The Sun.
London, England, 1842-02-18 00:00:00

CI 4:Eaz 3-1114

labourers, having filled their purses—only six years have
elapsed since they were as well convinced as we now are,
by the price of wheat being down below 505., or even
405., that the Corn-laws, which it is pretended give
them protection, were a failure, if not a fraud. If
there had then been a demand for the repeal, the
farmers would have offered no resistance ; but
the recollection of past losses is forgotten in present
prosperity ; and having undergone the evils of the law,
they now insist on retaining its temporary advantages. 1
eAx
ps
ehcotret4
to a review,accomplish
ph l i
so whe, v
we ri
11, ocfo
nwvhi
nact
e theth
eC omrno
s-
tl aswc esp twi cearle,
that in respect to agriculture they have been a most
egregious failure.
The law of 181.5 prohibited importation till the price
of wheat reached 80s., and was intended to keep it up
nearly to that level, This gem of the Earl of RIPON'S
wisdom was such a wretched abortion that, before fivo
years elapsed, the country resounded with com-
plaints of agricultural distress, and in 1821 a
Committee was appointed to inquire into the sub-
ject. From that Committee emanated an elaborate
Report and another abortive measure, to reduce the price
of protection from 80s. to 70s. but its bantling was
still-born, and never came into operation. Again,
complaints of agricultural distress were continually
made ; rents were unwillingly lowered, because farmers
could not pay them, and, in 1527, Mr. Cerrwilio proposed
another measure, which in principle reduced the proposed
protection still more: That Bill did not become law,
and in 1828 the existing Corn-law, giving, as was stated
over and over again, a protection to the farmer up to
655., was passed. Now we have Sir ROBERT PEEL again
lowering the scale, and professing to keep the price of
wheat not at 80s., not at 705., not at 655., not
even at the Lincolnshire mark of 605., but between
545. and 58s. In spite, therefore, of successive
enactments the price of corn, which the law was to keep
up, has gradually fallen, and the lawgiver, who pretends
to regulate that price by his enactments, has been com-
pelled to follow the course of events, and reduce his no-
minal protection from 80s. to 565.
Why does Sir ROBERT PEEL select 565. as a sort of

general price ? Because the average price of wheat,

(since 1828, instead of having been 655., as the cheating
law taught the deluded farmers to expect, has only been,
including the last year, 58s. But this is the price as
shown by the averages worked up for the purposes
of speculation, and the actual growers of the
corn have received no such price. To get at
their selling price, we must deduct ss. at least from
the averages, for while the law promised the farmer 655.,
it has been unable to secure him a greater price than 535.
We say, then, that the law has been altogether a failure,
even as far as the farmers are concerned, and yet the
alchymist Prime Minister is to repeat the ruinous
experiment.

This difference between the averages and actual prices,
the former being, as is well known, made up by an exten-
sive system of fraud, leads us to remind the virtuous
SirltonEnT PEEL, who has such a horror of all fraud, ex-
cept legislative fraud, that all the calculations on which
his new law is based, are derived from, and are depend-
ent on, these fraudulent averages. His Corn Bill
will be founded on palpable fraud. To suppose that
such a system either in past times could have been, or
in future can be, productive of national welfare, is flying
in the face of the moral government of the world. A
certain degree of agricultural prosperity, it is true,
has co-existed with the Corn-law, caused by
the increase of the manufacturing population.
All the agricultural societies that have covered
the land, all the bounties which have been given
for improved cultivation, all the Corn-laws that ever were
forged, would never have brought an additional ear of
wheat into existence, had there been no stimulus to
production from the increasing population and wealth
of our towns. It is altogether a delusion, there-
fore, to suppose that the prosperity of our agri-
culture has been in the least degree owing to the
law, which has at once cheated the unhappy farmer,
stinted the growth of our manufactures, and starved the
people.

Our opponents reprobate very strongly the appeals
which they say all the Anti-Bread-tax party make to
the prejudices and passions of the people. It is im-
possible, however, for any person to surpass,
on this point, the great master of House
of Commons' clap-trap. A Prime Minister, the
leading man of the nation, should be placed high above
all the mists of popular passions, and see clearly those
objects which popular delusions hide from other men.
Sir R. PEEL must know, therefore, that former Corn-
laws have not answered—that they have not given any
protection to the agricultural interest--that they
have not, and cannot, in this commercial country, prevent
prices falling to the general level—that they cannot render
us in the slightest d4ree independent of other nations,
and if they could it would be criminal to attempt ft.
Yet for two hours, the night before last, did Sir ROBERT
PEEL address himself exclusively_to the low passions
and vile prejudices of his selfigh auditors, and persuade
them to support his new experiment, because it would
protect the landed interest, keep up the price of
wheat to 585., and keep the country partially in-
dependent. His whole speech, whether founded in sheer
ignorance, or worse hypocrisy, was an appeal to such
prejudices and passions, and was worthy of the heacgof
the monopolisers.

If newspaper writers appeal to the people, by promis-
ing them cheap bread, he appealed to the landed gentle-
men by promising them dear corn and high rents. If
the former write vaguely about growing commerce, and
paint the advantages of free trade, predicting from it an
increase of wealth, and peace, and happiness to all the
world, he could talk about complicated and great
social interests—meaning the rent-rolls of the landlords
—which he would on no account disturb. If the Anti-

Bread-tax party refer to the rights of poverty, he was
eloquent on the rights of property ; and while he had
not a thought to bestow on the starving multitudes of
Manchester and Paisley, he was filled with horror at

the supposition of diminishing the profit of a tenant under

lease. He is quite a master in the art of appealing to
low passions and vulgar prejudices ; and had we hall

his skill in that line, and such a favourable auditory as

he has, we should make our fortunes.

We expressed yesterday, by one word, in common, we
believe, with all who heard Mr. RoEnucK, our admira-
tion at his able speech. It was clear and forcible, and must
have pierced through the triple mail of Sir lion Etta
PEEL'S self-conceit. The whole House felt the force of
his concluding remarks, which threw on Sir ROBERT
PEEL the awful responsibility of not relieving the distress
of the people. His statements, however, on some points,
could not command our assent ; and we rather admired
his speech as an intellectual display in that assembly of
gladiators, than approved of its dpetrines.

31r. ROEBUCK was, in our opinion, much too cour•

teous to the aristocracy. He would impute to them no
bad motives ; he took them at their own estimate
of their value ; and set them clown as that leisure class
which spreads civilization through the land. He must havt.
ill observed the progress of improvement to have come
to such a conclusion. The independence of the landlords
encourages in them many vices ; and their relative
position to other men, making them proud, and their
tenants and labourers slavish, corrupts the morals of
both. The mutual and equal dependence of man on man,
which grows from division of labour, and which
extends as division -of labour extends—a system
from which the mere do-nothing landowners stand idly
and widely apart, is, much more than they aro, the
cause of that improvement in morals and manntrs which
is opposed to their feudal propensities. Mr. ROEBUCK,
who aspires, we believe, to lead the democracy, seemed
to us to desert their standard in his observations on the
aristocracy.

LONDON?
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 1842.

The regular class of red-tape politicians seem in-
capable of improvement. If a chemist makes an experi-
ment, and t'ee„result--does not answer his expectation, he
either gives tip the object he was pursuing as unattainable,
or he tries lb "aelconipliSh it by some new combinations.
Only tlutt wretched' class of experimenters of the PARA-
CELBI:B tribe, a mixture_ of fools and knaves, who wasted
Unit. lives and fortunes, and the fortunes of others, in
hunting after the Philosopher's Stone, persevered almost
for :-.ges, in spite:of baffled hopes and defeated eontri-
vancei, in their vain pursuit, and they have now been for
ages the butt of universal ridicule. We are about to
show, if we can, that the red-tapist, class of politicians,
with Sir ROBERT PEEL as their chief and mentor, re-
semble much more the hunters after the PI .1 • '
er s
Stone than .careful and rational investigators, like
rRIESTLY! cAVENDISB, and DAVY.
E ‘r sinc6lBls, the present generation of red-tapists—
for the Earl of RIPON and Sir ROBERT PEEL were both
concerned in passing the Corn-law of that eriod—have
been intent on giving what they call protection
culture,
and on proniutint, the prosperity of bo country,
by by keeping the price of ,
?..Eind
.other things
ei g21271172,7e, tilie;t2n2 .151
tri_e:ev.lll::l-y ‘t.i.,ei • S. uecessively, as
r.f Lh.bliged theirtLi
auti
their exy.a•iai-atr; ; yef- " nt
ith tindattntfal pe..rtma-
city, thut4gll ack`•,`7l;:clg.—tlikt they are actin°.
against• all sotuul general principles-•-wr r•
Sir 'EtOBERT
rEEL av,rvvil Of a! hiS }~-a3
u-r a guarantee against
the effect of p
improvement in producing cheap food
to what
will they have no data to
vu as
will bo either here or :thread the cost of
produc
and that they art-P c.eting
the dic•
of jintic,',, rk•Y are about to repeat their cx-
perirrent in nearly the same manner, and hope, by a lit-
tle re-adjustment of the elments of a sliding scale, to
discover that long-sought Philosopher's Stone, the na
tional welfare. If they out" wasted their own faculties
and their own means, they would be objects merely of
•,pleasing ridicule ; but they experiment on the public,
and every one of their devices inflicts misery on some
class of the people.
Thottgb.- the landowners and farmer., are now rejoicing
_lll4l.lirio-esi,fo; •
01*" Drbliet . Iprveat., which
tit-nut:4l an daft, to the hearthis of the

It is probable, we think, that his courtesy was the
result of an unfounded theory which he put forth. Ije
endeavoured, by a reference to past history, to exone-
rate the present Legislature from all responsibility for
the sufferings of the people. They all grew, he was
pleased to think, from some unwise encouragement
the Government had in former times given to manufac-
tures. What the Government had to do with promoting
the inventions of WATT and ARKWRIGHT, we are iglu:,
rant ; and we do not share Mr. RoEaucik's arcadian
prejudice in favour of an agricultural popula-
tion. We fully exonerate him individually from
any part of the responsibility for the condition
of the- people ; but when he saw on the Minis-
terial benches Sir ROBERT PEEL, Sir GEORGE CLERK,
and a squad of Tories ; and when he knows that the
Earl of Et eoN and the puke of WELLINGTON are still
members of the Parliament and the Government, he
ought to conclude that to say the existing Parliament is
not responsible for the distresses of the people, is to clear
the Tories from that charge of misgovernment with which
they have been so long reproached. Entertaining that
:pinion, however; he acted On it, and was as courteous
as a mere Whig to the gentlemen opposite.
But while Mr. RoEnvci: was so courteous to our op-
ponents, he was not sparing of our friends. He is
afraid of having that religious and moral rule applied to
his conduct, which is now applied to the conduct of the
Bread-taxers, and he stigmatised those who denounced
as sinful the rash interferu,nce of the Legislature with
the laws of nature. Lord PALMERSTON took a
more sensible view, and justly censured the
arrogant and presumptuous .dealers _in. - protective
duties and sliding, sCaks, who thwart " the di.- _

crees of the Power which has created and dis-
poses of the universe." Mr. ROEBUCK seems to think
that the Gentlemen of the House of Commons can settle
what is right, and that their sovereign will must be un-
questioned. We recognise a higher power than Par:
liament, and we go cordially, with those who,
having from philosophy and experience learned some
of its decrees, set them up as better and safer guides for
mankind than the formal enactments of selfish landlords.
Mr. ROEBUCK did not catch, we think, the
.spirit
which animates this age, and he did not make
himself in the House of Commons the champion
of the democracy. They lack somebody to plead their
cause in that assembly of a larger heart, if not a more
gifted tongue, than Mr. ROEBUCK, and we trust that
in the ensuing debate, such a champion will be found.
When the aristocracy hear the plain unvarnished truth
in the House of Commons,when their motives are dissected
as well as their acts exposed, we shall be on the threshhold
of that moral reform which is necessary for the safety of
the State.

THE SUN, LONDON, FRIDAY 'EVENING, FEBRUARY 18, 184. x..