The Sun.
London, England, 1833-08-07 00:00:00

WINDSOR, AUG. 6.

Yesterday the KING and QUEEN, with the whole of
their sui r, spent the day at Kew Palace, and returned to
eke, Castle at 12 o'clock at night. His Royal Highness the
Duke of CUMBEsLAND lunched with the Royal party,
and afterwards lett f town.

Yesierday Sir C. THORNTON left for St. J ones's Falace.
Lsdy ERSICINK also left for Islewortb, .snd MiS6 BAGOT
tar F to Hill.

Yesterday the Hon. Miss CAROLINE BOLE arrived on
a vi.ir.

On Thursday his MAJEcTY will go to town to hold hi.
Levee and to giv.. the G and Entertainment before an•
n •nnred to the Officer. c•f the Royal Art lltry. Her MA-
JESTY, it is expected, will accompany the KING.
Tois afternoon the KING rode over the Fat ms, scum-
pin;eil by Sor WM FIEEMANTLE.

Her MAJESTY rode out in the pony phaeton, accornpa
nied by Mlit Jou NsTONE, v wed Adelaide Lodge.

FASHIONABLE INTELLIGENCE.

LITERATURE.

ILLUSTRATIONS OF POLITICAL
ECONOMY, No. XIX.

SOWERS NOT REAPERS. A TALE. BY HARRIET
MARTINEAU.

This is a most admirable illustration of the
working of the corn laws, conveyed in a tale of
more than usual interest. The scene of the
story is in the neighbourhood of Sheffield, and
the time is about that when the people having
been driven to madness by starvation entered
into the night training and drilling which led
landlords to think it better and safer only to half
starve the people. We would willingly make an
extract of the whole book if we could, so excel-
lent is its lesson, but we must content ourselves
with a passage or two only. The following are
part of a dialogue between a landowner and some
manufacturers :

" Ay, Chatham ; there you come to a very important
part of the question—the uncertainty of supply. If you
can answer for our having a regular and unfailing supply
of fond from abroad when we have too little fir our people
at home, you can answer for more than the House of Com •
mons can ; for they adopt as their principle the safety of
lessening our dependance on foreign countries for food.'
" When they can answer fur our having a regular and
constantly increasing supply at home,' replied Chatham.
• I m ay perhaps yield the question to them. When you can
find any Member of their Committee who will tell me at
any seed time, what will be the produce cif an average
..owing, I will consent to his making the nation depend
on that produce. Wnen you can bring me proof that the
rich harvests of one district are not of use in repairing the
deficiencies of a less favoured district, I will own it to be
as safe to depend for supply on our own little island as on
the c illective corn districts of the globe. When you can
convince me that we buy as adv intageously by fits and
starts as under a system at regular commerce, I will grant
that regularly importing countries have not the steadiest
market.'

" A listener observed that Kirkland had lately said, in
refer nee to his having had to hunt up corn abroad during
the sitareity, there was a difference of ten per cent. between
Will you sell?' and ' Will you buy.'
" • Kirkland learned that saying from a greater man
than any of us,' observed Mr. Fergusson. It was Frank-
lin who said tha: true saying. But tnere are other uncer-
tainties to be considered, besides the variations of the i.ea-
son.. Clouds gather over men's temp.rs at well as
over the face of the sky. Tempests of passion sweep
away the fruits sown between nations in a season of pro-
Borings of kindness ar- dried up as well a• fountains
of waters. We have not considered the risks of war.'

" Indeed but we have, Sir,' replied Chatham, and
we come to the conclusion that when we are at war with
all the nations whom Gni has blessed with his sunshine
an I his rein, we shall not deserve to touch God's bounties,
and it will be high time we should be starved off God's
earth. If we wanted to restrict our own trade, Sir, instead
of throwing it open,—if we wanted to forbid our mer-
chants buying of more than one or two countries, we might
believe that war would bring starvation ; but never while
our ships may touch at all ports that look out upon the seas,'
We do not grow halt our own hemp,' s iid a man
with a coil of tow about his waist. ' Has the British navy
ever wanted for ropes? If our enemies at sea ever meant
to hurt us, their readiest way would have been to stint us
in cordage ; and, since ti ey hive not done it during all
this war, it must be, I take it, because they can't '
" ' Cei tainly,' replied Chatham. 'ln cases like these,
Mr. Ferguson, our conclusions about the choice of an
evil or a danger must be comp•tunded of the greatness and
of the degree of probability. Now here is, under the old
restrictive si stem, a vast amount of cettain evil, which
you and the House of Comthons se.m to think little of, in
comparison with a much greater evil which it is barely
within the line of possibility to happen. Here are present
labourers who have had their spirits bowed and their bodies
worn by want, and who can look out from this green to
the spot whets their kindred are laid un•ter the soil, mown
down by this sharp law like meadow flowers under the
scythe. Here are present the gentle who have been made
fierce, the once loyal who were made rebels,—ay, and the
proudly innocent who have been disgraced by capti.
vity
" While Chatham stopped for breath, one and another
cried out to Mr. Fergusson,
" • If you think us rude in our speech to you, Sir, you
may lay it to the bread tax.' Get the bread tax taken
off, and you will hear no more of the midnight drill.'
' M isters and men never would have quarrelled, Sir, but
for the bread tax.'

44 • From this place you may see,' Chatham went on,
not only poppies coming up instead of wheat, end stone►
stre.ved where lambs should have been browsing, but
hovels with mouldering thatch where there should have
been slated houses, and a waste wilderness .tretching be-
yond where there might have been the ab 'des of thousands
of busy, prosperous beings ; and all through the pres.ure
of restrictive law.' "

The closing paragraph is all we can find fur-
ther room for :

" Since that day, the curse of the bread tax has alighted
again and again on that busy vale. Again has the land-
owner had the painful choice of sinking from his rank at
home, or going abroad to preserve it. Again has the
farmer found himself, now marvellously rich, and now
unaccount ib/y poor. Again has the manufacturer repined
at having to surrender his resources to supprt the burden
o faoitious pauperism.—to take too low a place in the
markets abroad in order that his agricultural neighbour
may be upheld in too high an one at home. Again has
the corn dealer staked his all upon the chances of man's
caprice, with about as much confidence as he wou:d upon
the cast of the die. Again gloom has brooded over the
dwellin4s of the poor, and evil passions have wrought
there, in proportion to the pressure of want,—the main
spring of the vast m tchinery of moral evil by which so.
ciety is harrowed and torn. And as often as a gleam of
hope and present plenty has visited the cottage of a long-
suffering art z tn, it has been clouded by the repinings of
some neighbour whose adversity has been, by ingenious
methods of misrule, made coincident with his prosperity.
In this busy vale, as in every va ley of England inh tithed
by thinking men, there is one question still tar ever rising
thr.) ugh the night air, and borne on the morning breez
How long ?'—and on many a bill there are thinking
tnen to take up the inquiry, and echo, ' How long?"'