The Sun.
London, England, 1844-11-01 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.
PROM THE EtENING PAPERS OF THIS DAY.
GLORE.—=Virb revert to our position that price or
payment, in private transactions, IS no tnatter for
discussion or regulation—except as regards the ful-
filment of contracts. This position is recalled to our
minds by,what we can term only vague extravagance
—the notions pfotnulgated of the required interference
of third parties, or public authorities, in settling the
money rate at which labour should be remunerated.
It May be deemed just retribution on the landed class
that they
.should all at • once find themselves assailed
with precisely similar clamours about oppressing the
labour employed by them, to those which, for a series
of years, their organs and mouth-pieces have
showered on the manufacturers. All such clamours,
however, raised indiscriminately against any class—
all claims, vaguely insistad on, to rates of remunera-
tion without reference to means—all assertions of
oppression merely deduced from existing distress—
we regard as of bad example, and not of allowable
imitation. It is not because 111 r. Ferrand, or such
persons, were cheered on by country gentlemen in
their coarse and false aspersions :.21
opposed to the corn-laws, that we shall
selves free to perpetrate reprisals of equal coarse-
ness, and equal falseness. Neither do we think
the classes
c ourselves, or any other third parties, or any Legisla-
ture, competent, or entitled, to fix what money wages
such or such employers can pay. Denunciations
and demands of this kind are coming thick on the
landed interest. They are coming thick on them
at a time when it is too notorious that the solvent
part of them are not too solvent—the employers not
too ready to employ labour on any terms. Under
such circumstances, what can be the nse of phrases
like those of a writer in Fraser's Magazine for the
present month, who says that " industrious and wil-
ling men struggle hard to keep out of the workhouse,
even though they be offered for their week's labour
no more than eight, or at the most ten shillings."
What can be the use of vaguely stating it as the
duty of the landlord to see " that his labouring de-
pendents are remunerated for their work at a just
rate of wages ?" What is a just rate of wages?
In the writer's mind it seems ten shillings a week
are not a just ratet In how many places does the
writer suppose fain "labour can earn more than
ten shillings? Or by what process are farmers
to be made to pay more than the labour is to them
worth? Nothing to us can be more certain than that
it is mere throwing the words to the wind to talk ge-
nerally about this or that rate of wages as the one
suitable to be dictated—or—what is worse—de-
nouncing all rates now paid as unfit to be en-
dured. Much, much more research into the past
than these writers seem to have exercised—much
more inquiry into the present money-payments
in other countries—(for, be it remarked, we
have no longer the sort of monopoly of traffic
which placed us on a different level)—much more,
in a word, of knowledge of all that enters into
prices, and means of payment—is required, befere
either landlords or essayists can dictate what wages
farmers can pay. But these attempts at erecting
some fixed standard of money payments—or talking
vaguely about some standard, which never has
been erected—flow the most naturally in the
world from the long blind worship of the golden
calf. Why, indeed, should labourers be the only
class in whose favour no talk should be made of
"remunerating prices," and of securing those prices
by direct dictation ? Alas, alas I—it is just when
all this effort has broken down in behalf of their
employers, that it is now idly claimed for the
employed ! Equally idle, as it appears to us, is the
notion that direct means are available for enabling,
in the new style now in vogue, labourers to rise
above the class of labourers. How did Benjamin
Franklin rise from the rank of a journeyman
printer ? By means open to the common class of
minds ? By steps adjusted to that end expressly ?
Assuredly not ; and assuredly no such stepping-
stones can raise the ordinary members of any
class into another. It is only the most energetic and
vigorous spirits in any class that rise out of it; the
true object is to enable the mass of men to enjoy
well-being in the sphere where their lot is cast. The
true subject of complaint is not that those trained to
manual labour continue labourers : society has manual
work to be done; and those habituated to it are, and
continue, the fittest to do it. The true complaint
is, that the lot of labour is depressed below the
conditions of well-being. The remedy must be
sought for this; and, if found, it will also be found
a remedy for the injustice suffered by the compara-
tively few, whose energies, if less weighed down,
might have raised them to a higher sphere than that
in which their lot was originally cast. We shall be
asked, however, how we ourselves propose to ame-
liorate the lot of labour. And we should say that a
great step in that direction were the perception of
having hitherto pursued a wrong one. If the whole
effort to keep the higher classes of the agricultural
interest at an artificial level has proved a failure—the
remedy will likeliest be found in trying back towards
a natural state of things.
STANDARD.—SeveraI friends have written to
us upon the subject of the pecuniary difficulties in
which the Rev. Mr. Mathew is said to be involved,
asking why we have not alluded to the affair, and also
inquiring as to the estimated amount of the reverend
gentleman's debts. These inquiries in some measure
answer the one the other. It is chiefly because
we have never heard any guess at the amount
of Mr. Mathew's embarrassments, that we have
abstained from rendering him all the assistance
that we could; for none can give the reverend
gentleman more credit than we do for the purest
and most ardent benevolence none appreciate
more highly the benefits that lie has con-
ferred upon the empire I Here, however, is the
difficulty that has perplexed us and that must per-
plex others a difficulty that the persons who
manage Mr. Mathew's concerns can dissipate at
once if they please, and which they will please to
dissipate if they are honest. Large sums of
money have been received in Mr. Mathew's name
and on his account, but we are not aware that he has
been subjected to any considerable expense, beyond
the demands of mere locomotion, which in our day
are not exorbitant. No human being will suspect
Mr. Mathew of pecuniary meanness or of any
other meanness ; but the disappearance of
the large sums that have been levied on his
account and in his name, must lead to the
suspicion that there has been foul play among
those about him, and this suspicion will be much ag-
gravated if it is found that not only has the
great amount collected disappeared, but that the
reverend gentleman is heavily in debt. If such
suspicions are well founded, it is plain that to
contribute, as it is called, to the relief of Mr.
Mathew would be merely to pamper the rogues
who have robbed him, and the public through him.
There is another point that calls for explanation
before Englishmen and loyal men put their hands
into their pockets to pay Mr. Mathew's debts. Is it
true, as stated in an Irish newspaper, that great part
of Mr. Mathew's debts have been incurred in aiding
the outfit of what are called " temperance bands ?"
If it is true, we say at once, loyal Englishmen hold
your hands. These temperance bands are really
the most mischievous nuisance in Ireland; they are,
without a figure, trumpeters of sedition and of reli-
gious bigotry ; they are the staff of Mr. O'Connell's
rebel army, and the inseparable companions of every
insolent or seditious movement. Certainly no pru-
dent man will be a party to paying debts incurred in
organising this most insulting and dangerous nuisance