The Sun.
London, England, 1829-04-15 00:00:00

which we strongly suspect has been exaggerated for

party purposes—was over-trading.
should have added the spirit of combination existing

To this we

among the workmen, but more particularly among
the weavers of Spitalfields—the place where the

distress chiefly exists—which has kept up a sort of
artificial stimulu', to the manifest detriment of

:hose sounder and more rational principles by

which trade, to be continuously successful, should be

regulated. It is not two months since a silk mann

tcturer, a friend of Mr. P. THomsoN, hearing

accounts of the unusual distress that prevailed in

.he manufacturing districts, sent for eome

:he most distressed operatives and asked them

whether they were willing to accept a job
that be had on hand.. They asked what he

would give ?he replied, sevenpenee a-yard ;on
which they requested time to consider, and actually
journeyed up to the great seat of the Legislature in
Spitalfields, from the members of which, after a long
discussion, they received strict commands not to
work at reduced prices. The job was consequently
refused, sent down into Essex, and there com-
pleted, and in the very first style of excellence, at
fivepence a-yard. At Manchester, the proofs of
this injurious combination are still stronger, for the
weavers there turned out some time since, for four
months in the year; and yet during that interval,
notwithstanding their distress—notwithstanding their
lamentations—notwithstanding their reported state of
utter destitution, they contrived to support themselves
creditably. Now, we would ask, is it for the sake
of these misguided individuals that Government is
to be called upon to change the whole system of its
commercial policy ? Are the interests of a great
nation to be sacrificed to the inconsiderate few ?
Is the Parliament of the United Kingdom to give
up its free trade regulations—to return to the pro-
hibitory system—and penitently confess that it has
been mistaken, because the Silk-weavers, binding
themselves by arbitrary laws of their own creation,
refuse to work under certain prices ? The ilea is
monstrous, and no man out of Bedlam can be hardy
enough to entertain it for a moment. Thus much
for the weavers ; as regards the throwsters, one
great proof against the notion that they require protec-
tion, or have been injured by the reduction of duty on
foreign silk, may be found in the simple and unan-
swerable fact that the quantity of raw silk has
greatly increased, while the thrown silk has dimi-
nished since the alteration of the duty.
There is but one way to benefit, not merely the
silk manufacture, but the vast commerce of Eng-
land generally, as also to disprove the lugubrious
statements of Mr. BARING, who for some time past
has been predicting that the commercial resources
of the country are gradually verging to ruin—and
that way is, by steadily and perseveringly, as time
and circumstances May suit, relaxing restrictive
principles, and returning to a less complicated
and freer system of trade. Let those who
the truth of this assertion, look to the
condition of the Wine and Cotton Trade in France
—over which the restrictive system has long exer-
cised a paramount interest—both which are now,
or at least have been till lately, in a state any thing
but flattering to the advocates of prohibitory princi-
ples. Mr. Hustg argued this point ably in the
House last night, and was followed by Messrs.
THOMSON and GRANT, who proved convincingly
that a departure from the Free Trade regulations