The Sun.
London, England, 1841-01-22 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.

FROM TILE MORNING PAPERS OF THIS DAY.
(From the 111orning Chronicle.)
We were somewhat startled en Wednesday last by
finding that the Morning Post had become the pro-
fessed organ of the working classes, end was answering
for their wishes and preferences as decidedly as any god-
father at the font. Still wore startling was it to sae
what the Post promised in their name; " The working
people would rather pay a little more for their loaves
than see thousands of their countrymen who work upon
the laud of England turned adrift because corn could be
got cheaper from Poland or Hungary." Unless the
Morning Post have made a most unwarrantable assump-
tion, the singularity of its being selected for this com-
munication to the public, and that of the communica-
tion itself, are alike remarkable. The generosity of the
working people, who would rather pay It little more for
their loaves, can never be sufficiently appreciated. It
is ED kind in them to make this sacrifice for the sake of
landlords, whose rents have only doubled, while wages
have remained nearly stationary, or have deteriorated.
It is so self denying to relinquish a portion of their own
food, and that of their wives and children, that the
proceeds of the bread-tax may remain intact for the pro-
prietors of the soil. It is so magnanimous to uphold
the restrictions upon those employments from which
their means of subsistence are derived ; and to exclaim,
" Perish commerce, so that the squirearchy thrive ; we
had rather pay a little more for our loaves!" But the
" thousands who work upon the land of England
turned adrift ;" there is the apprehension of the opera-
tives of the Post. The fear is very groundless. In
the first place, so long as there are millions of acres
of uncultivated but not unfruitful land, which would
yield food for toil, none can he turned adrift but
by inhumanity in the proprietors. Next, consider-
ing how many thousands of the surplus rural popu-
lation have been provided for in the manufacturing
towns, there can be no reasonable doubt that the sti-
mulus given by free trade would provide for many
thousands more, without so much competition as at the
present moment. And further, the growing wealth and
numbers of the home buyers of corn would surely en-
able its producers to keep pace with the foreigner
and realise fair profits. The wastefulness of the Corn-
law system leaves ample room for both classes to be
gainers. The operatives of the Post may therefore
forego their hypothetical sympathy for the hypothetical
drifting of their countrymen, and harden themselves, if
they can, to the non-necessity of pay ing a little more for
their loaves. The Post frankly tells its new clients that
Toryism is opposed " to such an extension of the fran-
chise as will reach them." One reason assigned for this
hostility is that, although the working classes are far
higher " in respect of merit and intellectual qualifica-
tion" than the 101. householders, yet their "knowledge"
is too " limited" for the franchise. Whether the alleged
desire of the working people to pay a little more for
their loaves be intended to prove them superior in wis-
dom to the present constituency, or to prove them not
wise enough for voters, does not clearly appear. Per-
haps it was meant for evidence of both propositions. It
would be difficult to say which class is most flattered by
the argument. Our own experience has no where de-
tected the desire of paying a little more for the loaf,
thus authentically recorded by our Contemporary.
Where are the working people who feel it so
strongly ? Are they amongst the hand-loom weavers ?
Or are they farm labourers, sweating for Ss. a week or.
the Duke of Buckingham's domains? Shall we meet
with them in Spitalfiel'ls ? Is it far this purpose that
wretched and ragged processions are formed ? Or has
our Contempeearyeby his ingenuity, converted the mil-
lion and half who last year petitioned for the abolition
of the Corn-laws ? We wish the gentle Post would
tell us where these starving aspirants for dealer bread
live and work ? We should like to see them, were it
only for the curiosity of the thing. In this same ar-
ticle it is maintained that the working classes ought not
to have the franchise, and yet that they are " wronged"
-by the Whig Radicals in not bestoeing it. upon them.
According:to such logic, the refusal and the bestowment
must be both wrong. The palpable confusion of right
and wrong is characteristic of Tory morality. As to the
charge of cheating, by first pronii.ing the suffrage to
the see rkine classes, and then denying it, the whole
whole thing is a fictiA. The Liberal party has always
been eivided on this point. What the Uovernutent.
promised, they both promised and bestowed by the
Reform Bill. What the friends of a more extended
suffrage promised they have ever given, and still con-
tinue to give, viz., their own untiring advocacy of such
extension. The pretended friendship of the Tories
for the working classes has only shown itself in undevi-
acing opposition to their political emancipation. They
allow the fact, and call on statesmen to mark it, " that
among large bodies of the English working people there
exists a feeling of strong discontent with the present
distribution of the elective franchise." But toward
cravings for political rights) the Tories have no bowels
of compassion. If the working people do really desire
to pay a little more for their loaves, that is almost the
only desire of which the Tories will help them to secure
the gratification. The same autho-ity which supports
and magnifies the bread-denying wish of the working
classes, is very severe upon the ten-pound householders
for joining in "the hese tied sordid cry" for cheap
bread. " These, taking them as a class, are the
worst set of Englishmen in existence ; the least
honest, the least generou', the most sordid, the most
self-indulgent, the most irreligious ;" and all because
they do not. desire to pay a little more for their loaves
or to elect bread-tax eandidatcg like Mr. J. Gladstone
at Walsall. Has any DCWS from that quarter made
the Post so angry just now with the ten-pound house-
holders? The boasted prospects of Toryism must be
clouded over by the admitted fact that town consti-
tuencies are against them on what will henceforth be
the great hustings question of Corn-law repeal. When
is the " re-action," we wonder, Has it " made itself
air ?" Melancholy is the end it has come to in this
outrageous diatribe against the whole class of ten-pound
householders. Melancholy- is the dilemma of Toryism,
with its town majority of voters in posse, whom it t.
determined not to make voters in case. And most for-
lorn of all is the hope that can nourish itself on no
more plausible, pretext than the desperate one the
"the working people would rather pay a little more
for their loaves."