The Sun.
London, England, 1842-09-20 00:00:00

the smallest sum, indeed, with one exception,
since the liners were established in the year 1818.
Up to this time, the passage-money received from
emigrants enabled the ships to pay the expenses of
their voyages,• but, the season for emigrating being
nearly over, even that source of revenue is fast failing.
The uncertainty which has so lOng prevailed on the
subject of the tariff may have had the effect of dimi-
nishing shipments to the United States ; but the re-
moval of that uncertainty, by the actual passing of
a tariff unfavourable to English mEnufaetures as com-
pared with the last, will not, it is feared, increase ship-
ments thither: On the contrary, while the increase
of the duties on English goods must discourage their
export, the necessity of paying the duties in cash on
import will, it is believed by the best informed mer-
chants, deter parties from consigning goods to the
American market. Goods will, however, if they are
wanted, find their way, directly or indirectly, into the
United States.

We read also that a great number of emi- I
grants from England to the United States have
returned to their native country, to swell the
amount of those who are seeking here, in vain,
for employment. Willing as we are to hope the
best, and ready as we have been to speak and
think as favourably as possible of Sir R. PEEL'S
measures, these facts do not betoken the coming
of that prosperity which the nation expected
from his wisdom. Let it not for one moment be-
thought or said that he is not to blame for the
American tariff: That measure was passed by the
smallest possible majorities; and, without doubt,
had our Corn-law been repealed, larger majori-
ties` would have been on the other side. A free
trade in raw produce with England would have
procured a tariff favourable to us, or it would
have split the Union asunder. Had Sir R. PEEL
displayed half the sagacity, and demonstrated
half the respect for justice and honesty in dealing
with our own people that he has displayed in
dealing with the Government of the United
States, he would have been rewarded by a very
different tariff, and by seeing prosperity through-
out the manufacturing districts, where there is
now, nothing but decay and complaint.
As for the shipping interest and the merchants
of Liverpool, from their support of the Tory inte-
rest and restrictions on trade, and from their
fatal indifference to the struggles of their Man-
chester brethren to procure the abolition of the
Corn-laws, they seem to us to deserve nothing
better than distress and decay. The majority of
them have contributed to deny freedom of trade
to the prayers of their suffering countrymen, and
if the calamities which they have contributed to
'bring on others are now reflected on themselves,
it will be, a just retribution., Nor can we con-
clude, when we reflect on the wealth and power
of the manufacturing districts, on the small
number of the mighty host of merchants and ma.
nufacturers interested in trade who were mem-
bers of the Anti-Corn-law League, and on the
feeble support that excellent body received
from the leading men of the manufacturing
districts—that the manufacturers are them-
selves blameless far the injury and ruin
which threaten them. Had they displayed
half the energy in resisting the spoilation of
their property, and the property of their indus-
trious and skilful workmen, by the law-making
landlords, which. they have of late displayed,
and justly and properly displayed, in defending
that property against the spoilation of the Turn-
outs, they would not have had to deplore a
stinted trade and an infuriated populace. We
make such remarks much more in sorrow than
in anger, much more in a spirit of deep regret
than reproach, but we :cannot in justice censure
the Minister and spare the people.
In this country public opinion is more powerful
than statesmen ; and when the public councils
are for a long period misdirected on any great
question, the electoral body is more to blame
than the Ministers. Above all, when honesty
and justice are openly trampled under foot by a
class legislature, and the public acquiesce in the
gross outrage, the public is the party chiefly in
fault, and on it will, must, and does fall the suffer-
ing, the vexation, the decay, and the retribution.

Mr. GREG, at the conclusion of his letter on
farming in the Lothians, which we noticed yes-
terday, ascribes the superiority of the Scotch far-
mers to their superior education.

" I am inclined to think," he says, "the superior
and more practical education of the Scotch has been
at the bottom of the improved state of things. Edu-
cation has given the knowledge which has enabled
them to apply their capital with success, and to ex-
tract from the landowner the long lease which enables
them to invest their capital with safety as well as
success."

Considering the improvement of agriculture
to be of vital importance to the well-being of the
community, opinions relative to whatimpedes or
promotes its success ought not to be lightly
hazarded, and it is only, therefore, after some
reflection, that we venture to differ from Mr.
GREG. It' education were a source of the supe-
riority of the Scotch farmers, as the same sort
of education is accessible to all classes in
Scotland,it should produce as marked a superiority
in the other classes as in the farmers ; but
though the Scotch make excellent merchants,
doctors, manufacturers, &c., &c., they cannot
boast of such an undisputed superiority for these
classes as for the farmers. Moreover, it should
he remembered that the country gentlemen
and noblemen of England are farmers, and their
education is equal to that of the Scotch. Fur-
ther, we must remind Mr. GREG that the Scotch
have possessed their superior education for two
centuries, while their agricultural improvements
are of a much more modern date. Down to a
comparatively recent period they were behind
the English, from whom they borrowed much
of the art. Their superiority is of very modern
origin indeed. Besides, the art of agriculture
can only be effectually learned in the fields, and
no scholastic or book education can make men
farmers. We dissent, therefore, from Mr.
GREG'S opinion, that the superiority of the
Scotch farmers is due to their education, and
would request him, as it is of importance to the
subsistence of the community that no mistake
be committed on this point, to re-examine his
opinion with some care.

Admitting that the education of the Scotch
may have some influence, we are inclined to
think, that the banking system of Scotland has
bad more. Our impression, too, is, that the
tenant-at-will system—the immediate offprin,,
in England of feudal servitude—never took such
complete hold of Scotland as of England. Pap:
ments in kind were continued to a later period in
the former th7.tr in the latter country ; and when
they were abolished, the advantages of leases
being pretty well known to.all parties, they were
generally adopted. Add to these circumstances,
that till the year 1834, tithes were not commuted
in England, and that in the bulk of the parishes,
the crops could not lag ,orried till the tithe-
owner had taken his allatied share ; and it seems
to us that more stringent causes for the back-
ward state of English agriculture will be found
in our laws and institutions, than in any defect
in the education of the agricultural classes.

Remembering the immense advances which
England has made in manufacturing skill, the
question a
much larger than it has been stated
;,y l;ir. G IS
R'
The comparison of the back-
r
madness of the i
o ns
t agriculturelfi irteallaidr a
Cheshire and the isofonllYncalls)fal particular
rs of England should be not
know why the farme
instance of more general truth. We. require to
only behind' their
brethren in Scotland, but
why they should be
so much behind their
brethren in the towns of England, that they can-
not
live, as is said, unless ,they be allowed to tax
other people; and while the manufacturers suc-
cessfully compete with, and even surpass, all the
world, English farmers must be protected against
the competition of the American backwoods-
man, destitute of roads, and the Polish serf;
almost destitute of tools. Why, of all men in
this empire, should the farmers be so deficient in
energy, that they' seem not to belong to the same
conquering, domineering race, as the rest of the
community, and always ready to sink, without
the help of an unjust latV, under ,the few diffi-
culties of their position ? That is the large in-
quiry which Corn-laws and agriculture in other
countries suggest, and which Mr. GREG, who has
seen only a small part of it, has not satisfied.
As the inferiority-of the English to the Scotch
farmers is traced to our laws and institutions, so