The Sun.
London, England, 1860-06-30 00:00:00

better off than he should now be with 12s.

And yet these Englishmen did not talk of the
workhouse—they loved their independent though
hungry homes—they put down an abusive speaker,
a returned convict, who spoke of setting one half
the farmers to hang the others, and quietly dis-
banded, with the intention of meeting again next
week, after having agreed to ask the farmers for
the moderate advance abovementioned, of 3s. a week.
Poor men,—they know nothing of the doctrines of
MALTHUS and ADAM SMITH. They do not know
that Science versus Genesis, says they ought not to
marry and to increase and multiply—know no-
thing about the great truth that the article la-
bourer, like the article cotton, can only fetch what
it is worth in the market ; according to the third
great commandment—" but, thov shalt love thy
neighbour's labour at starvation wages, if he will
take them." All these high and holy truths of
the Gospel, according to the 19th century, they,
poor heathens, have never been taught. We
doubt not the farmers and landlords who will be
asked by the poor men to pay them wages which
will keep body and soul together, were ready
enough in 1846 to scout ADAM SMITH, and to iniist
on protective prices for wheat ; we shall be a little
curious to learn whether they will be ready to
own, now wheat is much higher than what they
demanded it should be, that their labourer's life
and health need protection as much as rents and
farming profits. Of one thing we are certain—

that if any of these famishing men threw his
, stick at a hare, and by special good luck knocked
it over, a brace of clergymen and a country squire
or two would send him to find a supper in the
nearest gaol, and read him a very pious lecture,
too, on the sin of poaching.
The townsmen at their meetings take quite
another course, one the poor farm-labourers could
net take—they propose to buy no more meat till
the butchers sell it cheaper. It is quite certain that
the 9s. a week men are guiltless enough of raising
the price of meat. We fear they have only too
little to do with the price of dry bread. There is,
however, a clear connection, between the price of
meat, and the number of persons who eat it ; only,
in this case, those who renounce meat would need
more bread and raise the price of that to all; just
as once the " Good Old King," and his more bene-
volent nobles, actually raised the price of the in-
ferior kinds of flour, under the falsely benevolent
notion of relieving the poor by not using fine
wheat flour themselves. Still, nothing could be
more reasonable than the resolve to dispense with
mere luxuries. Better for their health and vigour,
on which their earnings depend, to give up tobacco,
beer, and above all gin, at least till the crisis were
over, than enfeeble themselves for work by abstain-
ing from meat. We suppose, however, there is
little danger of their doing it.

It is rather remarkable that at the meetings, they
should begin to talk of a vote for every man, and at
the same time to blurt out treason against politi-
cal economy, by attacking the provision dealers,
and the large dealers in grain. Reasonably enough
will hundreds of forcibly converted Protectionists
now say that they should not, ignorant as they
are, have a vote all. To which the men might
surely reply—ought you, then, to have had a vote,
much morn to have been legislators, when you
talked as we now do ? It would go rather hard
with our legislators themselves, in both the Lords
and the Commons, if they could not attain their
honours without first passing an examination
in political economy
• The truth is the men's