The Sun.
London, England, 1845-10-02 00:00:00

HOW TO IMPROVE THE CONDI-
TION OF THE LABOURING CLASSES.

The following extracts are from a pamphlet with this
title, by E. D. Davenport, Esq. Many of the facts men•
tioned in this small work are so evident, that it is need-
less to add any comment :
" We now come to consider what objections can be started
against improved husbandry, as a mode of enriching the la-
bouring classes; and first the uncertainty as to what is called
or miscalled legislative protection, and the possible fall in the
price of corn. But the price of corn is being kept down al-
ready by the new laws, and especially by Canadian importa-
tions, and is likely to be still more so. The best answer that
such apprehensions can receive is by a reference to the com-
parative rents and profits in Scotland, where the farmers'
crops are so much greater than they are here, as to make the
selling pike a matter of secondary consideration. If they
bushelcar get ie
ple2rtor acre) sixi quarters
n 'oneof
year's
crolly)1t
,1 etaheya
havefi n shillingso
great
rea-
son to complain either of low prices or inadequate profit, nei-
ther do they. The language of habitual complaint, bad crops,
bad times, and want of protection, belongs to a very difirent
class of farmers, who are wont to rely on anything rather
than their own skill. They invoke legislative protection,
forgetting the change of circumstances which (supposing it
ever to have been defensible) now renders it needless, and
consequently still more odions to the other classes who have
long complained of it. This change has been effected partly
by mechanical science, which produces good draining tiles at
one-third of the cost formerly paid for bad ones, besides
ploughs and other implements on improved constructions;
with respect to draining, it is now admitted that the cheapest
as well as the most effective mode of doing it is to cut drains
four feet deep, and at thirty-three feet intervals. Secondly,
the accidental discovery of ,a concentrated manure .which
serves all the purposes of horse or town manure, and is
brought upon the land at one-third of the previous expense
attending any equally restorative proces.. So long as guano
lasts the tenant may augment his crop in proportion to the
quantity he can purchase; and it has already been sholin
that a ton of boiled bones upon an acre of grass land, and at
a cost of from 3/. 10s. to 41. 13s. will double its value. With
what face, then, can the farmers or owners of such soils re-
presenting, as they do, a large portion of the north-west, as
well as other parts of England, ask for protective duties when
they have it in their power to double their means at so small
a pecuniary sacrifice ? The Author's tenants (living near
manufacturing towns) have learned during the two or three
past years that which they before doubted, that they depend
on a prosperous commerce; for the worst year they ever
encountered was that of commercial depression, when their
produce fell for want-of purchasers, and protection, the re-
fuge of the idle and helpless, has long ceased to occupy their
thoughts. The very word serves as a motto to sluggards
who confide in its fallacious promise. What think they, can
men want, whom their representative law-makers protect
irrespectively of the quantity or quality of their productions?
Therefore, they trust their soothsayers and are ruined; they
were led to expect a protection which would ensure them
803. the quarter for wheat, and when ripe brought them only
40s. They haYe7since been told to expect 565., and have to
sell is at 455.; still they believe in spite of their senses in
powers which neither do, .nor ought to exist. The true
believers are everywhere discernible by unerring insignia;
you may know them afar off; rushy fields of brown and
yellow herbage, small crops, and more rags than rents bespeak
the true faith.

"Among. the objections of landowners of small minds and

great prejudices to improved farming, we must not omit that
of granting long leases, by which they think they lessen
their absolute dominion over their tenants; a privilege for
which they and through them the community pay an awful
price. They prefer seeing their land half--cultivated rather
than endow the occupier with the power of voting according
to his conscience, and thereby risking (however slightly) Isis
dissent from his landlord. Yet without leases, or something
equivalent, capital will not be embarked in the soil, unless
the landlord has earned, as rarely happens, the entire con-
fidence of the tenant. The rule, therefore, should be to give
14 or 19 years' leases, according to the terms offered by men
of capital, skill, and character.
" But here we do really want legislative protection, for
many landlords of entailed property (the writer among others)
do not possess the power on some estates of leasing beyond
eleven years, and it were well if such disabilities were to a
certain degree at least, removed by Act of Parliament.
Rational objections therefore to the more intimate connexion
between capital and land, there are absolutely none ;—we
have hereby published the banns of marriage, of which it rests
with commerce to effect the consummation.
" The plain and obviouecause of the insufficient supply of
cheap provisions is the superabundant proportion of bad
pasture land—why is this? Simply because men of capital
are not to be found to till it properly; and until they offer
themselves, experience tells the owner that it is less destruc-
tive to his estate, to lay in bad pasture than in bad tillage,
snd therefore the proportion of the latter is restricted in Lis
leases or agreements to such a quantity as the tenant is
likely from his means to keep in proper condition. Hence
the restrictive leases against which the half-informed raise
such an outcry, as if it were faulty or criminal in landowners
to be on their guard against the pseudo-capitalist, or real
robber, who expects to find his capital (instead of bringing it)
by ploughing old pastures till they, cease to produce anything
when the tenant is pretty sure to throw up his no longer pro-
fitable holding. This is a very common case, and hasamong
others occurred in a notable instance to a large grazing farm
in the author's possession; whose rule has since been to allow
old pastures to be broken up only in cases where an equal
quantity of other land is laid down with good grass seeds.
" There can be no doubt that the whole of our dairy anti
grass farms are managed in such a way as to keep all con-
cerned in them in comparative poverty ; were the cattle fed
in the stalls as in Switzerland, the meadows and pastures
would form, as they do in Scotland, the exceptions rather
than the rules of farming. The whole population would
prove no more than necessary to the . constant work of
manuring, cleaning, and cultivating the increased tillage, and
in gathering the enormous crops resulting from it. The la-
bourer would have no longer to complain that during severe
winters like the last the farmers will not give them employ-
ment ; in short, they would cease to be poor, or chargeable
as such to their neighbours. It is no valid bjection to this
change of system to urge the difficulty and cost of additional
cow-houses ; the landowne-, who, being often a dissipater of
his own, it not of other people's money, may not be able to
build, but the capitalist would do so if a term of lease suffi-

ciently long were granted him—say 21 years.
" What, then, can Parliament do to benefit agriculture ?
Keep up an incessant cry for protection, always promised but
never granted. What is to be gained by this course ? Con-
stant warfare with the commercial classes, and a gradually
decreasing majority, now actually bearded and challenged
to prove their title to what they ask.
Instead of this self-delusive course, would it not be bet-
ter to adopt some practical measures liable to no conflicts,
and tending to promote improvement, by inducing the more
free investment of capital in the soil? One of the first of
these steps should be the granting powers to lease lands for
terms of 14 (if not of 19 or 21) years. Who in the mean-
while will venture to take land in bad condition on specula-
tion without such guarantees?"

THE MITRE v. THE TRENC lIER.--OUr Right
Reverend and Respected Diocesan was at Tavistock the
other day, in pursuit of his vocation. The Reverend Vicar
asked him to dine ; with much episcopal coyness he excused
himself—" his hour would not suit the Vicar's excellent lady
(the gifted Mrs. Bray)." This, of course, demanded that he
should be pressed for his hour. He reluctantly named 1 o'clock.
How primitively apostolic It was an excellent example
to set the working•clergy to dine at the hour patronised by
the working classes. Of course no hour was more conve-
nient to the hospitable vicar. At one they dined; but pre-
vious to that hour Lady came and invited Mrs. Bray to
dine at six—to meet the Bishop. The accomplished author
expressed her surprise at the invitation, but agreed to accept
it. The Bishop dined at the vicarage, and plied his knife and
fork like a mortal man who knew that his hour was come,
and felt fit to meat it. He departed early taking leave of
hospitable folks at the vicarage with more than apostolic
fervour—he hoped to meet them in heaven ! Mrs. Bray did
not intend to deter the interview so long. She went to 'Lady
-- at six. The Bishop met her unexpectedly, but gave no
token of surprise. He ate his six o'clock dinner with mar-
vellous nonchalence, and so completely did he disguise his
feelings, that none of the guests could possibly imagine whst
had been passing through the episcopal shirt collar between
one and three o'clock on that very day. It was afterwards
remarked that his smile on taking wine with Mrs. Bray, was
more than usually sincere and agreeable. This is the last
story we have heard respecting the Bishop. We received it
from a staunch Tory and high churchman.— Western Times.
THE COAL TRA DE .—The Gtis ow liendd of
Friday states that householders in that city are now paying
from 15s. 6d. to 17s. per waggon for coals which they
formerly obtained at 9s. and 10s. ; and that some
public works are new paying 14s. per waggon for an
article which, little more than eighteen months since,
they obtained for 7s. 3d. The cause of this is easily
found in the greatly increased demand consequent upon the
briskness of all public works, and especially from the increase
of the iron trade, added to the recent alteration in the law
which permits the export of coal duty free. The wages of the
colliers have also been materially advanced ; but it must not be
supposed, however, that the workmen get all the benefit of the
increased price, for we have been informed that, when the
collier adds 3d. to the former rates, the master often follows it
up by adding 6d. At all events, the present state of things,
in a district which is the centre of an exhaustless supply of
coal, is somewhat anomalous, and we should like much to
see a remedy. We may add, that prices of coal have not
been so high in Glasgow since the period known as the " big
strike," which occurred seven or eight years since. The same
state of matters exists in Edinburgh.
MINE ACCIDENT.—On Tuesday last, as two bro-
thers, Thomas and James Treglown, were preparing to blast
a hole in one of thelevels of North Roskear Mine, Camborne,
and while tamping, the powder ignited, and James, the
younger, had his arm broken in three places, his face and
head shockingly mutilated, and several other bad bruises and
cuts.—Falmouth Packet,

BELPER.—The silk glove branch, which has for
this last month caused the utmost excitement among those
connected with the trade, seems not to mend, as on Monday
last the manager of the silk department gave out nothing but
a few samples (not giving employment to one of every
twenty), and intimated that he should not give out full work
until the latter end of October.—Nottingham Review.
A sad accident occurred on Friday afternoon, at
Toms's brewery, Stoke. A child' fell into the copper of
boiling water, and a man in attempting to rescue it fell in
likewise. They were both so dreadfully scalded that but
faint hopes are entertained of their recovery.—Dempart
Telegraph.

, .
ANOTHER EARTHQUAKE AT COMRIE..--011 Monday
the 224 inat., three earthquakes occurred here; first, about
one P.m t next about twenty minutes afterwards, and the
third about twenty minutes to four o'clock P.M:, but as they
were comparatively slight, they did not give much alarm.—
Seotman,
The Duke and Duchess of Norfolk are entertain-
ing a family circle. at Arundel Castle, where Lord Edward
Howard has arrived from a tour. The Earl and Countess of
Arundel and Surrey are not e3tpeeted to return from their
visit to. sir Edmund and Lady Lyons, at the British embassy
at Athens, until the end of this year.
EXTRACTION OF A FRAGMENT OF GLASS FROM
THE EYE-BALL.—A joiner, working at a glp,s4 NA•indow, Was
struck by a fragment of glas, in the right eye, and called
Pr, 4engte to eAcamine the The cornea was divided
at its inner tird bj!, 4 veiticalswound, encroaching, above ancl
below, n'pou selerotiCa; from the sime,rioy. utgre'of this
division protruded IlOrtion o 1 the iris and of the
ciliiry ligament; fitrtlier on, touching the upper lid, the
surgeon felt distinctly a solid body entangled in the
ball. The foreign body proved to be a fragment ef. g`, of
a triangular shape; the basis of the trianglthehto,
than
hale an inch in length; find eadli Of 14.- :des more '4ole "an
_medical
rime
inch.• It was extracted with a dissecting forceps, a
nd the
patient is doingwell.