The Sun.
London, England, 1833-11-04 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS

The Corporation Inquiry proceeds with great
activity and popular effect. The proceedings
of the Commissioners, as reported in the Country
Papers, from which we make some extracts, dis-
close the same defective constitution and abused
administration of the municipal powers and
revenues of the English and Welch Corpora-
tions, so glaringly exposed in the investigations
already matte public. In Hull, it will be seen
by our extracts from the Hull Advertiser of last
week, that a numerous and highly-respectable
public meeting has been held to appoint a Local
Committee of Management, " to collect and
arrange evidence to lay before the Commis-
sioners at their expected visit.
" The following resolutions were passed :
" 1. That a long experience of the practical operation
of self-elected bodies upon the interests of this borough,
has convinced the inhabitants that they ought no longer
to be suffered to exist.
" 2. That in the intended Reform of Municipal Cor-
porations, this Meeting is of opinion that the following
principles ought to be observed :—First, That the govern-
ing bodies should be elected freely and fairly by all the
'habitants of the towns or districts over which they are

to preside ; Second, That in order to preserve a due con-
trol by the people over the conduct of the governing
bodies, it is also necessary that they should be chosen only
for short periods of time ; Third, That provision should
be made for periodically publishing the accounts of the
collection and expenditure of all funds intrusted to their

administration.
" 3. That a Committee of Management be appointed
to prepare evidence relative to the government of this
town, and the administration of its revenues, for the
purpose of laying the same before the Commissioners
appointed by the Crown for investig tting the state of the
Municipal Corporations of Kingston-upon-Hull.
" 4. That a subscription be entered into to defray the
expenses attendant on the inquiries to be made by the
Committee."
We refer our readers to the report of the Hull
meeting in another column, and to the able
speech of Mr. M. D. Hill, who forcibly exposes
the evils of our existing Corporate system. This
public interest in the Corporation Commission
is not confined to the Liberal party of the
different borough towns. When the Tories
are not in possession of the municipal garrisons
they are as active and assistant in promoting the'
inquiries and objects of the Commission as the
Reformers of the Corporate towns where Tory
municipal influence is predominant. Thus in
Nottingham, where the Whig party ousted the
Tory influence in the Nottingham Corporation,
the Conservatives at a meeting of the Com-
mittee of the Constitutional Club" resolved to
procure information to assist the Commissioners,
Mr. Whitcombe and Mr. Cockburn, and pub-
lished an advertisement of the heads of inquiry
issued by the Commissioners with the following
invitation to their fellow-townsmen :

" The Committee request all persons who can give in
formation on any of the above subjects, or any other
matters or things necessary to be investigated, relating to
the Town and Corporation of Nottingham, to attend the
Committee, who will meet every evening (Sunday ex-
cepted) from seven o'clock to nine, at the May-pole Inn,
Lone Row. " ALEX. MANSON, Chairman."
The Nottingham Conservatives, though so near
to their Leicester brethren, can therefore duly
appreciate the importance and value of an elec-
tive municipal system, where they do not possess
the close power generally monopolised by the
Tories of other boroughs. We make no illi-
beral comments on this common interest of all
political parties in corporate reform ; it is credit-
able equally to the Conservatives of Nottingham
as to the Reformers of Leicester; but it illus-
trates the party spirit of the Tories of other
places, who, when possessed of dominant mu-
nicipal authority, reviled the Commission, and
denounced the Ministry from which it emanated.
These facts and published reports demonsttate
that our corrupt and self elective municipal
system is the fruitful source of local discord ;
that the people are in constant opposition to the
corporate authorities; and that the latter are
therefore deprived of the power of administer-
ing efficient justice, or of securing the other
original objects of their vested authority.
The governing and the governed classes of the
local communities are consequently disunited in in-
terest and feeling, and dissensionsand animosities
prevail where municipal order and peace ought
to exist. Our ancient civic institutions once
possessed a strong hold on the affections of. the
people, and by the popular principle of the early
charters of incorporations the burgesses of the
old English towns were united as a Highland
clan. The operation of time, and successive
inroads on the elective constitution of the cor-
porations, for artful political and personal pur-
poses, have thus injuriously changed these
institutions and substituted abuse for utility ;
and as Mr. Macaulay, in his review of Lord Nu-
gent's Hampden, well observes, " The Companies
seem now to exist only to the delectation of
epicures and antiquaries. Ihe corporations for
nearly two centuries past have been perverted
by political and personal local factions ; their
close constitutions provided the machinery of
this perversion. The Birmingham Journal
makes the following sensible remarks on the
termination of the inquiry into the Midland
Corporations of Coventry and Warwick :
" The Corporation Commission has this week com-
pleted its inquiry into the state of the Corporations of
Coventry and Warwick. The result of the investigation
of the municipal government of these towns must mate-
rially add to the accumulated evidence in favour of Cot pn-
rate Return. Some of our contemporaries appear to
pride themselves considerably on the assumed tact that no
mal-admini-tration of the publ.c trust funds has been
proved against the Corporitors personally. This is a very
narrow and testricted view of the municipal question.
The administration of tie revenues of the Corporations
and the inquiry into their respective management, are
sec,,ndary objects. The constitution of the boroueh
governoents is the more important and popular subject.
The dishonest appropriation of the income of the Corpo•
tions, and a corrupt use of municipal power in the promo-
tints of private interests and party politics, are unques-
tionably useful departments of the Commission, especially
as they may illustrate the necessity and principles of
municipal reformation. But the exposure and public
upon of the close and eelf.elective constitution of the
Corporations are the primary and more valu ,ble objects
of the Commission. By the reports of the inquiries
completed, published in the country papers, the public
property of the English and Welch Corporations appears
to have been much overrated. The administration of it
is of minor importance compared with the general muni-
cipal authority vested in the Cerporators. They possess
a civil and criminal jurisdiction. Liberty and property,
anal sometimes life itself, are subject to their municipal
powei, The police of the corporate towns, particularly,
is inafieient for good purposes, and is detested by the
people. If the administration of justice is suspected, or
even unjustly aspersed, the greatest evils inevitably result;
and such must always be the consequence of anti.popular
institutions. Publicity is an es ential in any perfect
system of municipal government ; where it does not
taint, abuse of public trust is the certain consequence
she corporator% of Coventry and Warwick are self-
elected. They are not the popular choice of the citizens
and burgesses. The time is at length arrived wh. n the
people will no longer sutimit to the government of the
self-elect. The corporate sybtel3 was the pillar of the
nomination boroughs, and the former cannot survive the
la t t e.rb.t a
nT
ane dai sdceglousuartees measure
atilmthuenCoicipma-i fall of the
mission must ;
reform. The Scotch burghs are already thrown open to
the English, Welch, and Irish
the electoral constituency ;
corporations must submit to the same sylioleeoine improve-
ment. We consider this product of the Relorm of the
representation a most invaluable benefit to the popular
cause. The habit of election will enlighten and politically
t ducats the town communities. The periodical change of

municipal officers will naturally tend to induce the ' Pro-
perty Ranks' to respect and cultivate public opinion. It
will, therefore, create a rapid formation of public charac-
ter ; and henceforward personal reputatirn, superior
t lents, and popular opinions, will alone command muni-
cipal office and authority. The unincorporated towns
will participate in this great national measure of Reform.
When the ' Pariiamentary Boroughs Bill' is cleansed of
its impurities—of Aldermen for life, and some of its com•
plicsted and unnecessary machinery—when a popular
Local Courts Jurisdiction is substituted for a Crown

Recorder and iii4—;;Fenarve sub-officers. the people will
acquire great and important municipal advantages."
Another local country paper, the Warwick
Advertiser, exposes the principle which long
determined the self-elections of a borough

( Warwick), whose political contests have ex-
cited much public attention :
" On Wednesday last Mr. Whitcombe, the Commis-
sioner, renewed the investigation of our corporate con-
cerns, and completed his labours in this borough soon after
four o'clock on that day. The present Miyor (T. Collins,
Esq.) underwent a long examination. The worthy Chief
Magi,trate gave his evidence in a free, clear, and straixht
forward manner. The object of the Learned Commis..

sioner was to ascertain, from the testimony of Mr. Col

Hos (the father of the corporation, of which he has been a
member for 28 years), whether, and to what extent, any
partiality had been exercised in the election of Aldermen ;
and, more especially, whether such partiality had been
influenced by pol tical feeling ? The evidence of the Mayor
most assuredly proved—and the various lists of Corporation
appointments produced by the town clerk, and read in
court, very amply and satisfactorily confirmed his evidence
—that the corporate body has, for many years past, poa.
sensed a very large majority of members, who have been
and are the known and avowed political supporters of the
Orange' or Castle' interest. This fact, connected with
that of the Earl of Warwick being the Recorder of the
borough, and the existing mode of electing Aldermen by a
majority of their own body, must be quite sufficient to
convince all men (whether they choos- to acknowledge
their conviction or not) that, at least since the right of
returning Members to Parliament for the borough, through
the influence of the Peer and his political partisans, has
been disputed and strenuously contested, the appointment
of corporate officers has been notoriously influenced by po-
litical feeling. We know it has been stated in evidence, by
Mr. G. Greenway, the treasurer of the corporation, that, in
cases of elections for the borough, the corporation have
never acted, as a body, in favour of a particular candidate.
We do not mean to dispute that fact ; nor is it our
object, in the slightest degree, to comment upon Mr.
Greenway's evidence (interspersed as it was, here and
there, with matter totally unconnected with the intention
of his Majesty's Commission) ; but we would ask any rea-
sonable man whether, supposing the Corporation did not
act as a body,' the secret individual operations of the
known large majority would not, necessarily, effect great
influence, especially in a scot and lot borough. If so—
and we defy the worthy treasurer to disprove it—then, as
to the great evil, there is not a particle of difference,
whether the Corporation acted 'as a body' or not—the
effect being precisely the same. With respect to the in-
fluence of power, surely the most stubborn minds must
allow that a large majority is equal to the whole. We are
sure Mr. G. Greenway is too shrewd a lawyer not to see,
and too candid a man not to confess, that this argument,
simple as it is, is unanswerable. However, the question
is, after all, what view the Municipal Commissioners awl

the Parliament will take of this the prominent feature of
our existing Girporation. The report of the former, and
the decision of the latter, will hereafter prove whether we
are right or wrong in our judgment. At all events, we are
at liberty to express and record our opinions upon the sub-
ject.

" We have reason to believe we speak the sentiments of
all the reflecting portion of our fellow•townsmen, when
we declare our opinion, that one of the most wise and
popular acts of the present Government has been the ap-
pointment of the Municipal Commission. It will be the
means of bringing before the eyes of Parliament, and ex-
posing before the country, the immense mass of corruption
by which, for the last century, the minds of men have
been distorted, and public property converted to evil pur-
pose',; and this important investigation will doubtless lead
the way to such enlightened improvements as may best se-
cure the national rights of all classes of the British people.

We have no hesi•ation in saying, therefore, every honest
and honourable man (whatever may be his general political
principles), must applaud the appointment of the Muni.
cipal Commission."
The result of all these local commentaries on
the Commission proves that our municipal or-
ganization is grossly imperfect and anti-popular
—that the ruling bodies must cease to perpe-
tuate themselves by self election, and that the
people in all parts of the country are anxious
for popular institutions, and regard the question
of Corporate Reform as the prominent subject
of remedial legislation in the next Session of
Parliament.—lllorning Chronicle.
The lawless tyranny exercised by the Trades'
Union over the free agency of journeymen, the
property of masters, the supply of necessaries to
the public, and the maintenance of British com-
merce in comparison and rivalship with that of
other nations, has become an alarming evil. Why
is the law upon this subject a dead letter? Pe-
nalties are by law annexed to the wicked prac-
tice of intimidating peaceable and industrious
journeymen from working for wages which, in
their own judgment, would fairly remunerate
them for their time and labour. How is it, then,
that we hear of a single emissary being despatched
by a committee of cunning and selfish tyrants to
the body of workmen, however numerous, in ally
given manufactory, commanding them, one and
all, to leave off work, and being in half an hour
implicitly obeyed by the oldest, steadiest, and
most resolute workmen, precion,ly the most
willing to sell their labour for the market price,
and the least disposed to embarrass or disoblige
their employers? Nor is the palliation of such a
criminal exercise of despotism to be found in
any sudden and wanton reduction of wages,
or in any known distress of the journeymen
and their families. The moment of combi-
nation for a more successful exaction from
the masters is always that at which the conse-
quences of a strike would be most ruinous to the
latter ; it is also that at which, from an increased
demand for goods, a regular and proportionate
rise of wages would follow naturally without any
combination whatsoever. The purpose, there-
fore, of the "strike" is to wring from the em-
ployer more than he can afford to pay, and
sooner; nor should we make the eventual folly
of such an attempt, on the part of those who
willingly subscribe to it, a subject of complaint
that no auliority of the magistrate is interposed
between them and their own foolishness, if that
foolishness were not transfortned into crime by
the force which they employ against their more
judicious, well-principled, and contented neigh-
bours. But, again we ask, why is not the law
brought into action against these tyrants of the
loom and spindle ? Where will the evil inflicted
on the action of an industrious community end,
if successive bands of overbearing ruffians be
permitted to visit with starvation the wives and
children of men far better than themselves, by
compelling them, under fear of bodily violence,
to join in a desertion of their master's work, until
they extort from him a rate of wages which he
cannot afford out of his existing profits, and which
the very resort to outrage for such a purpose
shows to be more than the well-disposed jour-
neyman and his family require ? These enemies
of free labour are base hypocrites, when they
pretend to be friends of any other form or denomi-
nation of freedom. But they had better be-
ware. There are two consequences to which
their criminal proceedings directly tend—one
legal, the other natural, but both to the confe-
derated journeymen and their tyrants a reason-
able subject of alarm ; for, first, if the pteoent
laws against such iniquitous practices, ingrafted
I on that of combination, be found insufficient to
repress them, new laws, the parties may assure
themselves, will be framed, at once rendering

the proof of guilt more easy, and greatly aggra-
vating the punishment. Should this not suc-
ceed, another and the final remedy yet remains.
The master manufacturer, no longer able, under
the daring rapacity of his own servants, to carry
on at a profit the business which had hitherto
yielded him and them support, will withdraw
his capital altogether from an unproductive
trade, or from the country where he could find
neither subsistence nor protection, and thus the
over cunning but short sighted operatives, catch-
ing at the shadow, will let the substance drop
from their mouths—they will force their em-
ployers to shut up their manufactories, and will
themselves be thrown upon the parish. One

thing has astonished us in these conspiracies
of journeymen—it is, that the superior clasc
of workmen should ever, but from being subjected
to extreme coercion, be mad enough to join
in them. It is stated in the letter of " A Mer-
chant," which was inserted in Saturday's Times,
that one object of the conspiracy is " to fix one
uniform rate of wages both for the dexterous
and unskilful, and force the employment of
their members without regard to character, and
thus destroy all emulation to excel either in
adroitness or in moral qualities !" There is a
set of wiseacres for you ! and good workmen
are to he found, as is apparent, who commit
this suicide for the sake of had ones. Suppose

a combindtion of master-manufacturers were to

resolve that they too would " fix a uniform rate
of wages," but that the lowest level of wages
now paid to the feeblest or the idlest children
should be the maximum for adults, the best

proficients in their work, would it not be quite
as equitable and honest as that in question,
which the " Merchant" ascribes to the opera-
tives ? Suppose, again, that all the master
hosiers were to resolve that they would "fix a

uniform price" on all their goods, and charge
the public for the coarsest cotton stockings as
much as for the finest silk, wculd it not be

equally rational ? If these comlinations pro-
ceed, they will inevitably destroy the manufac-
tures of England, and then who will suffer
most—the masters, who may have some capital
to exist upon, or the journeymen, who have
nothing but their wages? We extract upon
this subject of " Trades' Unions" and " combi-
nations two paragraphs from a little work
entitled " History of the Middle and Working
Classes," which contains much useful sense :

" COMBINATIONS OF WOREMEN....-COmbinatiODS among
workmen, inten ted solely to keep up the rate of wages,
are of precisely the same nature as combinations among
masters to keep up the rate of profits. They are both
confederacies against the public, liable to the same objec-
tions as monopolies, in which the interest of individuals
is sought to be supported at the expense of the interests of
the community. One is an interference with the freedom
of industry, the other with the free employment of capital.
Competition is in both cases restrained ; in one the supply
of labour, and in the other the supply of capital, is kept less
than it would he in a state of freedom."—History of Me
Middle and Working Classes, second edition.
TRADES' UNIONS.-Associations of workmen for the
support of high wages are constantly liable to he per-
verted from their legitimate objects, either into arbitrary
tribunals ex-reising an oppressive power over workmen
not members of them, or into hurtful interferences with
rite freedom of employers. They are an attempt to
establish a monopoly in the male of labour, as hurtful as
monopolies in the sale of commodities. The unrestricted
operation of supply ant demand mostly fixes the • quitable
price of labour as of merchandise. Under the action of
this principle the respective shares of master and work.
man in the price of commodities will ordinarily be fairly
apportioned. If, by the improvements in machinery, or
other cause, the profits of the master are augmented, the
wages of the workmen will undergo imorovetnent ; because
the increase of profit, by attracting capital to that channel
of employment, must increase the demand for labour,
which will necessarily enhance wages. On the otter
hand, should profits be depressed, wages would be de-
pressed also, and this depression in the rate of profit
would tend to prevent any addition to the quantity
capital already proved sufficient, and thereby to any in-
crea-e of employment."—History of the Middle and
Working Classes, second edition.— Times.
We learn from the Salisbury Journal, that
Mr. Poulet Scrape has addressed a letter to the
agriculturists of the west of England, in which
he traces the present state of agriculture to the
great and increasing importations of corn and
cattle from Ireland, a country where the taxes
are less than in England, where the banking
system is free, with a currency of 11. notes, and,
above all, where there are no Poor Laws Mr.
Scrope's views appear at once so forcible and
just, that we fed no hesitation in transferring the
following specimen of them to our columns :
" The main cause," says he, " of the low price
at which Irish produce can be grown, and sold
iii our markets, is the absence of a poor law la
Ireland. In England the poor laws have kept.
up the standard of living among our agricultural
labourers in spite of their redundant numbers,
and have prevented wages from falling below an
average of ls. 6d. per day. In Ireland wages
are from 4d. to 10d. per day, because there is
no poor law I How can an English fanner,
paying eighteen pence a day to his labourer.,
compete in the market with the Irish farmer,
who pays an average of seven pence a (lay to his
labourers? In England a farmer is forced by
law to pay from three to ten shillings an acre
poor-rate, while the Irish farmer pays no rate
at all 1 Is it wonderful, then, that the latter
can beat the former out of his own markets ?
But this is not all. To make the difference still
more galling and unjust, a very large proportion
of our heavy poor rates is paid to maintain in
idleness the surplus labourers of our parishes,
who are deprived of the emplo)ment they would
otherwise obtain in London, and all the large
towns of the kingdom, by the hordes of starving
Irish that are driven over here from the want ola
poor law in their own country. indirectly we thus
pay for the support of the Irish poor as well as
our own ; while the Irish landowner, paying no
tax of the kind at all, and hiring his half-
famished labourers fur one-third of the wages
the law compels us to give, sends over to our
markets his corn and cattle, his butter and bacon,
raised at less than half the cost of our produce,
which has to meet it there, and pockets the dif-
ference in the shape of an exorbitant rent. It
is the landlord of Leland, not the farmer, who
profits by this unfair and unjust state of the law.
The farmers of Ireland are mere slaves, woise
off than the serfs of Russia. The Irish farmer
is a poor creature, who occupies a wretched
turf cabin, and from two to twenty acres of land ;
is clothed in rags, lives only on potatoes and
buttermilk, and never tastes from year's end to
year's end a mouthful of the corn he raises, the
butter he makes, or the bacon of the hogs that are
his messmates by day and his bedfellows by night,
but sends every ounce of these things to Eng-
land for the money with which to pay his rent.
It is the absence of any law compelling the
landowners to keep their peasantry from star ving
which enables them to exact from the latter
every atom of the produce of their labour
upon the soil, except the dry potatoes on
which they support a miserable existence.'
These are truths well worthy the, consideration
of every man; and must, we should think, force
themselves upon the active notice of Pat liatnent
during the next session. To us it has always
appeared to be an anomaly beyond the possible

reach of any reasonable solution, that two coun-
tries like England and Ireland should be united
in name, while the people live under laws of a
totally different character and operation ; and
that difference conferring, as in the particulars
here referred to, no earthly benefit upon the
bulk of the people of either, but merely enabling
the Irish absentee landlord to obtain an unjust
and enormous rental. Impressed as we are
with a sense of the wrongs and misgovernment
of Ireland on her own account, we see and feel
them still more sensibly when thus brought
home, as they are, to England. We agree en-
tirely in the strong and unanswerable point of
view in which Mr. Scrape's letter places the
subject, and we think the people of both coun-
tries are greatly indebted to him for placing be-
fore them truths of such importance in so concise