The Sun.
London, England, 1835-11-18 00:00:00

not inferior, we suspect, to that of many Noblemen in
Great Britain, and who, like a man of sense and honour,
:•.declared that he could not encourage the agricultu-
rists to depend on legislation for any sensible relief '
from their embarrassments.' Lord Chandos reverts to
his own motion of last year, for the repeal of the malt-
tax, as a measure which would have effectually served
the farmer.- It hardly appeared to us at the time that
the Noble Lord had considered the subject in all its
bearings, or indeed, in any of them, political, finan-
cial, or in relation to the agriculturist, whether land- •
lord or tenant. In the first place, the introduction of
such a question at that moment could not fail to per-
Mplex and weaken the Government which the Noble
arquis. professed to support ; second, the State must
have been • insolvent had the malt-tax, producing
5,000,0001. per 'annum, not been replaced by any
other impost ; and finally, non constat either that the
landlord would have derived any benefit for the substi-
tution of a tax on property for one on malt, or that the
tenant would have been suffered by the same landlord to
share with him one single sixpence of the profit accruing
from whatever modification of taxes. Mr. E. S. Cayley,
in his opening speech at York, announced that it had
now become necessary for all agriculturists to "be
unanimous," admitting that hitherto they had enter-
tertained much diversity of opinion. We trust, there-
fore, that the first.point on which they prove them-
selves unanimous will be in getting rid of the number-
less heresies which have heretofore prevailed amongst
the agricultural body, (we allude more especially to pro-
prietors of the soil than to occupiers,) touching the
causes, or cause rather, wherein the distress of the far-
mers has originated, as well as of the absurd and
empty nostrums which are hourly proposed by way of
remedy. The state of the currency has no more to do
with the embarrassments of the agricultural interest
than the course of Halley's comet. The. wildest of the
currency doctors do not pretend that we should return
to an inconvertible paper currency. Then what, in the
name of wonder, would they desire ? Will they as-
sert that every man ought to have a facility .of raising
money, whether he has property wherewith •to repay
his loans or net ? A' pretty state the creditors would
soon he reduced to in that case ! Well, then, if that
extravagance be given up, what further ? . Do the
paper-mongers affect to say that, taking paper and gold
together, there is too contracted a currency in this
country ? Why, so far from it, that money never was
so cheap, the current-interest on mortgages being not
so much as 4 per cent., whereas during the blessed
papyrocracy the
.market price of money exceeded the
legal rate of interest—namely, 5 per ,cent., and coun-
try gentlemen were forced to cheat the law, raising loans
by way of annuity at 7or S. Is there, then, a diffi-
culty in procuring specie ? If so, most other countries
are worse off in that respect than England, inasmuch
as the English sovereign bears a premium almost every-
where on the continent, and we believe in the United
States. But the fallacy of all this talk about currency
is obvious to any disinterested person of common un-
derstanding. It was not because paper was plenty
during war time that the agriculturist flourished—it
was because the universal demand for corn to support
the extended and wasteful opetations of a war which
was only conterminous with the habitable world,
progressively raised the price of the article so re-
quired, the supply very generally falling short of the
demand, and therefore threw continually increasing
prices into the producer's pocket... The absence of e
corn law during the war, and the encouragement thus
held out to importation, were never then felt by the
British farmer or landlord, because, With all the aid
of corn from foreign countries and from Ireland, the
wants of the market were scarcely ever adequately an-
swered. But things are changed. Pisces have fallen,
as the relative demand .for agricultural produce has
fallen below that level at which the growth of England
and Ireland united are found adequate to an abundant
supply. Thus the converse of the condition which
we were placed in during the war has now succeeded.
As the largest importations which could in the former
case be executed in nowise operated to reduce prices,
or to make the agriculturist
iielamour for a corn law, so
at present, from the unexampled reduction of prices,
which the corn law was enacted to prevent, it has
ceased to operate as any protection whatever, and is
reduced, in face, te a mere caput mortuum,- amounting
to a palpable and almost ludicrous demonstration of the
solemn folly of those other sages—the prohibition doc-
tors—who ascribed to a corn-law, as its infallible con -
sequence, the stability of " remunerating prices," and
insisted' that low prices and repeal of the corn-law were
convertible. terms. If the British agriculturists insist
on a certain recipe for the iise"of prices here, and the
consequent prosperity of the farmer and • his landlord,
let them indulge O'Connell in the fancy of a repeal of
the Union, for which he and his junior • partners in.
Downing-street, are at work with such laudable viat'oue,
and 'then, when Ireland shall have fairly broken from
het moorings, we see no motive under heaven for treat-
ing 'her more favourably than we treat other foreign
countries, or for hesitating to impose upon her cattle,
corn, butter, and every description of raw produce, a
protecting duty in favour of our own land, its owners,
and its occupants. However, to come at once to the ra-
tibnale °fans subject; Mr. Bather, at Shrewsbury, has
hit the nail on the head. It quite rejoices us to see a
strOng and clear mind dealing so unceremoniously with all
descriptions of humbug. The landlords, according to this
straightforward speaker, must have done with obliquity
and mystification. They must no longer go about the
bush—they must lower their rents. We have harped
upon the - same string in this journal -ever since the
nostrum of legislating upon a matter which was sus-
ceptible of no substantial adjustment, but from the
spontaneous dealings of man with man, was first pro-
pounded—that is, ever since the landlords chose to put
a false colour on a plain case, and to twist, and shirk,
and equivocate, and attempt to relieve their tenants at
every body's expense but their own. There is, we
repeat, but one cure, and that must be administered
by the landlords, not by Parliament. Reduce your
rents, gentlemen, and you will thus effectually relieve
your tenants. We do not like to see men fussing and
sputtering, and throwing the country into hot water,
when a single exercise of their own volition, and a
slight practical rebuke of their own selfishness, might
subdue the artificial storm, and clear the stirred-up
puddle, and at all events prove that they themselves
were disinterested and.sincere.— Times.
The Imperial Calmuc of Russia is no common-
place actor on the political stage. In the dullest time
of general peace, his " entrances" and his " exits"
upon the scene, in one part of Europe or. another, ,dis-
turb the repose of Courts, and excite the curiosity of
nations.. .Whether he gets up military spectacles with
melo-dramatic effect and splendour in Poland, or enacts
the chief personage in a political drama at Toplitz—
whether he pays a visit of condolence to a Dowager
Empress at Vienna, or affects to grasp the thunders of
the Olympic God at Warsaw—all he says and does isi
original in its way ;it stirs the public mind—it agitates
public opinion—it excites fears or hopes in attentive
audiences ;—in short, to adopt the language of the
theatres, it " produces a sensation." We thought the
curtain had fallen, for some time at .least, upon the
tragedy of Warsaw ; but he has lifted it again—to
feast his eyes on the desolation he has caused—to
boast, of the barbarous trophies that he has won—to
recall the recollection of the martyrs of liberty who
perished in the unequal conflict with his ferocious
hordes---,and to contemplate, with savage anticipation,
foture scenes of vengeance and carnage, whenever it
shall appear that his crushing tyranny has not suffi-
ciently trampled out every. generous hope of freedom
and, independence from the mind of Poland. In the
reCords of merciless conquest-,--of the brutal insolence
of barbarian victory, we cannot call to mind any thing
more truly atrocious than the sentiments which the
Autocrat has expressed respecting unhappy Poland
to the Municipal body of Warsaw. They are senti-
ments worthy of the " Herod of the North"—worthy
or hies who tore the Polish children from their frantic
in.or,lwfs, to .prevent the love of country being in-
ss'illosb.with their milk, or the infection of the patriot-
pafoi rin . being conveyed with their land's language—of
him who wields the Russian knout over myriads of
[wave' Pored'. hi the WilderneSses of Muscovy, and who
hag Ont'hged.'24.Bbles laden with chains to be buried
ali+din' -Theinins of Siberia ! A tranquillity, deep
and undisturbed as that of death, is upon Poland. The
military tribunals that followed the great massacre of
efilit*E4trihAlT done their work. Murder, banish-
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