The Sun.
London, England, 1844-03-27 00:00:00

~birD Mbition

SUN OFFICE, Seven o'Clock.

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS. 1
FROM THE EVENING PAPERS OF THIS DAY.
. GLOBE.L—The motion brought forward last night, so
'ably and dispassionately, by Mr. Hutt, has tested the
sincerity of, the Cabinet declaration, that the colonies
are henceforth to be treated as English counties. Let
us.hear not another word of the policy of founding new
colonies to trade with. Let us hear not another word
a 'devoting public means to supporting settlements,
which, some ' day or other, are to prove the
best customers for our manufactures. The best cus-
tomers for our manufactures are those who will give us
most for them. The Minister of Trade, and the
Minister of Colonies, each told the House last night that
there is a landlord in the path, who will not hear of our
colonies giving corn for cottons. Ever so distant a
ps3.spect of that calamity would create a land panic.
Yet, confessedly and notoriously, the difficulty in
trade with new countries is to get returns. Confessedly
and notoriously, returns in grain would, very generally,
be the most welcome. Confessedly and notoriously,
what .we spin cottons chiefly for is food. What new
Countries would give food chiefly for (after supplying
themselves) would be cottons, and other manufactures.
at is- this description of exchange that creates the
whole reciprocity of interest between old and new
'Countries. It is this which is the most difficult to
establish between them ; because it is most difficult
to get enough from new countries for our exports.
Bence the whole system of hollow credit, of in-
flated speculation, of paper or land bubbles in the
money market. The efforts of those interested in
new countries is to direct thither a flow of wealth
-from the old one. The effort of wise government ought
to be to encourage their means of returning the wealth
they drain. All else is ephemeral delusion—capital
goes abroad, indeed, but it comes not back again. A
most unhappy, corrupt, crafty character is engendered,
where life should be most simple; and (as Mr. Murray,
.we, think, tells us of Port Philip) " colonial"
is the oniy epithet which is thought necessary
so' characterise any stroke of over-reaching in business.
'Arid then we amuse ourselves by satirising the " colo-
nial" character after we have formed it ;—after we have
'fostered, -by our credulous advances, and contracted
'policy, the very vices which inevitably spring from teach-
ing men to borrow, without teaching them how to pay
again—nay, throwing absolute obstacles in the way of
the sole payment they can make ! Such was long
..our American policy—though the United States, to all
valuable intents and purposes, continued the most im-
portant colony we had, and might so have continued,
had we encouraged her agricultural interest to look to
England for a free market. What did we do instead ?
`Encouraged the growth of paper, instead of that of
corn. Inflated that immense wind-bag, which American.
'cultivators now view es their worst nuisance. Engen-
dered enmity (for your insolvent debtor is your enemy)
,instead of securing friendship (for your steady cus-
tomer, who looks to you for your custom, is your friend).
.And now we see factories building in the United States,
instead of wheat growing for us—rivals establishing,
i*stead of customers established, as they ought long
since to have been—and we shall probably again (when
burnt fingers are a little forgotten) see English capital
drained to feed American competition. The capital
goes, the people stay—as many as cannot go
.after it. Those who can, take off their little
capitals after the large one ; and last comes " Syste-
. matic Colonisation," with its flying machine for the
masses.- We know that capital has light wings to fly
wherever speculation sends it ; we have learned of late
that a new volatile principle is discovered, by which the
millions of men can fly on the wings of the millions of
money ; and if the machine could only rise off the
ground again, after its late heavy falls, there is no doubt
it might navigate air to any extent, and transplant na-
tions like thistle-down. We have encountered the ire of an
.awe damnee of the Colonies-Flying-Machine school by
- anticipating from Lord Stanley precisely the decision
-.Lord Stanley last night uttered. It is now manifest
that the talk of identifying our colonies with our counties
was an empty boast—that,- as regards the vital article of
subsistence—the article of all others which forms a
subject of the most natural trade between old countries
and new ones—we will not admit the notion of any
regular trade with our colonies—first, because that trade
would be of no consequence to us now, and secondly,
because the landed interest believe it would be of too
-. much consequence hereafter. Now we consider, as the
- mover considered, both these grounds of rejection as
• grounds for assent. 'lf the colonial corn trade is of no
' present consequence, the landlords have no pretext for
present panic. If it is of future importance—then it is
of future benefit to the colonies and the empire.
STANDARD.—Our readers will, we are assured, ap-
preciate the considerations which dispose us to treat ra-
ther of the general subject, than of the details of Monday
night's debate in the House of Commons. The Ministry
is the best that the present generation of Englishmen
has seen ; but upon the question discussed on Monday,
it is altogether wrong in our opinion, in the opinion of
its best friends, and, as we are convinced, in the
opinion of the great majority of the nation ; but when
• we see our friends seriously in error, it is no doubt
our duty, in the first place, to give our humble exer-
t tions to withdraw them from their mistaken
course ; but no less are we bound to abstain
from exposing and magnifying those less import
ant lapses into which a great original error is sure to
lead. Meanwhile we must not overlook the gratitude
due to men like Lord Ashley and Sir Robert Inglis, who
embrace the righ t course, and prove their ability to defend
it with vigour and with spirit ; they, however, would
scarcely accept as the fitting testimony of gratitude a se-
vere and uncandid treatment of temporary antagonists,
whom, for their general conduct, they respect as much as
we do. The question debated so much and so earnestly
during the last ten days would seem, at first sight,
. to be thoroughly understood ; but, may we be pardoned
for saying it, neither the Parliament nor the public is,
in our judgment, as yet in a condition to decide upon it
with any approach to certainty, so far as the commercial
considerations are concerned. The moral question
—the question of humanity—is indeed quite clear,
and from its plainness, and the peremptory
duty which it points out, we suppose it has happened
that Lord Ashley and others have thought it unueces-
sary to refer to the consideration on the side of com-
merce ; but as all the objections come from this side it
ought not- to be wholly neglected, as it- has been.
If the, whole commercial view had been fairly taken,
the • whole subject would have been ex-
amined in its integrity, and not, as it has been,
partially, and in the detail of capriciously selected in-
stances. In dealing with such a matter we cannot
generalise our information enough, but the vice of our
present system of political knowledge lies in this, that
while we are all for practical generalisation, we rarely
generalise in the collection of proofs. One or two ex-
amples are thus made the foundations of a system:
this is remarkably the case in the matter before us.
What is the question in issue, considered as merely
a commercial question ? The distribution of the hours
of labour in manufactories, with reference to the pro-
portion between the hours of labour and of rest.
Now, surely, the first step in the investigation of
this question would properly be the amount of the
hours of labour necessary during some period,
which might be called a fair manufacturing cycle.
We suppose five years will not be thought either
way very far from such a cycle. Of this information,
however, both the House and the country are, up to the
present moment, altogether destitute, though it might be
easily obtained. The number of mills employed in
manufactures is, if we are not mistaken, returned by
the factory inspectors, as well as the number of
labourers employed in these mills—but to the num•
ber of hours, or days, or weeks, or even months,
durincs which each mill has been at work, we have no
clue whatever, and here is the ground upon which we say
that. the House of Commons is not in a condition to de-
cide the commercial question. Lord Ashley, and they
support his Lordship, say that into that ques-
tion they will not enter. They stand upon the
moral ground and the ground of humanity, as para-
mount, and they are right. They. are, however, an-
swered by a plea of commercial necessity ; but surely
it' lies upon those who advance that plea to esta-
blish its validity, by showing that all the time they
claim fur labour is necessary to support the manu-
facturing system of the country. Unless they do
this their resistance is an insult to common sense,
no less than to 'the moral and humane feelings
of the people. Let, then, some opponent of Lord
Ashley move for returns of the mills and mill labourers
of the manufacturing districts during five years, and for
:the number of_hours in each year in which each mill-
has been at work, a rewn easily obtained from the
facto y inspectors, and ens which must be decisive
of the whole commercial question ' • for if it should
ton out that the mills have, on the whole, wrought less
than twelve hours a day for the 1,555 working days of
five years, it is plain that, commercially, the twelve
tours a day are not necessary; and if it should turn out,
as we believe it would, that the mills have not on the
average worked six hours a day for the five years
Of the cycle, it must be quite manifest that
ten !lours daily labour must be sufficient. Our
conviction, the result of careful inquiry, is, that
the mills on an average of the whole do not
work six hours ; and we are more confident in. that
conviction, because, though we have more than once
asserted it. and shown its bearing upon the question
now in issue, no one has yet ventured to contradict it.
This assertion we shall repeat until some opponent of
Lord Ashley calls for the returns to which we have
referral, and those returns prove that we are in error.

STATE OF TRADE.
(From the Manchester Guardian.)
MANCIIESTER.---OUr spinners and manufacturers are
_ now reaping the bitter fruits of the unfounded and mis_
chiev OW speculations in the raw.material, at LiverpoOl
- and in the United States, of which the public have
• heard so much during the last two or three months.
By those speculations, the price of the raw
Material was forced up ; and prices in this
• market gradually followed, to an extent, indeed,
which caused the more prudent buyers to limit
or entirely suspend their purchases, thereby causing an
accumulation of stocks in the hands of the spinners
and manufacturers. In this critical state of the market,
• !intelligence arrived of the coMplete breaking down of the
-speculation in, the United States ; and the consequence,
'may be readily imagined, has been a great stagnation
• of buiguf‘ti op tour Exchange, followed by a very serious
• redtidtiotrOp*es. Yesterday was one of ihe gloomiest
-and intiSt;aottresXd markets that have been experienced.
tor onle i ii4o4* y st. Goods of all descriptions, except.
bri?,
,g09d,..,
.49:401 4W „,gs (for which there has been a fair
-Y-I**A4. ned in prim since last week ; and
k :emitt:i•Aeier.f.Pt f yarn are selling at a mere., shade
tile eA tes of last year. 'We learn, however,
\ 2.llva:A ct ns of price have caused some increase
14 a

in the demand ; and, as soon as the cotton market be-
comes steady, it seems not improbable that a fair busi-
ness will be done.

ROCHDALE FLANNEL MARKET, MONDAY, MARCH 25.
—We have had a busy market to-day, somewhat similar
to that of last Monday. There has been a numerous
attendance of buyers, and goods have sold freely at last
week's prices. In the wool market there is no change to
report.

IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT.
(THIS EVENING.)

HOUSE OF COMMONS.
The SPEAKER took the Chair at.the usual hour.
BIRMINGHAM CORPORATION BILL

Mr. MUNTZ moved the secondreading of this Bill.
Mr. DUGDALE said that he should oppose the
second reading of the Bill. He believed that it was not
agreeable to the wishes of the majority of the people of
Birmingham. He should therefore move that it be read
esecond time that day six months.
'The amendment having been put,
Mr. MUNTZ said he did not see any reason why the
usual form of referring the Bill to a private Committee
up stairs should not be observed. The Bill would save
the ratepayers of the town 3,5001., and therefore it was
a matter of much importance to them.
After a few words from Mr. NEWDEGATE and Mr.
SCUOLEFIELD in opposition to the Bill, the House
divided, when there appeared—
For the second reading
Against it
Majority against the second reading —lO
The Bill is consequently lost.
On the motion of Mr. AINSWORTH, the Bolton and
Preston Railway Bill was read a third time, and passed.
Mr. P. HOWARD presented a petition from all the
manufacturers of the city of Carlisle, praying for the
repeal of the cotton tax.
Mr. STANLEY presentee a petition in favour of pro-
tection to British agriculture.
Mr. GALLY KNIGHT presented a petition against
any alteration in the corn-laws.
Mr. HUME presented a petition from Montrose
against the New Prisons (Scotland) Bill; also a petition
praying that the House would adopt some means to pre-
vent the present abuses and hardships which pressed
upon the manufacturers of tobacco ; also another petition
from Wells, against the Commons' Inclosure Bill.
Mr. HOPE presented a petition from a place in Kent,
against the union of the sees of St. Asaph and Bangor.

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