The Sun.
London, England, 1844-11-13 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, WEDNESDAY MORNING, NOVEMBER 13, 1844.

THE DUTY OF GOVERNMENT TO
THE INDUSTRIOUS CLASSES.

(From the Sentinel.)
The condition of the working-classes has now fairly
and fully forced itself on the notice of the public.
Newspapers of every shade of politics acknowledge the
prostration of industry, however they may differ as to
the remedial measures which ought to be adopted.
Poaching and incendiarism in the rural districts, suicide
and prostitution in the metropolis, with the state of the
unions both in town and country, hare begun to alarm
property, and the rich already despair of the conserva-
tive efficacy of soldiers and police. Emigration, allot-
ments, organic chemistry, free-trade, the confiscation of
church-lands, a reduction in the interest of the fund-
holder, and even the total repudiation of the public
debt, are among the various schemes propounded for
averting that direful catastrophe which all feel is fast ap-
proaching. The political avalanche is, indeed, impend-
ing over our heads, and gives signs of a speedy fall,
threatening to sweep away the useful and the
useless, the good and the bad, the pa-
lace and the workhouse. There is not a class
in society free from uneasiness, while the vast majority
are thoroughly discontented, being convinced that any
change could not work more evil to them than they now
endure ; and when that feeling becomes the faith of the
millions, all the moral securities fur order and govern-
ment are at end. 'Wealth can then only sleep with
bolted doors and loaded pistols at his bedside.
We believe that there is yet time to avert revolution
and secure the interests of all, and with that view we
shall venture to propound a plan at once simple and
efficacious, which will give fresh guarantees to every de-
scription of legitimate property, and put an end to pau-
perism, poaching, incendiarism, and all the crimes and
convulsions which follow in their train. All that we
take for granted is, that Government is bound to pro-
tect property, and to recognise labour as property.
Whence comes our present danger ? From the in-
ability of employing our working population at remu-
nerating wages ; and, as their numbers are annually
increasing, their labour, that is to say, their property, is
depreciated from year to year. On the other hand, they
who now possess the fixed capital of the country, find
that sort of property appreciated from year to year, since
competition among producers must always tend to
cheapen produce, and cheapness is equivalent to an in-
crease of wealth in the hands of those who consume, but
do not produce. If no disturbing cause intervenes, this
disparity between the two great classes, here indicated,
must constantly become more and more unequal, till we
behold the broadly-defined contrast of excessive super-
fluity and extreme destitution. 'When that point is
reached, the war between iron and gold commences, and
to that point we are tending. In the moral, as well as
'1 the physical world, there are periods of destruction
e restitution, and in both the catastrophe happens
hen the component elements in their constitution cease
to be conservatively balanced.
The great error, not to use so harsh a term as wicked-
ness of our Government, has been, and still is, to legislate
for the vested interests of the rich, to the utter disregard
of those of the poor. Statesmen have affixed far too
limited a meaning to the word " property ;" they have
confined it to land, buildings, pensions, sinecures, and
certain profits arising out of certain trades, which they
have fortified by monopolies ; but, in their definition of
property, they have never included labour. In reference
to the masses of the people, the business of statesman-
ship seems to have consisted, first, in excluding them
from all voice in making the laws ; secondly, in taxing
them on all articles of their consumption ; thirdly, in
taxing them to pay a standing army and police when-
ever they dared to protest against misrule; and fourthly,
in depriving them of markets for their labour, in order
that, by such deprivation, other kinds of property, be-
longing to those who make the laws, may be raised in
value. In reference to non-producers, statesmanship
has acted in a very different spirit. Whenever their
vested interests have been infringed, compensation has
been awarded to them ; thus the slave owners
were compensated ; and the same rule has been
invariably applied to pensioners and sinecurists. But
when a tariff has narrowed the labour market, and de-
stroyed the vested interests of the working classes by
depreciating their property, no compensation whatever
has been voted to them by Parliament. When bread
was made dear by law, and labour scarce, the Legisla-
ture separated a man from his wife for the crime of being
hungry, after having put the loaf beyond his reach; and,
if he ventured to trespass on the vested interests of game
preserves, and seize a hare or partridge, then the Legis
lature provided him a lodging in the county gaol, leaving
his wife and children to the scant dietary of the unions.
Now, this truly infernal system must be fundamen-
tally changed. Government must find labour for the
unemployed. That is the remedy we propose. The
details of the plan are not difficult. The Crown and
waste lands would give occupation to hundreds of thou-
sands in bringing them into culture by spade husbandry;
railroads would engage others ; public harbours would
afford another field for industry. But how are these
men to be paid ? Let us first ask those who put
the question, what they think of a Government who are
so cruel as to tax its subjects, and so little skilful as not
to be able to employ them ? Can they honestly tax
labour to pay the fundholders, for example, and not tax
the fundholders to pay labour ? If statesmanship can
only achieve such triumphs as these, let it be classed in
the category of swindling. We say it fearlessly,—a Go-
vernment merits subversion which taxes the people, and
declares itself incompetent to pay them for their labour.
Why the law would scarcely allow a man to keep a horse
and ride it, unless he fed the animal; and shall our Con-
stitution throw its shield over the brutes, and refuse pro-
tection to the sons and daughters of industry ?
But the mode of payment is not difficult. Since we
vote thirty millions annually to pay the fundholder, let
us vote half that sum to pay the unemployed poor, and
for that purpose issue Government notes, not bearing
interest, convertible into gold at its market price, and
receiving the character of a legal tender, being an ac-
quittance of taxes at the Exchequer.
A single example will serve to illustrate the plan and
the manner in which it would work. Suppose Govern.
ment were to determine on constructing a railway from
London to York. It would invite all the unemployed
to apply to the proper superintendents, every man re-
ceiving a fixed weekly salary, at a minimum of wages,
which we shall assume to be two shillings daily. Every
man who could not get work from private employers
would repair to the public work, and all able-bodied
paupers would be sent to the stations on the line. The
first step, then, in the process would be the abolition of
pauperism, and the emptying of the unions of all but
the aged and the crippled, whose infirmities entitled
them to a national asylum. In the next place, it would
raise wages, permanently, all over the country, in every
trade
andrie gages
calling,oe
great since
two shillings
hbi p
benefit ui
n
per diem, which we have
assumed to . Of course all prices
would
of the producing classes.
Tohueldwbaeg carious Government works
stt
belowbhe t
hte.t
mnee ni e vete capitalists could never
minimum.
lower t
weds
distributed auted in the purchase of all kinds of
commodities, and increase the home trade. Those wages
would be paid its symbolic money, and being taken in
payment of taxes, would discharge Customs, Excise,
Stamps, and all other imposts annually due to the Go-
vernment, On whatever work the men were employed,
that work would form an addition to the real wealth of
the nation when completed. If a line of railway, for in-
stance, were constructed on this principle, it would be-
come national property, and all would benefit by the
cheapness of transit, as it could be let to a company for
a term of years at a competition tender, such company
merely farming the power of conveying goods and pas-
sengers, the plant of the railway remaining in the
nation. Waste lands brought into culture under
this system could be let on perpetual leases at
corn rents, which rents might be annually applied
to the reduction of the national debt. New harbours
thus created would be free of dues, or at most no more
dues need be levied than would keep them in repair.
The space to which a single article is limited forbids
so full an exposition of the details of this system, as we
deem necessary—a defect which we shall supply in our
next number. For the present we must be content with
announcing the principle on which this remedial measure
is based. We hold that a Government which levies taxes

on the working classes is-boUndicTfind employment for
the working classes, particularly such a Government as
ours, which narrows the labour-market by deliberate
legislation, and thus prevents private capitalists from
giving that employment which they might be able to
give, if restrictions on trade were abolished. 'We
contend that poaching, incendiarism, and nine-tenths
of the offences committed against property, are instigated
by those various Acts of Parliament which deprive men
of food, lodging, and raiment, by depriving them of
employment ; and consequently, that those who enact
such unjust laws are more deserving of incarceration
than those who break them. Nay, more—we insist that
it would be more humane to legalise infanticide, than to
continue the laws which prevent fathers from earning
wherewithal to support their children, who are doomed
to perish for want of a sufficiency of food. We deny the
right of the Legislature to employ soldiers and police for
the protection of property, unless they also give an ade-
quate protection to labour ; and by " adequate protec-
tion," we mean that the Government is bound to find
employment for every man able to work, but who fails
to find employment from private capitalists ; and we
hold this obligation the more sacred in this country,
where the working classes are taxed without being re.
presented.

THE ITALIAN OPERA AT PARIS.—M. Fatel, the
manager of the Paris Italian Opera, is placed
in
in an awk-
ward predicament by Victor Hugo's persistence
in-
terdicting the performance of Lucrezia Borgia and .Xrnani,
at Les Italiens ; and the author of Aornza has also for-
bidden the directeur to represent his opera. M. Fatel
is at the same time involved in law proceedings with the
well-known composer Conradin Kreutzer, which creates
much attention at the present moment in the Parisian
musical circles. The litigation is owing to an agree-
ment having been entered into between the manager and
composer, to the effect that Kreutzer's opera, U. ne Nuit
a Grenade, was to be represented at the Paris Italian
Opera this season. The parts being destined for Mdlle.
Nissen, Mario, and Ronconi, which were subsequently
changed by mutual consent, to be sung by Mario, For-
nasari, and Mad. Persiani. The opera is now in re-
hearsal, but M. Fatel has allotted the characters to
Corelli, Fornasari, and Mdlle. Manara, to which M.
Kreutzer objeets, and has consequently brought the
matter`before the Tribunal of Commerce of La Seine.
ANOTHER FIRB AT WEST BERGYOLT.—We re-
gret to state that about half-past eleven o'clock on
Sunday night a fire broke out upon the premises of
West Bergholt Hall, the property of John Round, Esq
M.P., of Danbury Park, and in the occupation of Mr. j. 9
Ward, when a large double barn, filled with wheat and
barley, a cart lodge, and a granary containing corn in
sacks ready for market, were totally consumed. Several
waggons, tumbrels, &c., were saved by the police, who
exerted themselves in the most praiseworthy manner in
preserving order and in the attempt to save the property
The fire is supposed to have been wilfully oeen,jimed.
Essex Herald,