The Sun.
London, England, 1842-07-14 00:00:00

singing :

Vocal Music—Petition of pupils of the classes at Exeter
Hall, under the sanction of the Committee of Council on Edu-
cation, for such an alteration in the terms of the annual grant
for the promotion of education, as will enable the Committee
of Council to appropriate a sufficient sum of money in aid of
the expenses of conducting the classes now held in Exeter
Hall, and towards the provision of a suitable building for
these Schools (Queen's recommendation signified) ; to lie on
the table.

The cup of bitterness has been for the people some
time brimmed, and it only wanted this mockery of their
suffering in the name of
.the QUEEN, to make it run
over. We see by our correspondence that the propo-
sition has justly excited the indignation of the people.

Admitting that the use of machinery throws persons
out of employment, as asserted by the Pro-Corn-law
party; can anything be more unjust tan for the Legis-
lature to the supply of food, and enhance its price,
to those whom the progress of society has thrown out
of employment ? The present use of such an arguMent
by the Tories to account for the national distress, is
entirely and wholly irrelevant to the Corn-law question;
and it is only adopted, we believe, to divert the exertions
of the League from the breach they have made in the
Corn-laws, to resist a sham attack on'their own lines.

If all which the Tories say of the effects of machinery
be true, betwixt them and the effects of the Corn-law
there is a striking difference. The use and .extension
of machinery is not ordained by the Legislature—the
Corn-law is ; for the effects of the former, therefore, the
Legislature is not responsible, for the effects of the latter
it is. Should the former really be as injurious to a class
of the people as the irruption of the Europeans into
America has been fatal to the Red men, the Legislature
cannot help it. its duty is to protect all classes, and
every individual, in the full possession of his property,
and the free exercise of his rights. It is bound, there-
fore, equally to protect the owner Ofa self-acting mule in
its free use as the owner of a distaff or a spade. If the
exertions of the former should render the labour of the
latter less useful or valuable to other persons, the Legis-
lature must regard it as he regards the blight which
spares one man's field, and utterly destroys the crops of
another. The Corn-law, however, is altogether the off-
spring of the law-maker, it would not exist ex-
cept for him, and for all its effects, ' even the most
remote, for the effect of diminishing still more the value
of that labour which machinery has partly superseded,
he is responsible.

No doubt, Sir R. PEEL meant, by adopting the vulgar
argument of his party, to throw off from himself and the
Legislature all responsibility for the existing distress.
But that is far too widely diffused to permit of the
ex-
planation. It pervades Ireland where there is no machi-
nery as well as England where it abounds ; it is felt in
the agricultural districts us well as at Manchester; at
Nottingham, where no improvement kas taken place in
stocking-weaving, as well as at Bolton or Stockport ; in
the Whitehaven veal trade, where no steamers are ern-
ployed, and in the Liverpool foreign and home trade, in
which steamers abound. The wide diffusion of the dis-
tres.7, and its long continuance, completely disprove the
opinion that it has been, caused by the use of improved
machinery.,. 'Sir B. PEEL, in truth, knows that
the use of machinery, though it may change the
direetiOn of labour, always increases the amount
of employment; and it is worse than uncandid in him to
ascribe . the vast and general distress to the use of ma •
chinery. He seeks, by such a futile argument, to throw
on machinery the responsibility for the existing evils,
which belongs to unjust legislation. Rightly conlidered,
we are not sure that his conduct is not impious as well
as unjust, for he ascribes the blame, due to his own mis-
chievOns legislation, to Nature, or GOD.

LABEL WAFERS ON NEWSPAPERS.—A Correspondent
asks us, in reference •to the paragraph which appeared-
an our paper yesterday, concerning postage being
charged on a neWspaper fastened by a wafer with a few
printed words on it, whether mottos impressed on seals,
such as "Itepotidez vite," " All's well," "Be of good
heart," "Strike for a good cause," "Aide toi, et le ciel
t'aidera," will not. render a newspaper as liable to post-
age as a label wafer ? We cannot answer the question ;
but the decision as to wafers should put persons on their
guard not to seal up a newspaper and impress on it a
motto of any kind.