The Sun.
London, England, 1844-02-05 00:00:00

\TILE SUN, LONDON, MONDAY MORNING, PEBRUARY 1F14,4,

act, that a wasting disease, which hm been gene-
rated in the entire system of British greatness, civil
and political, by erroneous legislation, must
speedily become mortal, if it be not arrested
by some legislative remedy of timely applica-
tion. The remedy suggested in the " Address,"
with a view directly to relieve, and perma-
nently re-establish, that braneh of our population
which has hitherto most suffered, and at present
languishes and declines under the influence of the
disease we deprecate, would indirectly but rapidly
reinvigorate the energies and prosperity of all other
sections of the public who have been fellow-sufferers
from the same evil influence. The type of the
disease is, ," all the wrong and misery" which have
been wrought to the labouring poor, in all occupations,
by the Currency Act of 1819; and the simple remedy
proposed is, the repeal of that fatal measure, accom-
panied with the issue, by Government, of Govern-
ment paper to the amount of our annual taxation.
It would be affectation on our parts were we to
disclaim the gratification we have derived from find-
ing that the "Address," in tracing the origin and the
course of the disease which has so long invaded, and
now threatens " the comfort and happiness
of all the prod touc destroy,
classes," and in indicating the
tive
remedial course requisite to be taken for its removal,
concurs in all respects with the views which we have
ourselves long announced on these subjects, and have
more particularly enforced for some months past. The
Address, after announcing that " the time has arrived
when active measures must be taken for the protection
and relief of the industry of the country," takes a
rapid review of those isolated and partial attempts
which, only, have hitherto been made "to rescue our
suffering people from the cruel bondage" imposed on
them by the consequences or the results of the mea,
sures we have so often denounced. It adverts to the
Anti-Corn-law League, and its exertions on behalf of
the manufacturer; to the efforts from time to time
put forward on behalf of factory children—female
colliery labourers—education of the children of the
poor, &c.—and laments the insufficiency of these "to
meet the exigencies of the times." It then proceed*,
" We turn to our fellow-countrymen of every de-
gree, and ask them to join us in forming a Society
which, entertaining no schemes of private advantage,
but devoted solely to the public good, hopes, by the
corrective aid of the Legislature,. to remove the evils
which an unfortunate Act of Legislation has created."
We will not do the "Address" the injustice of giving,
in abstract only, the several paragraphs occupied by the
argument for the propriety of securing taxation wages
to the labourer, and taxation prices to the manufac-
turer and the agriculturist--as to the manu-
factured commodities of the one, and the produce of
the other; or to the demonstration of that enormous
legislative blunder or injustice—unparalleled at least
in the annals of legislative spoliation—which by fixing
and legalising, exclusively, a. gold standard of cur-
rency, and diminishing the previous paper circulation
in the enormous proportion necessary to enable the
Bank of England to meet its excessive liabilities
under this more expensive and prodigiously decreased
metallic currency, so reduced prices, and by conse-
quence the wages of labour, that " it is calculated
that more than 30,000,0001. annually are wrung
from the hard earnings of the poor by means of extra
toil and increased privations, which nature cannot
long endure." "By adding taxation to natural or
gold prices, that portion of the indirect taxes which
cannot be borne by the productive classes in their
productive capacity will be paid at last by the con-
sumer"—from whose shoulders, let it never be forgotten
—Sir ROBERT PEEL'S iniquitous Bill quietly trans-
ferred it to those of the then already taxed, but since
miserably under-paid, under-fed, and unrega.rded
labourer and artisan. As we must here conclude
our notice of the " Address," we may commend
:hese, its benevolent purposes, to the beet assistance
and the best wishes of our readers.
" We object to the labouring roan being burthened with
the task of providing all that wealth which others, who do
not work, enjoy at his expense, while they allow him, in re-
turn for unremitting toil, less food and clothing, worse shel-
ter, coarser and harder fare, • than a West India planter
allowed his. slaves, or en English farmer gives his horses.
We are desirous of seeing the industrious workman partake
of some of the benefits of those improvements in machinery
which have hitherto added so wonderfully to the luxuries of
the rich, but have sunk-the peer into deeper poverty."
" To effect this, we shall urge that higher wages be given—
wages not merely increased in numerical amount, but able to
command a greater quantity of every useful and necessary
article. We pledge ourselves to prove that this is attainable
with the greatest facility, depending for the extent of its be-
neficial action solely upon a vote of the Legislature."

We indulge a pleasing confidence that this appeal
will be most efficiently responded to throughout the
country ; and we cordially concur in the old ballad
prediction that follows ;--
It WWI once merry Entland.
And it shill be

aanolethtteerr
fpraromt
Aoffr.T
jhoe;:aunLooyfilst,hiins
acian syw ewri ltlo bae
foundln
request that he would become a member of an asso-
ciation formed for the purpose of counteracting the
designs of the Anti-Cora-law League. It is not a
little curious that Mr. LOYD, of all men in the world,
should have been applied to to enrol himself in such
an association, seeing that his opinions on the sub-
ject of free trade are well known, and that it is
scarcely six months since he subscribed fifty pounds
to that very League which he is now called on to
oppose ! Really the gentleman who made such an
application to him must be endowed with no ordi-
nary powers of effrontery, for what is it but a cool
and modest request that he will act directly counter
• •
to his known opinions, and declare himself a protec-
tionist when he is at heart a free trader ? We sup-
pose
Mr. COBDEN will be next applied to, to " coun-
teract the designs of the Anti-Corn-law League,"
and possibly Mr. VILLIERS, also, may be politely
requested to use his efforts for the same purpose; and
in neither of these applications would there be a whit
more absurdity than in the one to which we are
alluding. However, to pass this matter, and come at
once to Mr. LOYD'S letter—it is penned in a tem-
perate, manly strain, and is so close and succinct in
its reasoning, that it is impossible for even the ob-
tusest intellect to misapprehend it. After stating that
the prosperity of British agriculture is a cause in
which he would gladly enlist himself, inasmuch as it is
indissolubly connected with the welfare of the whole
community, the writer goes on to observe that he
cannot recognise either the justice or the policy of
attempting to protect his own individual interests as
a landed proprietor, to the detriment of the great
body of the people, by restricting the free and full
supply of their food; and he significantly adds, " I
would submit whether it would not be as well for us
landed proprietors to examine carefully whether these
restrictive laws, thus at once offensive and injurious
to other classes, are really productive of the benefit
to our particular interest which has usually been as-
cribed to them. The agriculturist is a dealer in the
produce of the soil, and the prosperity of his, as of
every other, trade, must be dependent on the
prosperous condition of his customers. What-
ever improves the general condition of the
people, and causes a rise of their wages,
must promote in a most effectual manner the prospe-
rity of the agriculturist. Our population is annually
increasing at a fearful rate; if a corresponding increase
of employment be not found, that population must
ultimately become a charge on our land, and thus
prove ruinous to our interests as land-owners." This
is quietly but forcibly put, and seems to us to gO at
once to the root of the question. Not less emphatic
are the writer's remarks on the subject of protective
laws in general, which he declares to be founded on
erroneous principles, to engender jealousies and
heart-burnings among the different classes of the in-
dustrious community, and to diminish the wealth of
the country by interrupting its legitimate distribution,
and forcing it into wrong channels. Mr. Loco next
proceeds to state his impression of the objects which the
League have in view by their agitation, and explicitly
states that he cannot concur "in designating them as
mischievous designs," for he conceives, on the contrary,
that " they are founded in reason." He concludes
with the following hint to the agriculturists, by
which it is to be hoped they will make a point of
profiting :---" In the laws upon which too many of
us at present rely, I can place no confidence; what is
unjust and baneful to the rest of the community,
cannot be permanently beneficial to us." We thank
the Monopolist Association, for their impudent appli-
cation to Mr. JONES LOYD, inasmuch as it has been
the means of drawing from that gentleman one of
the most lucid—forcible—argumentative—and con-
vincing letters on the subject of the corn-laws, and
monopoly in general, it has ever been our good fortune
to peruse. At the present erisis—when the Mi:ister
has for a season (but only for a season !) thrown '
himself into the arms of the
and the TSOLLOPss, and the rest of that fry—such