The Sun.
London, England, 1833-11-25 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF TILE PUBLIC JOURNA LS,

A correspondent, who signs himself " An
Unfortunate Corn-grower," has addressed us a
letter, which we publish more for the sake of
the important questions with which it is in some
measure allied, and of which it may form a text
for the discussion, than because of any merit
which belongs to it, either as a correct state-
tnent of facts or a development of useful prin-
ciples. The scrambling writer begins by hint-
ing that the comparatively high price of. bread
in this country is more attributable to taxation
and the baker ! than to the landlords. He
then goes on to propose that the peculiar
" burdens which oppress the landed interest"
should be got rid of, in order that corn might
he sold at a reduced and still a 'c remunerating"
price, and, first of all, that the land tax of
1,100,000/. per annum should be repealed
instead of the house-tax, otherwise, according
to our correspondent, " householders are tax
free, whilst the bread-growers are burdened "
It seems, therefore, that the landed gentlemen
of England, like the patriarchs of old, pi:ch
tents for their families in the open fields,
and do not inhabit houses. This financier
would further revise the poor-rates, to which
in itself there can be no objection, but he
would do so for the sake of limiting relief
to " the aged and infirm" only,—an improve-
ment which we are sorry to say seems to us
impracticable under the present circumstances
of this part of the United Kingdom. As ano-
ther protection to apiculture, the " Corn•
grower" would abolish tithe, on the ground that
but one man in each pari-h would suffer by it,
" whilst the whole population would reap the
advantage." Here, again, we can profess a
partial agreement with this gentleman, but cer-
tainly not with his reasoning. We would abo-
lish tithe, not so as to entail suffering on the one
individual—viz., the clergyman, whose welfare
we unfeignedly regard as essential to that of the
great bulk of his parishioners, but with a view to
the commutation of tithe for some less inconve-
nient and vexatious method of supporting the
minister of religion, and thereby restoring the
sympathy and confidence so desirable between
him and his flock. However, when the " Corn-
grower" talks of the peculiar burdens which
press upon the agricultural interest, he comes
tco near the fire. He thus unwittingly provokes
a recollection of those peculiar privileges by
which it is designed to benefit the landed interest,
at the expense of every other class in the com-
munity, and by which a cruel tax has been levied
on every loaf that issues from the oven, for the
avowed purpose of enriching the proprietors of
land by creating an artificial scarcity ofcorn. We
need hardly at this time of day entangle our-
selves or our readers in the intricacies of minute
discussion upon general questions, long since
set at rest : for example, the merits of the old
mercantile system, with its assumption that
" money is wealth," its balance of trade, and its
catalogue of restraints and protections ; or the
agricultural system, " which represents the pro-
duce of land as the sole source of the revenue
and wealth of every country," and accordingly
cramps the entire body of commercial industry,
for the supposed benefit of agriculture. With
these as general questions we have no longer
any business to enter; public opinion is, or
affects to be, already made up with regard to
them. How strange, then, must it be consi-
dered that in practice nothing of all this has
peen settled ; that there Is not, an exploded
theory, be it ever so monstrous, by which the
Legislature does not continue to be torment( d,
in the shape of complaints and remonstrances
from particular classes of men who fancy that
their own profits, as producers or dealers, ought
rightfully to be preferred to the well being of
the whole community ! Be it silks, gloves,
iron, shipping, timber, woollens, it matters not
which, they one and all deafen the Parliament
with complaints of any relaxation in those
prohibitory duties by which the national corn

fort and the freedornof commerce have hitherto
been sacrificed to their selflsh gain; while, on
the other hand, the owners of the soil, the
dealers in an article on whose abundance and
cheapness depend the lives of millions of thei►
poorer countrymen, would perpetuate, under
the disguise of a protection to agriculture, the
worst vices of the " mercantile system" in aid
of their own blind and chimerical warfare against
the wants of the great body of the nation, vainly
imagining that they can serve themselves by
leaguing with the growth of foreign competition
to impede the course of British manufacturing
industry. What is the exclusion of foreign

bread from the British market hut a restraint

upon the export of British manufactures, with
the collateral merit of throwing hundreds

of thousands of native workmen out of em-

ployment, and pinching the meals of all the

nthers ? It will be -seen, in the course
of some future observations which we shall

make, how far such violations of humanity

and honesty tend to promote their own sordid
objects. Lord Fitzwilliam, in his able and
striking little pamphlet on the corn law, pub-
lished within these two years as an " address to
the landowners," proposes two questions-Ist,
Whether, by means of obstructing the importa-
tion of foreign corn, the attempt to raise the
price of home-grown corn and of land "be
wise ?" and 2d, Whether it " be just"—wise in
respect of the landed interest, and just towards
the consumer ? These two questions embrace,
as it appears to us, the whole policy of the
duties on foreign corn ; and on their decision,

if the Legislature be either wise or just, will
depend its resolution with regard to their conti-
nuance or repeal. We shall return to this sub-
ject at an early opportunity, being well assured
that there is no other of an importance more
pressinu or more universal to the prosperity of

. . .
Great Britain,—Times.
We extract from the Newcastle Chronicle an
article of much good sense on the subject of

libels and the slanderers, and which shows that

the moral standard of the county press is some-
what more elevated than the rule of conduct

adopted by some of the metropolitan writers. in
tle recent discussions it has been very conve-
nient, especially in the case of Lord Durham, to
endeavour cunningly to withdraw public attention
from the gross calumnies circulated to the im-
perfections of the existing statute and common
law. Now we have fully admitted that the law is
most defective, and too frequently allows roguish
lawyers, knaves, and litigious men wrongfully to
punish the public press ; but it is equally unde-
niable that the law affords no adequate remedy
or redress to persons calumniated and basely
misrepresented. It an action is brought, the
plaintiff most informed on the subject matter,
and often the only depositor of facts of disproof,
is prevented by the arbitrary rules of evidence
from giving testimony. The majority of libellers
if cast in a verdict cannot pay, or avoid payment
of a farthing of the costs and damages. Fre-
iuently.they remove from the place of their in.,