The Sun.
London, England, 1844-05-29 00:00:00

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LONDON, WEDNESDAY, MAY 29, 1844.

The South Lancashire election has terminated in
the return of a monopolist, and yet its result is a
decisive triumph of Free Trade. A very large
majority of the freeholders gave their support
to BROWN, but their votes were swamped by the
tenants-at-will, of whom more than four thousand
were brought to the towns in feudal array, marshalled
by the stewards and land-agents, and held in disci-
pline by the threat of a summary court-martial, in
case of desertion. The election has been also re-
markable for a new division of parties; many of
those landed proprietors who usually side with
the Liberals, who became, on t his occasion, warm
adherents of the monopolist candidate, regard-
ing the struggle as one between the despotism
of land and the freedom of industry. They
stood by their order, and have thus shown the people
that, whenever proprietary usurpation is menaced, the
landlords, by whatever idle designation of party they
may be called, will be found banded together to
maintain their unjust and injurious class-ascendancy.
This was a lesson which many of the free traders of
Lancashire had to learn ; they have been hitherto
trammelled by old associations, and fettered by feel-
ings of attachment to titled leaders ; but they have
now been taught the real nature of the struggle
in which they are engaged; they now see clearly
that the despotism of land, irrespective of
petty and party distinctions, is arrayed against
them in one compact body, and that they
have to contend against an entire class. The array
of the serfs, for the tenants-at-will are as much adscripti
glelnv as ever were the vassals of a feudal baron,
would have been ludicrous if it had not been melan-
choly. Among the bands thus paraded were
many whose sons and brothers depended for
subsistence on mills and factories, which furnish
them with the employment which the nig-
gard soil of South Lancashire refuses to an
agricultural population ; these poor fellows followed
their leaders with manifest, reluctance, casting a
wistful eye down the by-roads and cross-streets as if
to seek means of escape ; but they were closely
watched by the stewards and agents, more closely
than are bands of slaves by Brazilian overseers.
It is said that a gentleman travelling in the
south of England during the war saw four men
heavily ironed, securely tied on a cart, and escorted
by a file of musketeers. He inquired who the pri-
soners were, and was informed that they were
volunteers from the Tipperary Militia. There was
just as much volition in the tenants-at-will, who gave
their support to ENTWISLE, as in these truly lajsh
volunteers.

At no former election did those manufacturers, who
are renegades to their own order, and traitors to their
class, exhibit such suicidal zeal. They clearly proved
the trutli of the old adage, that men set them-
selves furiously against reason so soon as
they discover that reason is decidedly against
them. Since the days of Peterloo there has
not been a more thorough manifestation of the bitter
spirit which animates those who are conscious that
they are apostates to the principles of their own natu-
ral order. The names of those who took a prominent
part in the Manchester massacre, and which had for
years, for very shame, been withdrawn from public
observation, were on this occasion ostentatiously pa-
raded, as if such persons were anxious to show that
even in their ashes glow their wonted fires,
The revival of such spectral apparitions of the
worst of times revived many slumbering me-
mories ; but they were still doomed to feel
that they could now only command the votes of serfs
instead of the swords of cavalry. There was treason
in the manufacturing camp—there was union beneath
the agricultural banners ; but yet, under all disad-
vantages, the free traders have improved their position
by more than a thousand votes; they have also learned
the exact force of the enemy ; they have discovered
the elements of falsehood, and therefore of weakness,
in their own ranks, and they have thus learned the
proper course to adopt in order to ensure future
victory.

In the due administration of the Poor-law, and the
efficient discharge of their duties who are entrusted
with the superintendence and protection, the manage
ment and control of parochial paupers, every class of
the community has a deep interest. It is an interest,
indeed, much more immediate and absolute than cur-
sory observers can readily imagine. So long, how-
ever, as the inequalities of men's condition, and of the
means of maintaining themselves, remain as various.
and as fluctuating as social constitutions have left

them—that is to say, subject to movements which
oscillate between the extremest points of opulence
and of penury—so long it is the obvious policy
of the fortunate few to consult the feelings
whilst they relieve the wants, to respect the sufferings
whilst they impose, for the sake of order and decorUm,
some necessary restraints upon the personal freedom,
of those whom poverty or bodily infirmities have ren-
dered incompetent, of themselves, to alleviate those
sufferings or to supply those wants. It is the interest
of the few who enjoy the advantages of competence or
the luxuries of wealth to conciliate the many who
cannot command the one, and know the other but by
name. The neglect of this principle is calculated to
precipitate events, the issue of which must always Fe
far more disastrous to the possessors of property than
to the victims of poverty. But its reckless and-open
violation can Work to no other result than to encouL
rage, in the pauper masses, the growth of feelings to-
wards the owners of capital, or of the property it com-
mands, which, if not checked by the timely manifes-
tation on the part of the latter of a willingness to
relieve all wretchedness that is not culpable—to a cer-
tain extent, fairly defined and honestly and impar-
tially acted up to—may eventuate, at any moment, in
some appalling and.destructive collision of antagonist

classes.
On this mere prudential principle, therefore—and
without any present reference to the higher and still
more imperative requirements of moral duty and of
social sympathy—we would plead the necessity for a
most jealous and anxious watchfulness as to all cases
of imputed cruelty, misconduct, or negligence in the
officers and subordinate functionaries, from the high-
est to' the lowest, connected with the management of
the poor, under the new Act. The "First Report
from the Select Committee on Medical Poor Relief,"
together with the minutes of evidence attached to it
(ordered to be printed by the House of Commons on
the 22d instant), suggests the strongest confirmation
of the value of that vigilance we recommend. We
must add, it illustrates the defective machinery and
unsatisfactory working
of a system which too evi-
dently renders the Poor-law Commissioners. judges in
cases where, if they themselves be not the
defendants, their own creatures—subordinatesmcu
within
latinculpated
their instant reach and control—certainly are.
The Select Committee report that they have consi-
dered the allegations comprised in a petition refer'red
to them of TuomAs KING, schoolmaster, late of the
Woodbridge union workhouse, in the county of Suf-
folk containing a complaint against the Poor-law
Commissioners; and that they have also examined
Sir Jonzsr WALSII324, one of the Assistant-Commis-
sioners, in answer to such complaint. This gentle-