The Sun.
London, England, 1833-11-02 00:00:00

their employers. We pray them, therefore, to
reflect in time on the impossibility of a favourable
issue to their present impolitic struggle, if much
longer continued. Let them discard their agi-
tators,—let them enter into terms with their
masters, and let mutual concession be the har-
binger to a cordial reconciliation. Their wages
are at present better than they have ever been
since the peace ; they can have full employment,
and they ought not to obstruct their masters in
those undertakings which can alone enable them
to secure that employment by maintaining them-
selves against competition in the foreign market.
—Times.

The notice taken of the trial of the four Nor-
folk labourers, in this and some other journals,
has elicited from our contemporary (the Stan-
dard) an attempt to vindicate the magistracy of
England, both in their judicial and administra-
tive capacity. If we were asked what we thought
of the principles laid down by Mr. Weyland,
the chairman, we should have no hesitation in
saying that it would have been well for Not folk
if his views had been embraced by his prede-
cessors thirty or forty years ago. But a redun-
dant population having been created by a system
enforced by the magistrates, which had for object
to place the labourers in an artificial system, it
is obvious that Mr. \Veyland's views are not
applicable to such a population, without consi-
derable limitations and modifications. Before
we enter on the consideration of the conduct of
the Norfolk magistrates in their judicial capacity,
we will advert to their conduct as administrators
of the poor laws.
" The Morning Chronicle and Times (says the Stan-
dard) affect to charee the country gentleman of England,
and especially the Norfolk magistrates, with having, on
one side, brought on the impoverishment which fits the
labouring poor to act the part of conspirators, and, o❑ the
other side, with having promoted and encouraged the
system of lawless conflict in which the unlucky Norfolk
culprits have been entrapped. No two charges can he
imagined more false than these. The magistracy of
England have, no doubt, committed errors in the local
administration of the law, and mere particularly in the
administration of the poor laws ; but if they have occasion-
ally gone wrong, it has been in a field where it was impossi-
ble for them to go steadily right. The truth is, that,
for a long succession of years, the whole agricultural in-
terest, through all its gradations, has been suffering under
an unexampled pressure. To hold their hands and do
nothing in such a case was impossible for those who
were supposed to he invested with means of relief, and, of
course, were held responsible for every case of suffering.
Beset by the ruined farmer on one side, and the famishing
labourer on the other, the Alsgistrates must act; and, i❑
a case so perplexing, their attempts would necessarily be
more or less empirical. Some would fail and some might
succeed ; hut, even where successful, the unlucky admi-
nistrators of the law were sure to be deprived of the honour
of success in a case where, as ruin was progressive, a state
of greater misery was sure to follow whatever could he
done, without a reference to its wisdom or its impolicy.
That the measures of the country gentlemen were not, as
basely insinuated by the Times, directed to their own ad-
vantage, is proved by the result—by the fact, more than
once acknowledged in the Morning Chronicle and other
journals, that while the landowners stand on the brink of
ruin, the condition of the labouring population is, in
many instances, improved—in none materially deteriorated.
Wherever the labourers have suffered, they have not suf-
fered by the acts of landlords or magistrates, but from the
same cause which has drawn ruin upon both—the Bill
of 1819."

This is not a correct representation of the
conduct of the Magistrates. Some of the lead-
ing men i❑ the Magistracy framed very ingenious
systems for making the poor laws instrumental
in keeping up a constant surplus fund of labour,
that there might always be a supply for any extra
demand ; which object was to be effected by
enabling the labourer to bring up all his chil-
dren, not out of his wages, but out of a fund
derived chiefly from the difference between the
value of the labour of the young, and the wages
actually paid to them. They did not take into
account this artificial system would have the
effect of utterly demoralizing the labourers, by de-
stroying the chief motive of industry—the reward
which should follow it. A work was published
by Hatchard, in 1807, by a Magistrate for three
inland counties, which expounded, with consi-
derable ingenuity, the views entertained by the
influential Magistracy of England then, and
for several years before. The following extract
from the book in question, which had much
influence at the time, explains why it was deemed
necessary to have a redundant labouring popu-
lation :

" Besides the operation of such an institution as the
Poor Laws. and the population produced by it in the
ordinary affairs of the society ; there are some demands
for men of an extraordinary nature, that tend still more
to show its political utility. Among others, the supply
of people for the purposes of war and colonization, is a
very important consideration to a pow, rful country ; and
nothing can be clearer than that they who can afford the
supply with the least interruption to their ordinary oc-
cupations, and the probable increase of them, possess
great advantages over those who are under the necessity of
taking every man they use for these purposes from the
plough or the loom. It will easily be conceived what
facilities in this way must arise from an institution, hav-
ing a constant tendency to increase the number of people
beyond the actual demand for labour in civil occupations ;
even though the future demand from these last may
increase likewise. To understand this, we must con-
sider that the number of heads of families will always be re-
gulated by the actual demand for labour ; because, wherever
a man's hands are wanted, there a residence must be
provided for him ; but unless the demand 'should go to the
extent of raising the wages of labour considerably, and
thereby defeat itself, it will not encourage or enable
those heads of families to rear many children ; so that
without extraneous assistance for that purpose, should a
further increase of demand occur, it must wait fifteen or
sixteen years (while the children produced by it are born,
and reared to a working age) before it can be satisfied;
whereas an institution like the poor laws, by enabling and
encouraging the heads of families to rear as many children
as nature permits them to bear, keeps a stock of labour
constantly o❑ hand to answer such further demand. Any
number, therefore, that may be wanted for war or coloniza-
tion will not be taken from those actually employed in
civil occupations, but from this extraordinary stock ; and
will not interfere with the present prosperity of the State,
but only with a portion of its future expected increase,
should the extra supply of people not be sufficient for
both the extraordinary demands."

Before this plan of making the poor laws
ancillary to the creation of a surplus fund of
labour, to be in readiness for extraordinary de-
mands, was devised, and extensively acted on,
where alone it could be acted on, in the agricul-
tural counties, in which the confederated magis-
trates had sufficient power to enforce their views,
the
.poor laws were generally thought to be
instrumental in keeping down the numbers of
the people. And we have no doubt that, down
to the war of the French Revolution, when the
magistrates took it into their heads to abuse the
poor laws, with a view to create a surplus fund
of labour, by paying the labourer, not accord-
ing to the value of his labour, but the number
of his children, the poor laws were actually the
means of keeping down the number of the
people. Every parish naturally wished, so long
as the rates were expended on the really poor,
and not applied to the payment of labour, to
keep what was deemed a burden as low as pos-
sible ; and hence great care was taken to prevent
settlements being too cal:ily obtained. The
Magistrates, before 1794, confined themselves
within the limits of their duty. But about
1794 and 1795, they took higher ground, no
longer contenting themselves with administering
the actual Poor Laws, but perverting these laws
in furtherance of a plan based on the specula-