The Sun.
London, England, 1842-11-22 00:00:00

HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE THIS DAY.
11 ortung lO minutes after 4 I Evening 31 minutes after 4.

L OXD ON :
TUESDAY Al ORNINGI NOVEKBER 22, 1842.

A dispute has lately taken place whether far-
mers should or should not have leases. It is
contended on the one hand that the farmers are
as sure of continuing in possession of their land,
if they cultivate it well, without a lease as with a
lease. They are told that the 'custom of the
country and the honour of landlords are better
guarantees than any parchments which the law
will enforce for the safe possession of farms. It
is replied, that the land may change hands; that
stewards, when their employers press for money,
are not much troubled with feelings of honour;
that the necessities of spendthrifts will make
them forget family maxims as well as sell the
family pictures; and that a fiirmer can only be
.sere of recovering the capital he may vest in
improving a farm, by having a lease for a consi-
ti,erable number of years. It appears, however,
fr,lm the fellowing statement, which we borrow
fro.la the Aylesbury News, and which appears
quite decisive of the question, that without any
urgent pecuniary necessity, andwithout an estate
changing bands, a farmer may be driven from
his holding by the caprice or ill temper of the
jar„. downer, and may lose all the capital he has
ested in experiments, the value of which time
only can prove
In the early part
of last shooting season, it seems
;that the Duke of Buckingham gave a Capt. Lowndes
rmission to shoot over the farm of a Mr. Sibthorpe
mountain, at ThornbGrough grounds, near Bucking-
ha The Captains sport was very successful, and I
w,
he t0,,,k away an immense quantity of game, princi.

pally hares although Mr.-Fountain kept greyhounds,
and had his Graces permission to course. The gal-
lant Captain carried away all he shot without so much
as thanking Mr. Fountain for his hospitality, or
asking him to accept of a brace. A few days after,
Mr. Fountain meeting a few friends at Whacldon,
and, getting a little "mellow," became more com-
municative than cautious, commented freely on
what he called the ungentlemanly conduct of the
Captain, and spoke his mind on the probable motives
which induced the brave soldier to leave his regi-
ment just at the time it was ordered abroad on active
service. These remarks were conveyed to the gal-
lant gentleman, of course losing nothing of their I
pungency in the carriage. The Captain imme-
diately posted off to the Duke in a great rage, and
insisted upon Fountain being turned out of his farm,
engaging to find another tenant at an increased rent.
The Duke of Buckingham immediately gave Foun-
tain notice to quit, and, in spite of the prayers and
entreaties of a numerous body of friends and fellow-
tenants, Fountain has been compelled to sell his stock,
hay, and corn, and take himself off to a more friendly
neighbourhood, and to a less tyrannical landlord.
The farm on which he and his family hoped to live
and thrive for many months to come, and on which
he had done his duty as tenant and master to the sa-
tisfaction of every one, is already let to another. Mr.
Fountain has a numerous family of young children
thus thrown upon the world, and is a man much re-
spected in his parish, always employing more than his
proportion of labourers. All Mr. Fountain's neigh-
bours express their sorrow at his leaving them, their
sympathy with his present condition, and their disgust
at the conduct of his persecutors.
Such is the story of the Duke of Buckingham's
conduct towards those farmers who dare comment on
any conduct of his or of his friends.
How is it possible that men can employ their
property in cultivating farms from which they
may be thus summarily ejected ? Admitting
that the story may not be strictly true, still the
belief in the possibility of such an ejectment,
which must generally exist, or such stories would
never be coined, will operate as powerfully as an
actual dismissal, and will prevent the farmers
from cultivating their land. Without that se-
curity no agricultural societies, no scientific dis-
coveries, no knowledge, whether hoarded or dif-
fused by the landowners, who are very rarely
land cultivators, will much imprOve our agri-
culture. What is wanted, as Mr. COBDEN ob-
served at Liverpool, is more labour on the ground
skilfully applied. The following passage from
that gentleman's speech has our hearty approba-
tion, and we quote it with the better grace, as it
forms part of the close of his speech, which our
report did not contain :

Every intelligent agriculturist would tell them
what was wanted was a vast improvement in every
direction in the soil—more draining, better hedging,
better fencing, better ploughing better sowing better
everything than it was ; and if they had that done,
they must have more labour to do it.—(Hear, hear).
Let them look at the land between Liverpool and
Manchester. Was it not most humiliating to every
man engaged in manufactures, and who was obliged
to force every invention, that no sooner did he leave
Manchester to come on the railroad to Liverpool than
right and left he witnessed a sterile proof of sluggard
indolence, and waste, and extravagance in the cultiva-
tion of the soil ? Half the land was covered with
rushes ! There stood the pools on the surface, poison-
ing the atmosphere by their exhalations ! There was
no necessity for these if the land were drained. The
rushes might be removed, and the soil which was now
fit for herbage, might be covered with rich clover, and
would give increased employment to the people, and
double the wealth produced from the surface of Lan-
cashire. And how was this to be accomplished ?
There were two ways of governing the world; the
one was by the competitive principle and the other
by the co-operative principle. Well ! but he and
others were forced in their manufactures. The ship-
builders were forced in their ship-building. The ship-
builders were forced to improve by the force of com-
petition. Why not apply the same force to the
farmer ?—(Cheers.) What other means had they to
do it by ? By what other means did they attempt to
accomplish it ? Was it by the drivelling exhor-
tations they heard at the agricultural dinners ?
(Laughter)—the mere bleatings and gruntings of men
who told them that the sheep in America afforded
sustenance for the pigs ?--(Hear, hear, and great
laughter.) Was it by the drivelling exhortations of
such men as these, at agricultural dinners, got up
like the meetings of their poor deluded friends the
ship-carpenters.—(llear, hear)—mixing politics with
farming ; was it by such means as these they would,
have farming improved in this country ?
Yes, it is by competition that agriculture must
be improved, and to enable the farmers to com-
pete with one another, and with foreigners, they
must be secured in the possession of their land,
against all probable contingencies, fora consider-
able number of years. If the landowners obsti-
nately refuse to make over the use of the land
to the cultivators for some certain and fixed
period, or grant leases, it will become the com-
munity, the subsistence of which depends on the
due employment and improvement of the soil,
to inquire into the landlords' claims, and to
teach them that they hold the soil for the public
benefit, and depend on the public will.

The poor Scotsman seems much mortified that
we did not trouble ourselves to answer its puerile
arguments in favour of a statesman amusing
himself with turning legends into doggerel verses

when the country has been brought into a perilous

condition by his policy. The example it quotes
of Mr. CANNING does not bear on the question,
fbr the country was not then in an alarming
condition, nor did Mr. CANNING ever pretend,
like the Whigs, to rely on popular favour.
Those who quote Mr. CANNING as an example,
would probably act on Mr. CANNING'S princi-
ples ; but the people of England are not now to
be fascinated by the mere brilliancy of any un-
principled adventurer. They have not, we be-
lieve, forgotten the taunt " the revered and rup-
tured OGDEN, 9' with which that gentleman
mocked at a severe calamity, and replied to ear-
nest complaints by a heartless sneer. If Mr.
MACAULAY has taken Mr. CANNING for his
model, he will make a less valuable toady than
that departed gentleman to the aristocracy, and
a much less formidable opponent of the
people. They can spare him; let him try
if the CLEVELANDS and BUCKINGHAMS want
him. The Scotsman, which, when it was
most serviceable to the cause of the people, stood
almost alone, should not, for its own honour,
have reproached The Sun that the voice we
have raised against Mr. MACAULAY'S amuse-
ments was not echoed by the Press. The
Scotsman does not require to learn that
a newspaper may not find support, and yet
may be perfectly correct. At the same time
our Contemporary is either not a diligent
reader of newspapers, or he suppresses the
truth. Our observations on Mr. MACAULAY

have been quoted by more than one journal,
which proves that they are more echoed than
the Scotsman allows its readers to suppose. Of
Mr. MACA ULAY we will only add that if he
wish to be held in public remembrance, and
obtain public support, he must do something
better for the public cause than amuse himself
with old and doubtful tales. If we were to
criticise the Right Hon. Gentleman's perform-
ance we should be as worthlessly employed as
he is, otherwise it would be easy to prove that
his ballads are full of very silly applications of
perfectly modern ideas and modern knowledge
to ancient events, and that his notion of poetical
truth as something ,opposite to and distinct
from historical truth, is far more worthy of a
rhymster than a statesman or a philosopher.

The Irish papers state that a considerable op-
position is threatened in Ireland, to the levying
of the Poor-rates. The Dublin Evening Mail

says :

It cannot be denied that the Poor-laws, or rather
let us say, the Poor-rates,, are in this country most
unpopular—and threaten to become the source of
disturbance and opposition to the laws. From what-
ever cause this arises, whether from the severe or the
unequal pressure of the rates—from discrepancy be-
tween the enormous amount of taxation and the in-
finitessimal quantity of relief to the poor—or from the
blundering mismanagement of the Commissioners and
their overpaid staff—from whatever cause, we say,
this popular discontent arises, it behoves the Govern-
ment to take the thing into their most serious consi-
deration."

It then quotes accounts of the police having
been driven out of the parish of C reagli, when
an attempt was made to levy the rate by force
—of outrages at Desertserges in the Bandon
Union, of bitter complaints in the Ennis Union,
and of the guardians of the Itatlikeale Union
having resolved to appeal from the authority of
the Commissioners to the Parliament. The fol-

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