The Sun.
London, England, 1842-11-19 00:00:00

Yet such is the f.tct ; and it is our belief that'.
except in the immediate neighbourhood of i
market towns, and on a few estates, the
owners of which, like Lord SPENCER, are
themselves practical farmers, the bulk of the
tenants-at-will throughout England, know very
little indeed now of the practices in any district
but that in which they reside. But waiving our
belief, and taking the fact on the undisputed
authority of an agricultural M.P., is it possible
to bring a stronger proof of the uselessness of
landlords to agriculture, and of the utter worth-
lessness of all their schemes and laws for
encouraging and improving it, than this avowed
ignorance of the farmers of practices the utility
of which has been demonstrated for years ? For
what purpose do the landowners meet in their
clubs? Why do they congregate at one season
of the year in the metropolis, and at another dis-
perse over every part of the empire, if they
diffuse no useful information ? Wherefore.
are their peculiar sports cherished and pro-
tected at such an expense of humanity and pub-
lic happiness, if they cannot and do not convey
the knowledge, the value of which is proved in
one district, to another where it is not possessed,
and where the stationary farmer, toiling day
after day for a living, has scarcely time to read,
and cannot quit his farm to gather information ?
We always thought the great and the only use
of the landlords to agriculture was, that they
diffused the knowledge of improvements amongst
their tenantry. It now appears that they do no
such thing, and the statements of the self-suffi-
cient Mr. PUSEY, which he makes as a slur on
the tenantry, is a severer condemnation of the
landlords then any member of the Anti-Corn-
law League ever pronounced.
Let the reader mark the confession of gross
ignorance, not in the toiling tenants-at-will, but
in leisure landlords, which Mr. PUSEY avows.
" It is only," he says, " seven years since WE,"
the landlords, " beard in England" of Mr.
SMITH of Deanston's practices, and they
do not all know yet of the practices in
Suffolk, Essex, and Kent. Not the te-
nantry only, therefore, the, landowners of one
part of England were ignorant, until lately, of
what was done in another part, and in Scotland.
Now Mr. PUSEY, who makes this extraordinary
confession, is a kind of literary man, the brother
of the " Seraphic Doctor," and one of the best
instructed and not the least liberal of his class.
He is spoken of by the Morning Chronicle as an
" agriculturist of practical knowledge and scien-
tific acquirements." If such were HIS dense
ignorance only seven years ago of what so in-
timately concerns his own business, what must
be the still denser ignorance of the
great mass of country gentlemen ? If
they know so little of agriculture, how
can we give them credit for any knowledge
of the influence which their own laws exercise
over it ? Suppose the Manchester manufacturers
were to ask Parliament for a high protecting
duty on cotton cloth, because they were under-
sold, and it should be proved, not merely that
they did not use superior machinery which 11
was in use at Glasgow, or at Liege, but that they
actually did not know of its being used, would
they not be booted at as most ignorant, lazy '
blockheads, and sent to improve their own pro-
cesses, instead of laying a tax on the community,
to enable them to keep the cottons of Glasgow or
Liege out of the Manchester market ? The case
of the landlords on Mr. PUSEY'S statement is
parallel to this, except that these most ignorant
and useless men, having had the political power
of the State in their hands, have passed such a
law as we have supposed the Manchester men
to demand, and to have been refused. The land-
lords have actually compelled the community to
give them a large price for their produce, that
they, according to Mr. PUSEY'S statement, igno-
rant and lazy blockheads, might doze on in their
old slovenly and unimproved methods.
All at once, however, these gentlemen have
started on their feet, and after rubbing their
eyes they resolve on exerting themselves. From
all quarters we hear of improvements in agricul-
ture; we find the landlord sedulous in spreading
abroad information, in teaching the doctrine
that there is no fear, arid in inviting the tenantry
to invest more capital in the soil. What has so
suddenly put them on their metal ? What has
all at once spread the knowledge of Mr. SMITH'S
practices to every agricultural hamlet of the
country ? A little, and only a little healthy
competition, and the fear of competition. It is
now about five years since a shock to trade and
a deficient harvest began to direct public
attention to the Corn-laws. The landlords be-
came alarmed for their monopoly. Successive
bad harvests and a declining trade made, every
year, the attack on their stronghold more
alarming. To defend it, they were bound to in-
crease the supply of food. To uphold it entirely
was impossible. Ministry after Ministry has de-
clared against it ; and no sooner was a breach
made than the supine and ignorant landlords
discovered that their own acres were only half
cultivated, and might be made, by skill and
labour, to produce twice as much as at present.
That is the beneficial effect, not of Corn-laws,
but of the probability that they may be done away.
The apprehension of competition, and some little
competition, have done more within the two
last years to diffuse agricultural knowledge
amongst farmers and landlords than was done in
all the previous years that elapsed subsequent
to 1815.

Now if we see on the one hand such
gross and avowed ignorance, and such un-
couth practices nourished by the protective
system, and see on the other such a won-
derful increase of knowledge by a little
competition, have we not good reason to expect
that, by exposing our agriculturists to the effects
of a complete free trade in food, we shall very
soon bring them all to be as thoroughly acquainted
with the best system of agriculture known in
the world,. as the men of Manchester are ac-
quainted with the best known system of spinning?
We have no doubt that such would be the case,
and no doubt that it is only requisite to expose
our agriculture to free and healthy competition,
to place it abreast of our manufactures, and in
advance of the agriculture of every part of the
world. We have no doubt, as the produce of
agriculture depends far more on skill, than on
any supposed fertility of the soil, that only com-
petition is necessary to make our agriculturists
more skilful than those of other countries, and
produce corn, as our manufacturers produce
cotton cloth, cheaper than any other persons.
In all that concerns the manufacture of agricul-
tural instruments and facility of conveyance, two
great portions of the price of agricultural pro-
duce to the consumer, the growth of corn is al-
ready effected at a much less cost in England
than abroad. There is good reason, there-
fore, to conclude that the other portions
of the price of agricultural produce might
be reduced in like manner were the corn
trade only free. To obtain such inestimable
results, so teeming with happiness to all classes,
we must lay aside all respect for the opinions of
those useless and idle landowners, who, we learn
from Mr. PUSEY, are completely ignorant of what
they are most bound to know, and whose arro-
gance and presumption in lording it over us in
Parliament, even surpass their dense ignorance.

We must own that, despite the assurance
given apparently from authority, " that the under-
writers at LLOYD'S are satisfied of the sea-worthi-
ness of the Waterloo, and have agreed to settle
for the loss at once," we have many misgivings
as to the strength of that ship. We should be
able to form a more correct judgment of the
value of this decision, did we know the amount
of the premium and the nature of the policy. In
our ignorance of those circumstances, we cannot
help thinking, and we must be permitted to say,
remembering that two or three other cases have
occurred, within these few years, of the loss of
transports carrying convicts, that sufficient care
is not taken to provide proper ships for the con-
veyance of such large numbers of persons, who
can exercise no volition of their own in the
matter, to the other side of the globe. We shall
briefly allude to the circumstance which makes
us conclude that the Waterloo was not a proper
ship fir such a purpose.
We saw from the first moment that we read

the accounts, some reason, in the facts, that the
Waterloo had drifted broad-side on the beach,
while the Abercrombie Robinson had gone end
on, why one ship should much more speedily be
destroyed than the other. The one ship parted
her cables and ran on the beach, the other ship
dragged her anchors and drove broad-side on the
beach. It would be rash to judge and condemn
on such imperfect evidence as we possess, but
we have always understood it to be a part of
seamanship, when it is found impossible to save
a vessel from wreck, to put her head if prac-
ticable to the beach and force her as high on
the land as possible. In the case of the Aber-
cromby Robinson, this appears to have been
done, and it appears not to have been attempted
i n the Waterloo. If there were any oversight
of that kind it was the fault of those who bad
the ship in charge.
As to the sea-worthiness of the ship, she was
27 years old, she had been, it is said, completely
repaired, had a new deck and been doubled ; but
those circumstances do not vouch for her sound-
ness. We say nothing of her age, which is not
very great provided she were originally a sub-
stantial, well built ship ; but 27 years ago, just at
the close of the war, when prices were very
high and timber scarce, we are inclined to believe
that it was not the custom to build ships re-
markably strong. The doubling, as our
readers are probably aware, is putting an addi-
tional outside case on the ship, adding conside-
rably to her weight, without necessarily impart-
ing any new strength to the frame-work, on
which all depends. It is often employed to make
an old ship hold together, and will answer that
end well in fair weather, and under no adverse
circumstances ; but it does not add to an old
ship ability to resist the destructive power of
waves and rocks.

Such a ship can be insured, at some premium
or other; so can all the goods which are sent in her;
but a cargo of living beings cannot be insured. It
seems to us highly improper to send vessels of
that description to the other side of the globe, so
laden. We feel pretty confident that the chief
of the Transport-office and the surveyors of
transports, would not select such a vessel to con-
vesy their own families, and therefore we con-
clude that she ought not to be e►nployed by them
to convey men who have no will of their own.
On the heels of such a great misfortune, when
many hearts are sorrowing and suffering, we are
averse from employing strong language, but we
must advert to the subject, because it is only at
such times that the public can be sufficiently in-
terested in such a matter as to make its opinion
of commanding weight with men in office. The
honour and humanity of the country are con-
cerned. England is not very tender of the lives
of poor criminals, and successive accidents like
that of the Waterloo may receive a name from
fOreigners, borrowed from the worst period of the
French Revolution. We must be careful not to
merit such a terrible stigma.
Besides the defects in the ship, she seems not
to have been well provided with means for the
men to escape. We read of no boats being
launched, no apparatus brought into use, either
by the officers of the ship or the persons on
shore, which could contribute to save life. No
attempt was made either to send a line from
the shore to the ship, or, which probably
would have been more easy, to send a line
from the ship to the shore. We hope that
such circumstances will call the attention of
men in authority to the provisions made for safety
in convict ships, and that they will take care
that every transport carrying convicts be pro-
vided with all the ordinary means of escape,
under such dreadful circumstances proportionate
to the number of the people on board. We trust,
too, that no anchorages, whether colonial or
other, will be allowed to remain so destitute of
the means of help on an emergency, which will
cost only a few pounds, as Table Bay appears
to have been on the lamentable occasion of the
wreck of the Waterloo.

The Belfast News Letter states, that it is in
contemplation to commemorate the great moral
revolution effected by Father MATnEw through..
out Ireland, and that a national testimonial in
his honour is also contemplated by his friends.
"No Irishman," observes our.- Contemporary,
"deserves better that his really patriotic services
should be rewarded. He has, indeed, effected a
great moral revolution in the country. By the
magic power of temperance, the aspect of affairs
has been wonderfully altered. Men of
different religious creeds, and different po-
litical opinions, have borne decided and
concurrent testimony to the spread of
temperance in Ireland, and the good fruits it is
producing. There is now peace instead of quar-
rels, industry instead of idleness. Irishmen are
improving in their worldly circumstances.'
When we state that it is a Tory journal which
holds this language—one of the organs of that
party, which, when Father MATHEW first com-
menced his grand experiment, styled him a
dreamer and visionary, and ridiculed his ideas as
Utopian and impracticable, our readers will
readily admit that the Temperance Apostle's
exertions must indeed have been successful to
have wrung such an acknowledgment from an
avowed enemy. In fact, so successful has Fa-
ther MATIIEW been in his comprehensive scheme
of working out the moral regeneration of his
country, that the Tories are now taking
advantage of his peaceful triumph to benefit
themselves ; and have actually the cool impu-
dence to assert that the pacification of Ireland is
owing, not to the spread of temperance, but to
Earl DE GREY'S. Government! Never was a
greater falsehood yet promulgated, even by ex-
perienced and unscrupulous Toryism. If Ire-
land be now comparatively tranquil, it is in spite
of Earl DE GREY'S halting Administration, not
in consequence of it. The real Pacificator is
Father MATHEW. He has achieved what Tory
Government after Government has been in vain
attempting for the last fifty years and upwards.

By arrivals from Berlin we learn that the
session of the Provincial States closed on
the 4th instant, having lasted twenty-two
days. The close of the session somewhat
resembled the prorogation of the British Par-
liament, with this difference, that the Royal
Speech was not delivered in a formal manner
from
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which they had deliberated on the different mea-
sures of State presented to them by his Mi-
nister, and expressed his high satisfac-
tion at the good order and discretion
which had marked their proceedings. His MA.
JESTY has adopted at least one point of the Char-
ter, for, on the Deputies closing their labours,
he ordered three dollars a day, with travelling
expenses, to be paid to each Member, without
distinction of rank. The proceedings altogether
do great honour to this excellent Prince, and
cannot fail to produce a lasting effect on his
grateful people.
The accounts from Hanover respecting the
KING'S health arc still very gloomy. According
o these, no symptoms of improvement have taken
place, and his MAJESTY continues to labour under
great depression of spirits.

We have perused with much interest the note
of Lord CUNINGHAME appended to the interlo-
cutor or judgment pronounced by him in a Non-
Intrusion case, entitled " The Rev. Mr. CRUICK-
SHANK and others against the Rev. Dr. GORDON
and others." The seven deposed ministers of
Strathbogie sought redress from the Court of
Session, because they had been deposed by the
General Assembly for obeying the statutory
law of the land, and had applied to the Civil
Courts for protection against previous incom-
petent sentences of suspension pronounced by
that body of which Dr. GORDON, one of the
ministers of Edinburgh, was moderator. His
Lordship gave judgment in favour of the plain-
tiffs, and adduced among others the following
arguments in support of his decision :

In so far as the Church claim the station and
privileges of a supreme legislature, their pretension
is essentially unfounded. In the words of Erskine,
they derive their whole powers from the State,