The Sun.
London, England, 1842-07-23 00:00:00

_ -
22-
_ t
P fT
:
A.l*; . _ . • ' • -
-Wol - • -
•
-
1.1 r
s.mPicaddei yo ifn • it 4 Rbl:elk: XiAL. i;•
k‘`. '
. •
add
dardse
to the
k. .
port free of duty were 4
itVA 4, '7
k, 1 '4 +l7
_ ,„„ - -17 ,•••0,A.014 b2to A w 4. now in bond will proba'
0;‘,14, ;, •11217ai,w,•\.5. IT,
othpellie,t(pA
•

JULY 23, 1842.

PRICE 5d

duty. If it would not add to the quantity of corn, we
must venture to doubt whether the permission to
escape the duty would much lower the price, and if
the price were not lowered, equal to the amount of
duty remitted, the persons who would really benefit
by the permission would be the opulent owners of
bonded corn, whether foreigners or Englishmen. We
cannot, therefore, cordially and earnestly join some of
our Contemporaries in praying Sir PEEL will allow
the corn now in bond to be admitted duty free.
What the nation requires is free trade in food.
Our manufacturers and merchants want the assur-
ance that there shall be no other impediment to their
importing food than an inadequate; price. The
Americans want an assurance that there shall be no
hindrance to their bartering their corn for our cloths
and cutlery, by which they may be induced to grow
corn in future for us, and with it buy our goods,
instead of making cloth and cutlery for themselves.
fOn both sides of the Atlantic an assurance is required
that trade may be extended without being inter-
rupted by political regulations, or subjected to any
laws except those which naturally determine the
profit of trade. The proposition to bring in free of
duty the corn now in bond, will not give those
assurances, which can onlybe given by the total aboli-
tion of the Corn-laws. -We will not, therefore, slide
down from the lofty ground of principle, on. which we
have taken our stand, into the paths of flowery expedi-
ency, which will soon lead to a more complete stoppage
than is at present experienced. Justice, morality, and
political freedom, all command the repeal of the
Corn-laws ; and we will not counsel the poor mendi-
eancy of asking Sir ROBERT PEEL to admit, for the
present, 1,200,000 quarters of corn duty free.
We will take the opportunity, too, of recommend-
ing our friends not to argue their case on the suppo-
sition that the harvest will not be favourable. The
repeal of the Corn-law rests on principles independent
of either good or bad harvests. They will both ensue,
in the natural course of things ; and the law does not
change its character as the seasons become bad or
good. The law is unjust, wicked, and impious at all
times. When the harvest is short, it convulses trade,
and starves the manufacturers ; when the harvest is
abundant, as the law has previously starved down the
population to the home supply, or nearly, the farmers
are injured or ruined. They suffered between 1830
and 1835 ; the manufacturers have suffered between
1835 and 1842. A good harvest, which we earnestly
desire, may give the people a temporary relief, but it
cannot alter the nature of the law. We would re-
commend the Anti-Corn-law party, therefore, not to
argue the question on the supposition of either good
or bad harvests, both of which will occur—and both
may be used to illustrate the evil effects of the law—
but on the sound and enduring principles of free trade,
and the imprescriptible rights of man.

We have called attention to the great increase both
of pauperism and vagrancy in the country. We have
shown, on the authority of the Poor-law Commis-
sioners, that the number of paupers increased from
1,199,529 on Lady-day 1840, a goodly number, to
1,399,928 on Lady-day 1841, and we have observed
that since 1841 the number has increased with great
and even frightful rapidity. We have shown, too,
that a very large proportion of this increase was of
adult able-bodied paupers. But besides this vast
amount and extension of pauperism, in spite of a
stringent Poor-law, there is also, as we have shown on
the authority of the Edinburgh Review, such a great
amount and increase of mendicity that it has actually
set aside the law. To obtain a complete view, then,
of the present condition of the poorer classes of Eng-
land, we must combine the amount and the increase
of pauperism with the amount and increase of va-
grancy, and having done this we shall probably con-
einde that there is no country in Europe (except
Ireland) where the united plagues of pauperism and
vagrancy are at present so deadly and alarming as in
England.
To us they are the more alarming, because
all which can be done by law has probably
been done to suppress both. Besides severe vagrant
laws,we have mendicity societies; and besides poor-
houses we have an extensive police scattered through
the country, and in every town. For many years
the Legislature has been diligently engaged in
devising means to check pauperism and vagrancy.
It has made new and stringent regulations ; it has
organized a police force ; it has multiplied gaols; and
it has devised appropriate punishments for almost
every possible offence. In spite of its exertions, and
in spite of a large increase of expense for the punish-
ment of 'crimes, and for a preventive police, pauperism
and mendicity have made, and are making an alarm-
ing progress. Judging from the experience of the
past, we cannot rely on the law to arrest the growing
evil, and hence additional importance is given to all
inquiries into its cause.
'Without entering into elaborate investigations, the
passage we quoted from the Edinburgh Review, yes-
terday, seems to us to solve the whole mystery. "It is
a deplorable fact," says the ileviewer, " that the
English agricultural poor, who have large families of
very young children, live much better as' beggars
than they do as labourers." Sedentary and labo-
rious occupations are not, naturally, pleasant. -Man
loves to wander about in the free and healthy air.
It requires the checks and habits of civilization to keep
him to arduous and patient toil ; and whenever land is
plentiful, it is impossible to prevent numerous indivi-
duals from relapsing into the vagrant or wan-
dering life which was prior to civilization. On
the borders of the United States there is a po-
pulation of European descent which has approxi-
mated to savage life. To keep man to . habits
of industry, therefore, it is indispensable that he reap
the rewards of industry, and when beggary is baSter
paid than sedentary labour, when wages will not
suffice to support a man and his wife comfortably, he
necessarily prefers beggary. It is the lowness of
wages in England, the divorce of industry from its
due reward, which is the main source both of
pauperism and mendicity.
Existence (says the Reviewer) is impossible in those
English agricultural districts where the average rate of
wages is under 10s. arid yet there are many such dis-
tricts, and multitudes of agricultural labourers are thus
becoming mendicants. We assert most distinctly that
' in most of the purely agricultural districts the wages
'of the labourer are not adequate to his independent
existence. The food for each day must be bought and
paid for, and it easy to calculate that this cannot be done
when the wages of an agrcultural labourer are 15s.
per week. Yet in two-thirds of those districts the wages
average scarcely more than the moiety of that sum.
We affirm, and we know that we are correct in our
affirmation, that not one-tenth portion of the English
agricultural labourers are able to obtain with their
wages half the food allotted to the able-bodied paupers
in the unions."

Need we seek any further for the cause of pauper-
ism and mendicity ? Why should men labour when
they cannot by their labour get so much food as the
workhcinse gives them ? To have borne up so long
against such adverse circumstances, the English agri-
cultural labourers must have had a large fund of noble
independence. Instead of being surprised at the ex-
tent of pauperism, we are surprised that there are yet
labourers willing to till the soil. It is impossible that
such a system can last. If the Legislature cannot
find the means of re-uniting labour and its appropriate
reward,—if it cannot give the labourerS sufficient
wages, as it gives the parsons sufficient pay, and the
landlords high rents,—if it cannot enable the labourer
to live comfortably, as it provides most amply for
Generals and Admirals, it had better abdicate its
functions, for the health, nay, the very con-
tinuance of society requires that labour be
adequately paid. The subsistence of all de.
pends on the continuance• of industry, and it is the
duty, because it is the interest, of all to insist that in-
dustry be higher paid than idleness. Free trade may
not be the appropriate remedy for the diseased condi-
tion of England, though we think it is ; but that con-
dition is so bad that a remedy must be found, or so-
ciety will fall into utter ruin. If the Parliament will
not leave those sinful indulgences which have caused
on
this disease,
e trhael dutyn a tu self-preservationroafl allandt scriptural
re-establish,ipt makesura iti n thespi
connectiont
site
oboe
fmt
between
inilansniesadmdsugesot:rbtnytain subsistence, and the hand of
rewarded,a wealth. At present beggary andtitte-
the diligent
is with riches, but with poverty and
destitution. .

Shugborough Hall, the seat of the Earl of Lichfield,
is, by means of the railway to Stafford, an affairif
only seven hours and a half to the Hall. This. may
be important information to all such as intend to be
present at the approaching sale. Stafford is not quite
five miles from the Noble Earl's, iti!cl the inns are
capital.