The Sun.
London, England, 1842-11-10 00:00:00

:

shown on the one hand,' and admitted, that the
present coittlition of the country is alarming,
that our institutions are imperfect, that our
policy is defective, that our Ministers inflict evil

on us ; and-we have it shown, on the other, that

those who make institutions know little or no-

thing beforehand of what will be their effects.
They labour completely in the 'dark. It is im-
possible that the clever men who write for these

journals can be so stupid or so immoral as to put
firth whole colturins of falsehood; and when w•e

find two opylosite parties substantially agreeing,
that the present system is erroneous and mis-
chievous, and that those who make the laws can-
not tell what will be the effect of any proposed
alteration, can we avoid concluding that the
distrust of public men with which the people are
reproached, is • a prodigious step in political
knowledge and political wisdom?
What the Post truly said of the Reform Act,
is applicable to a great number of institutions,
p,lrticularly to all institutions concerning trade.
They were originally framed in ignorance of
their effect, though society has adjusted it-

self with more or less annoyance to the prolrus

Lean bed. One of those who make the laws has
honestly but unthinkingly said that he could not

tell what would be the effect of enactments,
to which he had given his assent, in-
terfering with the supply of food. - The
Duke of RUTLAND, who probably guides more
votes in Parliament than his own, stated at
the Wal them meeting, to encourage the farmers,
that he did not know how the new laws would'
oper.ite. Not know I Is it true, as the Duke
admitted; is it true, as the Post argued; is it
true, as the Chronicle has shown, that men make
laws putting trade in shackles, taking away the
rights of free thought and free expression of opi-
nion, depriving some men of liberty and some of
life, consigning some to servitude, and elevating
others to dominion; taxing some, and dooming
them to poverty, to enrich others, without knowing
what will be the consequences of their arts? That
individual is held to be somewhat destitute of
common sense who shapes his conduct, with-
out having some reasonable ground for antici-
pating the consequences which will flow from it ;
and shall it be said that statesmen are rational
and wise who make laws affecting a whole
nation in utter and complete ignorance, whether
the resultS will be the weal or woe of mil-
lions? Yet such is now the doctrine taught
by journals of opposite parties, and well is it cal-
culated to annihilate all hope in the promises
and acts of public men. If the community be
almost plunged in despair, it is despair arising
from knowledg-e that those in whom they have
hitherto confided are unworthy of confidence.
There is, however, a distinction to be drawn
between results under our control, and those
which are not. When we say under our con-
trol, we mean that man knows they will happen.
When a watchinaker, for example, adjusts to-
gether all the separate parts of which a watch is
composed, he knows to a great nicety what will
be the effects, and he may even tell, from his
knowledge of the qualities of metal, nearly how
long the instrument will last. The same is true
of most of the common every-day acts of every
artisan in fashioning matter to his purposes.
'Confining ourselves to the ends they mean to
accomplish, and not assuming any.ideal standard
of perfect watches, shoes, and houses, to judge
the works of our artisans by, we are not accus-
tomed to speak of their prod tv•tions as imperfect.
On the contrary, we say of the h2st if them, they
are perfect instruments. They answer all the
purpose;. we intend theta to answer.
But the consequences and results of institu-
tions and laws are not under the control of man
in the same degree, or we.know not what will be
their effects, as we know the effects of making a
watch, a pair of shoes, or building a bridge.
Hence the Post affirms that every "human sys-
tem," not being watches, shoes, or Louses, "is
imperfect," and speaks of it as " being fraught
with practical inconvenience." Clearly these hu-
man institutions arc imperfect, because those who
make them have not the same knowledge of the
elements with which they deal, as has the watch-
maker, the shoemaker, and the carpenter. They
cannot foreknow the results of their own conduct
to the same degree, though the mighty interests
they deal with comprise the happiness or misery
of all the millions who make and use watches,
shoes, and houses. In this point the rulers of
society seem not to have profited by the lessons
of the last few years like the people. They
have not acquired a knowledge of their own
ignorance, and their own real powerlessness over
the course of society. Had they acquired that
knowledge, they would probably have the mo-
desty to let society alone ; they might then con-
clude, as they do not make it as a watchmaker
makes a watch, that it is part of the system of
nature, not of man's will, and then they might
perhaps doubt whether they were not endea-
vouring to subject a perfect system—if society be
a part of nature—to imperfect institutions. But
if they do not le this, the people will ; and
distrust in them and their professions must and
will increase.

We learn from the following paragraph of the
Leeds Mercury, to which we cannot give too
much prominence, that the distress in that great
scat of our woollen manufacture increases in-
stead of diminishing. We are afraid that
similar results are to be met with in other
places. The table of mortality, which we pub-
lished on Saturday, indicates something of the
kind in the metropolis, and makes us agree with
the Mercury, in saying, that we have a bad
prospect for the winter :
INCREASED DISTRESS IN LEEDS.

We regret exceedingly to find that the condition f
the working classes in this town is considerably worse
now than it was in either of the years 1840 and 1841,
bad as those years were. The most decisive proof of
this fact is to be found in the following return of the
amount of relief, given at the Leeds Workhouse, in
the months of September and October of the years
1840, 1841, and 1842 respectively :—.

AMOUNT OF RELIEF GIVEN AT THE LEEDS WORRIV)USE.
1840. 1841. 1842

September... £1,085 £1,198 £1,520
October* ... 1,523 1,796 2,139

£2,608 £2,994 £3,659
Thus it appears that the amount of relief paid in
the two months of 1842 exceeded that paid in the
corresponding two month.?..of 1840 by 1,051/. an
increase of 40 per cent. on the amount paid in the
year 1840 !

The following corroborative evidence was yesterday
laid before us by a trustworthy person, who✓ has made
clo3e personal inquiries of some of the principal stuff
manufacturers in the East Ward of this town. He
found that the amount of wages paid by three of the
principal firms in the eight weeks following the Ist
of September, in the three years, was as follows:

WAGES PAID BY THREE FIRMS IN THE EAST WARD,
IN EIGHT WEEKS OP SEPTEMBER AND OCTOBER,
1840, 1841, AND 1842.

1840. 1841. 1842.
No. 1
2
3

£1,821

£1,680

£919

Here it appears that the wages paid in 1842 were
only about one-half of the wages paid in 1840 ! Four
other firms declared that they had this year paid
one-third less wages in the months of September and
October than in the corresponding months of 1841.
In the same ward three flax mills have been closed,
the owner of one of which, however, has opened a mill
in another part of the town. It must be understood
that the reduced amount of wages paid does not pro-
ceed from a lowered rate of wages, but entirely from
the diminished quantity of work done. These facts
afford us a sad prospect for the winter.
* The month of October, in each of the three years,
contained five pay-days.

Thattahlre( le
1 others,
THE COLONlALanßdunors.
&gland for their distant
Diemen's Land —The Bishops of Van
Antigua are expected to leave
cesea inw htohewecroeurseo
a very few days.
conse-
crated last August,
The Lord Bishop of Bw•baedaoti.Y taken their departure.
16tH of September. '
the Rei''''r. Parry, left on the
ippninted the Rev. Charles Lawson,g t
M.A., morning
Rev. Prelate has
preacher at the Foundling Hospital, to the Archdea-
onry, and has nominated the P
Tomlinson,
church in
"ev- W Chamberlain,
Bishop of
M.A. to the incumbency of the principal*
; and the
he island, of Trinidad. Dr.
libraltar, sailed on the 20th of last month,
phiircompa-
nied by his two chaplains, the Rev.
ALA., fellow of Exeter College, Oxford Rev.
James Lonsdale, M.A., fellow of Balliol College. Dr.
W. Piercy:Austin, Bishop of Guiana, set sail from
Falmouth on Thursday last.