The Sun.
London, England, 1841-09-01 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON. WEDNESDAY. SEPTEMBER 1,

it serves, when we state that in 1840,
2,020,214 quarters of foreign wheat, and in
1839, 2,521,494 quarters, and in 1838,
1,728,452 quarters were imported, being in the
three years an averege of 2,090,063 quarters a
year (Parliamentary paper No. 455). It appears,
therefore, that in the three years we have im-
ported from the Continent all the wheat it
could possibly spare, and the result is that instead
of our country being inundated with foreign
corn, and the land gone out of cultivation, a
greater breadth of wheat, it is said, was sown
last year than ever before, and the price of
good bread corn is at the present moment nearer
80s. than 70s. the quarter. Is not that a con-
clusive proof that all the tales of the bread-tax
about land going out of cultivation from an
inundation of foreign corn, are pure fabrications,
no better than wilful lies to bolster up a great
system of heartless fraud and cruelty.
For our part, we will honestly say that we
place no faith in these returns, so far as they
concern the future produce either of the Con-
tinent or of England. We hope and believe
that with free trade we might import ten mil-
lions of quarters. No man, however, knows that,
and we repeat for the twentieth time that
prices at home and abroad, the expense of
cultivation in different countries, the possible
quantity of food other lands might supply us
with, are not proper elements for legislation. It
must have a munch simpler and firmer basis, or
it will be full of error, and. error in legislation is
iniquity. The Legislature is bound to mete out
equal justice and equal protection to all the
people; but when it taxes the poor man's loaf
to swell the rich man's rent, when the protec-
tion it pretends to bestow on the grower of
bread corn is a prohibition on the consumer to
buy his bread where he pleases ; the legislature
departs from its duty, it violates the consumer's
right of property, it plunders hint instead of pre-
venting him from being plundered, and it in-
fringes on that liberty of action it is constituted
and obliged to secure. On these grounds we
condemn the Corn-law : on these grounds we de-
_L. and a total and immediate repeal ; and not
merely on the supposition that repealing it would
multiply our food, increase our trade, extend the
cultivation of our soil, and tend to make the
nation prosperous, contented, and moral, though
we know that such are invariably the fruits of
doing justice, and we are thoroughly convinced
that such would be the consequences of imme-
diately and totally abolishing the Bread-tax.
Under a host of similar false pretexts to that
which the Herald has so naively exposed, the
bread of the industrious and honest poor is taxed
;o increase the wealth of the idle, opulent, worth-
.ess, and even mischievous owners of rent.

It was well observed by Mr. WAKLEY ()n
Thursday, that the Commons cheered when the
people were starving. That is a tolerably accu-
rate description of the relation which exists be-

.ween the suffering community and the Legisla

ture. That the people are starving in many
places does not admit of a doubt; and that the
Legislature is proud of its own work is equally

certain. That it should exult and be vociferously
joyous, and that the people should, under bad
laws, pine and die of anguish and hunger, are in
the order of nature. They are co-existing facts,

which reflect no credit on the sagacity of the
people, or on the humanity of the Legislature.
On the following day the present Prime
Minister spoke—the man who takes office
to • continue the system which starves the
people. What said he ? He knows the
people are starving. Deputations have waited on
him to make him acquainted with the great dis-
tress which prevails. He referred, in the debate, to
the fact of families dyinc, of hunger, which has
been brought before the House. What did his
sagacity recommend ? What did his humanity
prompt? What may we expect from his power?
Taking hold of some statistical returns he de-

monstrated at great length that there had been
fluctuations in the price of corn in New York
and St. Petersburgh. That is the sort of bread
with which he is to fill the mouths of the
famishing multitude. " Good, patient people,"
he said, if his language meant any thing, "your
sufferings are not at all caused by any acts
of mine, or by the acts of the gentlemen who
cheered when the people were starving, and who
will undoubtedly again cheer if I turn round and
ask them they are caused by a natural defi-
ciency of food, and by natural fluctuations in its
price, which I will prove to you by showing that
deficiency and fluctuations are sometimes very
great in the United States, and in Russia, where
there are no laws preventing the importation

of corn. Be patient, therefore, good people.
Starve on—starvation is the result of laws of Na-
ture or of GOD. I cannot help you ; therefore

_ .
starve in patience, starving people." And then to
prove to them that this was the case, and to bring
home to Nature and to Nature's GOD—whether
with piety or Atheism let the Archbishop of
CANTERBURY decide—he quoted the account of
fluctuations in prices at St. Petersburgh and New
York. Whether the people will continue to
starve in patience at his recommendation will

probably depend on the credit they bestow on
his theology. For our parts, we have no hesita-
tion in saying that fluctuations in price in Ame-
rica and Russia do not furnish the shadow of a
proof that the present deficiency of food in Eng-
land, and its present high price, are natural, and
are not wholly caused by the law made and up-
held by Sir R. PEEL and the exulting cheerers.
What is the principle of commerce ? To buy
cheap and sell dear—to bring things needful for
man's use from where they are abundant to where
they are scarce. What is the result? A compare
ratively equal distribution amongst all the chil-
dren of men of all that they require, and a com-
parative steadiness of price. The result of mer-
chants buying when and where commodities are
cheap, in order to sell them when and where
they are dear, is, though they do not in-
tend it, to equalize prices through the whole
republic of commerce. Whenever and where-
ever there is no commerce, men are exposed to
all the fluctuations and vicissitudes of the sea-
sons; commerce neutralizes them, and spreads not
only average, but great abundance throughout
the earth. Hence, as commerce, " the golden
girdle of the globe," has extended, those great
vicissitudes, to which mankind when isolated
were exposed, have become almost unknown,
and seasons of absolute famine and of riotous
abundance, such as were too frequent in the early
ages, have not been witnessed in modern Europe.
Where there is now most commerce, therefore,
there should be the least fluctuation, and where
there is least commerce, fluctuation must be
greatest.

To make the fluctuations in Russia and the
United States apply'to England, it must be shown
that the circumstances of all three countries as
to commerce arc the same. Are they ? Both
these countries form parts of great continents,
and are comparatively thinly peopled. They in
general grow more food than they can consume,
and they export corn or flour. In proportion to
the numbtr of their people, and the number of
our people, their trade, particularly that of
Russia, is extremely scanty. England is pre-
eminent fur her commerce. She trades with
the whole globe, wherever useful things are
found cheap and plentiful, her merchants go or
send for them, and carry them wherever they
are scarce and dear. Thus America and Russia
arc no test for England. Thus, too, there ought
not to be the same fluctuations in the price of
any article, and particularly in an article of such
universal produce and consumption as wheat, in
England as in Russia and in America. We
may also safely assert that +•hatever fluctuations
in price, are known here, are much increased, if
they be not wholly caused, by those restraints
which such ignorant law-makers as Sir ROBERT
PEEL have imposed on commerce, in order to
prevent the continual equalization of prices, by
prohibiting men, under certain circumstances,
frdm buying commodities when and where they