The Sun.
London, England, 1844-03-25 00:00:00

trtnin_t AIM

LONDON, MONDAY, MARCH 25, 1844.

and vast crowds arc constantly turned away from the
doors of the theatre wherein they are held, disap-
pointed in their hopes of obtaining admission. While
the Monopolists, with Dukes and Lords, and Heaven
knows how many wealthy landowners in their train,
can scarcely find an audience in the provinces—ex-
cept, indeed, among their own immediate dependents,
who dare not, however they might desire it, absent
themselves the League cannot find the means
of accommodating the hundreds who desire to
attend their meetings, notwithstanding that
those meetings are held weekly for the express pur-
pose of giving as many as possible an opportunity of
hearing the arguments in favour of a system of free,
unrestricted trade. We have been led to these re-
marks by the circumstance of a county meeting
having just taken place in Roxburghshire, at which,
though the Monopolists appear to have mustered in
larger force than is usual with them, yet, so far as
we can learn, infinitely fewer people were present
than have attended any one meeting of the League
at Covent Garden since the commencement of the
session. The tone held at this gathering of the
Roxburgh Monopolists was a singularly tame and
subdued one, clearly indicating that the party feel
by no means secure of their position, notwithstanding
the recent declaration of the Government in their
behalf. To be sure, Sir JOHN PRINGLE congra-
tulated his hearers on the manner in which Ministers
had lately spoken out on the corn-law question; but
there was not the slightest earnestness or exultation
in his language, nor did the meeting seem to evince—
if we may judge from the reports—the slightest feel-
ing on the subject. Lord POLWARTH, who followed
the worthy Baronet, observed, by way of explaining
the reasons why so many Monopolist gather-
ings have recently been got up—" it may
be necessary to reflect upon the circum-
stances now affecting the agricultural interest
throughout the country at large. It is not that there
is the slightest want of confidence in the people to-
wards the Government at the head of affairs; but it
is because there is a body who have united for dis-
seminating their own views—a body who are actuated
by views which, if not purely selfish, are certainly
dictated by ignorance, and arise from those who hold
them not being aware of the extent of mischief they
are inculcating. But it is not only that they wish to
spread that view throughout the country,Dut it is because
they have openly promulgated that you, the tenantry,
have coincided with them in opinion. It is for that
reason so many meetings have lately been held." To
say nothing of the sheer absurdity of his Lordship
taunting the League with being ignorant of the
nature and working of the corn-laws—just as if
those were not most likely to be best acquainted
with the extent and character of an evil who have
been among the deepest sufferers by it !—with what
justice and propriety can his Lordship deny the fact,
that the strong practical arguments of the League
have made, within the last year, numerous proselytes
among the English tenantry ? Have not Messrs. Con-
DEN and BRIGHT, in the course of their recent visits to
the agricultural provinces, found some of their warmest
admirers among the farmers ? Have they not made eager
converts even in Duke-ridden Bucks ; and even in
Dorsetshire, under the very nose of Mr. BANKES,
found many of the tenantry reading their pamphlets
and circulars with the most diligent and respectful
attention ? These things admit of no doubt—they
are matters of public notoriety ; and equally indis-
putable is it—whatever the Monopolists, for obvious
reasons, may choose to allege to the contrary—that
many of our most enlightened farmers are daily be-
coming more and more convinced of the injustice and
impolicy of the corn-laws.

As the eventful day approaches, on which the ques-
tion of renewing the Charter of the Bank of England,
—the conditions upon vv hich such renewal shall be
granted,—and the preliminary steps to be adopted by
Government,—are to be discussed in Parliament,
the public expect, with reasonable curiosity, some
manifesto of the Premier's views and intentions upon
the subject. Committees of London bankers, of
joint-stock, and country bankers have hitherto
vainly endeavoured to elicit, by various deputations
admitted to conferences with the First Lord of the
Treasury, his real purpose. All that they could get
from him has been—a profusion of his cold but bland
common-places; unmeaning official intimations "that
the Government is not yet committed to any parti-
cular course; that it will reserve its judgment until
it shall have had an opportunity of hearing all which
can be urged, on all sides, for or against the renewal,
on the present terms enjoyed by the Corporation in
question." What the " inclination of his opinion" (to
use one of the odd but not ineffective phrases of poor
Lord CASTLEREAGH) may be, is not matter, it seems,
to be trusted as yet to the profane world. " Manet
alts mente repOstum." A report has got abroad, and
a Morning Contemporary has almost vouched its
official authenticity, that the Premier intends
to crown his gigantic labours, of five-and
twenty years ago, in paralysing the commer-
cial energies of this country, and all the main
principles of our social development and pros-
perity, by recommending to the Legislature the
total " repeal" and withdrawal of 11. and 2/. bank-
notes throughout Scotland, and the establishment of
a single bank of issue. We can make great allow-
ances for Sir ROBERT'S indignation at the provoking
contumacy of the Scotch, in having not only suc-
cessfully resisted the discipline of his PROCUSTES-
bed-like standard of 1819—upon which he lopped off,
without mercy, the redundant proportions of English
monetary prosperity; but—in having steadily extended
all the operations, sustained the enterprise, and re-
warded the laborious processes of their agricultural
industry, by upholding the anathematised small notes,
and thereby avoided the frightful panics and desola-
lation of the great commercial crises which have, on
three or four subsequent occasions, filled London with
mourning and desolation, and diffused insolvency and
discontent to the remotest corners of the land. The
idea of a single bank of issue for a country like this
—of such intrinsic wealth, with so enormous a mass
of invested capital, and the daily operations of whose
domestic intercourse, home trade, and foreign com-
merce, are represented by so vast a floating circula-
tion such an idea seems fraught with in-
herent absurdity. It is not the less consistent
on that account, however, as one of the regulating
principles of any scheme of currency that may
be projected by the artificer of that glittering cheat—
the gold standard legislation of 1819. We re-pub-
lished, last week, a portion of an article in the
Bankers' Circular of the 16th ultimo, containing a
well-deserved eulogium on the merits and services
of that fine example of a first-rate English merchant
and an upright public man, the late Mr. JEREMIAH
HARMAN :—" He it was," says the writer of the ar-
ticle in question, " who composed and tendered that
celebrated remonstrance against the impending mis-
chief with which the Act of 1819 was charged, and
which drew forth the undignified sneers of Lords
GRENVILLE and LIVERPOOL, and Mr. HUSKlSSON—
presumptuous men, who dealt with a case of which
they were totally ignorant, in defiance and contempt
of the remonstrances of those who practically knew
all." This premature determination of the case by
such judges, on incomplete and unqualified testi-
mony, formed the subject (we well remember) of the
honest and manly protest against the currency mea-
sure, then about to be debated, which the father of the
Premier, the first Sir ROBERT PEEL, pronounced in
the House of Commons, on presenting the petition of
the merchants and bankers of London against it. In
alluding to the evidence taken before the Currency
Committee, the late Sir R. PEEL said (May 24, 1819)
—" The men best qualified to judge of the matter had
not been consulted Looking at the re-
port, he had found only witnesses who were not
likely to give the Government any information. The
most able had been left out, not consulted, and totally
disregarded."

The most convincing proof of the effects ,of the
anti-corn-law agitation is to be found in the pail
which the farmers themselves are now taking against
the corn-laws. When tenant-farmers come forward,
as at the last League meeting at Covent-garden
Theatre, and denounce the corn-laws as the cause of
great injustice to the farmer, bringing practical ex-
perience to bear upon this question, and supporting
theory, by their own personal knowledge of facts,
can there be any doubt of the progress of free trade
opinions? Two "bond fide real live tenant-farmers,"
as Mr. COBDEN described them, detailing the injury
which the corn-laws inflict, upon the very class, for
whose especial benefit the landlords tell us, they are
designed, and claiming relief from that very
protection which the so-called " farmers' friends" will
insist upon keeping around them. Save me from
my friends, is now the feeling of the tenant-farmer,
and this expression of that feeling, publicly and
openly, at the great League meetings is but the com-
mencement of a long train of evidence to confirm
the testimony of two as practical and as truth-telling
farmers as England can produce.
There is yet another class of Men who are, as the
Monopolists labour to make them believe, interested
in the continuance of the corn-laws—the farm-la-
bourers. Some of that much benefited class will, ere
long, we trust, be found to describe to the
public the great mercies and kindnesses for
which they are indebted to the corn-laws. To show
the external appearance as to clothes and habiliments
which the protection afforded to their labour enables
them to assume—to prove by actual fact the amount
eceived by them for their protected labour, and to
exhibit the actual remuneration received in hard coin
for that labour—to tell of the comfortable furniture
which is to be found in their habitations, and the
abundant supply of nutritious food, which their
wives and children share with them, and to explain
how " a bold peasantry, their country's pride," are
valued, comforted, esteemed, and assisted, by
the agricultural protectionist, who aims at pro-
ducing so much good for the farm-labourer, as
well as the tenant-farmer. And if the farm-
labourer, should show decayed and worn-out
garments, as his best clothes—eight shillings a-week
as his earnings—should speak of his mud-walled
cottage of ,two rooms, as the only abode for his
family of many children, with scant supply of furni-
ture and bedding--and should state, that the taste of
animal food is almost unknown to himself or
children—can there be any doubt that if this be his
condition now, with the corn-laws, he could not be
much worse, without them? The mercury is down
to starvation point, now—it could not go lower, then,
The tenant-farmer wants no corn-laws ; but he
does want steady markets, and good customers, for
his produce, and those he can only find at home.
The corn-laws spoil his market, by making his cus-
tomers poor, and unable to give that price, and con-
sume that quantity of his produce, which unrestricted
commerce, flourishing trade, and profitable employ
ment would afford.

The farm-labourer wants no corn-laws ; but he
does want a fair rate of wages, constant employment,
cheap provisions and clothing. The corn-laws de-
press the rate of wages by the uncertainty they cause
in the markets; prevent employment by checking
improved cultivation of the land ; raise the price of
provisions, and thus curtail his ability to find means
of purchasing the necessaries of life.

pelled him to s wallow their "gilded pills." He was
never worse than when his " system" had become
thoroughly imbued with the pestilent medicine which
had been forced upon him.
If a man will only consider the state of our trade
and commerce in the year 1818 ; the abundance of
money circulated in the United Kingdom; the re-
munerating prices obtained without difficulty for
all descriptions of our manufactures; the fair wages
earned by industrial labour in all its departments ; the
scope given to the enterprise of capital, and its prodi-
gious energy of reproduction under the encouraging
influence of the times ;—if he will only bear in mind
the absurd fallacy of the assumptions founded by
the bullionists on adverse foreign exchanges (which
seven years before, Mr. HORNER had demonstrated,
in a paper in the Edinburgh Review, might be no-
minally reported at 17 per cent. against this coun-
try, and yet be practically 7 Per cent. in our favour*);
if he will compare the buoyancy of private credit
and public confidence, the ready advances and rapid
returns of capital, and the generally thriving condi-
tion of all classes in the kingdom at the same period,
with the disastrous fear, the distrust, and displace-
ment which have affected the owners and the owner-
ship of money and property since 1819-20 ;—if he
will do this, we say, any man of ordinary reflection
must find it all but impossible to justify the conduct
of those who in 1819 ventured to pull down the
whole monetary fabric under which, or with which, or
by means of which (the distinction is immaterial),
our unexampled previous prosperity had been ob-
tained. To so gratuitous an abandonment of the
certain elements of present safety and steady and
progressive elevation in the scale of national great-
ness, for an ambitious, but untried, unproved,
and delusive theory of speculative finance a
vision of impricticable adjustment between gold at a
fixed unalterable price, and paper of very fluctuating
quantity, according to the fluctuating quantity of all
commodities, the value of which it was to represent
—we are at a loss to find a parallel. Nothing
short of the unfortunate Mr. COCKING'S suicidal
determination to cut the company of Mr. GREEN,
whose balloon had so agreeably buoyed him
up, and to sail away in a newly-invented, never-
tested apparatus in which he committed him-
self—deaf to the remonstrances of his friends and
well-wishers—to his untimely fate, can be properly
compared to the Premier's desperate expedient of
1819. But he has had, at least, a happier fate than
the not less obstinate aeronaut. Will he tempt ship-
wreck again by propounding "a single bank of issue ?"
A project for one imperial wine and liquor store, from
whence, only, bottles, Treasury corked, may be drawn
for the consumption of all Great Britain, in all time
to come—one legislative oven, destined to supply ex-
clusive batches of loaves (or statutes) for the refection
of all her MAJESTY'S subjects—one national vat, into
which the great brewmgs of BARCLAY and PERKINS,
TRUMAN and BUXTON, and WHITBREAD and Co.,
must be all absorbed in a sort of " Three per Cent.
Stock' Entire" for the universal consumption of the
people—all or any of those projects would not be
more practicable, or less ridiculous, than this pro-
posal to have but one bank of issue for the United
Kingdom.

It may be, however, that the Premier, who, like
some of the Pharisaical ministers of CROMWELL, is a
great " waiter upon PROVIDENCE," has not yet given
his sanction to the preposterous design imputed to
him by our ,Contemporary. It may be that he lies
by, intending to avail himself of the best means
which accident may present to him for retracing
some of his steps from the fatal point to which they
tended in 1819, for retrieving his future reputation,
we will say, as a Minister, from the damage to which
the working of his favourite measure has ever since
subjected it. In this hope we shall address ourselves,
in our next, to the consideration of Mr. JOHN GLAD-
STONE'S Letter to the Times, entitled " Considerations
connected with the renewal of the Charter of the
Band of England."
- * See Edinburgh Review for 1811, case of Colonial
Exchanges.

Madrid papers of the 17th have been received, and
as usual contain some fresh tales of horror. At
Alicant on the 12th and 13th three civilians were
shot; and Senor GARRIDO, Secretary to the Political
Chief, on being identified, was to undergo the same
fate, for remaining at Alicant during the insurrection.
A Barcelona journal of the 17th announces that a
new conspiracy had been discovered in that city, and
that the persons suspected of being engaged in it
were to be tried by a court-martial, then sitting in
the citadel. A letter adds that four had been capitally
convicted and shot. Two other executions had taken
place at Zamora.

The Heraldo, a Madrid paper, publishes the fol.
lowing atrocious order of the day, issued on the 4th
at Denasal, by the Commandant-General of the
QUEEN'S troops in the Maeztrasgo :

" Any individual that shall be seized and convicted on
evidence, however slight, of having attempted to induce a
soldier or inhabitant to join the factions shall be shot. Shall
also be shot any soldier that shall be found communicating
with persons hostile to the Government of the Queen
(whom God save !), and that shall be known to wish to
join the enemy. efore he suffers death, his offence shall
undergo a summary inquiry of not more than two hours,
and he shall be allowed but three hours to prepare to die as a
Christian."

The Three per Cents. were done at 33f for cash,
and 34 at 60 days; and the Five per Cents. at 22} for
cash, and 23 3-16 at 60 days.

The Monopolists still continue to hold their pro-
corn-law meetings, but they excite little or no public
interest—they attract no crowds—they collect no
vast public subscriptions—and they adduce no new
arguments that will bear the test of even an ordinary
examination. Though we hear of them haranguing
their dependents and tenant-farmers, now in this
county, and now in that, yet few, even of their own
organs; pay much attention to what they say ; and
their most indignant bursts gf eloquence against their
powerful adversaries may be said, without exaggera-
tion,.to make as little impression on the public mind
as if they were so many direct arguments in
favour of the five points of the Charter. How
different is the case when the League hold their
meetings at Covent-garden Theatre ! Though
these meetings occur once in every seven days,
yet so far are they from becoming stale and weari-
some by such frequent repetition, that the public in-
terest attached to them grows more lively every week;

Most of the Paris papers have leading articles on the
defeat of the English Ministry in the House of Com-
mons on Monday; and as they bring no news of the
slightest importance, we can find room for a few
extracts from them on this " untoward event." "If
we are not mistaken," says the Journal des Debats,
" this is the first time since its accession to power,
that the Ministry of Sir ROBERT PEEL has found
itself in a minority. It is certainly not the first time
that it has met with serious opposition ; for, last year,
it was obliged to yield to public opinion, and with-
draw one of its most important measures—that con-
cerning the education of children in manufactories;
but this is the first serious check it has received in the
Parliament, and which all the influence of its chief was
inadequate to prevent. At the same time, the question
on which it had this majority of nine against it, had
no really political or ministerial character; and the
Opposition, setting, in this respect, a good example,
had the good taste to declare that it did not seek to
make it a party triumph. On this occasion, the
House presented the singular spectacle of at least
one-half of the Ministerial Members voting against
the Ministry, while a considerable number of its
habitual adversaries divided with it. Lord ASHLEY is
a decided Tory, but on all questions where a
principle of humanity is involved he is to
be found strenuously contending against the
Government. He has successively brought for-
ward motions against the opium-trade, against
the occupation of Sinde, and against the labour
of children in the coal-mines. In this vote,
therefore, there was a perfect change in the usual po-
sition of parties. The agriculturists took pride in
voting for a measure which would make great modi-
fications in manufacturing labour; it was also a tri-
umph for the philanthropic party, so strong in
England, from the influence it has out of Parliament.
This party, as we have more than once observed, has
often proved itself more powerful than the Govern-
ment, and has dictated laws to the legislative body. It
was this party that carried the emancipation of the ne-
groes, and caused the conclusion of the treaties on the
right of search, which it still upholds. The vote we are
now speaking of is a new example of its great influence."
The Ministerial paper regards the defeat as only
temporary, and expresses a conviction that on a second
division Sir JAMES GRAHAM Will obtain a consider-
able majority. The result of the debate on Friday,
however, will undeceive the writer, and show French-
men that in the cause of humanity Englishmen can
forget political ties. The Presse, alluding to the ob-

TTIE Stil, LONDON, MOND.A.I7 EVENING, MAI%CII_IIB, 1944.

party. However, within a certain period the situation of
manufactures has become such, that cham.es in the consti-
tution of landed property appear inevitable. The Anti-
Corn-law League is a formidable instrument in the hands of
the Whig party, and although an association equally
powerful to defend the interests of the soil is opposed to
it, the former, nevertheless, seems to exercise an influ-
ence which appears to presage a certain triumph. The
corn-laws form the difficulty of the question ; favourable
to the possessors of the soil, they are one of the causes of
high wages, and of the distress of the working classes.
Agriculture has just attacked manufactures on their own
ground. If on the one side, said they, a diminution
in the price of corn is insisted on, on the other the
factory workmen must be relieved, and in consequence Lord
Ashley proposed, in the debate on the Factory Bill, an
amendment to reduce to ten hours, for women and children,
the period of daily labour in the manufactories. This amend-
ment was adopted by a majority of nine, notwithstanding the
efforts of Sir it. Peel, who Insisted on the general interests of
manufactures in their connection with foreign commerce.
Sir Robert Peel thought it is duty to oppose Lord Ashley's
amendment. Three Whig Ministers, and more than sixty
Members generally opposed to him, voted with him. With-
out this support, taken altogether from a source independent
of politics, the rout of the Minister would have been com-
plete. What is remarkable in this vote is that politics were
removed to the second line, and that the defenders of the in-
terests at stake laid aside all other objects of consideration."
_ _ _

The papers of Saturday have since been received.
The only intelligence they contain relates to the plans
of the Government for constructing new lines of rail-
road. This grand scheme is the passion of the day.
According to the Journal des Debats the Government
have determined to take immediate and active steps
towards the completion of no less than five great lines
of railroad—from Paris to Lyons, from Paris to Bor-
deaux through Tours, from Paris to Strasburg, from
Paris to Nantes, and from Paris to the frontiers of
Belgium ; to a branch to Boulogne, and another to
Calais. These great undertakings will amount, to-
gether, to nearly 1,500 English miles.

The Funds had fallen a little, but no reason was
assigned. The Five per Cents. closed at 122 f. 50c.,
and the Threes at 83f. 10c. The prices of Railroad
Shares also declined. The Strasburg and Basle Rail-
road fell to 272 - ; Orleans Shares closed at 905 ;
Rouen at 912 f ; Havre, 690 ; Avignon, 7734

THE BOURSE-SATURDAY, MARcu 23.

First Highest Lowest

Price. Price. Price. Price.
French Five per Cents 122 30 .. 122 40 .. 122 30 .• 122 40
Four-and-a-half llO 40 .. 110 40 110 40 .. 110 40
Four per Cents.....• 105 50 .. 105 50 101 50 .. 105 50
Three per Cents B3 .• 83 10 •. 82 90 .. 83 10
Bank of France 3150 ..3150 ..3150 • • 3150
Laffitte Bank, I,ooof Sharesllls • • 1115 • • 1115 .. 1115
Belgian Bank.
Belgian Fives,
1840.....
. .

1842 . ..... lost • • 1091 .. 1091 .. iO9l
Dutch Two-and-a-Half ..... 58/ •• 581 •• 581 .. 581
Spanish Passivo 6l •• 61 .. 61 .. 61
Threes ............ 36 • • 361 • • 36 .. 361
Neapolitan lO2 30 102 30 .. 102 .. 102 30

Roirt-an . • •• • • 106 i

.. 106

•• 1061-

.. 1O6;

RAILWAY SHARES.
St. Germain ...... 842 50 .. 842 50 .• 842 50 •• 842 50
Versailles, 405 .. 407 50 405 .. 407 SO
L.B lB5 .. 200 .. 185 .. 290
Rouen
Rouen to Havre .
Avignon to. Marseilles— •• 777 50 .. 777 50 772 50 • • 772 50
Orleans .•.......
Strasburg 277 50 .. 280 .. 272 50 .• 277 50
RAILWAY SHARES, FOR THE ACCOUNT.
St. Germain .............. 855 .. 855 .. 855 . 855
Versailles, R. 8.... .
L. 13....... 186 25 .. 201 25 .. 186 25 .. 200
Rouen • 925 . 925 .. 922 50 .. 922 50
Rouen to Havre 695 .. 695 •• 690 •• 690
Orleans .
Strasburg to Bale 2BO .. 280 • • 272 50 .• 272 50
Avignon to Marseilles.... 777 50 .• 777 50 •• 770 .. 773 75