The Sun.
London, England, 1834-01-24 00:00:00

EXPLOSION OF THE REGENERATtbN

SYSTEM.

A Memorial addressed by Members of the Sheffieild Rege
aeration Society to Robert Owen, Eeq., its founder.
Kind and Dear Sir,—You tame among ree—a rich man
among the poor—and did not call us rabble. This was a
phenomenon new to us. There was no sneer on your
lips, no covert scorn in the tone of your voice. You met
us as a fortunate brother ought to meet his affectionate but
suffering brethren. We knew that you had been 'calum-
niated by our enemies, but ire also knew that whee men
go to their great and last account, God will not ask them
what men called threet here. We saw benevolence beam-
ing in your eyes, and from your mouth we heard the words
of peace and charity. The spirit in which you eAlressed
us was most Christian. You told us that we ought not to
blame those who differ from us in opinion ; for men do
not believe what they will, but what they must, according
to the evidence which has reached them. You told u.,
that Even when men injure us by acting on erroneous opi-
nions, we ought to restrain our angry feelings, because in-
justice itself is only a great mistake. We honour you for
these sublime sentiments, for they do honour to our com-
mon nature. But when you went on to say, that if the
trade in corn were to-morrow made free and unshackled as
the wind., our wages would fall in exactly the Fame pro-
portion as food would fall in price, and that no benefit
would result to us from the change, we felt that you were
in error; because we know that labour pays for all things,
and that if a free trade in corn would double the quantity
of corn in this market, our wages could not possibly fall in
the same ratio as that in which the price of bread would
fall, unless we at once doubled our numbers, or at once
became four-banded, and employed our four hands as ac-
tively as we now do our two.
However, Sir, like yourself, we blame no man for his
opinions. You are not the only good man who has given
us bad advice. Dr. Chalmers, though he bids us die un-
married, does not really wish that the noble race of Watt
and Burns, Locke and Milton, should become extinct, and
their place be supplied by half-starved Irishmen. In corn-
finn with other sages he has discovered the essay of
Alalthus, but the mare's nest" is his own. William
Cobbett (almost a great man, and once our only champion)
:cams to be mystifying himself, and trying to mystify
others, on the all-important subject of the corn laws; but
we do not call him either rogue or fool. Michael Sadler
himself found some friends among our suffering brethren at
Huddersfield, although he bad, while professing to wish
us well, filled .a very large book with arguments in favour
of the worst measures of our worst foes. We do not say
that Michael Sadler is a treacherous man ; we think he is
mistaken, and that he already suspects he is so. But,
believing with you that we are on the eve of great changes,
and that they will come through the Trades' Unions, we
feel it to be of vital importance that those unions act on
right principles, and that no man who is wrong in
principle he allowed to wield their tremendous
power. We cannot believe that a free trade in
corn would not benefit us ; provided we obtain
it before we cease to be a manufacturing people, and
while we have commodities to give in exchange for the
agricultural produce of other countries. With a free
trade in food, we deny the possibility of there ever being
too large a quantity of manufactured goods. The tap-root
of our misery is an insufficient supply of food ; and we
deny that the quantity of food can be increased by restrict-
ing labour. We affirm that a directly contrary effect
would result from such restriction ; for if, while we la-
bour 16 hours out of the 24, we can hardly keep the
market against our un-bread-taxed rivals, how shall we
keep it if we labeur only half that time? We are weary
of the conflict of monopoly with monopoly, of mischiefs
with mischiefs, still reproducing each other. Our motto
is " Free trade, with free labour."
We know, indeed, that while the landowners conspire,
sve must combine, or give up all our comforts, one by
one ; but we deny that such combinations are, in them-
selves, either necess try or desirable. On the contrary, we
believe that in this country Trades' Unions spring out of
the corn laws, and in other countries out of similar in-
sanities. Remove the cause, and the effects will cease.
But we also believe that there is only one power on earth
which can put the Trades' Unions down. That power is
justice. We therefore disapprove your plan of regenera-
tion. A bad imitation of a bad model, it is equally unjust
and unwise. Like the bread tax, it attempts production
without reference to the cost. Like the bread tax,
it intends to feed the dishonest at the expense of the
honest, while it pretends to advocate the general
interests. Had you manfully called upon us to
aid you in persuading masters and workmen,
that, instead of worrying each other, they ought to
unite heart and hand against the common enemy for
the common good, we could have understood you ; and it
would not have been necessary for one of your Commit-
tee to say, as he did a few evenings ago, "that it would
be easier for Mr. Owen to bore a hole with his nose
through the stone floor than to work his scheme." But
since you have—doubtless with the best intentions, and
perhaps guided by light which has not yet reached us—
adopted some choice measures, which we think no wise
men will act upon, except from necessity, we trust you
will not be offended, if we humbly request you to refute
what we conceive to be strong objections against your
plan for the regeneration of happiness, by restraining I:-
hour to eight hours per day—a plan which, in the mean
time, we believe to be impracticable.
You tell us, first, that your great object in forming an
union of masters and workmen for the restriction of la-
bour is to compel idlers who consume wealth, and an-
nuitants who no longer produce any, to pay a higher price
than they now do for our productions. But you do not
tell us how we can compel purchasers to buy our goods
dear when they can buy other goods cheap. You go on,
it is true, to tell us that it is not your intention to confine
your union to this country. You propose to invite the
co-operation of other nations. Well, let us suppose your
invitation to be accepted. Not in the minutest par.
titular would that circumstance alter our unfortunate
position. You forget that we are bread taxed, that
our rivals are not bread-taxed ; that they would still be
able to obtain as much food for four hours' labour as we
obtain for eight ; and that, in the end, they would drive us
out of every market. What occasion, then, could there be
to restrict labour, when it is as plain as figures could show
it, that we should soon have no work to perform, except
that of eating each other in the agonies of famine ? It is
impossible to get the same wages for eight hours' labour as
'for twelve without robbery of some kind, and we deny
that the public can gain by robbery of any kind, though
individuals may and do, as we know too well. Wealth is
the result of labour, and you propose to labour eight hours
instead of twelve. Then, you propose to produce one third
less wealth than you now produce, mystifying yourself at
the same time with the supposition that, by making fewer
goods, but of better quality, the labour of eight hours will
be worth that of twelve. You forget that you cannot
work without materials; that you can only buy raw cotton
by selling your wrought cottons; and that, however excel-
lent your improved article might be, your cbeap.food rivals
could always sell a better article cheaper. Consequently,
you could not sell your wrought cottons; consequently you
could not buy raw cotton ; consequently you must cease to
manufacture ; and consequently your plan is already a
failure, even in theory.
Many of our enemies already spend their incomes in
the midst of our un-bread-taxed rivals. Would not your
plan, if all other manufacturing countries did not join in
it—and remember, you could not compel any country to
join in it—be another and a fatal tax on British labour?
Would it not be, in fact, the last nail driven through the
coffin-lid of our prosperity? You will not answer this
question by telling us that your ultimate object is univer-
sal barter. We may think with you, and with others,
that a metallic currency is a dear tool ; but all trade is
barter, whether measured by money or not. Did it never
strike your mercantile mind, that the taxing of annuitants
and absentees would be completely effected by returning
to the infamous inconvertible paper money, which at last
converted our prosperity into a bread tax ,Ve by nok
means advocate the re-enactment of the ••i. Ii N
anous Bank
Restriction Act; but we fearlessly assert, that a depre-
ciated currency would effectually tax annuitants
We
and
absentees, and that your plan would not.
won-
der that you never seem to have thought of a
tax on rent, as an entirely unobjectionable means
of relieving the distresses of all honest and useful
men. Is it not time that the greatest tax-eaters in
the world should themselves begin to pay taxes ? If the
bread tax has already cost us more than all the lands are
worth at the bread tax price, surely the State (the aggre •
gate of victims) must have a right to tax them, and carry
the proceeds to the utterly unbalanced account of restitu-
tion. But perhaps you are yourself a great landowner.
Pardon us, excellent man, we do not suspect you of
traitorously fighting the battle of the enemy under our
colours. No. If it were possible for you intentionally to
deceive a single human being, nature has written a lie on
your countenance. But we believe you are entirely wrong,
and, we trust, not at all dangerous. You will have no
followers among the thinkers of any class; and they, if
time be vouchsafed them—that is to say, if the corn laws
be not ordained by an inscrutable Providence to precipitate
the national ruin—will lead the rest. But why should the
co-operation of so good a man as you be worse than undesir-
able ? Monopoly is in the agonies of death, but her convul-
sions are terrible; and it is quite possible that we mayperish

4;r

before her. Would you'prolong her struggles until they involve
our destruction ? Or do you come in at the last hour, not to
adorn the corpse for interment, but encumber the doctor with
kelp, and mock the bed of sickness with flowers from New
Harmony ? Do you not know that we live only by suf-
ferance? That we have so far escaped utter impoverish-
ment, solely in consequence of the faults of our rivals, and
their imitation of our restrictive follies? Do you not
know that if they take the lead in establishing a free
trade system, our fall is certain, and perhaps irretrievable ?
Why have we not a mighty ally in you, rather than a
mistaken friend ? Oh ! aid us to strike a last blow at the
expiring, monster of msnopoly—" or ever the silver cord
of our prosperity be loosed, the golden bowl of our strength
be broken, ere the grasshopper is a burden to our trade-
left and uncommercial weakness !" Do this, and it shall
be written on your grave by our children, " in the land
of castes, Owen was a en in."--We remain, kind and dear
Sir, your frien2s and brethren,
EBENEZER ELLIOTT,
JOSEPH ODDY HUSTLER,
JAMES SOMERSET,
THOMAS SHELDON,
THOMAS JONES CADWALLADER.
Sheffield, Jan. 15.

PROVIDENTIAL ESCAPE FROM SHIP•
WRECK DURING THE LATE GALES.

(From the Liverpool Albion.)
The last few weeks have been so productive of
melancholy results in the loss of life and property,
that occurrences which would appear of a striking
character in ordinary times are lost its the mass of
injury which has been sustained by the shipping in-
terest generally. There appears to us, however, in
the following recital something which so thoroughly
establishes, for the commander of the vessel in ques-
tion, the character of a man of extraordinary cool-
ness, judgment, and energy, that we cannot forbear
presenting it to public notice. The facts, which are
communicated directly to ourselves, are from so un-
questionable a source, that we trust Captain Hays
will excuse our speaking of himself, his crew, and
his ship, its the terms which they all merit.
On the 26th December the schooner Crescent, Captain
C. D. Hays, sailed from this port, bound to the Medi-
terranean. On the morning of the 27th it came on to
blow very bard, and Captain Hays ran for Ramsay Bay,
in the Isle of Min ; where the Crescent was still at
anchor during the tremendous hurricane—which will not
soon be forgotten in this quarter—that which terminated
the last year. Of twelve or thirteen vessels then at
anchor, the Crescent was the only one that rode out the
gale in the bay ; all the rest being compelled to run out—
several of them dragged—and some, as we have since
learnt, were lost on the coast from hence to Scotland.
Op the 2d of January the Crescent sailed from Ramsay
Bay, and was becalmed off Douglas; but at nine, p.m.,
it came on a heavy gale from the south west ; and
Captain Hays again bore up for Ramsay Bay, at
midnight. She remained there until the morning of
the sth of January, when she again got under weigh,
with the wind at south, moderate. In the afternoon of
the 6th a renewal of the gales compelled Captain Hays to
bear up for Dublin Bay, and he brought the Crescent to
anchor in Kingston harbour at six in the evening. The
vessel lay there until noon of Sunday the 12th instant,
when she once more went to sea. Alestat seven P, M. the
wind came round from the westward ; and all Monday
it blew a hurricane from that quarter. On Wednesday
she had got down about 30 miles west of Tuskar, when
it blew so strong from the S.W. that Captain Hays deter-
mined to bear up for Milford Haven. He made land be-
tween five and six P.M., blowing fresh, but still clear
enough to make out the !and when pretty near. At
six o'clock passed round Rat Island for Milford Haven,
when the gale increased, and it came on suddenly
so thick and dark that nothing could be discovered a
bowsprit's length ahead. The first intimation they had of
danger was finding themselves in a bay near the mouth
of the harbour, with breakers so close under the bows,
that on their return they broke over the foremast head.
There was a general exclamation that the vessel had struck.
Captain Hays instantly put the helm a-lee; and the wind
shifting suddenly from S.W. to S. by E. enabled the
vessel to stand out of the bay, without risking another
tack. At this moment they were so close in with the land
that, whilst the vessel was in stays, a tremendous sea, re-
bounding from the rocks, struck the vessel on the bow,
washing the mate forward to the bowsprit end, wheie he
fortunately caught hold of a rope; the same sea also send..
ing two men aft with such force, that one of them was
driven over the windlass, and the other was washed across
the deck, over the stern of the long boat, and pitched
between the pumps. This last man was the only one of
the crew disabled. Captain Hays then reduced bis canvass
to close reefed fore-anal-afters; and in consequence of the
wind continuing to blow from the same quarter, the vessel
was enabled to reach along the land for seven or eight
miles, continuing to improve her offing, when the
gale increased in a sudden squall, and about half-past
eight the wind shifted again to the S.W., at which
time the ship was so close home to the rocks, running
from the land towards the Smalls, that she could not
have weathered Saint Gowen's Head on the other
tack. She was therefore obliged to drag along in the
hope of weathering the Smalls light; to accomplish this
the topsail and jib were set, which in less than half an
hour carried away the fore-top-mast, bringing all sails
alongside, and the jib under the forefoot. At this time
(about ten, p.m.) the Smalls light was discovered about
two points under the lee bow, distant about four or five
miles. This was an awful moment far Captain Hays
and his crew—to leeward nothing but reefs of rocks
stretching away from St. Ann's-head to the light, with
two or three narrow passages tbrouv,h them, difficult
I
enough to make even in moderate weather ; but in such a
gale, and, from the darkness of the night, the total impos-
sibility of deciding what was to leeward, impressed them
with all but the certainty of destruction. They still dragged
on, in hopes of some change of wind, to enable them to
weather the rocks, until they got within a little more
than a mile of the light-house, when it was seen to be
impossible to get round. Captain Hays then deter-
mined, as the only alternative to save the ship and her
crew, to put her before the wind, in hopes of running
through clear between the rocks,—the sea being then so
high that it was manifest where the ship could not go the
sea must break. Captain Hays was then at the helm, and
the mate in the fore rigging. In a few minutes the mate
called out—" Breakers close en the larboard bow." Cap.
tain Hays, trusting to Providence to rescue them from
their dreadful situation, put the helm up, running as close
to the breakers which were on the weather bow as he
judged he could do with safety, which, from the extreme
darkness of the night, was a task of no small difficulty,
as keeping close to the weather danger was the only
chance of avoiding that on the lee, then within about a
quarter of a mile. This was about half past 12, a.m., on
Thursday last; and, as the gale was in no degree di-
minished, the sea broke frightfully upon the Crescent's
weather quarter during the whole course through the rocks,
which stretch north and south for a mile and a half. Just
as the ship had got safely through the passage, a tremen-
doua sea struck her under the counter, unshipped the
mainboom, thus depriving her of the use of the mainsail,
(the foresail being then split), carried away some of the
bulwarks, and left nothing to run with but the inner jib,
hanging only by a few banks. So imminent was their
danger, and so doubtful the successful passage through
the rocks, that Captain Hays, as a measure of necessary
precaution, ordered the long boat to be cleared away, with
the chance, if the ship had struck, she might have floated
from the chocks, the last small hope that would, in that case,
have been left for saving their lives. During the whole of
this severe trial the crew behaved remarkably well; and
another instance was added to the many that have come
under our notice, of the firmness and philosophy of a
well-regulated female mind, at most critical periods, and
under circumstances of extreme peril. Mrs. Hays was on
board during the scenes we have described ; and, at the
moments of the greatest danger, instead of giving way to
the effects of terror, was calmly aiding Captain Hays in
his observations upon the chart, and in doing everything
that could contribute to his comfort or self-possession in
the awful situation in which they were all placed.
When the vessel had passed through the rocks in the
way we have described, relying on a single jib to keep her
on her course, Captain Hays sent all his crew, except a
single hand, down below for rest and refreshment, as they
were completely exhausted, having been without food since
the preceding morning. At daylight they set to work to
clear the wreck, and things were a little to rights by five
p.m., when they managed to get sails up sufficient to set
close-reefed mainsail, foresail, and jib. At seven pm.
made South Stack lighthouse; and on Friday morning at
daylight the Crescent was six or seven miles from the
floating light, still blowing a heavy gale, with strong
Equally and thick weather. Stood close into the land ;at
ten a.m. got a pilot on board, off the west end of the
Hoyle Bank; and at three p.m. was safely moored in
Brunswick Deck.
Captain Hays, who has made many voyages to various
parts of the world, and among others to the East Indies,
declares that he never encountered so bad weather for
such a continuance; and, with his crew, is grateful to
that bountiful Providence which has guarded them