The Sun.
London, England, 1844-09-25 00:00:00

1.! MIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS

PROM TER EVENING PAPERS oe YESTERDAY.
GLOBE.—In answer to the demand for corn-
b% ass along with leases, a question has been put at
wi uch we are not much surprised, considering the
Vs ?ter whence it emanates, but in dealing with
Ith IA we do not anticipate much difficulty. It is
6433 d, why corn-rents only ? If the farmers' rents
to be calculated according to the existing price of
ins produce, why not also his taxes ?—why not
• erything we purchase? Now, there is one
ye ow simple answer to this. Supposing it were
ING, Into whose pocket would the difference go ?
W l*sever the farmer managed to save in low-
iced years, would only serve as a help to meet
a ever-recurring difficulty—rent. This objection
o- conclusive as it appears at first sight—is but one of
111 Fe many ingenious devices of the landowners for
keeping together a little longer their system of
itnon epoly rents. The readiness of the landowners,
Se Is class, to adapt themselves to every change in
the, state of palls feeling or circumstances,
It: really wonderful. When the manufacturer
p skited out to the farmer how closely united
* ere their common wants; how their joint inter-
s& t lay, in fact, in getting their raw material—the
is met. 'his land, and the manufacturer the land's pro-
ds ce—at the cheapest possible rate, the landowner
vec claimed aloud, with the stunning authority of a
rd Peter, Oa' the identity of interest lay between
tifit a who let the soil and him who hired it. When
be found protection slipping slowly, but surely, from
tiffs grip, who so urgent as he to teach the farmer not
to rely on protection, but on his own industry?—
who so unceasing in his endeavours to persuade the
firrmei to expend his capital in improving his land-
lord's soil ? When the counter-cry for leases arose,
what beautiful effusions upon " mutual confidence,"
—what " noble sentiments" about " the old ancestral
relations l" And now, when it seems soms few leases
Lave here and there been wrung from them, and it is
found to be impossible to calculate a rental that shall
give any real security to the farmer ; and it is there-
lore reasonably enough demanded, that if the present
system is to be continued, rents shall rise and
fall with the fluctuations which that system
creates ; the reply is, in heartless mockery :
" Oh yes, have corn-rents, corn-taxes, and every-
thing else that your hearts can find to desire."
Nlre thank the organs of restriction—let it not be
called " protection"—for their implied admission.
Their system necessitates injustice to the farmer,
ramifying through all the relations of his social life,
the only remedy for which needs but to be named to
show that is impossible. That the sliding-scale is the
real cause of the enormous fluctuation in prices, we
apprehend cannot now be doubted. It may be conceded,
that under a perfectly free trade between all the nations
at the world, there would be considerable fluctuation in
the produce of different countries in the same year,
and some even in the aggregate production of different
years. But two causes would materially operate to
lessen the fluctuation itself, and still more its effect
neon prices. Were the trade universally free, the
aggregate demand would be known ; and would be
the more effectually provided for, because every
farmer would be sure of a market for an occasional
surplus. And this, which provides for a supposed ag-
gregate surplus, would also greatly modify the ill con-
sequences of a partial deficiency. It may be stated, in-
deed, as a statistical axiom, that the more wide the extent
of surface from which the produce is to be drawn,
the less will any fluctuations in its quantity be felt.
But the sliding-scale narrows and cuts down the
extent of surface, embracing all Europe and America
in its range, to two islands at the antipodes of each
other. In so large a proportion, therefore, does it
exaggerate the otherwise slight and harmless effects
of an occasional badness of the seasons. The sliding
seale causes the fluctuation, by which the farmer is
ibis first to suffer. When the landowner, for whose
„n 49aenefit alone it exists, at this cruel cost to his
immediate tenants and dependents, is asked to
iterfere, his reply is—that it " depends on cir-
cumstances over which the landowner has no
control ;" that so far as corn-rents may be of
service, he will concede that requirement when
the farmer has obtained a similar concession from
every one with whom he may possibly have
dealings! Really, since we hear so much about
" identity of interest," we shall be very glad to be in-
formed in what it consists. It is clear it does not con-
sist in otoncessions by the landlord. It does not con-
sist in giving the farmer the free use of his capital ; of
the labourer the free use of his hands ; it does not
consist in leaving to either the freedom of their con-
e•ltence ; it does not consist in the security of a lease,
or the equity of a cern-rent. In the utter absence o'
information from those who most insist on it, and
eitherefore ought best to know, we can but come to ow.
conclusion : the " identity of interest" between the
fsrmer and the landlord, consists in the farmer strug •
gl'ing to give, and the landowner taking, the highes
p issible rent that can, by any manner of means, be
rqueezed out of him.

STANDARD.—So long as agricultural meeting=
promised to minister to the splenetic feelings of cer-
tdin mock-Conservative opponents of the Governmen.
—So long as they afforded opportunities to a few can-
krred and dissatisfied individuals to abuse Sir Robert
rr!.el and denounce his new tariff—they were re-
.lsarded with peculiar favour by more than one of our
(Jelly Contemporaries; and an importance was at-
t 'shed by them to the more objectionable portions of
proceedings, which could not be said fairly to
along to them. There is no public meeting con•
vened, for a purpose however laudable, whose
larmony may not be destroyed, and its use-
fulness impaired, by some noisy and ill-conditioned
jan-son, who may persist in throwing the apple of
political discord among his audience. To such dis-
s-entients the untried tariff of Sir Robert Peel
afforded an apparently exhaustless theme ; and the
benevolent and praiseworthy objects of agricultural
meetings were tolerated by their newspaper instiga-
ten solely for the sake of such demonstrations. It
was soon found, however, that the introduction of
political questions at such meetings was calculated
t ) impair, if not wholly destroy, that power for
the attainment of a 'common benefit, which nothing
but union can secure. The leading objects of agricul-
tural associations are, or ought to be, to promote
f.elings of harmony and good will between the
landl.ord and tenant, and the tenant and his
servant ; to remind them of their mutual obliga-
/ions ; aryl to supply a stimulus to industry, intelli-
gence, and good conduct to the latter; and to afford
oecasiens for the diffusion of agricultural science,
nd the reciprocation of that most useful of all
knowledge, the practical knowledge derived from ac-
t ual experience. These are objects with which party
politics can have nothing to do, and it has there-
fore been wisely decided that political topics should
I,e excluded, fur the future, from such re-unions.
s:rlits resolution has proved highly distasteful to those
jouisnalists who were in the habit of illustrating from
such displays their own cankered views of political
affairs ; but, most of all, to the pseudo-Conservative
opponents of the new tariff. They had hoped to reap
an abundant harvest of discontent from such
vneetings, and their prophecies sometimes ful-
hlled themselves. Since the declaration of Lord
Norreys, and the determination which has been
elsewhere exhibited to exclude political dis-
cussion from agricultural meetings, however, they
have fallen a hundred per cent. in the estimation of
this order of politicians, and have become, in their
estimation, either altogether useless or absolutely ridi-
culous. It is not surprising, therefore, that the pro-
ceedings of the South Derbyshire Agricultural Asso-
ciation shoulll have excited in an extraordinary degree
the anger of these atrabilious gentlemen ; for although
one of them deals in grave regrets, and the other
in that cheapest of all munitions of political
warfare, ridicule, they both work in one team.
Thee conduct of Mr. Colvile, in congratulating his
udie nee on the banishment from agricultural meet-
ings of political discussions, would of itself have sub-
jected him to reproof on the one hand and sneers on
the other; but his explanation to the less correctly
infarraed of his audience, that the introduction
of American cheese into this country had
benefitet. the poorer classes, without dimi-
nishingm the slightest degree the profits of the Bri-
tish farmer, appears to have provoked the gravest
condemnation. Mr. Colvile showed how absurd and
premature were the complaints of the new tariff, by
proving that, although it was perfectly true that
American cheese had been imported in large quan-
tities, the effect had been simply to super-
sede the use of Dutch cheese—a commodity for
which an enormously larger price than its quality
warranted has heretofore been obtained. From
his statistics on the subject we may infer that,
instead of the importation
of cheese having increased
by reason of the new tariff, it has diminished during
the last ten years by nearly 32,000 cwt. ; whilst the
commas; of that commodity have been augmented
upwards of two millions ! This is of course a " great
fact" on the wrong side ; but it is one which ought to
suggest to farmers the necessity for making themselves
acquainted with the general results of a measure of
which they profess to disapprove, before they complain
of it. Beside, the farmer is not insensible to the
comforts of his labourers, and if so, he cannot fail
to have discovered how vastly superior is the qua-
lity of American cheese to the trash it has super-
seded. With regard to the alleged decline in the
prices of British chesse, we can only add, that if
the statement be correct the British consumer has
yet to become acquainted with the fact For
ourselves we believe, that although it has
afforded excuses to the manufacturers to
deteriorate the quality, it has led to no substantial
reduction of the price of that description of cheese
which used to form the staple of the market. The
same remark will, we believe, apply to meat ; and yet
the poor have been peatly benefited by the change.
The pressure was at first great, but as in England the
Tunity of the commodity will always ensure a pre-
.and as that quality is rarely rivalled else-
where, no soon found that the competition,