The Sun.
London, England, 1844-11-02 00:00:00

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btningini

LONDON, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 1844.

The Morning Post—whom no one can please, not
even "Young England," inasmuch as we have more
than once detecl'ed our cross-grained Contemporary
indirectly sneering .7.! that promising specimen of
uvenility—the Post, we say, c_‘f this morning takes a
writer in Fraser's Magazine to task n.`l* having pre-
sumed to speak favourably of the cotton-iort:.! of
Manchester and Leeds, and recommended the land-
owners to follow their example, as regards the pea-
situtry on their estates. We noticed the article com-

plained of, in The Sun of yesterday, but must confess I
that ae found nothing in it to justify our Contem-
porary's disapprobation. True, it spoke impartially
and even kindly of the conduct pursued by the manu-
facturers towards the workmen in their employ, and
so far sacrificed prejudice to a sense of jus-
tice ; but it did not breathe a syllable in
disparagement of the landowners; indeed it
studiously refrained from all censure of the in-
difference which they have too long manifested to-
wards the labouring classes, and contented itself with
simply recommending them "to bestir themselves,"
and to bear in mind the salutary maxim, that if pro-
perty has its rights it has also its duties. But even
this was too much for the one-sided, uncompromising
Post, whose prejudices stick to it like so many burs,
and, accordingly, it thus vents its spleen against the
unoffending scribe in Fraser :—" These professors of
Conservatism cannot get rid of a disposition that
haunts them to overlook any merits which their
friends may have, and to be ever hunting out the ex-
cellences of their opponents. They can find that in
free-traders which they cannot find elsewhere." The
real meaning of this paltry cavil is very evident. The
inveterate spirit of ultra-Toryism peeps out at every
word. Our Contemporary insists that no true
Tory or Conservative has a right to do justice
to those who are opposed to him in politics,
even though their views on some particular question
:nay be undeniably sound. He is bound to sacrifice
his convictions to his party, and though at heart he
may be rationally disposed towards free-trade, yet
his influence, whether within or without the walls of
Parliament, must be thrown into the scale of mono-
poly. He must not "find that in free-traders which
he cannot find elsewhere," but must make a point
of insisting that all which his friends do is right, and
all which his enemies do is wrong. This we con-
ceive to be the true meaning of the passage we have
just quoted; and if so, it is scarcely worthy of our
Contemporary—scarcely in keeping with the notions
he is constantly promulgating. He professes to be
actuated by the most enlarged and enlightened views
—to soar far above the paltry considerations of party
—and to regard nothing but the welfare of the
peOple in general, and the best means of securing
that welfare. It is only because he is averse
to political partizanship that he leans to the
s:de of "Young England," because he imagines
that he can perceive in this zealous band of Reformers
a manly spirit of independence calculated to be of the
utmost benefit to that somewhat vague and eccentric
cause—for we honestly confess that we have never
6:en able to understand the Post's politics—which he
professes to have so much at heart. But now we find
the cloven hoof of ultra-Toryism peeping out, and our
bigoted Contemporary quarrelling—in the true spirit
of Lord ELDON-with a brother Tory, merely be-
cause he finds that the opponents of monopoly—to
wit, the manufacturers—are not quite so bad as they
have been represented, but have certain redeeming
points in their character worthy of the imitation of
rile landowners. The old adage assures us—and we
have considerable faith in the assertion—that the
Devil is not so black as he is painted, but
on the Post's principle, he must not only be quite as
black, but infinitely blacker ; and it is the bounden
duty of all good Protestants to cherish this conviction as
•me of the fundamental articles of their creed. We
have no patience with our Contemporary's systematic
and continuous illiberality towards the manufacturers.
lie is exceedingly fond of exrssing lofty sentiments
in still loftier language, yet in the passage on which
we have been commenting, we find him actuated by
the basest and pettiest prejudices, and so wholly car-
ried away by his party animosities as actually to fall
fled of a brother Tory, merely because he will not go
the whole hog with him in point of bigotry, but has
!iberality of sentiment enough to acknowledge that the
manufacturers have several redeeming traits in their
character.

We are glad to perceive that the subject of land
allotments to the poor is occupying, at length, a con-
Aiderable share of public attention. There are few
objects of our social economy or domestic policy of a
more vital character. So obvious a principle of
natural equity, irrespective of this important con-
sideration, appears to us to recommend the system of
making these grants, that we shall address ourselves
to the consideration of the matter in respect of its
own merits, and without regard to the political bias
or relations of its advocates or its opponents. It
seems the more necessary to premise this determina-
tion, because the question has already been discussed,
we regret to observe, with manifest reference to per-
sonal considerations which ought never to be allowed
to interpose themselves in dealing with a topic of
such large and momentous interest.
A correspondent of the Morning Chronicle de-
scribes the controversy on this question as being
chiefly sustained between the economists, " with the
E irl of RADNOR at their head ;" the manufacturers
and landowners, who are fearful of these allotments
interfering with the work winch ought to be done
'Ol- them by those in whose favour these allotments
will be made ; and a third patty, who would that
every man should have his little plot of ground to
cultivate. The writer in question says "Lord
RADNoR boldly declares, and so do the pure econo-
ml,ts, against gardens for the poor." We wish that
=he same writer would as " boldly" have declared
.!g,linst the " pure economists" arid Lord RADNOR.
Instead of doing so, he insists that " the true princi-
ple of allotment gardens" should be this—that "the

tllotment is neither to be a farm nor a potato patch."
Why not, we beg to ask, if it suit the purposes of
(he poor holder to make it the one or the other ?
Ilecause—" it is not to interfere with the dogma of
the economist, nor to create an Ireland." Night he
~et just as well have told us that it was NOT to
control Sir PETER LAURIE'S exuberant equitation
he other day at Temple. bar, on meeting the royal
;rocession, nor to challenge the propriety and good
taste of setting up "Mr. JONES'S" coat of arms (!)
in the same sumptuous edifice which is to enshrine the
heraldic blazonry of such houses as the GRESHANIS,
he TUDORS, the STUARTS, and the GUELPHS ?
Who, in Gon's name, cares one straw whether the
dogma of an economist" be disturbed or not, when
the mighty question is, how to tranquillise a noble
peasantry ? Who cares to inquire into the proba-
bilities of so figurative a result as the "creating an
Ireland" in England, when the simple practical pro-
position is to allot to each family of the English la-
bouring poor a few roods to two or three acres of
waste land, whereon to raise some portion of their
subsistence ? But the allotment system, it further
appears, "is not even to make market gardeners."
Why not, again we ask, if the process of cultivating
these patches creates in the poor cultivator a strong de-
sire to embark in that most useful and not uninterest-
, ing calling ? " Mercianus" (from whom we hare been
quoting) tells us, himself, that the scheme is " to
aglow of the converting of waste time and little pro-
dactive land to a profit, stow lost to the nation and
individuals. The waste time of a man and his
family (not being hired labour) will make the land
more productive, pay the same, OR MORE RENT, should
it be basely exacted)," and afford the cultivator cereal
crops and culinary vegetables. " The profits above
the farming rent and outgoings will be, even to the
unskilful, Si. or 6/. on the quarter of an acre, or
about one-sixth of a labourer's or hand-loom weaver's
wages." Then why, we ask, cripple and clog your
allotments with any drawbacks, or restrict their grant
to the narrow limitations suggested, when the -whole
1,500,000 agricultural labourers of England (for it is
of England, including Wales only, that we have to
speak) may be thus largely benefited, and the gene-
rid stock of horticultural production be thus in-
creased ? If it be true " that even the operatives of
manufacturing towns are by little and little gaining
land"—" at Nottingham, in particular, owing to the
discernment and good feeling of a gentleman who is
the Duke of NEWCASTLE'S agent"—why should not
.o beneficent a system be much more universally
a opted ? We are shocked to find the reasons thus
stated, and thus justified by our Contemporary's
correspondent. lle writes of these reasons thus :
" I have heard some of them" (i.e., the economists
and Lord ItADNOR) say, "Let the hired labourer—
labour; the hand-loom weaver—weave; and where
th:,re is no work for them, go to where there is
some." We shall only observe, that sentiments so
disgustingly sordid as these are only adapted for the
meridian of Brahminical institutions, where the base,
(1.,;11e, and degrading doctrine of hereditary serfdom,
impassable
and caste is still impressed, as it has been
f*,,r three or four thousand years past, on the most
Hcsive and al -.;et bondsmen of the llindoo races.
But the insolent cruelty of any set of men, in this ,

happier country, insisting on the devoted children of
poverty continuing to work at those occupations in
which they have already sunk into the depths of
physical and moral destitution, so long as there re-
mains any work to be had in their own districts, and
then remitting them, unaided, to seek it—to go
in quest of more misery, and to realise anew a like
consummation of wretchedness ;—this is, indeed, a
reach of tyrannous selfishness and obduracy to
which even the social despotism of Oriental
policy and governments is as yet a stranger.
We believe the anticipated return of 51. or 61. on a
quarter of an acre to be, in itself, a most exaggerated
speculation; but it is ominous, in conjunction with
" Lord RADNOR and the economists," when we
have so lately heard, with unaffected regret, of
a nobleman, a Liberal in politics, publicly avow-
ing this, in effect ; that if he could get 91.
an acre by these allotments of them, in roods,
or other larger patches, he would be justified
in taking it ; and that his own labourers could not
expect him to deprive himself of such an advantage
for their benefit. Now, a maxim of this kind, largely
acted on by the landed gentry and nobility of Eng-
land—this sort of intimation to reckless pauper can-
didates for the holding of little plots of land, that, let
their eagerness push them to offer what improvident
terms it might, the disadvantage and loss to them-
selves must be their look out, and were no matter
for the consideration of landlords ;—such a course
of proceeding would, indeed, soon " create an Ireland"
in England, with all its squalid potato-ground hold-
ing, half-naked, and utterly destitute small tenantry.
We will do the landed interest of England, with
all their faults, the justice of avowing that we
have not the remotest fear that so heartless an avowal
—so utter a repudiation of the late Mr. Secretary
Daummorm's apothegm, "that property has its duties
as well as its rights"—will find half a dozen imitators
in the same rank or station of society as his who gave
it utterance ;—half a dozen followers in the attempt
at what " Mercianus" terms " thus basely exact-
ing" exorbitant rents for inferior land from those
least capable of paying it." But we cannot dismiss
the subject without touching on the views of that
writer himself. After reproving the manufacturer:.
for their fears " that allotments may interfere with
the employers' time;" and the alarms of " the more
niggardly and timid farmers," that " the man will
waste his strength before he comes to work ; the
man will keep his grown-up sons at home ; he will
steal corn (if he grows it he cannot be dis-
covered) ;"—and here let us assure the reader
we are accurately quoting these shameful
and intolerable assumptions to the discredit of the
labourer, with verbal minuteness ; the correspondent
of our Contemporary declares that "the object should
be to leave him a labourer or a hand-loom weaver,
and to give him the means only of producing what he
consumes himself." Why should he not raise more
—aye, and sell it, too, at a good profit, we ask, if he
can ? "He is then," continues the writer, " de-
pendent on no market, and wastes no time in specu-
lation." Admirable solicitude ! Excessive sympathy
for the laborious improver of his meagre portion ox
leisure. Do the great employers, then—whether
manufacturers or landowners—really look, as they
have often been said to do, upon their workmen
and servants as beasts of burden—as brute animals,
or mere biped locomotive machines, which you
may feed, and even keep at rest occasionally,
up to a certain point, but no further ? Have they
the fee-simple of these men's bones, sinews, labour—
and not merely of their labour, sinews, bones, but of
their very hopes and aspirations, their intellectual
energies and moral impulses—that once, forsooth,
having been " farm labourers or hand-loom weavers,"
they never shall become other—higher—richer
abler—better ?—lf some latent " YOUNG" or " LIEDI4I"
shall have conceive], from the rude but continuous
processes connected with the cultivation of his little
allotment, some schemes of general agricultural im-
provement, or for ensuring the multiplication of his
horticultural produce, or for profitably applying some
chemical properties, which he may have silently de-
tected, in these labours of his " after hours," in the
disintegration of vegetable substances or earths, to
the purposes of manure and dressing ; he is to be
arrested in these audacious flights of discovery and
usefulness, that a hand-loom may not stand still for
one minute of its accustomed evolutions, or a single
flail be deserted by the vigorous hands and arms of its
accustomed thresher !

It was calculated, in 1841, that there were about
3,500,000 acres of the waste lands of England which
were susceptible of improvement. Might it not be a
more than expedient, and to a legitimate extent de-
cidedly a profitable application of such lands by their
owners, to lose no time in parcelling them out, on a
fair and equitably arranged system of conditions, and
in convenient allotments for the labouring poor, willing
to avail themselves of so certain and salutary a
means of improving their own condition by increasing
their supply of food, and raising a sufficient surplus
of edible produce to add sensibly to the limited amount
of their own incomes ? For our own parts, we should
rejoice beyond measure to see them enabled, by such
employment, and such success, to advantageously ex-
change or remove from their present occupations,
wherever these are extremely underpaid, prejudicial
to their health, or distasteful to their wishes and
desires—so far from conditioning, in the first instance,
that " the weaver shall be permanently kept—to
weave on still ; and the labouring hind to his farm
labours, without change or promotion."

We have received Madrid papers of the 25th.
According to these Senor ISTURITZ was seriously in-
disposed. His complaint was said to be congestion of
the brain. The debates on the address were to com-
mence on the 26th, but it was generally understood
they would be delayed for some time, on account of
ISTURITZ'S illness. He had given notice of the following
amendment :

" The Deputies, your faithful subjects, gratefully
acknowledge the solicitude of your Majesty for the wel-
fare of the nation in the desire manifested by your
Majesty to see the field of political discussions closed as
speedily as possible, and the institutions by which the
country is to be governed consolidated for the future.

" Yo-ur Majesty', who, in her wisdom, recognised tho
gravity of that most essential question, will be pleased
to receive with kindness the opinion of Congress, which
considers of the utmost utility for the realisation of the
important object your Majesty proposes to accomplish
the adjournment of the examination of that question to
another Legislature, in order that after experiencing the
effect of the organic laws, of which the nation stands in
immediate need, the Deputies may, in concert with the
Government of your Majesty, discuss with perfect know-
ledge the modifications which it may be necessary to in-
trochee into the constitution of the state."

During the debates in the Senate, NARVAEZ made
an attack upon ESPARTERO, denouncing him for at-
tempting to excite a civil war. Speaking of the
good spirit which animated the army and its excel-
lent state of discipline, he alluded to the recent
manifesto of General ESPARTERO, saying that if an
ungrateful man were to forget the duty he owed to
his country and to his QUEEN so much as to offer his
sword to the cause of revolution, more than ten
thousand brave swords would leap from their scab-
bards to combat the movement, and to defend their
constitutional QUEEN and public order. The re-
marks of the Minister caused a deep sensation in the
Chamber.

We gave the state of the Spanish Funds on the
25th in The Sun of yesterday.

The Paris papers bring no news, and the leading
articles in most of them are of the most uninteresting
a
description. In one which appears in the Journal des
Debate, we
see e that
Government
ofs
journal
u
aie hastir eal
y undert
itslength taken th
newe
e
protec-
tion, and denounces ESPARTERO as the greatest
enemy of the country. After some ambiguous
writing about NARVAEZ and Co., it adds—" Whether
Spain change her Constitution or nut, Heaven pre-
serve that noble land from falling again under the
rule of ESPARTERO. The best Constitution is that
which is now being carried into execution. ESPAR-
TERO would have promulgated a hundred Constitu-
thins without executing any of them."
The Globe contains the following article relative to
the new loan :—" If we are well informed, all uncer-
tainty with respect to the loan will shortly cease, and
a loan of 300,000,000 f. in the Three per Cents. will
almost immediately be announced for adjudication on
the 25th of November next. This is a determination
as skilful as it is wise, for in our opinion, a negotiation
for the full amount of the loan, is the only mode of
giving a spring to public credit, which has been too
long compressed. It must have, moreover, the ad-
vantage of adjourning indefinitely the conversion of
the Five pa Cents., which we have never ceased to