The Sun.
London, England, 1844-01-26 00:00:00

In the &St place, there vast be an alteration of the law of settle: j
went ; for the manufacturers, after having drawn the. agricultural
population into the towns, are now threatening to turn them, unfitted
any longer for agricultural pursuits, back again upon the country, and
thus swamp the agricultural interest."
So there must be a new law of Settlement, must*a.l
there ? The country gentlemen are litow •be 'nning to
find that out. And the poor are to he ejee from the (,)
factories, wherein they have grown old #eble, and -
bW;O, rtlhheletsass,ktr-rmidastuterrnsedtheaydrciattn unpoo their• hamlets
e. It is
a hard case, involving much suffering, and no Mall
oppression. It is indeed enough to make any samn
.
exclaim, " Alter the law of settleMent."- But stop st Y;:4
moment, gentlemen, stop a moment. You complain
of the rural population having been seduced by the
allurements of • speculating manufacturers into a
course of employment which, at its termination, left
them destitute, infirm, and a burden to those who
ought to have enjoyed the fruits of their labour in the
season of unimpaired vigour. We agree with you
that it is an oppressive burden to support those in the
decline of life from whom you never got a day's
labour in their prime. But how stands the case ? Is
the burden which you bear, or are apprehensive of
bearing, oppressive though it be, wholly unmerited ?
Or is it not rather of your own imposition ? Let us
see. You complain of the manufacturers having se-
duced the rural population into the towns. Has
this been the case universally, or even generally P
Recollect yourselves, and answer this question as best
you may—Have not the agricultural poor been
tricked by the misrepresentations of their natural
protectors into a migration contrary to their wishes,
and duped into a drudgery uncongenial to their
habits ? Have not landowners and farmers con-
spired to clear the land of its supeziluous population,
and carted whole families into the f:ctory districts of
the- north ? Have not fraud and falia:hoOd been for
often employed to swell the mass of iTinners and
weavers from the ranks of a creduloti peisantry ?
We beg leave to offer the following! extract from' a
Manchester paper, quoted in the House of Common.
on the 24th of February, 1843 :
" Yesterday afternoon, shortly before the sitting magisi.rates at the
New Bailey left the Court, a case of extraordinary novelty and hard-
ship was brought before them. Two healthy, fresh-coUntAnanced,
but somewhat emaciated agricultural labourers, presented them-
selves in the witness-box, whilst at the extremity of the Court
were ranged in view of :the magistrates 16 individuals, one of them
a female, about 30, with two infants in arms, eight children, ap-
parently all of them under 10 years of age, and three whose
ages might be from 13 to 16 years, two of them girD, and the third
a boy. There were two others whom we did not see, making
up a party of 18. One of the nan stated that they-utile from Tuwer-
sey, in Buckinghamshire. The farmers, he said, called a meeting to
know If any of the parishioners would go down to Manchester, as
everybody there was doing well. Several of us said we would go.
They told us that they thought our families would :do well to come
down. They said there would be houses for us to go into when we
got there, and everything provided fur our use. They employed a
limn named Clark to see after people who would ge down, and we
went to him. lie asked what families we had
:got, and said we
should do well indeed to come. We started. accordingly .to Mr.
Waterhouse's, at Glossop. In answer to questiohs, the man said, six
of the children whom the magistrate saw belonged to him, and two
were his brother's. The other man said, two of the rest were his
own, and four belonged to another person ; but he had promised to
take charge of them to bring them down, and do the best for them he
could. The first speaker then continued his Story We were
brought,' he said, ' from our own county to Glossop in a boat, and
from Glossop Mr. Waterhouse sent us forward In a cart. When we
got there, there were 45 of us. We were put in a bit of a warehouse,
and I have been there with my family three weeks lying on a bit of
straw, which is the only bed I have had. The 'parish,' tie said, in
answer to questions, paid the expenses of our journey down.
We went by the boat to Marple, where they told us there
was to be a cart to meet us, and -take us forward to
Mr. Waterhouse's. We did not know to whit- person- in Glossop we
were coining when we left our own parish. •We were sent from our
own parish to Codrington, where we met with a gentleman named
William Clark. We travelled nearly forty miles, partly in a wag-
gon, to the boat to where we embarked. Clark came bask With us
to the boat, and when we had embarked he told .us that we were
going to Mr. Waterhouse's at Glossop. Two other families came
with us. I cannot tell whether Mr. Waterhouse had desired our
overseer to send any hands. I worked at Mr.-Waterhouse's three
weeks, but yesterday he hired a cart, and seat us in it to Manches-
ter. The carter put us down In the street, and left us. He has sent
another cart-load this morning. I have seen them in town, and he
would have sent them yesterday, but the cart wbuld.not hold us all ;
so he told one of the women he would send them this morning in his
own cart. I don't know what has become ortheru. I saw them in
town this morning, and they said they were going, to the boat. We
two (the men) are farmers, and the children are lacemakers ;
were in work at the time we left Buckinghamshire.'"

And this piece of flagrant imposition upon the
credulity of poor and ignorant men, women, and
children, was enacted in the very county where we
hear these indignant denunciations of the seductive
charms by which the manufacturers have allured the
peasantry into their mills, only to return them, worn
out and starving, upon their native villages. We
know not which to admire most, the'sen'seless policy
which first prompted the fraud, or the convenient
misstatement which now falsifies its authors. But,
at all events, " 'tis sport to see the engineer hoist
with his own petard." We have for years denounced
and deplored the suicidal infatuation which signalised
the conduct of the landed gentry in legislating for,
or rather against, the poor. Our predictions are
being fulfilled. The enemy is at the gate. The an-
cient territorial lords are assailed by a force, conspi-
cuous neither for its gallant bearing, its chivalrous
gait, its high courage, nor its resources. Perseverance,
energy, and money it has • but not more than many
other confederations. And perhaps it is more defi-
cient than any previous political association in one
important weapon of political warfare—we mean the
sympathy of the lowest classes. And yet it advances,
slowly indeed, but not without show of growing
strength; and the position of the assailed k.comee
daily more perilous. Why is this? Because, al-
though the feelings of the poor are not with the
League, still they are not with the League's enemies.
They stand neutral in a contest wherein their active
and hearty co-operation might have turned the battle
as they listed. The foul juggle between the upper
and the middle classes has frozen the heart of the
poor into stubborn indifference. They look upon the
conflict between the landlords and cotton-lords, mut-
tering moodily, " A plague on both your houses,"
and—they bide their time. History may be ran.
sacked in vain for a parallel to the wretched infatua-
tion by which the ancient aristocracy of the realm
flung the cards of the political game from their hands.
They might have retained a reserve-corps of stal-
worth and vigorous dependents ; but they preferred
selling them for the most sordid purpose into the
power of their joint and inveterate enemies..-men
whose hatred of ancestral wealth is only equalled by
their oppression of indigence, and now they wonder
that they are themselves helpless in the day of need.

POST.—Mr. Muntz, as will be seen by the letter
from him, which we publish in another column, re-
turns to the defence of his position, that a reform of
our money laws would enable the agriculturists of
Great Britain to dispense with a stringent corn-law.
Mr. Muntz observes that the Post has " repeatedly
admitted that an abstract corn-law cannot alone
protect even the landed interest." Such, undoubt-
edly, has been the doctrine of the Post. Let that
doctrine, however, be fairly understood. We have
contended that the agriculturists of Great Britain
require a twofold protection. They require a law re-
strictive, or prohibitive, of the importation of those
commodities which British industry is able to pro-
duce. They require, moreover, another law supple.
mentary to the former—a law proteetive of the wages
of British labour. British agriculturists require, in
short, to be directly protected from the rivalry of fo-
reign corn growers ; they require, at the same time,
the benefit of protection, indirectly, in the persons of
their best customers. It is possible to conceive a
corn-law that shall be effective in securing the exclu-
sion of foreign grain from our markets. It is possi-
ble to conceive the establishment 'in England, at the
same time, of a system of production, under the in-
fluence of which the value of manna labour shall be
perpetually lessening. The best cOrriLlaw imagin.
able will, in such circumstances be, to a great extent,
neutralised by those causes which abase the English
labourer's condition. A stringent corn-law appears
to us an indispensable portion of an effective system
of protection. An effective system of protection,
again, must be based on the axiom that " labour is the
source of all wealth ;" but unlike the system which our
" Liberal" economists recommend, a system that is
truly protective of labour, must regard the enhance-
ment of the labourer's reward as the only sure
evidence of the prosperity of the community. Our
"Liberal" economists babble about "wealth,' us de-
rived exclusively from " labour," and then lend
themselves to every scheme for robbing the labourer
of a fair measure of reward—the pretext being a
desire to increase the national wealth. Laws
directly protective of British labour seem ;to us,
in short, the most sure and comprehensive basis
of British corn-laws. Our remote forefathers
possessed laws, of which the object was to raise
the value of labour. They enjoyed and enforced.
at the same time, laws prohibitive of usury—pro-
hibitive of the action of that principle to which the
daily money power owes its existence. We, less
wise and less happy than
give unlimited scope '
labour unprotected lar
the New Poor-law
market value of labor
value of labour-L-44v
tend the practice of •
the spirit of _our corn
lows, and usury-favor
der nugatory that s-
corn-laws are the ea_
we have, as Mr. Mun,
that " the corn-laws
the agricultural interest
admit that a reform
addition to a sound
that full measure of ,
A sound system of c
of labour—so is a
both systems are of
creative power whici
tional wealth. La
tective of labour agains
—are necessary to sec,
sure of reward, and
system of corn-laws

. . ..
E '.
TUN GADDEBBY MURDER.—T IInil; DATU 14,
If IXATIOX.—Tha Prisoner lle"Ongert 1 e-aPprelseetis4 eet ew,
picion of the murder of Junes Garner, war. apitil broil/lit gp-
this day before the county uuigistratea, ;then Mn. HAges us-
derwont a long and very searching aliiill;ltintio but her teats.
ag
znony given last week was ant shaken is the least. Thepm.
soner was sin remanded WWI
SittlrtlilY..-• lotietstarshirst
/1/srcury of Wedneeday.

)3T than our remote forefathers,
Dpe to usury, while we leave
by law ; nay, we, ass laws, like
v, with the view of lessening the
our. Laws tending to lessen the
laws which stimulate and ex.
'. usury—are laws antagonistic of
corn-laws. Labour-cheapening:
vouring laws,' ußderynine -410.- -1. al.
system of proteotion 79Cerua the
.xpression. In this,.Poiut of view
untz observes, repeatedly diaartd
's aline are insufficient to protect
terest of England." Nor do we
RI of our currency-la .wei-414en in
l corn-liw—woWd Yield Wabew
r protection which•labeurreqUirea.
currency is, doubiless, protective
sound system of Corn-Taws;-14
mly indirectly protectiya:9l that
ch is the exclusiViii _ ~of us-
abour-law s —laW4 Tltr.;
ainst the encroaobiikents viii*ga4
(14
secure to the lab4iter 14,4***-
so to impart effi,dienc,o4":4llo