iew, but meet us in our houses,
and are the household pleasures of millions.°
The mechanical genius of the age, which some
ethereal souls are wont to mock at, is essentially
the genius of multiplication, which, far from
being confined to cotton cloth and knives, has
extended itself to the very noblest works of the
sculptor and the painter, and has spread, or is
spreading, copies of them at a small cost through
every hamlet of every country of the civilized
globe.

Dr. CHANNING also illustrates this tendency of
our age by the progress of religion, by the con-
duct of the Government, and by extension of
trade; on which, as very appropriate just now,
we copy the following paragrah :
Allow me to say a word to the merchants of our
country
on ar.other subject. The time is come when
reareparticularly called to take yet more generous
anticto the ~/.
views of their vocation, and to give commerce a univer-
sality as yet unknown. I refer to the juster principles
, gaining ground on the subject of free trade,
terest
Free trade'lowil"'. .disposition of nations to promote it.
of
the tus is the plain duty and plain in-
product ; this
free exchahme, human race. To level all barriers to
root and branch cut up the system of restriction,—
To this a freers , t open every port on earth to every
Freedom of thenatithe office of enlightened humanity.
course of nations free
seas freedom
fshould especially pledge itself.
as
the
of harbours—an inter-
of philanthropists. a
,v).!1:0e tending towards•it, and let
was compresseydwi!ich,
we he winds—this is not the dream
us hasten it. tinder
tion, we shall look back on and more Christian civiliza-
glorious
present restrictions as Ise
do on the swaddling bands°ul;
's opinion, in darker times,
illustration'he growing freedom
the human body
of trade is another and
dtihffeuns,et that
equallyth e
ten-
dency of our age to universality." of the
of. men, all
prelsteinst Dtern.dCenlicAyNNOlfNsGociety is to'
amongst all classes and conditions
the advantages, whether of science, art,•kn,
ledge, political power, or wealth, which. :,e\rve-
heretofore monopolized by a few; not degrading
the highest down to the level of the lowest, but
lifting the lowest up to the level of the very
highest; not the most wealthy, but the most in-
structed, the wisest, and the most civilised.
This tendency of the age might be illustrated
by those mechanical advantages of travelling,
which, in this country, and wherever rail-
roads and steam-boats are introduced, place
the very best and swiftest method of
conveyance at the command of almost the
meanest man of the empire, and; make it im-
possible for the richest noble to be better con-
veyed than he, for he shares with the noble the
steamboat, and is whirled along on . the.

railroad with the same velocity. It might be
also illustrated by our present mode of
manufacturing all kindli..Qf commodities, which

must be done on a grand scale, and, conse-

.... pro-