The Sun.
London, England, 1829-07-16 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

It appears by a letter from Oporto, noticed in
our City article, that an English gentleman of
the name of Sarjent has been thrown into prison
at Coimbra by the Miguelite Government. There
is every reason to believe that the British
Ministry, the fact being now known, will interest

themselves effectually in his fate. We may take

this opportunity of saying something generally
upon the state of the Portuguese nation, and its
relations with the rest of Europe. Nothing is
clone, or attempted to be done, either by Don
Pedro, or the European Portuguese, to remove
Miguel from his usurped throne. It is our duty
certainly to protect our own subjects from his in-
justice and oppression ; and if he cannot other-
wise be restrained, to punish him for his infrac-
tions of the law of nations : but it is not our

duty to make ourselves Portuguese, and carry
on, as it were, a kind of civil war for the pur-

pose of subverting the throne (whether legally
or illegally assumed) of Miguel. The Portu-
guese must do that themselves : they must be
the chief actors in the scene, and certainly their
efforts would be viewed with partiality by us.
But Don Pedro sends no army to Europe to
assert the rights of his daughter : he does not
even issue commissions, or transmit orders for

enrolling troops; at least we have not heard of
any such orders. Whatever opposition ii now
made to Miguel on Portuguese soil, springs
from our remonstrances respecting acts of op-
pression of which our own subjects are the vic-
tims. How long is this state of things to con-
tinue ? We can take Miguel, as. he is, king
de facto and deal, traffic, and act with him as
such ; and we could do so if he were ten times
_ _

worse than he is ;and we should, perhaps, then

be in a better condition to controuf him than we

are at present. It would at least, we think, be
fair in the Portuguese who are opposed to AL-
(Yuen rule, to tell us now, a priori, how long
they would wish that we should give them a
chance for the recovery of their country by arms,
before we withdraw from him and his people the

ban of our non-intercourse. As we have no

,
right to take up the quarrels of others against
him, it can hardly be worth our while to keep
him much longer " in Coventry" as a delin-
quent towards ourselves.—Times.

If Dublin can be looked upon as a criterion of
the rest of Ireland, in what concerns the exhibi-
tion of political or rather factious feeling, we may
be at ease for the consequences of Sunday last,
the 12th of .July. Our Irish correspondent, as
will be seen, assures us, that not only was there
no disturbance in the capital, arising out of
Orange demonstrations and so forth, but that
hardly such a thing as a display of Orange spirit
was attempted, the few emblems of party which
did appear being confined to the lowest of the
people, and not provoking any sort of violence,
or even notice. There is little doubt that with

the hope of perpetuating Orange power, or re-
viving it, the instigation to commit those outrages
upon public decency which were wont to be
evidences, and in some degree means, of the
prosperity of Orangeism, most sooner or later
cease; and that when the higher class of partisans
throw up the game as desperate, the mob, who
depended on them, will take to some more pro-
fitable calling. The tranquillity of Dublin, how-
ever, is not. conclusive as to that of the north of
Ireland. The miserable Corporation of Dublin
have been effectually broken in spirit and re-
sources ; and there are in the capital, under
the immediate eye of Government, no Orange
leaders belonging to the nobility or gentle-
men of the kingdom. But it is otherwise
in the north. The aristocracy of the northern
counties, almost universally, hold the Catholics
in contemptuous abhorrence. In connexion
with persons of eminent rank on this side
of the water,—whose conduct, as we do not name
them, we shall pronounce to be iVamoets,—the
grandees of the north of Ireland have worked
harder since the Relief Bill was carried than at
any former period, to organize a force which
before was simply factious, but which NOW is
nothing short of treason against the Sovereign.,
and insurrection against the laws of the
Immense preparations had been made in some
counties for an hostile array
.of Orange levies on
Sunday last, in heedless indifference to the Go-
vernment and the magistracy, but in eager de-
fiance of the insulted Catholics, and in hopes of
exciting them to retaliation, We know not yet
the result of these ominous preliminaries, but if
they have gone off without battle and bloodshed,
it would probably be owing to some panic at the
moment destined for the execution of the Orange
menaces, and occasioned by the timely ciren2lar
of the Lord Lieutenant to the several connties,
rather than to any spontaneous sense of I,Jyalty or
public duty in the insurgent chiefs. Uod grant
that no life has suffered ! It is untlerstood—and
we rejoice at it on public gi.oonds—that there
tOio'lCLomienll zitiozwavt.wthiethobtoliTi:
will now be no election. contest for Clare,
George Reresford auce:eed, eatihaotprosrid-
the liberal party,
who r9turne4 Mr. StViart for that county, being
-fepresented as destitute of courage and resources
to tilldot.ake so arduous a warfare as would be
required to unhorse a second time the Beresford
member from his hereditary saddle. There would
indeed, be little reason to desire the expulsion of
the Ueresfords from their own enmity, if the
general politics of that whole eonnexion were hot
in bad repute with the nation,—lbid.
We are told by tiistorians that Peter a..,
Great, of Russia, had it at one time in Content-
plation to compel his twelve of subjects,
spread over an immense ter:;tory, to confine
themselves
emtso interposeelveswithina ad
~csoortnt
.i,bareatt,tlTl
his small
subjectsspace,
and his neighbour The idea of Peter was,
that where it eountry is not completely occupied,
commtwlpitlions must be imperfect, and then
ec,ne.cptentiv much labour must be thrown away
iat the conducting exchanges. The Government
of a thinly peopled country is always necessarily
weak, for it cannot avail itself of the labour of
isolated cultivators. It ig only when men are
brought into close ci.‘wact that a large tan able
surplus of producition can be made available to
the puwes, of the State. A scanty population
aVit A crowded population are both evils. For
a comfortable existence; a country should neither
be over nor under peopled. We have an ex-
ample of the weakv,e‘sa and barbarism caused by
the scantiness, of population in the immense +xi-
ritorie'.A INNell, formed the Spanish and 7,-ortu-
guese, ciallonies in America. The
lioni e :t to
ies fortunately were not allow sh co-
spread
over so large a territory. The, proximity of the
French in Canada to our "yew; England colonists,
tomahawk the forests, the tob of the Indian savage,
and the motives w'oica„,
led to the emigration Of
the Puritans, namely, the liberty to worship in
their own way-,--all contributed to keep the New
Englay.i)ers (who have made North America
what it is) close together.
to the prosperity of North
contributed greatly Religion thus

America, though it may be questioned whether,
without the dread of the Indians and the French,
it would have long been able to withstand
the temptation the colonists would have felt
to scatter themselves over the face of the
country. The great cause of the backward state
of Canada, compared with the States of the
Union, is the abusive mode in which waste land
has been granted to the Church, and to favour-
ites. If Government had offered a large pre-
mium for the discovery of the most effectual plan
for making the people of Canada savages, they
could not have obtained any scheme better adapt-
ed to that end than that which has been hit on.
The Colonies have been forced to keep at a dis-
tance from each other, and deprived of all motive
for exertion beyond what is necessary for raising
food for their own subsistence, the surplus being
of no use to them, as the want of communication
prevents its being disposed of. The rapidity
with which Rapp and his followers acquired
wealth in America affords a decisive proof of the
advantage of colonising on a plan which enables
a number of men to benefit by the labour of
each other. Had the Government of this coun-
try been able in the outset to compel a mode of
settlement somewhat analogous to that of Rapp,
the extent of country actually colonized might
have been at this clay insignificant, compared
with the whole territory of the United States, but
the population would have been more powerful
and civilized. We have been led to these re-
flections by a pamphlet under the title of " A
Sketch of a Proposal for Colonizing Austra-
lasia," which we have just received. The object
of the writer is to compel settlement on a prin-
ciple which shall keep the population together,
and at the same time supply the means of con-
veyance of the poor at home to the colony. He
sets out with an examination of some observa-
tions of Adam Smith, on the causes of
the prosperity of new colonies. In the
passage of Smith which he quotes, and of
which, " the object," he says, " is to account
for the very rapid acquisition of wealth by
emigrants from the States of Greece, five
main causes are stated—knowledge of agri-
culture and other useful arts; freedom from taxes ;
independence from the beginning ; cheapness of
land ; dearness of labour. The statement, when
examined, will appear very objectionable, both in
fact and in reasoning. The emigrants from
Greece did not obtain immense tracts of waste
land, over which they and their children might
spread at will. There is not, I believe, an in-
stance of their having advanced far into the in-
terior of any country. Wherever they landed,
they had to displace warlike tribes, who, aban-
doning the sea-coast after a struggle, continued
to watch the intruders, and to confine them within
very narrow limits. The first occupation of a
Greek Colony seems to have been to erect a for-
tress into which the whole body of Colonists
might retire in case of need. Some of these
etwng places became in a very short time splen-
Fhd cities ; but the quantity of land required to
maintain the inhabitants of one great city formed
in most eases the whole territery of a Greek Co-
lolly, from the beginning to the end of its career.
Abundant, and consequent cheapness of land,
therefore, was not a cause of the rapid prosperity
of the Greek Colonies. In the next place, high
wfages—dearness of labour—assuredly had no
tss,r; in their rapid advancement. For, besides
that Isigh wages could have arisen only in the
manner so well described by Dr. Smith, from su-
perabundance of land, the colonists carried with
them, and obtained after their settlement, num-
bers of slaves, who were their principal culti-
vators and artizans. Lastly, it may be denied
that the complete independence of a colony from
the beginning is by any means advantageous ;-
41r, however ill dependent colonies have been
gover,7
ed after they had arrived at some import-
ance, they !lave generally received nothing in
their first beginnings but protection and assist-
ance from the parent Statt,s, under whose domi-
nion they remained.
May not other causes be assigned ? I imagine
four. First, the constitution of the emigrating
body. The leaders of bodies of emigrants from
Greece were men of the highest distinction,
whose fame, ability, and wealth, enabled them to
collect and transport a great number of fol-
lowers, drawn from all ranks in the old
State. Then a body of Colonists formed,
not a new Society, in the common accept-
ance of the term, but an old Society, that had
changed its abode. Secondly, the new abode
was not an immense waste, without inhabitants,
over which the Colonists might spread them-
selves, remaining for ages a scattered people,
without that concentration in any thing, which
in every thing is the essence of power. Thirdly,
the narrow limits of territory, together with the
institution of slavery, rendered labour cheap in-
stead of dear. Hence the profits of stock, to use
a modern term, were large; wealth rapidly ac-
cumulated ; and it was easy for the new Society
La erect fine buildings—to create very rapidly a
city their parent city. Fourthly, as the
portion
ti:yoduce which falls to the Landowner,
in modern lang,:age rent, is small or great,
ff.
ac-
cording as people are 'w or many in proportion
to territory, and as the leatL
rs of the new SO,
ciety were the owners of a limited„ifrritory, they
possessed either at once, or very soon, the ;'epee
and the consequent leisure wherewith to cultivate
all the arts of refinement, philosophy, poetry,
and eloquence.'" The writer proposes " that
all land now granted, and to be granted through-
out the Australian settlements, be declared liable
to a tax of 10 per cent. upon the actual rent.
Secondly, that a payment in money of 2/. per
acre be required for all future grants, without
exce9tioits Thirdly, that the proceeds of the,
tax upon ren: and of sales form an Emigration
Fund, to be emilloyed in the conveyance of
British labourers to iSs Colony free of cost.
Fourthly, that those to wham the administra-
tion of the fund shall be entrusted, be em-
powered to raise money thereof e; as money
raised on parish and county rates in England,"See.
By raising the terms of the grant, employing the
produce in the removal of labourers from
country, and enabling capitalists in England to
purchase on the terms he specifies, we conceive
that Australasia might be made a source of great
advantage to the mother country. " Emigration
(says the writer) would be carried on by private
speculation, not to the loss, but to the advantage
of those who should defray its expellee. A part
of that expellee would be defrayed beforehand
by the produce of rent-tax and sales ; or, if that
produce were anticipated, there would be ample
security for repayment to those who should make
the advance. The emigrant labourer would not
change his condition, except by having plenty
instead of misery ; and he would not be called
upon to exert qualities foreign to his habits and
character. In short, as respects labourers, both
those who shall emigrate and those who shall
remain at home, the operation of the proposed
measure would be the same as if by miracle a
quantity of fertile land could be added every
year to the territory of Britain, in due

proportion to the increase of people. In
that supposed case the labourer who should
remove to the new land would obtain
good wages ; and his removal would raise
the wages of labour on the old land. As the
people increased wages would fall, but if more
land were added the same operation will be re-
peated." By raising the terms on which land
can be obtained, and employing the proceeds in.
the conveyance of labourers, a more careful culti-
vaticn would be rendered indispensible, while
cheap labour would render it practicable. On
the other hand, the produce of Australasia can
at once find a market in England to any extent.
Nothing deters men from laying out money in
such Colonies as New South Wales, but the

impossibility of obtaining labour sufficiently low
to make it profitable where grants of land can
be easily obtained. The raising the terms of
the grant would therefore be of inestimable bene-
fit in producing a more beneficial occupation.
We think the scheme of the writer deserving of
the utmost attention. It resembles the scheme
for planting Ireland, submitted by Lord Bacon
to his Sovereign.—Morning Chronicle.
We gave the other day an account of a Meet-
ing for Radical Reform. Mr. Hunt, Mr. Cob-
bett, and Mr. Wells, were the speakers on the
occasion. There was no speaker who ventured
to speak in opposition. We are sorry for this ;
for the life and soul of all Meetings is, that there
should be speakers on both sides of the ques-
tion. Now, as Barristers, take them generally,
are enemies to what is called Radical Reform,
and as they are excellent talkers on either side
of a question, we would recommend some one
possessed of a good tongue, and a good share of
confidence, to appear at the next Meeting, and
' make a long speech in opposition to Radical
Reform. It might be to the interest of some
newly-made Barrister, who, if he pleased the
Ministry, might stand a chance of a Judge-
ship, or some other good thing, in one of our
colonies. That Radical Reform is wanted

in Parliament, so far as Representation is
concerned, there cannot be the least doubt.—
It is a farce to say that Parliament, for
a great length of time, has been the Repre-
sentation of England. The greater part of the
Members get in by bribery of some description;
and, when in, the greater part are under the in-
fluence of the Ministry—because the greater
part are gaping for pension, place, and power,
both for themselves as well as for their relations
and friends. As it respects reform, however, we
think that it ought to begin with lessening the
number of Members. In the Commons House
there are about 650 Members : they ought to
be cut down, at least, one-half; for, as a general
rule, the more men there are to direct the busi-
ness of any concern, the worse the business of
the concern is directed. Again, the more Mem-
bers there arc the more Bills, the more laws, the
more law books, the more litigation. What is
it but the large number of Members that has
given us such heaps of acts of Parliament, that
even the Judges are puzzled to know what the
law is ? Besides, the greater the number of Mem-
bers, the greater is the number of suckers of the
State. Very few men get into Parliament but
with a view, as Mr. Cobhett says in his Register,
to " share the taxes." It is a question whether
our Parliament has not been a bane instead of
a blessing to the country. It has brought on us
a debt of 800,000,0001., the latter causes ex-
cessive taxation. Indeed taxation and debt are
carried to such a height, that we dare not resent
the insults of other nations. We are in the same
situation as a spendthrift is with respect to his
butcher, baker, &c., to whom he is indebted.
They may thunder at his door, and write to him
the most insolent letters, or speak to him in pub-
lic in time most impudent manner, and yet he
dares not retaliate, but is obliged to be civil, for
fear of the consequences. The most arbitrary
despot that ever existed could not have heaped a
debt on this country to the same extent that
our Parliaments have. If some Reform does not
take place—if the present number of Representa-
tives remain—if makers of Acts of Parliament
proceed as they have been proceeding for the last
100 years in the heaping of Act on Act, and if the
Representatives continue to be such greedy feeders
on the taxes—we shall, by and bye, ex-
perience an alteration inevitably, for the tax-
eaters and Act-makers will bring the thing to
be beyond all endurance. The people will be-
come sick of both Houses as well as of debt and
taxation : and the first high-spirited King, of a
military turn, that appears they will throw then,-
selves into the arms of, and England will become
an absolute monarchy, especially if such King
should promise the people before he should be-
come an absolute Monarch to get rid of debt,
taxes, tax eaters, and the heaps of laws. We
would recommend Messrs. Hunt, Conett,
Wells, and others, when they bring forward their
plan of Radical Reform, to state the ground-
work, especially as to the number of Represen-
tatives they would have ; the number for each
town, or county, or city ; for instance, the city
of London—which only contains 50,000 people
—whether four to represent it or whether one.
For Reform to be of any use, there ought to be
a review of the matter altogether. Many places
are now represented by two or more Members,
that are the ruins of bricks and mortar and wood
gain into green fields.--Morn.
iturm;Z:fl a