The Sun.
London, England, 1844-03-11 00:00:00

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LONDON, MONDAY, MARCH 11, 1844.

The proceedings at a meeting, on Wednesday last, of
tenant-farmers, -merchants, and tradesmen of Har-
leston, in the county of Suffolk, held-at the Swan Inn,
in that town, and convened for the purpose of peti-
tioning Parliament to repeal the duties on foreign
corn and malt, and in favour of free trade, generally,
were, with some trifling exceptions, worthy of the in-
telligence, good sense, and spirit of one of the most
important agricultural districts in England. We are
disposed rto notice the affair, the rather because the
scope which the address of the respected Chairman
embraced was remarkable for the novelty of some of
its views, in combination with a demand for corn-
law repeal, and the soundness and sagacity of the
opinions avowed with regard to the operation of our
system of currency, past and present. Desiring
to say so much, without any sort of offence to the
agricultural bodies of this kingdom, we must own
that, in general, their notions upon the theory of our
monetary arrangements by no means square with
those which we have formed upon the results of long
and attentive observation. But the Chairman of the
Harleston meeting enunciated some prepositions on
these subjects, highly important in themselves, and to
us not the less interesting, because of their coinci-
dence with those which, from time to time, we have
advocated. This gentleman, Mr. T. L. TAYLOR, of
Starderston, a landowner of station and considerable
property in the neighbourhood, reminded the meet-
ing that if the corn-laws were really beneficial, as had
been contended, to those immediately interested,
they must be so to himself. But he was for their
entire repeal ; believing that they now were,
and had, almost always, been, injurious to the tenant-
farmers, and their labourers. He proceeded to if.,
lustrate this important point by some statistical de-'
tails, very well digested and very much to the purpose.
At the same time, and with a becoming and manly
ingenuousness (which we could wish to see exten-
sively imitated at other meetings, wilether of societies
for the protection of British agriculture, •or of their
opponents), he said that he was far from thinking that
the repeal of these laws would prode very cheap
corn, as the Anti-Corn-law League assumed that it
would do. He went so far as to state that the League
" had much injured the cause of repeal and of free
trade by holding ouethat hope." In his:opinion the effect
would rather be " to produce greater uniformity be-
tween French and English prices,--and also greater
regularity." He regretted, too, that " both ma
nufacturers and landowners are too selfish and one.
sided in their views of this question."

There is much of grave truth in all this. If the
fact is to be deplored, it is not the less essential that,
like other disagreeable testimonies of truth, it should
be deliberately heard and considered. For our own
parts, we have so recently and so often urged the
claims of those most important, but most neglected
classes—the producing labourers and artisans, who
are the great sufferers in this squabble of contending
interests, by reason of cruelly diminished wages and
exorbitantly increased demands on their working hours;
and by the almost absorption of the. needful " intervals
for food and rest ;"—that we are compelled to concur
in this grave imputation of selfishness upon both
those classes of capitalists alluded to. The Chairman
next developed the results upon the scale of rents and
upon the prices of corn, which had been realized under
the various corn-laws passed fromlBos to the present
time. And first, as to the period from 1805 to 1815.
Between 1805 and 1814 the price of corn never fell
so low as 665. the quarter (the " pivot price" of Mr.
BOBINSON'S Act of 1815), and consequently the trade
was free; and yet, notwithstanding that freedom of

importation, in some parts of this same term, the price
ranged up to 120 s. per quarter.
This was a salient and remarkable event in the
history of the first corn-law ; and Mr. TAYLOR skil-
fully availed himself of so prominent a fact, in order
to explain his own convictions of the opera-
tion of other causes—seldom or never sufficiently
allowed for in corn-law discussions,—in bring-
ing about the high prices, and the high rents put
upon the land, which are usually ascribed to the sole
agency of the law in question. " Did not," said he,
" the paper money produce some effect? And he
would ask, might not the prent currency-law (he
referred partly to Peel's Bill of 1819) produce some
effect,—more even than the present corn-law does on
present prices." If these questions were answered
affirmatively, then were the farmers wrong in looking
for protection to the corn-law and a sliding-scale
only." The lovers of "protection" would really do
well to lay seriously to heart these considerations, at
once so incontestible and so pertinent, and especially
the statistical proofs of which we have spoken above.
Thus, in the same ten years, 1805 to 1815, the import
of foreign wheat averaged about 500,000 quarters
per annum. " This showed," Mr. TAYLOR
argued, " that with open ports and high
prices to tempt importation, we cannot have
unlimited supplies, as;some suppo§e." In 1838, 1839,
and 1840, it seems our importations of wheat ex-
ceeded 2,000,000 quarters per annum ; and yet it
could not be said that there was, all that time, a sur-
plus of wheat, or- that wheat was especially cheap.
The fact was, that with the lapse of years our popu-
lation had largely increased ; with population, manu-
factures; with these, the manufacturing community;
and with that community, our consumption. " The
more our manufacturers are employed," said he, " the
more corn and food they require ; and the better
prices we (the growers) shall receive." Granted,—
if the Legislature, meanwhile, will only discharge the
first and most imperative duty whi tice, feeling, and
the safety of the empire alike litre ; namely, so
amend our existing monetary system ;—so to remodel
and ameliorate the currency as to make it perform the
hitherto neglected function of distribution to the poor
and labouring classes, whose condition at present
deteriorates, from day to day, in the inverse ratio of
manufacturing production and of the accumulation of
capital in the kingdom. Let us hear Mr. TAYLOR fur-
ther on this very poipt,;r-lot to that, we find, his state-
ments and his reasoning irresistibly tend. We could
not desire a more convincing argument for the change in
the currency, which we contend ought immediately to
be adopted with regard to issuing Government paper,
convertible into Bank notes or gold or silver, at the
market value of bullion, to the extent of our present taxa-
tion. That extent or amount, be it remembered, is
neither allowed for by the manufacturer in wages to his
workmen, nor represented by the convertible cur-
rency exclusively legalised, and abridged to the arbi-
trary gold standard of PEEL'S Bill of 1819:—" In
1815 wheat was down to 635. Bd. per quarter on the
average ; and the landowners, considering, then, that
it could not be grown for less than 80s. per quarter,
passed a law prohibiting importation when the price
was below that sum. Then the ruin of the tenant-
farmer and the labourer commenced; and mark—
during the operation of this corn-law PEEL'S Cur-
rency Bill was passed."
It might be imagined impossible to enhance the
enormity of the injustice, worked by such a statute,
passed under such circumstances, at such a period.
Nothing, however, is more certain than that the very
next illustration,' supplied by the same speaker, does
greatly exaggerate its oppressive injustice. Want of
space compels us here, for the present,3 to break off.
With the abstract which we shall publish to-morrow
of the proceedings, the speechei delivered, &c. at
that meeting, we shall probably recur to the subject.

It is now some three or four years since a proposi-
tion-wasd)rought forward in the House of Commons,
and agreed to, for the formation of a public park at
the east-end of the metropolis, to be entitled " Vic
toria Park." Not a few ad captandum speeches were
made on the occasion ; and those, in particular, who
introduced the measure, took credit to themselves
for the kindly feeling by which they were actuated,
in endeavouring to provide for the health and re-
creation of those immense masses of the London
population who dwell eastward of Temple-bar,
in the remote regions of Shoreditch, White-
ehapel, Mile-end, Bethnal-green, &c., in whose vici-
nity the park was proposed to be located. Three or
four years, we repeat—probably more—have elapsed
since this useful measure received the sanction of
Parliament, and from that period to the present it
would:appear that not a single decisive step has been
taken with a view to carry it into effect. The matter
remains in precisely the same state in which it was
when it was first broached in the House of Commons ;
and there, we suppose, it will be permitted to remain,
unless an active stir be made on the subject, for the
majority of those interested in the completion of the
park, are a poor, hard-working class, weavers,
small; mechanics, and such like, who are utterly.
without means and influence to press their claims on
the kindly consideration of the Legislature, with any
chance of success. By the following paragraph, which
we quote from a Morning Contemporary, it will be
seen that we have not been speaking without warrant,
but that " Victoria Park" is still among the things
that are yet to be :—" Notwithstanding the eager
anticipations of the inhabitants of the eastern division
of the metropolis, of the commencement of operations
for the formation of the park early in the present
spring, these are disappointed by the CroNVn having
actually given permission to the market-gardeners to
continue in occupation and plant their lands, which
were lately purchased, for six months longer. The
inhabitants naturally consider that the want of funds
cannot be the reason of this strange dlay, as the
Commissioners of Woods and Forests, in their; report
of 1842, state that they had received 100,000/. from
the sale of York House, which they had invested in
Exchequer bills, and their report of 1843 further
states that it remains there invested, for the purpose
required, in the hands of trustees." It is clear
from the above paragraph that little or nothing
of moment will be done towards the formation
of the park this year, at least ; for six months hence
the fitting period for such out-door work will in
a great measure have passed away ; the fine long days
of summer will be at an end, and the rain and gloom
of confirmed autumn will have set in. Really this
long delay is quite inexcusable, the more so when we
consider how imperative is the necessity that exists
for a healthy, open place of recreation at the east
end of the metropolis. T4' inhabitants of that
quarter have no airy and cheeAl green fields lying
within a short walking distance of them, such as is
the case in the northern distrZet of London ; they have
no spacious and salubrious parks, such as the west-end
'<pan boast of; but are shift up-in narrow, crowded streets,
iitA lanes and alleys, which stretch away to an almost
iriterminable distance. Here and there, to be sure,
the& may get sight of a thing growing in a miserably
smalls, old-fashioned square, and calling itself a tree,
but which looks rather like a quiz [upon vegeta-
tion; but with this rare exception, they can see
nothing -to remind ;item of the country, and
hfualve
of
fo
fresh, sibulenaacikanuitera , cetedof gulping in a mouth-
Unless they stroll
away to a distance of some miles from their
homes. As for the west-end parka,
scarcely to be reached without fatigue,ixpe nexcecse,ptibewthreyofueagarrh:
the agency of an omnibus—
and
do not abound among the poor, toiling artisans of
Bethnal-green and Whiteehapel; and the cheerful
sylvan uplands of Hampstead in the north, and of
Brixton in the south, are still more remote, and con-
sequently inaccessible, localities. Under these cir-
cumstances, the formation cf a park, wherein they
may stroll at leisure on sunny summer evenings
or on Sundays, becomes not merely a luxury,
but a matter of absolute necessity, to the hard-
worked, ill-fed, and scantily paid artisans of the east-
end of London, who are numbered not by thousands,
but by tens of thousands ; and we do hope that Go-
vernment will take their case promptly into consi-
deration, and if a " Victoria Park" is to be formed
at all, give-directions to have it formed immediately.
When a National Gallery, or any other luxury
is required for the embellishment and convenience
of the fashionable west-end, not an instant's
time is lost in setting to work at it
Committees of Taste are appointed, and the
matter becomes quite an affair of moment ; but when
a park is proposed for the use of a poor, plebeian,
unfashionable district, whose inhabitants have no
other means of obtaining fresh air and exercise; then,

after the first mooting of the question and the first
flourish of patriotic trumpets in Parliament, the
affair is allowed to drop quietly out of notice,
and no man seems to think it worth his while
to revive it. This should not be ; to say the least of
it, it is ungenerous and impolitic ; and we do hope
that those officials who have a voice in the matter,
will bear in mind that the poor mechanics at the
east-end of the metropolis have quite as much right
to have their interests consulted as those who dwell
at the west-end, and who claim, in consequence, the
privileges and consideration due to their unquestioned
respectability.

Since the Opposition Press was extinguished at Ma-
drid, no accounts of the slightest importance have ap-
peared in the Government journals respecting the af-
fairs of Alicant and Carthagena. Nearly the
same silence prevails with regard to the state of the
capital. Mystery, military despotism, and that horrible
system of sanguinary retaliation sanctioned by the Du-
rango decree are the orders of the day. To the outrages
on personal rights, liberty, and property, which are the
certain consequences of this most humiliating, and at
the same time most terrible of tyrannies, are super-
added those wanton sacrifices of human life, those in-
cessant demands for the blood of political opponents,
which are only dreamed of under a reign of military
terror. And as if even these atrocities were insuffi-
cient to glut the appetite for carnage, which is the
disgraceful distinction of almost every Spanish parti-
san in the factious and insurrectionary movements of
these days—prisoners of war, guilty of the crime of
being taken in arms against the intolerable rule of
NARVAEZ and the ferocious malignity of RONCALI,
are decimated ! In a recent case, after some fighting
against a detachment of the troops commanded by
RONCALI, a party of 200 men surrendered to the vic-
torious banner of the " Captain-General." The com-
manding officer of the besieging forces (the affair was
a sortie) ordered every fifth man to be shot ! In the
most recent communications that have been received
touching the progress of the young QUEEN'S troops
against the insurgents, we read the following:—

" The naval commander, Colonel Pinzon, sends the
account of his taking possession of the Island of Ta-
barca, which the insurgents did not attempt to defend,
the few persons there having hoisted a white flag on his
commencing to cannonade it. This was on the 13th,
and he admits that the blockade was almost fruitless.'
On the 14th he went with the steamer in front of Alicant
to silence the fire of two feluccas, the Pluton and Proser-
pina, which were firing on the English manufactory,where
the Government engineers were at work: this object he
effected, the feluccas retiring within the Mole, but the
fire from the Castle cut up the steamer a good deal, one
shot going right into the poop, and another, after carry-
ing away the chimney, took off the heads of a sapper and
artilleryman; upon which he retired to the anchorage at
the island. The insurgents who were taken in the two
guarda costas were to be shot upon deck.- The Govern-
ment has so far given way that the insurgents taken at
Alcoz are not to be shot, as ordered at first, without the
form of a trial. The court-martial is now sitting there
upon the case.
" The soldiers of the carabineers taken at Elda were to
be decimated; and the Herald() states that a dispatch has
beekreceived from General Roncali to that effect."
Even this passage conveys but a feeble idea of the
blood-guiltiness which has stained, at this early stage
of them, all the operations directei by the QUEEN'S
officers against those of her subjects who will not
submit to the domination of such monsters. The
whole of their fine country seems about to be overrun
by the same remorseless agents of a sanguinary and
jealous Government, with which Spain in former cen-
turies, had become familiar at the hands of a PEDRO
or a PHILIP. Domiciliary visits of authorised spies
and police agents, secret arrests, long and painful
imprisonments of innocent men on the mere whispers
of hired and unprincipled ruffians who have the ear
of the Minister, are once more filling the ancient
dungeons of Madrid. In the field and in
garrison the military commanders are almost rivalling
the atrocities of the execrable MINA, in whose person
our English hospitality and humanity were destined
to be so signally dishonoured and forgotten. In the
capital, and in the towns, the mischievous activity,
the secret combinations, and the uncontrolled harsh-
ness and brutality exercised towards captives, who
are rotting in obscure and solitary confinement, recal
the dark and dreary period in which the spiritual
predecessors of the present political inquisition in 7
salted Heaven, and disgusted all mankind with its
diabolical discipline ; its alternations of deceptive
hope and physical torture, of treacherous deception,
and unqualified intimidation.

How long are these horrors—the reproach, the
shame, the revolting infamy of Europe, in 1844—t0
continue ? Englishmen impatiently demand, in the
name of popular liberty and of Christian civilization,
that these scenes of wanton and of useless carnage
should at once cease and determine. Their moral
example at present, their evil influence on the future,
are incontrovertibly European evils, which it is pal-
pably the interest of all European States to remedy
and to remove at once. But how is this remedy
Ito be administered? By whom is the removal of these
human shambles for the political butchery of Spain to
be effected? For a dozen years of alternating constitu-
tions and intrigues, parties and influences—these
have been in full requisition ;* affronting the ma-
jesty of law, and menacing the tranquillity of esta-
blished governments in surrounding States. Her
own dismantled condition, faction-torn, impoverished,
and decrepid, would have enabled the great European
Power& at any time to compel her to return to order,
and to the peaceful development of her own still
gign Ala resources for retrieving her internal eco-
nomy and wealth, and her political importance. But
these Powers have generously, and we should say
wi .ely and constitutionally, abstained from such an
ex tame act of interposition.
g then, the principle of non-intervention with the
domastio policy Of a foreign State, salutary as it is
even when pushed to an apparently injudicious point;
be still to be respected as to Spain ; let the Site
great Powers exercise their controlling influence, by
a means more indirect, not less efficient, and, we
should apprehend, by the law of nations, perfectly
justifiable vad conclusive. Let them suspend all di-
plomatic relations with the Spanish Court and Cabinet
until these have brought their agitations and factions
to a close; or, at least, under such subjection to the
ancient law and constitution of the country, that
they may no longer burst forth in incessant and
bloc-ly feuds and convulsions, that are alike a dis-
honour to our common Christian faith, and a revolting
blot on European civilization in the nineteenth cen-
tury.

Nadrid papers of the 3d have been received, but
as usual they contain no news.
The Gazette publishes a dispatch from General
RoNcau, which seems a duplicate of one trans-
mitted some ten days previous. It is dated Fe-
bruary 28, and states, " that the insurgents had on
that day made a sortie, under cover of the fort of
San Fernando, but met with such a warm reception
that they were soon obliged to re-enter, under
protection of the fort, leaving behind them several
killed and wounded. The heavy artillery was land-
ing, and every preparation making for bombarding
the city of Alicant."
The QUEEN-MornEn was expected at Albacete, on
the 10th instant. Great preparations were going on
at different places for her reception.
The Three per Cents. were done at 30f at 60
days; the Five per Cents. at 22i at 60 days; and
the floating debt at 51 at 60 days.

We have received Paris papers of Friday and Sa-
turday. The affair of Otaheite, and the subscriptions
for a sword to the gallant Admiral, still excite
some interest. The conduct of the students of the
Polytechnic School, in favouring the subscription has
been condemned by the masters; and the delin-
quents, as a punishment, ere to be confined within
doors for fifteen days. The testimonial is also re-
ceiving support in other quarters ; and, according to
some accounts, subscription-lists have beeri opened
in the ranks of the national guards, and even the
troops of the line. No one will suffer more from
this foolish display, and none, probably, will regret
it more, than Admiral DUPETIT THOUARS, and he
will be placed in the painful position of offending
the Government, or the subscribers. The following
are extracts from the papers:—
.

On Saturday the Chamber of Deputies again anulled the
election of M. Charles Laftitte, and the discussion of the re-
port on the petitions against the Paris fortifications was con-
tinued.
The French Government has received the following tele-
graphic dispatch :
" PERPIGNAN, MARCH 7.—The entry of Queen Christina
into Barcelona on the 4th was a triumph ; there was great
enthusiasm, and the town was magnificently illuminated.
The fetes were continuing the day before yesterday. Her
Majesty was to leave this day or to-morrow by land for Tar-
ragona, there to embark in the Lavoisier for Valencia.—The
municipal elections of Valencia were knoW4 on the 3d. The
Moderadet had gained the upper hand."