The Sun.
London, England, 1842-10-29 00:00:00

criminal die. But when the law says, punish
this man for seeking to obtain that work else-
where which he -cannot obtain in his own vil-
lage, with three months' imprisonment, he
ought not to be starved to death, or sent from
the dungeon with a broken constitution from in-
sufficiency of fbod. The torture of famine is not
a punishment which the law contemplates. If
Magistrates will take it upon them to give effect
to a system by which an offence of a venial cha-
racter is punished with more severity than the
law contemplates for the most heinous crimes,
on their heads be the responsibility. We are
far from wishing to contend for any improper
indulgence to prisoners. Nay, we are doubtful
whether the endeavour to make prisons anything
but places of punishment be not productive of
more evil than good. We wish to see the reform
which keeps men from gaols, and not the reform
which would break down the distinction between
poverty and crime. It has always appeared to
us that little dependence is to be placed on the
reform wrought under the constraint of a gaoler.
We wish to see prisons remain really prisons—
places not to be desired but dreaded by offenders.
ADVERTISER.—The Herald was at consi-
derable trouble yesterday morning to cry up the
demeanour of the ag-ricultural interest, in ccn-
trast with the proceedings of the Anti-Corn-law
League—the manufacturing- body, and the mass
of the people generally. The agricultural classes
never, in support of their own interests, did this
naughty thing, or that; never attempted to
rouse one portion of the community against an-
other; never sent nominees into Parliament to
maintain there the question of privileges against
rights; never struggled to buy every man's
opinion with gold; never convened meetings, ap-
pointed dinners, speechified at associations, all for
the purpose exclusively of their rents ; above all,
they never interposed against mauulacturing
protection, no, not they; they were superior
to such proceedings—they only knew that
the land " was the source of their country's
greatness," and, consequently, were only to be
disturbed from their calm and dignified course of
action, when the claims of the land were endan-
gered—the Corn-laws too rudely assailed ! Even
at length in the gigantic changes effected against
them through Sir Robert's modified sliding-scale,
only just think how magnanimously they have
conducted themselves ; still high in their majestic
serenity; not giving tongue; carefully refraining
from abuse; so meek, in short, as literally to be
brought to admit, that perhaps, the modified
sliding-scale and the new tariff, are fbr their own
as well as the country's benefit. Admira-
ble, indeed ! The Conservatives are truly
a prodigiously fine fraternity, and the very
Herald itself dare not gainsay it. But
suppose the Conservatives were in a different
position from what they are; suppose they were
in the comparatively depressed and oppressed,
hampered, straitened condition of the manufac-
turers ; suppose, not that they enjoyed a mono-
poly of all the advantages of the State, but that
they were prevented, by a monopoly of the ma-
nufacturers, from enjoying, not only not the
luxuries, but were denied the mere means of
gaining a subsistence ; suppose that prohibition
met them hero, restriction there, monopoly—
an engrossing of all the good things of man's
industry, everywhere;—would the Conserva-
tives remain passive ? Would they not fight a
breathless conflict, not for their rights, but for
extravagant privileges —not for independence
dear to all, but for selfish aggrandisement,
for absurd pomp, for just those kinds of patri-
cian splendour which mean the enervation of
the Wily and the corruption of the soul ? What
part of the kingdom would be free from Couser-
vative intrigues, from Tory conspiracies, from
even oligarchic swords and bayonets, if the
landed interest were the wronged, oppressed,
suffering victims the manufacturers and the
whole manufacturing population are ? But, on
the other hand, when was it that the plunderers
rebelled against the plundered ? What neces-
sity would there be for it? Are they to fight
against what is under subjugation? Will men
in the possession of all play time Quixotic
feat of rushing to contend with shadows—ofeon-
tending where nothing more is to be obtained ?
How silly the Herald is! What have the rent-
holders to agitate about? Have they not more
than any other body in the State—not excepting
even the Church—possess, or, relatively, have
any hope of possessing ? Why, common sense
says, instead of agitating, their policy is to re-
main quiet as mice—not to make a squeak, lest
any one should know they are there. The
wisest of them, of course, know this, and act
upon it; it is the fools among them only that,
like the Herald, make a shout to tell the world
how beneficent they are. But, then, have not
the Conservatives got up agitation, sowed dissen-
sion a: long classes, perverted the minds of thou-
sands with their gold, all for the sake of their
monopolies, their Corn-laws, their accursed feu-
dal claims? How was it at Aylesbury last year?
They met under the colours of therenowned Chan-
dos, for entering a loud and terrific protest
against the slightest diminution of their protec-
tion. How is it their Stanhopes and Richmond',
as well as Backinghams, raved in the last ses-
sion as they did about starvation—of the masses
being nothing to the consideration of preserving
rents at their fictitious standard ? The Conser-
vatives never stoop to what is undignified or in-
correct. No, never ! the Conservatives are your
class for keeping permanent the stability of the
nation ! Pretty statesmanship, that of the
Herald the laud, to be sure, the basis of Eng-
land's greatness; the culture of time soil, forsooth,
because it leaves her people, so "simple" and
so humble," the foundation of England's glory
and grandeur! What asinine preaching is this!
How worthy of the . Herald, and in consonance
with its habitual prating! So the Standard
would make us believe that it were happy for
Britain if the manufacturing powers were at the
bottom of the sea, and the Herald would tell us
that agriculture is the principle of her prosperity.
What answer could be given to such self-ex-
posed lunacies—what answer but contempt—or,
if not, let us burn our ships, and work our
ploughs, and see in what predicament we shall
find ourselves in one year after the experiment.
GLOBE.—The Post, the other day, chuckled
in time discovery that the amount of wages paid
in the Manufacturing districts had decreased in
the fifteen years succeeding the year 1815. We
have not at present verified the Post's figures;
and we do not exactly remember them ; but the
argument from a decreased remuneration of
labour in our manufactures in the fifteen years
succeeding the enactment of anti-commercial
Corn-laws—the argument from such a phe-
nomenon against the removal of its cause—is
well worthy the Post. Why, what did the late
Sir Robert Peel predict from the enactment of
the Corn-laws ? Precisely such effects as the
Post fancies it can somehow charge on free
trade, or turn into matter of abuse against
masters, and against machinery.
When the
landed interest of this country enacted
Corn-laws,se
it did, in effect, this. It constituted itself the sole
of and constant employer of labour. For
labour is co-extensive with the
poTreormof
that time
as we have said before, the power of
it. It; therefore, the landlords,
to this, had continued able to ,
- ee( all on/ a-
employingecrig
continued able to em-
bourers, they would
ploy
could buy
uayla_thiao:ie,
foreign luxuries
all, so long as they
have
h re employed them
them all; and
in exchange for
been theeffectivepay-
The landlords would have
the products of their labour.
I 1' • ofcourse, t ion sshare of and would have taken,
leaving master manufacturers and
tiemelalnvdolerdPs°
its products;
masters of timer
-I • to induce
a sufficient 'arc them to go
on working. fills is
labour.,%vhaotftit
the effect of the Corn-laws. A. mo-
nopolyexpected as
of food
operatives
of the supply —a monopoly there-
fore of the effective demand for labour—the land-
lords, in Or
ect, the great exporters of manzffac-
tures, and consumers of the imported luxuries.
Now this might have gone on prosperously, but
for one little disturbing cause. The landlords
might have continued the main effective em-
ployers of labour; they
might have kept in em-
ploy all the labour of the country, and had the
lion's share of its returns. But that this should
go on quietly and prosperously, i t was indispensa-
ble that the landed interest should continue able to
feed fully allthelabourers. We have their own con-
fession that they cannot do this. Then what is the
meaning of their Corn-laws? This is their
meaning. (We do not charge the landed inte-
rest, as a body, with perceiving it. We do not
believe diem capable of perceiving anything
very clearly, and we hope they are not ; for the
less their stupidity, the greater their guilt.)
This is the meaning of Corn-laws passed by a
landed class, which can't feed all the people.
We will extort by scarcity prices which a market
well stocked would not give us. We will feed
at hisit prices those who can pay them. Those
who -can't pay them may remnant unfed. Yes,
this is the meaning, and time only meaning, of
laws to keep corn out, passed by a class which
does not grow enough to feed us at home.
STAN D RD.—An article appears in this
day's Morning Chronicle under the title " The
Great League Fund," a designation which we
presume to mean the fund Hof "The Great
League," fbr, as the party confess themselves at
present somewhat out of pocket, they can
scarcely speak of their pecuniary, resources as
the "Great Fund of the League." The League
talks of closing the markets of the world against
us; of an axe laid to the root of our national
ry &c., all
prosperity; of embarrassments, imse ,