The Sun.
London, England, 1846-10-23 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.
FROM THE MORNING PAPERS OF YESTERDAY.
CHRONICLE.—The Dublin Freeman's Journal of
Saturday last, in an article occasioned by the opinions
we have promulgated respecting the disposal of the
waste lands (opinions to which, as we are pleased, but
not surprised, to find that influential paper gives its cor-
dial assent), bears the following valuable testimony to
the complete practicability of the reclamation of those
lauds by peasant labour :
" A week's ramble through Connemara, or Erris, or
Kerry, and we presume the same to be true of other
counties where the waste lands abound, will convince
the most sceptical that labour can be profitably employed
in the reclamation even of such lands as would not
prove remunerative to the large capitalist. The Irish
psasint's labour was hitherto of little value in the mar-
ket. Labour was abundant, employment scarce; and
whenever the peasant found an opportunity of mingling
his labour with the barren soil, he did so, though with
no better prospect than that of having the owner of the
soil come in and possess himself of the permanent fruits
of his toil, before he had himself reaped even what would
pay him a tithe of the value of his labour. We have seen
this pia cess repeated many times by the same peasant
family. We have seen him reclaim a patch of bog,
enjoy it for a brief period, and then yield it to a rent-
payer ; then retire to another patch, to reclaim and
yield it up in like manner, and so on, labouring with the
full conviction that one day or other his lord would have
all the benefit, but ever hoping, even against experience,
that the evil day might be far off. The peasant family
did this because their time was valueless, and by such a
process they were enabled to make it yield them a sus-
tenance equivalent, perhaps, to a fifth of its market
value. Yet that fractional payment kept them from
begging, and rendered what would otherwise continue to
be barren soil, productive and valuable."
Sic vos non vobis 1 Are these the purposes for which
landed property is ordained in a country pretending to
civilisation ? Is it that he who sows may not reap—
that not he who toils, but some other, may receive the
benefit ? We all know the foundation and justification
of the institution of property to be precisely the reverse.
The moral and social basis of the right of property
is the right of the labourer to the fruits of
his labour. All other proprietary rights exist for
the sake of this. The millionnaire, who never
did a day's work of useful labour with head or hands,
who is society's debtor for everything, and its creditor
nothing, has his property protected, not for its own sake,
nor for his, but because to meddle with it would be to
violate the right which some ancestor or predecessor,
who did work for it, had to transmit it freely to his de-
scendants, or to persons of his choice. If all property
rests upon no other than this foundation, landed property
does so pre-eminently. Land is not the produce of la-
bour. No landlord's ancestor made the land. Why,
then, is land appropriated? We do not mean why was
it appropriated, for we knOw that the most usual ground
of possession was force and conquest : but why is its
appropriation rightful? Why is property in land a
recognised necessity of society? on what ground have,
not usurpers and tyrants, but sages and philanthropists,
defended it? On this—that land, although not made by
labour, can only be rendered useful by it, and because
labour will not be applied in the most useful manner by
the exertions of any others than those who have a per-
manent interest in the land. Land might be held in
common, or, what would be less irrational, it might be
granted out on yearly leases by the State. It is con-
ceded to individuals in permanent property for one legi-
timate reason only, because a permanent proprietor has
P the strongest motive to be an improver. Proprietors
exist in order that they may be improvers, not
in order that they may profit by improvements
made by others. When the proprietors of land, gene-
rally speaking, are not improvers, the purposes for
which landed property exists are not answered. When
instead of being improvers, they are an obstacle to im-
provement—when, without any public purpose in view,
they keep land waste which others are eager to culti-
vate, or suffer it to be made valuable by those who have
no permanent interest in it, in order to seise on the value
—we do not saythat they are culpable. The law gave them
the land, attaching no conditions to the gift, and
none but an extraordinary man is a law to himself, ac-
cording to a higher standard than custom. But we do
say that landed property, thus used, exists to frustrate
the ends which it is designed to promote. It is insti-
tuted that improvement may not be hindered ; it exists
as the hindrance. It is instituted that what is created
by industry may abide with the creators ; it exists that
what their labour alone has called into being may be
wrung from them. Seeing what the " indolent Celt" is
already found capable of achieving, without the stimulus
of property—seeing that the mere prospect of a few
years precarious possession has so often induced him,
without science, without capital, without aid from the
possessors of either, not under the encouragement
of law, but in violation of it, a ith no re-
source but his own hands, and those of his
family,
,to perform what is regarded as one of the most
arduous f to of agriculturaLimfVovement, the conver-
sion of pea tX,
eisuog,T
inarableNand ;we site ,justified`iii
believing thaiNi •the primevai"waste had stood oped
in tit, • primeval Nisei:Suer to. the first, occupier, the
prize•of him who succeeded in making it valuable,-it
would long ere this have been covered from one end to
the other by a hard-working, frugal, peaceable, and, in
all probability, prudent and self-restraining peasant pro-
prietary. Let the Legislature, then, repair its error.
The rights it has conferred, mischievous and anti-social
as they have in fact proved, let it not resume without
compensation. Those rights have a market value, and
let that value be paid to the last penny, But let it be
the present value, not a speculative price, grounded on
the improvements which are only to be effected by means
of the purchase. The value of the bogs and mountains
to their nominal owners is but a trifle. They are en-
titled to no more ; what more the Legislature can spare
is required to feed the industrious improvers, while they
work for their own future independence, and the State
will be amply repaid by a fraction of the value which
their labour will bestow on the now worthless land.
TlMES.—After the meeting of Parliament, and the
first general intimations permitted to ooze through the
lips of Royalty, the next great event, waited for with an
interval of deep expectancy, is the Ministerial announce-
ment of taxes to be remitted or imposed—of reductions
or augmentations of the national expenditure. Two or
three millions a year are the utmost range to which the
uncertainty extends. In point of fact, however, an appa-
rent remission to that amount must be covered by the
imposition or retention of some temporary burin. A
Minister thinks himself exceedingly fortunate if he can
relieve the people of so much as one million on the whole
account. By the side of this annual question we may
see the magnitude of that other of which not the month
of February, but the month of October, is the chief
crisis—the annual estimate of the food of the people.
The problem, taking into account the harvest and the
consumption, both of these islands and of the whole
world, measured by money, is ten or twenty times as im-
portant to these islands alone as that which the Minister
has to decide in his annual exposé. A difference of ten
shillings a quarter in wheat denotes a total expense
to the British consumer of about 10,000,000/. ; very
considerably more, taking into account the correspond-
ing rise in other descriptions of grain. It denotes, also,
a corresponding amount of hunger, weakness, disease,
and crime. Of course the question does not merely
concern this or that class, the agriculturist, the mill-
owner, the corn dealer, the stockbroker, or the amateur
alarmist ; it concerns the whole people. Nor is it
merely a matter of interest or curiosity. It is of the
first importance that we should know at once our pro-
spects. Every person, from the Premier forecasting
the utmost horizon of the future, down to the labourer
engaging himself for the next twelvemonth to his master,
is equally concerned to know the ruling prices of corn
for that period. On such a subject probable conjectures,
daring as they may be, are better than none.
It is wisdom in this instance to lean to the
gloomy side. A few weeks, or even a few months,
of exaggerated alarm, are a far less evil
than a dreadful surprise, when it is too late to avail our-
selves of the knowledge which time has brought to our
unwilling apprehensions. What is excessive alarm, in
comparison with downright famine? What is wheat at
70s. now, in comparison with wheat at 100 s. next sum•
mer or spring ? If all parties honestly set to work cal-
culating the gigantic, but by no means inscrutable,
problem, there would be such a general agreement as
would take away the necessity of conjecture. But,
without any inviduous comparison between the general
intellect of the different parties, it cannot be denied that
they who are in the position of sellers at this time of the
year are a class of persons much less accustomed, and
much less qualified, to consider the problem as a whole
than the much smaller body with which in the first
instance most of them have to deal. The farmer, with
rare exceptions, does not enter into national or rather
the universal question. He is generally unacquainted
with the great data necessary to anything like an approxi-
mate result. This is proved by the extraordinary and im-
possible statements which they are ready to accept on
respectable authority. While one party is too unin-
formed, and the other too interested to enlighten us, it
becomes the duty of all who have means and leisure for
the inquiry, to give the nation the benefit of their con-
jectures. The sooner we know exactly how we stand
the better for all. If it be probable the food will rise
before next harveat to famine prices, Ministers, farmers,
manufacturers, shipowners, speculators, will all act ac-
cordingly. But already, in our humble opinion, enough.
is taken for granted to put all these parries on the qui
vice. The estimated deficiency of 4,000,000 quarters,
as compared with our probable wants, is itself a matte
itf•
for the most special and anxious provision. Even
there existed so large an aggregate superabundance over
the demands of the corn- growing countries within reach
of British capital, its transport to these shores is itself
a matter of positive difficulty. The conveyance of
4,000,000 quarters to these islands, within the time that
will answer our purpose, is a task possible indeed, but
which has no precedent. A quantity not far from that
amount, i ncluding all descriptions of grain, was entered for
home consumption during the first eight months of this
year. We are not, however, to suppose that all that
was imported within that period. On the contrary, out
of this quantity more than 1,100,000 quarters of wheat,
with a less, though considerable, quantity of other
grain, was in bond at the beginning of this year, and
was the result of a gradual, though increasing importa-
tion, in the latter part of 1844 and the whole of 1845.
The quantity actually imported, that is, brought to our
. shores, daring the first eight months of this year, under