The Sun.
London, England, 1842-08-25 00:00:00

mand, and who drafted the surplus hands
from the agricultural districts, where they were
starving, are not to be blamed for having com-
plied with that demand, and are not, when it has
ceased to be made, exclusively to support the
labourers whom they employed as long as that
was for their advantage. At least the loan job-
bers, the money lenders, and the merchants,
contributed their share to the stimulus; they shared
the prosperity, and should now share with the
mill-owner the burden and the adversity.

reputation is ofimportance, and such an expres-
sion should not have been undertaken unless a
force could have been sent sufficient to ensure
success. Captain SMITH'S detachment seems
quite inadequate to cope with the large force of
determined marksmen which the Boers can
collect.

PUBLIC 11fEETINGS.—We have heard a great deal
lately of the Three Tailors of Tooley-street, who began
their addres, " We, the Public," but what is their mo-
desty compared to that of a Newspaper Editor or a
Police Sergeant, who, being alarmed at the horrible
effects of a meeting of 10,000 persons, styles his indi-
vidual apprehensions a breach of the public peace ? The
more numerous are public meetings, the greater may
be the reason for the apprehension of nervous men and
women, but the less reason is there for the public,
which the multitude constitute, being alarmed. Our
community offers to philosophic contemplation this
remarkable circumstance. The immense masses of
population which are or can be gathered to a
single point, quite overwhelm and annihilate all
sense of individual strength. The very condition,
therefore, of the community, is calculated to in-
spire individuals with a notion of nothingness and
alarm at their own self-annihilation. Now if this
kind of alarm, when it seizes hold of the Editor
of the Standard, or the Chief of the Home-office, or
any old woman, is immediately to be set up as a sign
that the public peace is endangered, and that meet-
ings of the people must be prevented, it may be
safely predicted that the internal peace of Great
Britain is at an end. The police will never be un-
employed; alarm must be continual; the public peace,
therefore, must be constantly threatened, and rows
and riots will be endless. People should learn to
accommodate themselves to their situation, and tole-
rate the millions, since they constitute the glory of a
State which levies and disburses 50,000,0001. as taxes.

Of the domestic stimulus to the same exertions,
we must notice first a succession of bountiful
harvests, which caused the price of wheat to fall
to 365. " The four consecutive seasons, from 1832
to 1835," says Mr. TOOKE, " were singularly
propitious to the growth of wheat; the wheat crop,
besides, being on an extensive scale, and on an
unproved state of cultivation, produced more per
acre, taking the kingdom throughout, than was
ever before known." Add to that a great and
successive reduction of taxation by the Whigs,
which left people more to expend on clothes,
&c., and those alterations in our political insti-
tutions which inspired all classes with hope and
enterprise. The people having had then com-
paratively little to spend on food, clothed them-
selves better, and their increased demands, added
to the demands of the foreigner, compelled the
erection of more factories. Thus arose a won-
derful stimulus to enterprise on all hands. No
less than 104 Joint-stock Banks were started in
Manchester and Liverpool ; the formation of
several railroads was begun, and the activity of
production was not confined to Manchester mill-
owners. Every part of society shared in the
impulse as well as the Manchester manufacturers.
The landlords and the farmers obtained higher
rents and increased profits. Even newspapers,
including the Times, obtained increased circula-
tion. All classes—the whole public—benefitted
by that prosperity, as well as the factory owners;
and the whole public must, and in fact does, bear
the burden of the present want of employment.
It is quite clear that for the stimulus arising
from reduction of taxation, the legislator is re-
sponsible; and though is not responsible for
the variations of the harvest, is responsible,
by confining our people to their own soil for their
food, for those excessive fluctuations which trade
would have remedied. His law kept up the price
of food artificially in England, it prevented the
possibility of exporting any when we had a
plentiful harvest, and kept corn out, by a high
duty, when we had too little. The law, there-
fore, forbad trade to equalize the effects of vary-
ing seasons at home and abroad, and aggravated
all the evil consequences, both of a bountiful
and a deficient harvest.

MONEY MARKET and CITY NEWS.
FROM THE MORNING PAPERS OF THIS DAY.
CITY, WEDNE2DAY EVENING.
CHRONICLE.—The youth who absconded with
4001. belonging to his master was found at Cam-
bridgelin bed by his brother, who went in pursuit of
him, and the plunder, we hear, was all safely stowed
under the pillow of the runaway.
The duty on foreign wheat advanced to 9s. per
quarter on Thursday last, previous to which there
was cleared last week at this port, at the Bs. duty,
about 600,000 quarters of wheat and 130,000 cwt. of
flour, and since the Ist of May, 1842, duty has at dif-
ferent times been paid in this port on the further
quantity of 220,000 quarters of wheat, making since
that time about 881,000 quarters.
'We understand that the firm of Beerbohm, Slaugh-
ters, and Company, general agents, but largely con-
nected with the corn trade, have been obliged to sus-
pend payment.
POST.—The high and undiminished price of bread
in the metropolis, as compared with the reduction in
the price of wheat during the last few weeks, which is
equal to nearly 20s. per quarter, is exciting a good
deal of attention and animadversion everywhere. It
is singular, and something worse than singular, that
first class bread has only been decreasedin price about
id. or at least ld. per 41b. loaf, when, according to
the fall in the best wheats, the price ought only to be
rigorously 6d. at most, where credit is given, 7d. per
41b. loaf. The fact seems to be, that bakers and
millers, hitherto overlooked, have been one chief
cause of popular discontent, by the high prices ex-
acted for an article of first necessity, without the
slightest justification. These " rogues in grain !"
SUN.—The prices of the funds remained steady
until the close of business, when Consols were 92 92k
for Money and for the Account ; Bank Stock,
169 170 ; India Stock, 2501 2511 ; Exchequer
Bills, Old, 51 53 ; New, 49 51 prem.
In Foreign Securities but little was done. The
prices, however improved and Belgian were
102 103 ; Dutch Two-and-a-Half per Cents., 52+
521 ; the Five per Cents., 102 102+ ; Danish, 83
84 ; and Brazilian, 65 66.
The quotation for Mexican was 344 35.
The Share Market appears to have lost somewhat of
the buoyancy of yesterday, but no particular cause can
be given beyond the state in which business is generally.
London and Birmingham were 181 183 ; Birming-
ham and Gloucester, 40 45 ; Great 'Western, 853
861 ; the Half Shares, 61 611; South Western 624
631 ; North Midland, 58 60; the New Shares, 28
29 ; South Eastern and Dover, 213 22 ; Eastern
Counties, 9 94 ; Northern and Eastern, 381 391 ;
Blackwall, 81 9; and Brighton, 33 331 per share.
The quotations for the Bonds were—Colombian,
20 201 ; Peruvian, 153 161 ; Portuguese Five per
Cents., 331 34; the Three per Cents., 194 201 ;
Spanish Five per Cents., 20k 21 ; and the Three per
Cents. 20 201.
The proposed American tariff, as published in The
Sun of yesterday, has created some attention. The
protection given to the manufactures of the northern
States of the union against those of this country, is
far beyond what had been anticipated; In viewing
the present document, it must be remembered that by
the Compromise Act, one tenth of the excess over
twenty per cent. levied by the former tariff, was
omitted on the Ist January, 1834 ; a like proportion
in 1836, 1838, and 1840, one half the residue on the
Ist Januaryin the present year; and the remainder on
the Ist July last; so that no higher rate than twenty
per cent. would now have been payable on any des-
cription of goods. By the present law, if it ever
come into operation, white cotton will be charged
30 per cent., dyed cotton, hosiery, and twist, each
25 per cent., an increase in the one case,
for one-half, and in the others for one-fourth of the
old duties. In woollen manufactures blankets of less
value than 75 cents. are to be raised from 5 to 15, and
above that, from 15 to 25 per cent.; hosiery and
yarn 25, and raw waste over 8 cents. the lb. to 30
per cent. From the mode adopted on calculation,
those charges will be in reality more heavy than they
appear, and as a similar advance has been in other
goods, the export of wheat to America forming a con-
siderable item in our annual accounts, those changes
cannot but prove a serious hinderence to our trade.
It was announced some time since in
the French papers, that an expedition had
been fitted out, and had sailed for the
South Seas with sealed orders. It was at the time
supposed to be for,the purpose of supporting the claims
of France to a portion of New Zealand, and in con-
sequence attracted some attention, but no alarm, from
the number of our vessels in that quarter. By intel-
ligence from Otaheite, via the Cape, a statement is
made which requires the serious attention of Govern-
ment. It would appear that the vessels in question
arrived off that island, inveigled some chiefs on board,
and by stratagem obtained a cession of the place. The
Queen subsequently discovering what had been done,
sent miosions to the Queen of England and the Presi-
dent of the United States, claiming protection. The
account is given in a straightforward way, and is
worthy of belief.

Great as was the influence of the demand from
America, it was not equal to the influence of the
' home demand, the variations in which, caused
by the reduction and the imposition of taxation,
and by the variation in the price and quantity of
food, were the main causes of the increased de-
mand for manufactures in the first four years,
and the falling off in the demand during the last
four years. We admit the fluctuations in the
demand for employment, but we contend that
they were caused by the benevolent law, that
they are not natural to trade, and that it is mons-
trously unjust to blame the manufacturer, who
suffers much from these fluctuations, for having
caused them. It is still more unjust to throw
the blame of them on trade, which would have
equalized the effects of the seasons, but was for-
bidden by the benevolent law-maker.

The demand for labour is always contingent on
the supply of food. It has pleased the AL-
MIGHTY to visit us, since 1838, with years of defi-
cient crops; the law throughout that period has
forbidden us to supply as easily and as much as pos.,
sible the deficiency. Provisions have been rot-
ting in the United States and Poland. They
were even cast into our own waters while our
people were a-hungered. The slackened demand
of the last four years was the consequence of the
deficient supply of food, and that deficiency
was mainly caused by the law which prohibited
the people from bringing it from abroad except
on terms which would not gratify the self-inte-
rest of the merchant. The law, then, framed on
the principle of benevolence, not trade con-
ducted on the principle of self-interest, was the
cause of the fluctuation in the demand for labour,
and must bear all the blame.

We see with much regret that her Majesty's
troops, though the detachment was small, have
suffered a severe defeat at Port _Natal, a settle-
ment on the south-eastern coast of Africa. The
official despatch recounting this occurrence ap-
peared in our Evening Edition yesterday. At the
period when a messenger was despatched to
Graham's 'Town with the intelligence, the re-
maining English, not amounting, it is supposed,
to 300 men, settlers and all, who had lost their
cannon, had to contend behind their intrench-
ments, which had already been twice attacked,
with a force of expert marksmen, amounting pro-
bably to ten times their number. The messenger
states that he heard some sharp firing about
Natal after he had left it; Captain SMITH, at
the close of his despatch, implies that he is
almost at the mercy of his opponents; it would
require at least three weeks from the date of his
despatch to convey assistance to him, though some
was immediately despatched, and we therefore
are afraid that his defeat has been fol-
lowed by a compliance with the demand of the
Boers, to evacuate "a territory which they call
their own." This is somewhat disastrous news,
both for the physical loss and the additional blow,
though it be a trifling one, which it gives our
reputation.

As far as we recollect the circumstances which
have led to this conflict, they are these :—About
five years ago a large body of the Dutch farmers,
or Boers, of the Cape of Good Hope, being dis-
satisfied with the English Government, and not
liking very much, we believe, the influx of
English settlers and English manners, collected
their cattle, their chief wealth, put their wives,
children, and household furniture into their
wagons, and, under regularly chosen chiefs, and a
regular organization, they emigrated beyond the
bounds of the colony. In quitting it, they in-
jured none of our compatriots, but left for their
use the land they had partly fertilised. They
went to seek a new home in the wilds of Africa.
After wandering for some time, and fight-
ing some battles, they fixed themselves in
the country of the Zoolas. From a chief
called DINGAU, they either took or pur-
chased the territory about Port Natal, one
of the best harbours on the coast. Here they
began to flourish, and the writer of a letter in
the Graham's-town paper says it " was hand-
some to see the pretty cottages and handsome
villages of thepeaceable Dutch farmers." They
established a kind of patriarchal government, of
which the Volksraad, a real representation of
the people, was the principal branch, and seemed
likely to forget in the new settlement the les
pleasant homes they had left. The emigration
of these people, amounting it is supposed to
between 1,500 and 1,800 families, their volun-
tary departure from a quasi civilisation to seek
new homes in the savage wilderness of Africa,
is one of the most remarkable episodes in modern
history. Nor was the loss of so many
opulent subjects creditable to the Colonial
Government of the Cape of Good Hope.
Unfortunately for the Boers, Port Natal had
previously been visited by the English, some of
whom had settled there. The English Govern-
ment now claims it as part of its territory, and
hence has arisen a new quarrel between the
Boers, who voluntarily departed from under our
Government, and the authorities of the Cape (.1
Good Hope. It seems they cannot escape from
its power. As to which party is right we will not

ow venture to give an opinion ; but the first at-

tempt to establish the authority of the British
Government at Port Natal has been eminently
unsuccessful. Lord STANLEY who, we take it for

granted, authorised or sanctioned the expedition,
for we remember that he stated in Parliament
that her MAJESTY'S authority was to be main-
tained at Port Natal, will be responsible, we
presume, as well as the authorities at the Cape,
for this disaster. We know that it is trifling in
amount, but everything that affects our military-

THE SUN, LONDON, THURSDAY EVENING, AUGUST 25, 1842,