The Sun.
London, England, 1842-02-15 00:00:00

01 parties had now agreed that the present Corn-law
could not be maintained, he laid down the
broad principle that trade was not a fit and proper sub-
ject of legislation. In the case of corn he qualified this
principle by admitting that if agriculture were subject to
any special burdens, a tax equivalent to these should be
imposed on foreign agricultural produce, and by stating
that when a species of production had been stimulated by
law, care should be taken not hastily to remove the stimus
lus, lest the capital embarked in the production be de-
stroyed, and bodies of men thrown out of employment..
The Noble Lord did not decide what particular taxes
our agriculture was liable to, but left that question to be
discussed in the Commitee. The last qualification we
have quoted he adopted, end concluded that so much
protection as was required from these two causes he was
willing to grant. While we admire and praise very
much the general tenor of the Noble Lord's speech, who
spoke as if• he had some feeling for the enormous evils
which the law has inflicted on the country, we canna
pass over his two admissions, adverse to the principles
for which we contend, without stating our reasons for
not agreeing with them.
Admitting, for the sake of argument, that agriculture
is subject to some special taxes, which we deny, the re-
medy is not to tax the people's broad, but to remove
those burdens from agriculture. If they must be borne
by some one, they ought to be equally borne by the
whole community. Taxes equally borne by the whole
community, Lord J. RUSSELL said, are .no justification
of a duty 'on foreign corn ; which is the conclusion he
ought to have come to on his own premises. Can any-
thing be more unjust than to tax the bread of every
man in the country, because the iron masters or the
cotton manufacturers are exempted from some tax
which the farmers must pay ?
Dr. ADAM SMITH'S remark, which Lord JOHN RUS-
SELL quoted, concerning not hastily withdrawing en-
couragement once given to production, was applied to
manufactures, but was extended by LordJOHN RUSSELL
to agriculture. We think it was erroneously so ea -
tended, for this reason—that the production of manufitc•
tures does not necessarily create a market co-extensive
with the production ; but the productions of agriculture
create a market co-extensive with themselves. If by
great legislative encouragement silk stockings were in-
definitely multiplied, that would neither increase the
number of legs nor the means of buying them. If, how-
ever, by similar means, indefinite increase were given to the
amount of food, that increase would be followed by a pap or.
donate increase in the number of mouths. On this grew
difference between the production of food and the pro-
duction of any other commodity, we affirm that the
principle which ADAM SMITH applied to manufactures
was erroneously applied by Lord JOHN RUSSELL to
agriculture.
Though every atom of protection were withdrawn
from agriculture to-morrow, there would be the same
number of mouths to be fed, and the same or a greatei
quantity of food required. Any artificial stimulus give!,
to agriculture in fact is so infmitessimal, compared to the
grand stimulus of increasing population, that the former
may safely be derided when it is employed to increase
agricultural productions, and safely be neglected when
a wiser policy proposes, after encouragement has been
unjustly, given, to remove it.
We will not further criticise the speech of the Noble
Lord, who was extremely happy in exposing the enorm-
ous evils which the sliding scale inflicts on the country.
It cuts up our trade with America, it puts the country
to a vast expense, it annually disturbs our monetary
system, and, without secaring our independence, ope •
rates as a prohibition, and limits emsessively our sup-
plies of food.
Mr. GLapsroNk; followed Lord J. RUSSELL, and we
cannot deny him the merit of great fluency and great
clearness. He also displayed a great mastery
of all the details of the question, and exposed
with great force the evils of a fixed duty, which he made
out to be greater than those caused by a sliding scale.
The united exertions of the parties will undoubtedly
make the country thoroughly hate both the plans, Here,
however, our praise of Mr. GLADSTONE must end ; and
a speech more worthy of a special pleader seeking to
vindicate a client from a charge, and less worthy of
a statesman endowed with a mind capable of grappling
with the great interests of a nation, and anxious to
promote them, we never heard.

Mr. GLADSTONE defended the Corn-laws, because
Corn-laws have existed for more than a century. To
say nothing of the alarming practice of justifying a pre-
sent wrong by a .former wrong, Mr. GLAMTONE ought
to recollect that for more than two-thirds of the period
Great Britain was an exporting country ; and that the
same policy which might not be injurious when our own
resources could more than feed our population, became
actually murderous after our population had out-
run those resources. The whole of his defence of the
Corn-laws on that ground was not worth the expenditure
of breath he wasted on it.

Mr. GLADSTONE seems to have studied the question
so minutely that he has lost sight wholly of principles.
Ile defended the- sliding scale by comparing the fluctua-
tions in other countries ; but no other country- is like
England, having a commerce with all the world, and
having a water carriage to almost every part of it, and
no country ought to have such little fluctuations in price
as England. Unless that main feature in England's
condition be taken into consideration, all comparisons are
absurd. Not only ought fluctuation in prices to be less
in Englaind than in any other country, but the price of
food, 'necause it is of universal use, and may be drawn
from all quarters, ought to be less than any other commo-
dity, notwithstanding the variations in the seasons,
which are never barren in the same year throughout the
globe. These are truths, apparently, far above Mr.
GLADSTONE'S comprehension, for he ridiculed those who
have enunciated them.

He borrowed a statement of Mr. Hustussort, too,
without understanding it. That gentleman had re-
marked, that a small excess or deficiency in the quantity
of food bad an influence on the price much greater
than the proportion which the excess or the deficiency
bore to the whole quantity. Of course, that teaches
that the evils of fluctuation, caused by this trilling ex-
cess or deficiency, can be remedied by a trifling export
or trifling import. Such an adjustment, by a compara-
tively trifling quantity, would infallibly take place, were
gentlemen like Mr. GLADSTONE not to interfere with
what they cannot fathom, and were they humble enough
to trust society—which they do not create, let us hint
—to the laws which call it into existence.
We cannot state all our objections to Mr. GLAD•
STONE'S laborious harangue. He was great when he
dwelt with emphasis and fervour on the possibility of
agricultural labourers being thrown out of employment.
and he was great in denouncing the Anti-Corn-law gen-
tlemen who entertain extreme opinions. Though he
was warm at the apprehension of agriculturists being
thrown out of employment, the Anti-Corn-law men
are expected, like saints, to be calm when their
congregations are starving at their feet, when their
mills are shut tp, and they are without
profit, and when they actually see thousands
of their ingenious fellow-countrymen reduced to that

very bituati al which Mr. GLADSTONE idly dreads•
Such language supplies us with a measure of the justice
of his party. They inflict immense present and perma-
nent misery on the manufacturing classes, on the false
pretext that, to do justice to them, some similar misery
may perhaps be the lot of another class. Ile has no

other ground for inflicting misery than his own idle
fears. The debate was adjourned.

The speech of Sir ROBERT PEEL on Wednesday, which
made but a feeble impression on the House of Commons,
has caused what our Gallic neighbours calla profound
profound
sensation" throughout the country. All accounts re-
ceived from the provinces this morning concur in de-
scribing the disappointment among the manufacturing
and working classes as grievous and universal. Nu
excitement at all resembling it has agitated
the people since the Reform crisis in 1832
The scene which occurred at Derby on the re-
ceipt of the news mentioned in Thc Sun of Friday,
showed
.the utter contempt with which the inha-
bitants . treated both the measure and its author,
and, though expressed in a different way, the feeling
• throughout the whole of the midland and northern
counties manifests itself with no less intensity and
bitterness. Manchester is up in arms and ready for
the affray. In a few hours was signed by more than 1,200
merchants, manufacturers, tradesmen, and other inhabi- I
trusts, an:address to the Mayor to convene a public tnee tirg,
for the purpose of considering what measures should be
adopted in " the present depressed state" of the country,
and his Worship immediately acceded to the request;
and appointed Tuesday the 13th inst. The meeting
held at Leeds on. Saturday requires no counnent. At
Sheffield the indignation is even still stronger. Party
differences are merged in the great question—class legis-
lation, and all Reformers are resolved cordially to
unite in demanding the total repeal of the Corn-laws,
Vote by Ballot, and Extension of the Suill-age.
Even the quiet cathedral city of York has caught
the contagion. Petitions are in the course of signature
at seven different places, and the walls are placarded
with stirring appeals like these :—" No time is to be
lost in the expression of the national disappointment."
" The people have always triumphed over every attempt
to crush them, and THEY WILL no so Now." The
Liberal Member (Mr. YoRKE) comes manfully forward
on the occasion, and thus addresses his constitu,?Lt.:,
" Our friends need not despair if they will be true to themselves,
but Representatives a minority can only prev:lll through the 4.