The Sun.
London, England, 1827-02-03 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF Tin PUBLIC JOURNALS.

It is a curious • novelty for any subject of European
Kingly Governments, to observe a circumstance which
now engages the attention of a Committee of Congress
in the United States of North America. Mr. Calhoun,
Vice-President of the United States, was some years ago
at the head of the War Department—an office which, if
it did not give him a formal authority to make contracts
for his branch of the public service, must have placed in
his hands great influence, at least, as to the choice of con-
tractors, and to the arrangement of terms. A charge is
now brought against this high officer (the second in the
Republic), it seems, of having dishonestly shared in the
profits of one of the contracts so entered into with the
Government. The accusation is without ceremony lodg-
ed in a public office. It thence becomes an official docu-
ment, and Mr. Calhoun goes the straightforward way to
work, by addressing a letter to the Speaker of the House
of Representatives, declaratory, indeed, of his scorn at
such a charge, but anxiously urgiiT the House to put it
'immediately into a course of investigation by the appoint-
ment of a committee, which is done accordingly, nemine
contradieente. A slight contrast may occur to 'the fancy
of an Englishman, between the way in which inculpatory
charges against men in high office are brought forward and
met, amongst ourselves, and across the Atlantic. There
are more mouths made about such dangerous proceedings,
by gentlemen of all parties here—Hon. Gentlemen are apt
to complain of persecution, of calumny; of the hardship
of being forced to defend themselves against such cruel
accusations—official personages feel it a point of ho-
nour to give way with reluctance when pressed to
institute inquiries—the first impulse is generally to
throw an embroidered mantle over the accused col-
league, and so wrapped up, to bear him away from
the field—the people are told that nothing can be
more impolitic than to "encourage" such attacks on "pub-
lic men"—that exaggerated, improbable, and malignant
complaints have been made—that reports, satisfactory to
official personages, have entirely refuted them—and that,
if high functionaries are thus for ever exposed to run the
gauntlet of slanderous and undeserved reproach, no man of
birth and fortune will think of accepting a place under the
Executive Government. Nothing of all this is to be found '
among our neighbours : they have no pride of " birth " to
be mortified; no fear of evil from public challenges of their
official integrity and honour; they confess, like Mr. Cal-
houn, in his letter to the House of Representatives, that
the " conduct of public servants is a fair subject of the
closest scrutiny and the freest remarks ;" no law of libel,
there, pouncing upon any man for the honest avowal of
his sentiments, though it should haply bring the admini-
stration of " Government into contempt ;" but the charge
is made—the accused party calls at once, and in peremp-
tory accents, for inquiry; his friends do not make excuses
to parry the investigation—they join him in eagerly de-
manding it; the Government does not presume to inter-
fere, although on behalf of the Speaker of the Senate, and
Vice-President of the United States; the people and the
defendant are brought directly face to face—there stands
no bulky aristocracy between them—there is not through-
out the whole of the United States a single public
officer bearing the style and title of " Lord Charles."—
We have :remarked among the American papers, an
article in the shape of a political disquisition on the
relations between Great Britain and the United States,
which, after spinning out a good deal of republican com-
mon-place, tells us that our old contempt for their country
has " assumed the strange feeling," (and a strange one it
certainly would be, and not particularly intelligible to us
how " contempt" could " assume" it) of " mingled fear
and friendship." Now, we do believe, that there is some
real friendship, something of the warmth of relationship,
felt by numbers of enlightened Englishmen towards the
United States; and that from the prevalence of this feel-
ing among the wise and manly part of the nation, it is
affeced, for fashion's sake, by others who do not feel it.
But the Americans would do well to cease flattering them-
selves, that the Englishman who is weakest in intellect
and spirit, has ever yet suffered one particle of fear to
mingle with his sentiment of friendship (whether that
friendship be well or ill merited) towards the United
States. If the. stupidity or carelessness of our Ministers
has given the RepQblic advantages by treaty, to which by
war she had not been entitled, there is nothing easier than
to mend our hand at negocib:ting; while at fighting, should
(which God forbid!) an unfortunate necessity for such an
appeal be again imposed upon us from the same quarter,
we respectfully hope that we have not furnished friends
or enemies with much solid cause for " contempt," It is
announced that Congress will refuse to make any altera-
tions in their tariff of imports : then, of course, that body
must rest satisfied with the existing prohibition of all
commerce between the United States and the British
Colonies.—Times.

By more than one notification it has been made known
to the Members of Parliament, that the debate on the
Corn Laws is to take place, or rather to commence, in
the House of Commons, on Monday the 19th of February,
instead of the 12th, the Monday preceding, and the day.
mentioned in the notice paper of the House. Upon Mon-
.day, the 19th, therefore, this important question will, in all
hinzian probability, be opened. It is remarkable how little
stir, comparatively, has been made by the landed interest
to raise a;'Y opposition to the general change of system ;
perhaps they' reserve themselves, as we have often advised,
for a conflict on
the scale of duty; perhaps, also, they may
.
feel shame at takin; any steps against the commercial and
manufacturing intecests;; now so evidently depressed and
suffering. There are three' things remarkable at present,
respecting which the theorists have all argued that it was
impossible they should be coinciti6Dt. Bfead is cheap—
the farmers are well off—and there is no such quantity of
paper in circulation that it may not be exchanged for gold
at will. If when the quarter!' loaf was at a shilling, any
legislative measure had been proposed, the effect sought
for by which measure should have been to reduce the loaf
to its present price, about Sid., the cry would have been,
that at least a third of the land would go out of cultivation.
The loaf has sunk of itself, corn is cheap, and no land has
gone out of cultivation ; or if any have gone out of culti-
vation on one side, more has been taken in on others, with
the increased produce of virgin crops. With respect to
ciren,;lting medium also, the Bank resumed cash payments
before is was obliged by law, and still continues them ; and
though co,iintry banks have small notes in circulation, yet
yet it is in moan quantities, and not only under compul-
sory limitations, but under a very wholesome fear, in-
spired by the miscaief not yet forgotten. We leave it to
the world, therefore, to judge whether Ministers need
have any dread in dealing as freely with the Corn Laws as
with any other commercial question ; or whether the agri-1
eulturists need predict ruin to themselves and their suc-1
eessors, should the traffic in grain be rendered as free as
that .in other articles.—lbid.
We lately alluded to the resolutions of the Berkshire
Mailitrates against the growing practice of paying the
to
wagA es of labour out of the poor's rates. There would, in-
deed, see-- be
• ''' now but one opinion as to the mischie-
vous opeaktion of this
Magistratea,evftivi practice • and, accordingly, the
observationi condemn it. The folow-
er! made by Mr. Estcourt, in his
choir to the Grand
ury, at the late Wiltshire Quarter-
SessiCtis .

- .
" Ltttie,p. says he, a is obtained in
who are not benefitted by thenlat
in thus, unjustly, taxing those
is lost in the defect of the labour 4r- . Much, depend upon it,
oobtaine.d—in the extinction of
every natural and honest tietinctiiivme
ustetaxertion—in the sacrifice of
that pride of character,
bodied individual will condescend to be ke
place,. before an able-
to accept of alms as the remunerationcforre.aerwers
with paupers, and
which other-
wise might render him liidependent and
then, in your own parishes, I implore you, respectable. Inculcate,
makne ttrge others to
the e
tide of your
iuculate in theirs, a regard for character :
ground-
work of all your contracts with your servants ; let the
benevolence be guided by it; and take care that the
un-
impeachable character shall be placed in a situation so Tan of
n Par
a-
lily better than him of light character, as-to let hir4 find,enin the
Plabatenauce of that property (then Tendered valuable), anti int
3:

consequent happiness and comfort of his situation, a protectior,
against the ,assailments of temptation, if not an insensibility to
temptation, even when presented in its most seductive forms."
In another column will be found a communication from
an esteemed Correspondent, in which he combats some of
the observations made by us on the subject of this practice.
Perhaps in the main there is little difference between our
Correspondent and ourselves, with respect to the practice
in question. It certainly indicates a superabundance of
labourers; and as where, such a superabundance exists, the
competition of the labourers would immediately force down
wages to the level whence the allowances commence, one
of the first effects of the cessation of the allowances would
be to involve labourers with families in great distress, and
to increase for a time the number of deaths of children.
But this state of things could not be of long continuation;
for the wages of the labourers must be such as to support
them, and to enable them to supply to the country a suc-
cession of labourers. The wages would soon, therefore,
rise to the amount necessary for the support of the labourer
and an ordinary family, and that which he now receives
in the shape of rates he would then receive in the shape of
wages. But when the Magistrates first fell on this system
of paying wages out of rates, they anticipated from the
war a rise of wages, and they looked to it as a bounty
for increasing the future supply of labourers. It is dis-
tinctly stated in the Resolutions and Addresses of several

bodies of Magistrates, that the wages were rising; but it
3o happened, that there was a scarcity of food at the
same time, so that the wages did not rise in any thing like
the ratio of the rise of the price of food, and therefore the
allowance system was the more easily introduced. A rise
in the price of food would have lowered wages, instead of
raising them, and therefore the fact of a rise of wages
being simultaneous with the origin of the allowance sys-
tem, proves that there was then no superabundance of
labourers; and that had it not been for the interference
of the Justices, wages would soon have risen to an amount
sufficient for the wants of the labourers. The compla--
cency with which the Magistrates of the time spoke of
the allowance system (which, we allow, gave, for the mo-
ment, to the labourers, with large families, more than they
could have gained from the rise in wages), as a means of
keeping the future supply of labour above the demand,
and thereby keeping down wages, proves sufficiently the
designs which they entertained. If there were no allow-
ance system, the wages of the labourers would rise to
nearly the average of the counties in which that system
has never been introduced. Wages and allowances in
Sussex and Hampshire, for instance, do not amount to
more than wages alone in a county where the la-
bourers receive no allowances. As the race of la-
bourers must he continued in Hampshire and Sussex, as
well as in Northumberland, if there were no allowances
in the two former counties, the wages atone must soon
rise to an equality with the combined amount of wages
and allowances. At present the allowances are poor's-
rates, but in a short time they would be wages. When the
agriculturists, therefore, talk of permanent burdens affect-
ing the land, it is merely quibbling to consider the dif-
ference between wages and the full subsistence as a per-
manent burden, seeing the land could not be cultivated
with giving the labourers a full subsistence. Were
there no poor-rates, the wages would be the same through-
out all England. It is impossible, for instance, that seven
shillings could be paid in one county and fourteen or sixteen
shillings in another. Agricultural capital would flow from
places where 16s. were given to places where 7s. were
given, should labourers not remove from places where is.
were given to places where 16s. were given. What our
Correspondent says with respect to the Bastardy Laws, is no
doubt true. That these laws contribute greatly to the re-
dundancy of population, which prevents a departure from the
allowance system, can hardly admit of a doubt. There are in-
stances in the Roman Calendar of Saints (Santones, z. e. big
Saints the Italians call them), who, in the hey-day of youth,
successfully resisted the temptations of the loveliest women;
but, generally speaking, in these degenerate clays, there are
few young men able to imitate Joseph. Now there is not
a girl in a parish of England, who does not know that the
'moment she is in a way of becoming a mother, the parish
officers will find her a husband. The consequence of this
is, that if the women do not seduce the men, they at least
offer very little resistance to them ; and that the consum-
mation of marriage in almost all cases precedes the mar-
riage ceremony, instead of succeeding it. From an article
we copied a day or two ago from The Bath Journal,
giving the number of prisoners in Devizes House of Cor-
rection, and the causes of their confinement, it appears that
there were 18 persons confined for bastardy. These of course
were refractory persons, who were disobedient to the Over-
seers. On an intimation of their readiness to quit the prison
for the church, their prison doors would have flown open.—
These of course were merely the exceptions; for, in
ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, the sinners would pre-
fer a wife to a prison. Can we wonder, that, with such
diabolical laws (and we charge all the evil on, the Magi-
strates and 'Squires, for, as Sir James Graham observes,
all power is vested in them), there should be a vicious
and redundant population in every parish ? When
Howard visited Wiltshire in 1779, the prisons of Wilt-
shire contained :—Devizes, 1 debtor, 14, petty offenders—
Salisbury City Gaol, 1 debtor, 1 felon—Marlborough, 4
prisoners.—lt appears, then, that there are as many per-
sons confined in one single prison in Wiltshire, in the pre-
sent day, for bastardy, as there were debtors, felons, and
petty offenders, in all the prisons of "Wiltshire in 1779.
How rapid the progress of improvement in this coun-
try !—Oh, the blessed effects of the dominion of 'Squires
and the Unpaid !—Morning Chronicle.