The Sun.
London, England, 1846-11-04 00:00:00

(Sbvning

LONDON, WEDNESDAY,-NOVENIBEIZ 4, 1846.

Although we are perfectly satisfied that there is
not the slightest danger of an absolute scarcity of
provisions:in England, we are, nevertheless, convinced
that there is a necessity for the landowners throughout
the island to bestir themselves. With the advance-
ment of the season the peasantry will require in-
creased assistance. We do not, however, wish this

stricken to support themselves and their children
during the inclemency of the winter. To form any
adequate notion of the generosity evinced by this
Nobleman, it must be remembered that the smaller
tenantry of Sutherlandshire are in a more flourishing
condition than thousands in other parts of the king-
dom. Upon the evidence of a most respectable and
competent authority, the crofters and cotters of
that district pay merely from ss. to 2s. 6d. the
Scotch acre for arable land, and nothing whatever for
land not arable. According to the same testimony,
although these allotments are singularly diminutive,
their holders are, notwithstanding, in a more prosper-
ous condition than the same classes in any other
of the northern counties. It is to this generally
flourishing population that the Duke of SUTHER-
LAND has written two generous, sensible, recommen-
datory, and encouraging addresses. His Grace ac-
knowledges the receipt of a petition from the parish of
Clyne, and in reference to the nature of that petition he
at once endeavours to disabuse the public mind of the
erroneous impression that the potato murrain had
proved wholly disastrous. He assures those who are
filled with apprehension as to the consequence of the
presumed universality of the disease, that he has ob-
tained elaborate reports upon the subject from every
individual parish with which he is connected, that he
has scrupulously considered and compared those re-
ports, and that he has the satisfaction of finding that
they all, especially the more recent ones, concur in
stating that the calamity is less extensive than was pre-
sumed. Considering the excellence and abundance of
all other crops, and considering, moreover, that while
the vegetable blight has " prevailed to a lamentable
extent" in some directions, it has in others been

scarcely apparent. The Noble Duke declares to his
tenantry and vvorkpeople that he has " every reason
to hope that there is no danger of famine." It is
sifter this satisfactory commencement that his Grace
enters upon the consideration of the pith of the emer-

gency. To avert any grievous effects, he re-
commends every one most strenuously to eco-
nomise the provisions which are still remaining to
them, and by that means to make up the
deficiency. For example, he solicits all those who
are " independent of potatoes as an article of food" to
abstain from consuming what is to them a superfluity,
hut what is a necessity to the indigent. In his own
family and household he has adopted this course, and
consequently does not recommend a practice which he
is personally disinclined to follow. Immediately after
this recommendation the Duke of SUTIIERLAND ob-
serves, " I fully concur in the opinion entertained by

persons most competent to judge, that if, to meet an
emergency, assistance becomes necessary to enable the
labourer to provide food, a supply qf employment is
most desirable." These words embody the principle
upon which we would behold the behaviour of the
landowners throughout the island modelled.
Let-active and remunerative employment be given
to the labourers, and the consequences of the present

failure in the potato crop will be advantageous to the
community, instead of being disastrous. Those whose
allotments are nothing better than scenes of vegetable
corruption will be enabled to purchase food from the
neighbouring markets. Those who are w ithout
allotments will, by a moderate increase in
their wages, or, by a more continuous em-

ployment, be enabled to compete with the
higher prices of provisions. "If extraordinary
necessities require unusual exertions, such will
not be wanting," says the Duke of SUTHERLAND,
and meanwhile employment will be afforded to those
who are capable of bodily exertion, while to the help
less poor certain quantities of meal will be portioned

out by the parochial boards. Nothing could we'

he devised of a more kindly or propitious
character. By these arrangements relief will
be lavished upon the necessitous without de-

basing the industrious population into paupers.
They will receive " a good day's wages for a good
day's work," and with those wages compensate them-
selves for the failure of their allotments and for the
unusual costliness of provisions. If the different
landowners in England, Scotland, and Ireland would
only emulate the generosity and foresight of his
Grace the Duke of SUTHERLAND, the fears of the
poorer classes would be speedily dissipated, and the
pressure of the approaching winter altogether re-
moved.

The subject recently introduced by Mr. STEWART,
and which may be styled, after him, " A Free Trade in
Land," cannot be suffered to drop until its vast im-
portance is thoroughly appreciated, and the public are
made fully alive to the benefits that would be obtained
by a thorough and searching reform of the law of real
property.
On Saturday we alluded to the mischiefs occasioned
by the restrictions attendant on the transfer or sale
of land, both as to the great expense and as to the un-
certainty of title. The owner of the soil is thereby
prevented from obtaining a sum of money on the
security of his lands, except at an expense of so exor-
bitant a character, that it acts as a total bar to his
adopting such a course for any temporary accommo-
dation. He may often be seriously embarrassed and in-
convenienced for the want of such accommodation, and
yet, with the means within his power, he is debarred by
the inequitable provisions of the law from availing
himself thereof ; and improvements are neglected that
would otherwise have been carried into execution,
and the productive qualities of the soil are not de-
veloped to the extent that would otherwise have been
the case. When the fearful character of the visita

tion by which our Irish brethren were afflicted be-
came fully known, when the enormous amount of
destitution was understood, and the means of profit-
able employment for the multitude, in order that by
their labour the national wealth might be increased
and multiplied, in place of being unprofitably con-
sumed, was anxiously canvassed and considered, the
eyes of all were directed to the waste lands of the
country. It appeared almost providential that there
should be six million acres of land yet untouched by
the spade or plough, of which more than four million
acres could be reclaimed and brought into cultivation
at a moderate expenditure, and which would undoubt-
edly repay from 10 to 20 per cent. on the money
expended in the improvement. It appeared miracu-
lous that in a country where labour was so cheap and
abundant the land had been so long suffered to lie idle
and unproductive, but the letter of Mr. O'CONNELL—
a sound and practical lawyer— explained the anomaly,
and wh7 it was that so little had hitherto been done,

' assurance to be understood in its ordinary acceptation. ;
The assistance demanded by the poorer classes is not
such as would be afforded to a mendicant, but
such as may be implied in a simple case
of bartering. The landlords will not be
expected to employ almoners for the relief
of their destitute or necessitous dependents—they
will only be expected to exhibit a little more enter-
prise, and, in circumstances of emergency, a trifle
more liberality in the prosecution of their common
avocations. 'We would on no account whatever see
the farm-labourers degenerated into the recipients of
a bounty supplied by eleemosynary institutions, even
though these institutions were of merely temporary
establishment. The needy peasant should receive
such assistance only as would prove equally advan-
tageous and remunerative to the donor and the donee.
In this particular, indeed, the English landowner should
take example from Government in its mode of admi-
nistering relief to the Irish population. They should
thereby recognise the fact, that starvation is best pre-
vented not by pecuniary gifts, not by distributing pre-
sents of meal to the famishing, but byaffording each indi-
vidual such employment as would enable him to pur-
chase provisions for himself and his family. In other
language, the impoverished tenants should not so
much be dragged out of the abyss of their afflictions,
as enabled to redeem their own position by honest
toil ; they should not so much be extricated from
their difficulties as enabled to extricate themselves.
Two addresses, recently addressed to his smaller
tenantry and workpeople by his Grace the Duke of
SUTHERLAND, and already published in The Sun of
the 2d instant, are so perfectly in accordance with

these views that we should feel ourselves in some

measure culpable if we allowed them to go unnoticed.
Those addresses are most honourable to the Noble Duke;
they redound equally to the credit of his intelligence
and his benevolence. Gladly would we recognise all the
landlords of the United Kingdom emulating the conduct
of the D uke of SUTHERLAND, evincing both in word and
action the same paternal solicitude for the prosperity of
their tenants and labourers, striving with equal earnest-
ness to dissipate the apprehensions of the community
and presenting similar opportunities to the poverty-