The Sun.
London, England, 1842-09-06 00:00:00

*EtottblZbition

SFIN OFFICE Three o'Clock.

The combinations of workmen to raise wages in
Lancashire and other manufacturing districts, is the
subject of a leading article in the Herald of this-
morning. As the Herald is one of the advocates of
the Corn-law Monopoly, which produced the late
strike by enhancing the price of bread, our readers
may be curious to hear by what line of argument our
Contemporary seeks to convict the operatives of all
the folly and guilt which those who administer the
laws now charge them with. Hear, then, what the
Herald says upon the subject :
" Can they [the working classes] suppose for one
instant that capital, unless it has perfect freedom and
independence of action. will continuo to sojourn
amongst them ? The spirit of capital is the most
ethereal spirit that ever visited this every-day world
of ours. Attempt to lay a hand upon it, and it
vanishes from the haunt which has ceased to
afford it security, and will seek safety in some ob-
scure retreat, if it cannot find some other spot
where the blessing of its presence would be better
appreciated. To attempt to coerce it by such a
confederacy as we have adverted to would be to
chase it away with rods of iron ? Is this what
the misguided men want ? Do they suppose that
they will fare more sumptuously when they have
exiled or destroyed the capital which has actually
called them into existence ? Do they imagine that
their labour could be so profitably employed without
the assistance and direction of capital ? If they sup-
ply half the markets of the world with the works of
their hands, it is capital alone which enables them to
command their monopoly. it is capital alone which,
by combining the ingenuity of one with the industry
of another, the fancy of the designer with the manual
dexterity of the weaver, enables them to enjoy all the
benefits of co-operation. Capital in relation to labour
is the belly to the members ; and would any man
strike himself in the stomach to cure a spasm or a
heartburn ?"

Instead of the " working classes" read " landlords
and legislators " in the first sentence of the above ex-
tract, and what an excellent exposure have we here of
the wickedness of Parliamentary meddling with tariffs,
sliding scales, and other impediments to the free
investment of capital ! If capital be " the most
ethereal spirit that ever visited this every day
world of ours" —if it elude any attempt
to touch it by vanishing from the haunt
where it before appeared, wherefore do Tory
statesmen seek to fetter it by a system of artificial
starvation ? Any mischief done by the turn- out of
workmen is but temporary ; but not so the operation
of laws for keeping up the price of food, which have
the double effect of making bread dear, and closing
the bread-producing markets of the world against the
products of capital. The arguments of the Herald
are arguments in favour of a free trade—a trade as
unfettered by human legislation and the coercive con-.
trol of combined workmen or capitalists as the winds
that waft the condor to the peaks of the Andes,
or the waves that roll over the wide surface
of the Atlantic. Now, this is the doctrine
of The Sun: To the Legislature we say,
leave capital and labour to make their own bargains
and adjust their own differences. As they do not fix
a price upon their products, let them procure food
wheresoever and as cheaply as they can. They will
be sure to make the home grower the first offer, and
that is enough for him, seeing that they seek not
to compel him to consume all their wares
at arbitrary prices. But the temptation to rob the
capitalist and the operative is too strong for the
landlords' sense of honesty. The logic which is ex-
pected to convince the working men makes no im-
pression upon them—and hence the Corn-laws, and
the sugar duties, and the timber duties, and
the cheese and butter duties, and the fresh
and salt, quick and dead beef, mutton, pork,
and all descriptions of meat duties ! What a
set of plunderers of the poor—what a horde of de-
stroyers of capital, must not the Tory members of the
Legislature appear in the eyes of our venerable Con-
temporary the Herald!

The inhabitants of Derby have lately had a speci-
men of the new system adopted by the Tories for the
uppression of public discussion, and preventing the
people from assembling and stating their grievances. On
Wednesday notices were stuck on the walls that a lec-
ture would be given in the theatre on the following
evening " upon the state of the country, and the ne-
cessity and safety of extending political power to all
classes of the people." In order to prevent this a
certain number of the Magistrates held a
secret meeting, sent for the lessor of the
theatre, and, by some means or other, in-
duced him to break his engagement with those who
had obtained his permission to meet in that building.
The lessor, however, who does not appear to be a man
of much firmness, again changed his opinion, and con-
sidering that a moral-force lecture could do no harm,
renewed the engagement a second time. The acting
Magistrates, on learning this attempt to defeat their
purposes, sent a body of police, who, according to
an address of the Municipal Electors to the Civic
Authorities, by " sheer intimidation," induced the
lessor to authorise them to eject the persons then
in possession, and the theatre was finally closed.
Now, had there been any reasonable apprehension that
violent language would be used, or any attempt made
to excite the hearers to commit a breach of the peace,
such precautions could not be blamed ; but when it is
known that the Lecturer is a man of peaceable habits,
that he condemns in the strongest manner every act of
violence, that the party to which he belongs have
separated themselves from the physical-force men,
and trust for political changes more to education and
moral improvement than to any schemes for amending
institutions, however defective, we can attribute this
conduct of the Magistrates only to a determination
on their part to prevent free discussion, and keep
down Englishmen by the military and police. Such
a system is entiely opposed to the spirit of the Con-
stitution. The people of this country have long con-
sidered the right of petition one of their most sacred
privileges; even in the worst times, for the last cen-
tury and a half, they have exercised it; and it will,
therefore, berather a hazardous attempt, in these days
of national improvement, to reduce the people to a
condition against which they often rebelled even in
barbarous ages. If they are not allowed to meet,
how can they consider their grievances, draw
up petitions for redress ? The one is intimately
connected with the other, and it therefore becomes the
duty of free subjects to resist this encroachment on
political rights, and join with the Municipal Electors
of Derby in using all lawful and peaceful means
to resist at once such a dangerous innovation. The
address is drawn up with moderation and firmness, and
aptly points out, in the following words, what will,
to a certainty, be the result
They (the Magis-
trates) may be assured that a stoppage of the lawful
expression of public opinion will ultimately induce its
unlawful expression in some way far stronger and
when free discussion—the great safety-valve of
Experience has ever shown that
more dangerous.
society—is put down, the pent-up feelings of the
multitude will gradually increase in intensity, until
they find vent in some dreadful outburst of popular
indignation."

The Madrid Journals received this morning are of
the 28th ult. Want of money continued to cripple
the operations of the Government. The Gazette of
that date announced the opening of a new loan of
forty millions of reals payable on the produce of the
Almaden quicksilver mines. after the expiration of
the Itoritscumn contract. This is something like
cooking the hare before catching it—a process de-
precated by the thrifty Mrs. GLAss. A report having
prevailed in the
Spanish capital that the Govern-
ments of Spain and Portugal were on bad terms, the
,
following article appeared
in the lbernia Madrid
paper of the 28th ult.
" The journals of Madrid as
well as some foreign
Newspapers, have been occupied for some days back in
remarking upon the state of our relations with the
neighbouring kingdom of Portugal. Groundingtheir
calculations upon premises which explain themselves,
the writers in these papers have proceeded to assert,
that there was a complete misunderstanding between
the Governments of the two countries, which might
lead to actual hostilities. So far from this being the
case, we can affirm, without fear of contradiction, that
the Spanish and Portuguese Governments are in that
state of harmonious relation which the proximity
of the two countries requires ; that neither upon
one side nor upon the other is there the slightest