The Sun.
London, England, 1842-06-14 00:00:00

Froin Leeds an influential perton writes thus :

Since the Relief Society terminated: its benevolent labours
there has been no improvement in the condition of the dis-
tressed poor here but that to which I have before adverted,
nor is there any present prospect of any amelioration of their
nit°The emplo; ers are sinking r pithy into decay in
lcagrgdeniunii.bers, and means of employmtnt are this way weekly
reduced

One alarming feature, we think, of the general de-
bility which prevails amongst the peolle wu 11119ntiOnQd

to us by a -Dissenting Minister. It is no longer an un-
usual thing for members of his congregation who have
crept to church to faint when there from hunger.
AmOngst the poorer classes epileptic and other
fits are increasing, and the medical men ascribe
the frightful disorder to insufficient nutriment. '%V
were positively assured by a gentleman recently
come from the north, who is in the habit of visit-
ing the people, that he knows at this time three
houses, containing four f amilies, in which houses for two
days there was not .ne morsel of food. When the peo.
ple are in this wretched condition, having nothing; and
unable to procure anything, unable to buy anything, it is
a necessary consequence that there are many material
signs of distress. Grass farms, for example, which were
employed to supply them with butter and milk, are no
longer of any value ; and in the 'neighbourhooch
of Saddleworth, Stockport, and several other places,
such farms can find no occupiers,. and their produce no
purchasers. Owners of houses can find no tenants to
pay rent, and they are obliged to abandon them to tilt
hodlords for the ground rent. Several persons about
Nottingham and Leicester, who were living at their ease.
on the hire of the frames they let out to stocking-
weavers, have been reduced to beggary, and have taken
refuge in the wot khouse. A greater increase has takes:
place in the poor-rates within the last three months than
in the previous six months, and nothing but dismay and
ruin stare the manufacturers in the face.

The most extraordinary symptom of this is, that when
you meet with any of them by chance, they no longer dis-
cuss the price of cottons, but at what period the patience
of the people, or their physical strength, will be exhausted
They care nothing for the tariff ; they dread to see the
towns blazing about their ears ; they dread to hear of an
insurrection ; they know that the people are gathering
about the hill sides' to tell their griefs to one another ;
to plan means of redress—perhaps violent means ;
and all the talk of men and women, all Oh:
burden of their letters, are dreadful apprehensions.
To justify them too, we see that the yeomanry have
been ordered in some places to hold themselves in
readines ; in others, they have been sent out to drill; so
that if the poor are starving, the middle classes are suf-
fering► the worst forebodings. The Manchester Times
discusses the now important question " Will the people
fight or die," and the strangest thoughts are now engen-
dered in the heads of those who ere while thought only
of scorching muslin or piecing cotton ends. The dread-
ful poverty of the-people is generating a prodigious dan-
ger, which already can only be guarded against by great
additional expense and trouble. That will fall on the land
and on the farmers ; and those who have obstinately de-
nied justice to t!.e people will probably be taught, through
their pockets, that it would have been more politic to
have been honest.

It was reported about the House of Commons last
night, that the Ministers do not mean to carry through
an amended Poor-law this session. Such is the condi-
tion of the people in the different manufacturing dis-
tricts, that the law has been found inadequate, we be-
lieve, to give them relief. Thereto must be added, the
great increase of rates, which together make the Minis.
ters think it at present, it is supposed, unadvisable to
enter into any amendments of the law. The report is,
therefore, that they mean to divide their Bill into
two parts, one providing for the continuance of the
Commission, which they will pass this session ; the
other for the amendment of the law, in various particu-
lars, which they will allow to stand over'till next session.
If this report be correct, it bet?kens both an appre-
hension in. the Cabinet, and a speedier termination
of the session of Parliament than has generally been
anticipated:-

The Tory 'and anti-free-trade Press, can seo at a
glance, in the case .of France, the folly of
_protective
duties. The most ultra of our anti-commercial journals
cries out against the sacrificing " the bounteous match-
less-growths or.the soil of .France," in order "to create
a linen trade." In the commercial regulations of Eng-
land,they see nothing but mere protective duties to en-
courage deniestic industry ;".in the commercial regula-
tions of-France', they behold:. only absurd .prohibitions
which isolate Feanceouid destroy her prosperity: They
see at oritie ilie'rnefe in the eye of our eeighbour, but
they cannot be made sensible of the beam in our own.
To the. folly of Frances- it is ,said, England gives no
countenance; end the exatisple' Eitland 'is held up for
the imitation of Frame. But what is England at this
moment doing' by•her tariff, ainl the host of differential
duties which it contains ? ' Acting' on ' the very prin-
ciple- the,
anti-free-traders censure in France. In every
clause of that, tariffs in each of its separate columns up-
propriated: to different duties on foreign and rolonialpro-
duce, lies the principle that commercial prosperity can be
promoted by discriminating duties. That is the principle on
which French statesmen now act, and • the more or less,
so:as to make the principle just and correct in applica-
tion,- algebra cannot very easily solve. The French say
20 per cent. ad valorem on linen yarns is the right figure
to encourage native industry ; the anti-free-traders cry
out against its exorbitancy, and, for the same purpose of
protecting native industry, insist on levying a duty on
wbeat, which, when the price is 305., is twice the sum.
For the protection, too, of native industry in our colonies,
the pens' ns who condemn the folly of the French levy a
duty of 300 percent on sugar, another important article
of food. We rejoice that our anti-free-trade Contem-
poraries have found out the folly of the French ; it is
great, but the folly of the English. •is stupendous.:
The French only keep out linen yarn and ruin the linen
manufacture; the English keep Out food, and are, at once
starving a part of the community, and hastening the
decay of every manufacture in the country.
The Legislature, of course, cannot attain its object.
Neither in France nor in England does this protective
system foster the growth and extension of native indus-
try. It is in full vigour now, and has been for years, and'
never was our industry in a worse condition. It. is the
standing complaint of . the anti-free-trade journals, that
what the people want is not cheap food but employment
to enable them to find the means of purchasing fOod. In
that complaint lies the unanswerable proof that the pro-
tective system to.. encourage and foster native industry
is a calamitous and a terrible failure. Our cotton trade,
our silk trade, our iron trade, our corn trade, our colo-
nial trade; are all amply and admirably protected by
duties, and the consequence is that every branch of
industry is distressed, and in all employment is wanted.
Should the present condition of the country not make
the anti-free-trade party sensible of the existence cf a
huge beam in their eye, they must have been, fur some
fatal purpose, struck with judicial blindness.
But we have a Proof in detail to lay before them of
their error. .In a petition lately presented to the
House of Common; by Mr. M. PHILLIPS, from the
Manchester Chamber of Commerce, it is remarked that,
notwithstanding the enormous bounty given for the pro.:
duction of West Indian sugar, the quantity sent to
.Eng-
land has decreased very much during the last ten years:
The figures in our posSession, derived from a late re-
turn, No. 293, laid before the House of Commons on the
6th instant, on the motion of Mr. PAKINGTON, differ
somewhat from those quoted from former returns
by the Chamber, and we shall make use, there-
fore, of the later return. By that it appears
that the quantity of sugar imported from the West
Indies and British Guiana, in the year 1831, was
4,103,800 cwt.; and, in 1841, it was only 2,151,217
cwt., or very little more than one half ; demonstrating
that the bounty annually given, of between 2,000,0001.
and 4,000,0001, for the encouragement of sugar-growing
induStry in these colonies, has completely and unanswer-
ably failed. On that pretence, the Legislature has plun-
dered the consumers annually of a large sum, and put
an end to all the trade we might have carried on with
other sugar-growing countries ; but the pretence has
turned out a false one. It is a great system of bumbng,
as well as plunder. Every wrong doer expects great ad-_
hisle holds g
deeds,i4od fol. .
o and
is invariably disap-
pOi vantagest
disap-
pointed. . f
T; and we are
r oi I
e. r
u
.from.
as much cheated of the promised benefits of our legisla-
tive wrong- doing, as ever was a caught and convicted
pickpocket or burglar.
In spite of these facts, which must have been known.
to Sir ROBERT PEEL, Mr. GOITLI3URN, and Mr. GLAD-
STONE, those statesmen have continued
,the nefarious
scheme for another year, They bpasted of the increased
supply, which to some extent has come, a
, and is to come,
from the Mauritius and from the East Indies. But what
does that prove ? Why, that under the pretence of
protecting the growth of sugar in the West Indies,
and saving the blacits there from harm—while
the whites here are actually starved, to fill out their
glossy skins—the discriminating duties on sugar are rais-
ing up a sugar interest in India and the Mauritius,
which will by and by ask for compensation for the less
of 'the plunder which has been promised them. Al-
ready that interest stands in the way of doing justice to
the people, and the continuance of the sugar duties for
another year will strengthen its claims, whether the
quantity of sugar imported be much increased or not,
With the Manchester Chamber of Commerce we agree,
that this source will not, in conjunction with the drying
up of the source in the West Indies, yield us a sufficient
supply; and the Legislature will only create, by its in.
judicious and unjust system of protecting native or colo-
nial industry, a huge mass of grasping paupers and pen-
sioners, who will claim to be nourished by differential
and protective duties.

We understand that a deputation of gentlemen from
the manufacturing districts of Lancashire and York-
shire, has arrived in London, for the purpose of seeking
interviews pith the most influential Members of Parlia•
ent, and-others, in order to convey to them their own
al palling convictions of the present state of the popula7
011 a those' districts.