The Sun.
London, England, 1844-01-04 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS. I

FROM TAE DAILY PAPERS Or YESTERDAY.
GLOBE.—The " thorough" Tories have always
been emphatically the party of personal slanderers.
Addressing ignorance and prejudice, slander, of
course, is their readiest weapon. The " thorough"
democrats have ignorance and prejudice for their
audience in like manner—the distrusts and grudges
of those who stand lowest in the scale, against all
above them just as the " thorough" Tories address
themselves to the contempt of the vulgar great for
all below them. Nothing can be more natural, there-
fore, than the sort of coalition in (calumny esta-
blished between the Ferrands and Hobsons—the
Standards and Northern Stars. We request our
readers to pay more attention than provincial and per-
sonal disputes for the most part can challenge, to the
report of proceedings in the Leeds Town Council. The
original subject of those proceedings was first brought
under the attention of London readers by a blazing
leading article of the Standard, showing up Leaguers
as described by themselves. The authority on which
the Standard proceeded was that of a certain Mr.
Joshua Hobson, a town councillor of Leeds (whom
the Standard promoted, of its own mere motion, into
an alderman), and publisher of the O'Connor Chartist
paper, the Northern Star. The charge against the
Anti-Corn-law party in Leeds, which the Standard
brought forward for the gratification of its Tory
readers, on the authority of its Chartist ally, was
reiterated as follows by Mr. Hobson—in a letter to a
Morning Contemporary :
" Some weeks ago, at a large public meeting in the town of
Leeds, I took occasion to relate a circumstance that had come
wider my observation, with reference to the strike of 1842,
which seriously implicated the conduct of an Alderman of
Leeds, the said Alderman being a well-known Whig. a member
of the Anti-Corn-law League, and once a member of the
watch committee of the Common Council of Leeds.
" That circumstance was, that in the month of February,
1843, I received a certain letter from a Member of the
House of Commons, inclosed in a note to myself, desiring me

to tii-ake the following inquiries:—
" 1. Whether such a person as the one represented to be
the writer existed ; and
" Whether, if there was such a person, he was prepared to
maintain the truth of his statements ; and further, whether he

was worthy of credence.
" The reason assigned by the Member of Parliament for
wishing these inquiries to be made was, that he was fearful the
letter was a hoax, intended to lead him into error.
" That the said letter purported to be written by a master
machine-maker in Leeds, name and address being given.
" That the writer averred that some fortnight before
the strike occurred an alderman of Leeds, whose name was
mentioned, sent for him (the writer) and informed him that a
general strike would in a short time take place ; that when
it reached Leeds, he would greatly serve the cause if he
would turn the men employed in his machine-shop eut, with a
hint to draw the plugs of the boilers ; that as the men were
mechanics, they would be useful in teaching others how to
draw the plugs ; and that they would also, if it were needful,
know hew to blow the boilers up.
" These statements were said to be made voluntarily, and
from just and patriotic motives; and the writer declared his
readiness to make oath as to their truth at the bar of the House

of Commons.
" That in accordance with the request to me I ascertained—
" 1. That there was a master machine maker of the name
and at the place set forth in the letter ; and
"2. That he bore a character for fair dealing, probity, arid

honour."
Now we beg attention first to one simple considera-
tion, which does not seem to have occurred to the
" Member of the House of Commons" (who turns
out to be Mr. Ferrand), nor to the Standard, nor to
the Northern Star branch of the calumny coalition.
If this Anti-Corn-law Alderman of Leeds, who is
thus said to have sent for a master machine-maker of

the same place—a man of fair dealing, probity, and
honour—really did send for a respectable fellow-
townsman to propose such infamy to him—to serve the
cause by drawing the plugs of his boilers, and, if need-
ful, blowing the boilers up—ifthis extremely probable
proposition was made by one capitalist to another—and
accompanied with timely intimation that a pre-
meditated scheme for performing such operations
" would in a short time take place' in Leeds as else-
where, by the particular desire of the Anti-Corn-law
League—Forewarned, forearmed—what would the
machine-maker of fair dealing, probity, and honour,
have done ? If the impudent liars, who fabricate,
publish, and republish such things, were not as stupid
as impudent—if the Tory-Chartist coalition had all
ounce of brains, any more than a scruple of honesty—
if their one Member of Parliament,
Their knight o' the shire, who represents them all,
—were not, in gross swallow, as in foul tongue, pre-
cisely their fit representative—how could it have
failed to occur to some of the crew, whether inven-
tors or retailers, that the tale stultifies itself—that
the man was a public criminal, who could keep it
secret, when notice to the local authorities, or the
Home Secretary, might have prevented the whole
outbreaking of August, 1842—who could bottle all
this up till February, 1843, and then only write
it—to Mr. Ferrand—that famous depository for
authentic matters of fact from all quarters. The
story-teller, therefore, put himself out of court by his
own story. But it was not amiss to track him out
notwithstanding, and detect who he is. This is what
has been done by the discussion at the Leeds Town
Council. It appears, then, that this Leeds Titus
Oates, who stores up conspiracies in bottle for the
Tory-Chartist coalition, and whom Mr. Joshua Hob-
son, of the Northern Star, guarantees as a man of fair
dealing, probity, and honour—according to his esti-
mate of those qualities—is a certain William Smith,
a fraudulent bankrupt, who could not obtain belief on
his oath before the Bankruptcy Court--but who has
been more fortunate in obtaining a witness to his
"probity" in Mr. Hobson of the Northern Star, a
correspondent in Mr. Ferrand, Member for Knares-
borough, and a copyist in the editor of the Standard.
STANDARD.—" A farmer," said Mr. Cobden, in
one of his late incendiary harangues, " has four
sons ; he can give his farm but to one—the other
three must go into trades. He has, therefore, three
times as much interest in trade as in agriculture."
I'he proper reply to this fallacy was the questions—
into what trades were the three young men to go ?
What trades or professions are there from which all,
without a command of money, are not excluded by
you monied capitalists ? What trades are there that
you are not destroying by your grasping monopoly ?
Has it not come to this, that in your unbridled lust
of gain you now seek to rob even the labour of
the, agriculturist, and leave even the fourth son
without a means of living? The competition among
the class of mere labourers is the lightest and least
distressing competition of our day. Go into any
family, from the artisan or the petty retailer up-
wards, and ask how its younger members are to be
disposed of, and you will hear the same melan-
choly complaint, that the bead of the family does
not know. His own trade or professio❑ is already
overstocked ; as far as he can learn all other
trades and professions of corresponding rank are over-
stocked also ; what is to become of his offspring ? He
cannot tell, for even the classes below him are suffer-
ing from the common repletion. This is a description
of the present state of society, which must be familiar
to every one. Is the evil beyond the reach of cure?
We trust not; and we are cm; luraged to hope a remedy
possible, by a consideration that a very slight degree
of relief, would produce effects far beyond its seem-
ing influence, that a subtraction of but a tenth or a
twentieth from any class, profession, or trade,
would go far to place it in a healthy state, just as the
taking of a few ounces of blood frequently subdues a
fever. What is the remedy ? The Foreign and
t'olonial Quarterly tells us, colonisation—colonisation
which affords a twofold relief in its inception, relief to
those who emigrate and relief to those who remain,'
and which, in its completion secures to the empire a
twofold profit upon an indefinitely increasing com-
merce.. The present relief allbrded by judicious
eolonitition is far greater than at first sight
may appear. We have been led to reflect upon the
twitter by ,what has offered to our own experience.
Living in a very narrow and sufficiently humble
circle, we have seen, within the last year or two,
pass into the East India Company's army 10 or 12
young men, of higher or lower rank, of different
degrees of talent and education—some of noble
families, some of families less exalted, some• from
the Universities, some from schools, and all within
our own acquaintance. What would have been the
destiny of these young men, if the Indian army,
now almost the only resource, had not been open to.
them ? Must they not have fallen back upon trades
or professions, already choked by competition—ren-
dering by so much worse the state and prospects of
all already committed to these trades and professions ?
But call these 10 or 12, 10,000 or 12,000—and in
the United Kingdom there must be more than twice
that number of young men of respectable rank
who would eagerly embrace opportunities like
those which our young friends gratefully received
as instances of good fortune, and surely you will do
much to lighten the competition at home. Open
your colonies, however, and you will have even larger
drafts than this upon your youth of all classes. The
benefit of such colonisation to the colonies themselves,
and through them to the empire at large, will be
great beyond calculation. Hitherto our colonisation
has proceeded upon a principle altogether erroneous ;
we sent out none hut the criminal, and destitute,
and ignorant ; this was to lay the founda-
ticn, not of civilisation, but of immorality, ignor-
ance, and barbarism, A merely rude society—
which has never been anything hut rade—may, and
often will refine itself, but the sifted offal of a country
—the people whom you send abroad because they are
' intolerable at home—the unhappy beings to whom
your civilisation has taught, at least, the theory of vice,
though circumstances, tor which they envy and hate
you, have forbidden them the full indulgence of its
practiac ; such offsets will only propagate the
disgraceful and eorrapt part of civilised so-
ciety, and to their children's eliildren they will be-
queath an undying hatred of those their first insulting
connection with whom must be a reproach for ever.
Such, however, were the early British colonists, and
lest their natural evil tendency should suffer any re-
straint, we sent them into the wilderness without any
instruction. There were 80 Church of England clergy-
men among four millions of the Americans before the
=evolutionary war--that is, one to each of fifty thousand