The Sun.
London, England, 1827-12-28 00:00:00

to the gerreral good ? for if necessary, they are justi-
fiable. Smith considers the influence of the Poor
Laws on labour merely with reference to the ine-
quality of wages in different places. But we have
the experience of Ireland to show us that wages
may he-very equal every where, and, at the same
time, very low every where ; and if we do not take
heed, NVC shall soon have the further experience of
wages being every where as uniform in England as
in Ireland, and as low. The grand question is, did
the Poor Laws, upon the whole, keep down the
supply of the labour, so as to prevent it from being
any where greatly redundant ? Now the very

cumstances urged by Smith as objections—that
man, with a wife and family, who should attempt to
transfer himself to another parish, would be sure of
being removed; and if the single man, who
was allowed to reside by sufferance, should af-
terwards marry, he would generally be remo-
ved likewise—prove that the Law of Settle-
ment have served to keg! down the numbers
of the people, and consequently to keep the wages
of labour higher on the whole than they would
otherwise have been. Before the system of en-
couraging a redundancy of labourers had been acted
on, which converted the whole labouring population
into paupers, there was a marked distinction be-
tween the pauper and the industrious labourer, and
the latter would not marry under circumstances
which prevented him from suppoiting his family by
his labour. That any great tyranny would, how-
ever, take place under the system of strict settle-

anent, we do not believe, because though it might
be for the interest of men of substance to prevent
the increase of the poor rates, it was also their in-
terest to prevent wages from being much higher in
their own parish than it was in another. One ex-
cellent effect resulted from the power of removal.
Those labourers who lived in a parish on sufferance,
found it necessary to recommend themselves by their
good behaviour, and they were generally models of
industry and correctness. They had, too, the
most powerful of motives for exerting them-
selves to acquire a sufficiency of property to
secure their residence in the parish of their adoption.
But the Political Economists tell us that tho Poor
Laws tend to encourage improvidence, by releasing
men from the dread of suffering front want, and the
infirmities of age. We may allow, that to a certain
extent, they have this tendency; but then we con-
tend, that the dread of suffering from wane in old age,
would operate far less in the way of restraint on
uninstructed men, such as actually constitute the
labouring population in every r•Orintry of Europe,
with respect to marriage, than the positive impedi-
ments thrown in their way by Poor Laws and Laws
of Settlement. A labouring man in his youth, is
not disposed to look forward to the decline of life;
but listens to the impulses of passions. He sees the
future through the deceitful mirror which his inclina-
tions hold up to him. These restraints, which per-
sons of property interested in keeping down the
poor-rates will infallibly oppose, are much more
likely to be efficacious, than those which he will
impose on himself. Till lately no pauper could
marry, and no pauper ought to be allowed to
marry. If there was no opening for a married
man in his own parish, and if the attempt
to marry in another, led to his removal us a
pauper, the labourer found himself governed by cir-
cumstances, to which Ins inclinations were forced to
yield. It is allowed by all political economists,
that in all old countries there is a tendency in the
people to increase faster than the means of subsist-
ence can be increased. It is allowed, also, that the
lower the condition of a people, the stronger that
tendency manifests itself among them. The ten-
dency can alone be counteracted by direct restraint,
or the indirect restraint imposed by prudential con-
siderations. But all the political economists allow
that the condition of the people is every where sunk
so low, that the tendency cannot be counteracted by
their prudence, consequently that they are in circum-
stances which will every day diminish their ability
to resist the evil which is pressing them downwards.
When they talk of the influential considerations,
they talk of a people already sufficiently elevated, to
he able to listen to such considerations; but as Mrs.
Glasse says, you must first catch your fish—you must
first raise your people. When you have raised them,
they may receive youi lectures, addressed to their
prudence; but, in the mean time, they must be
placed under restraint. We are, therefore, strong
advocates for retracing our steps, and ren-
dering the Law of Settlement mere rigid.—
This, and the imposition of penalties on Clergymen
solemnizing improper marriages, and the punishing
females under the Bastardy Laws, instead of making
these laws serve as an encouragement to transgres-
sion, the female who first sins being first married,
and the power to the majority of proprietors to tax
cottages arbitrarily, would enable parishes, when
once free from redundancy, to keep themselves free.
Ey closing the door against emigrant labourers from
Ireland, it would necessitate some legislative mea-
sure for the poor in Ireland, a measure indispensably
necessary to the tranquillity of that country. Were
there Poor Laws and Laws of Settlement in Ire-
land, absentee proprietors would soon find it for
their interest to rid themselves of estates which
could be managed to much better advantage by re-
sident proprietors. We must raise the character of

the people of Ireland, or to
their own level; and we know of no means so likely
to be efficacious as the closing English parishes
agifinst Irish poor, and forcing Irish proprietors to
exert themselves in improving their estates, under
the penalty of being eaten up by beggars.—Morn-
ing Chronicle.

A report has been very general for these last two
days that a change is about to take place in the -Mi-
nistry, which would give it altogether an exclusively
I,l7higgish complexion. And as a necessary accom-
paniment of this, it is added, that some change has
taken place in a high quarter on the subject of the
Catholic Question. This may be so, but we must
have something more than mere report before we
credit, at least, the latter of these assertions.—
Morning Herald.
Much has been said by most of the Ministerial
Papers respecting the Turkish and Egyptian squa-
drons having commenced the fight, and that there-
fore our ships were justified in destroying them. But
what would our King or :the people have said, if a
French, Russian, and Austrian squadron had en-
tered Portsmouth harbour, while a fleet of ours had
been in that. port, and the Commander-in-Chief of
the supposed Allied squadrons had sent in to say to
our fleet, " If you dare but fire a single gun, we will
destroy you ?" And if such Allied fleet had en-
tered, and our ships had not given them a broadside,
as soon as they possibly could with effect, what
would people have said ? To enter a port in order
of battle, and to suppose that they would not be
fired upon, is to suppose that the Turks and the
Egyptians were not men. But the latter proved
to be braver men than the people of England sup-
posed them to be. As we have before said, we do
not like the business ; and it was impolitic for Eng-
land to be at the head of such an alliance. And for
whose benefit ? Not England's, but Russia's, in the
long run ; and time, we think, will prove
The chief ground upon which the Administra-
tion will defend the Greek Treaty in Parliament is
understood to be, the declared determination of
Russia to undertake the settlement of the dispute
between the Porte and its subjects, and the neces-
sity to which the British Government was reduced
by this determination either to unite with Russia
for the attainrneut of that object ; to maintain the
unabated supremacy of the Ottoman Power at the
hazard of a war with Russia; or lastly, to stand
aloof, and leave Russia the sole arbitress of the
affairs of the East. Assuming the determination of
Russia to have been such as is here described, it
behoved the British Government to appreciate accu-
rately the motives which dictated it, and to regu-
late the conduct of England with reference to them.
To be convinced that a regard to suffering humanity,
a desire to extend the principle of political freedom,
01. an affection for the cause of national inde-
pendence entered not into the views or motives of
Russia, it was only
necessary to recollect the cha-