The Sun.
London, England, 1842-05-09 00:00:00

bie ,§un.

LONDON.
MONDAY MORNING, MAY 9, 1542.

By a very large majority the Houie of Commons

xlecided that it will not do justice to the people.
By a large majority it has decided, when many of
them are starving, that they must now give the land-
owners 13s. a quarter more than their wheat i 9 worth,
or they must go :without bread. As that decision, too,
cuts off the trade with a. large part of the world, they
are really starved by the decision of Parliament. By
a large majority that House has decided that the
1- must ~;•ive and coffee planters of the
West India lsiand.s a co, ',rahle sum inure for their

people must give the sun'

commodities than they are worth in the common mar-
ketsof the world. By a considerabie majority, there-
fore, the House of Commons has decided that the
people must be taxed to increase the wealth of corn-
growers in -England and sugar-growers in the Colo-
nies. By a considerable majority the House has re-
solved to inflict, in spite or remonstrance, continued
injustice on the people.
_ _ . . • .. _

By a considerable majority, also, that -House has
deckled that it would not hear what the people had to
sav against its own measures. By a very consider-
abla majority it decided that the people should not be
heard to state why they should be admitted into the
pale of the Constitution. It has decided, therefore,
by a considerable majority, that it will continue to
'jure the people, and will not hear them when they
wish to represent why they should not be injured.
By that majority, then, it has decided that the people
shall 'continue to be slaves.

Can the House of Commons, or can the Parlia-
ment, carry this resolve firmly and steadily into exe-
cution ? This question the House of Commons should
be able to answer explicitly, for on its power to do,
or not to do that, will depend the stability of its
policy. It was well observed by Mr. MAcAuLxv, on
Tuesday evening, one of the foremost and most vehe-
ment opposers of the demands of the people, that
" Governments were supported by the people, and
could only be supported by the people."
" Instead of this, (said the Right Hon. Gentleman) it
was represented that Government bad some extraordi-
nary mine of wealth, or a means of relieving the dis-
distress of the people, as though they had a Divine
commission, as if they could send them bread from the
clouds, water from the rocks, and multiply loaves and
fishes` ten thousand-fold."

Mr. MACAULAY, therefore, is thoroughly sensible
that Governments have no wealth of their own ; that
they cannot give, anything to the people, but are
maintained and supported by the people. This is a
very trite, but it is a very important statement. But
will Mr. MACAULAY inform the public—and calm the
fears his language is calculated to .excite—how
that ..Government, which is supported by the
people,. • can • long be carried on, when it
has : fost 'the confidence of such a vast body of
the people ? He admits that the Government de-
pends on the people ; he sees by their petition that a
great niunber of them are discontented with the
Government, and yet he refused to learn from.them
how to remove their grievances and reconcile them to
the Government.

In fact, Mr. MACAULAY has a preformed theory
about property, to which he pedantically sacrifices
the little common sense he possesses. Everybody
knows•Yis
.well as Mr. MACAULAY that the well-being.
otsoci4y ,depends on security of property. The ques-
tion, heweVer, about which the people and' the House
of Coittin6ns .differ, is not the necessity of giving
security to property, but what is property ? Mr.
MA.cAoi..Ay seems to have no other idea of property
than property in the funds, and landed property,
and railway. share, and machinery, and property settled
by Act of Parliament. But the petitioners, who ap-
peared before the House of Commons on Tuesday, had
none of that Jana of property, and they required that
their industry, which is their property, shoUld he as
well protected as the lord's park and the fundholders
dividends. Their property is not represented in Par-
k enti and therefore they assert that it is made the
prey ofsthese whose property is represented.
The petitioners complained of "being enormously
taxed to pay the national debt ; they are taxed, they
say, to pay the fundholders. They complain, in that
instance, and Mr. MACAULAY did not show that they
complained erroneously that their property is taken
from them by the law. They assert "that taxation, both
genaral and local, is too enormous to to borne." They
assert that "the Wages of the 'producing millions are
are as nothing compared to the salaries of those whose
usefulness ought to be questioned," and they assert
"that luxury prevails amongst the rulers," who or-
dain and levy the taxes, "and starvation amongst the
_ruled." - We might quote many other similar pas-
litge3 from their petition, to show that they consider
their right of Property to be continually invaded by
the Legislature. They assert that the Legislature
does not secure their property—that it violates their
Tight 'of property.; and to that Mr. MAc..tuLAlN.re-
plies, thinking, apparently only of the .store he has
plao.el in the Funds, and of the slllary he may again. .
enjoy as u that society "
cannotprosper
unless property be secure. •

Th n:. e potitio.rs filly' a.,Tree with
hint, and they
pout to their own w-ri_ ‘-leeil cona"ttion—they point to
the starving millions—they point to their ow.-, dis-
content, as proofs of the injurious consequences of
.not securing their property. The passage we have
quoted fro it Mr. IllAcAnr..ty shows clearly enough
that the (ov 'rnrnent has nothing of its own to give to
any class o:• t:ie people. All•that it does, therefore.
and all tha; it can do is, to take from one class to give

to some other class. The legislature produces ,
nothing—it only alters the distribution of wealth. It
creates no new values. The people say, with ADAM
SMITH, that all the wealth of the world is produced
by labour, but that, owing to unjust legislation, la-
bour has the smallest share of its own produce. The
Legislature, or Government, takes away from them
such an immense sum for the priesthood, for tithes
are a tax—such an immense sum for the fundholders—
such an immense sum for the army, the navy, and for the
Court—for pensioners and Comissioners, that nothing
is left for them. They say that the Legislature, by
various kinds of monopolies, by its enormdas tax-
ation, fleeces them bare, and leaves them nothing to
,subsist on. In their own emphatic language, the
taxing rulers riot in luxury, and the ruled are
in a state of starvation. They assert that in this
general result lies a decided proof that their property
is not secure, and they ask for a share of represen-
tation to ensure themselves that justice which the
Legislature, as now constituted, has systematically,
perseveringly, and stubbornly denied them. The
broad general fact, that industry starves while idleness,
or the unproductive classes, abound in wealth, amply
justifies the complaints of the people, and refutes
the implied statement of Mr. MACAULAY that under
our present system property is secure.

Mr. ROEBUCK'S conduct on Friday had the merit of
being eminently impartial. He spared neither To-
ries, Whigs, nor Radicals ; and the exposure he made,
so far as it went, was complete. The public, how-
ever, regard it more as an index to the general condi-
tion of the House of Commons than the work itself.
Almost every day announcements are made in the
Votes, or in the Reports, that Mr. So-and-so has
withdrawn his petition against the election return of
hich he had complained. The number of petitions
so set aside is much greater than the number brought
to trial. It iS said of Sir DENIS LE MARCHANT
that he announced personally to the SPEAKER that
he did not mean to prosecute his petition against
the return for Harwich ; and it is also announced that
the Tories, without being at the trouble of naming a
committee, have agreed to throw Major BERESFORD
overboard, and give Sir DENIS a seat for that Borough.
Such details as these, combined with the great num-
ber of disputed returns, and the existence throughout
the country of notorious bribery, make the people
suspect that the bulk of the House of Commons
has been elected by corrupt means.
We hear that said, and we hear it also said that
this suspicion explains the extraordinary subserviency
of the House of Commons to Sir R. PEEL. No incon-
siderable number of the Members, for the sake of sup-
parting him, have falsified all the hopes their conduct
excited, and have forfeited all the pledges they pub-
licly gave upon the hustings. The majority of these
men, it is said, were at great expense to obtain
their seats. They parted even with more than money.
They used up their character in bribing, intimidating,
coaxing, and coercing the electors ; and having
given both money and reputation for their seats,
they wish to get back an equivalent. They gave
a great price for the patronage and power
they expect to enjoy under PEEL, and they will not
oppose him, do what he may, lest they should lose the
expected rewards. They might break up the Govern-
ment and endanger their dearly-bought seats. From
their corruption and the general corruption of the
constituencies, therefore, the interest of the nation is
wholly disregarded. The tenure on which many of
the Members hold their seats, to which the few facts
brought forward by Mr. ROEBUCK are an index, ex-
plains why the iniquitous and tyrannical Income-
tax meets with little opposition from those who ought
to be the guardians of the people's rights.

We are inclined to suppose that there are few, or
none, of the occupations of the labouring classes
which do not seem painful, disgusting, and dan-
gerous to the upper and idle classes. But, as so-
ciety cannot be sustained without labour, it is not
judicious to make their views of necessary. oc-
cupation the rules of life. So terrible an opinion
have they of labour that they have unwisely used it
as a punishment, and have caused great injury to the
working classes, by associating labour with ig-
nominy. -While we deprecate on the one hand, there-
fore, their interference with the labour of the peo- •
ple, we think it our duty, on the other, not to join
too eagerly some of our Contemporaries in des-
cribing necessary occupations as hopelessly disgusting
and hideous.

In all situations, where youth'of both sexes are
thrown together, much of that vice will arise which
the Reports of the Commissioners on Mines describe.
As far as our experience extends, there is not more
correctness amongst the agricultural population than
amongst the population of collieries and mines ;—we
do not believe that the hay-field or the hop-
garden, the farmer's kitchen or his barn, is a
better school of morality than the mine. The Re-
ports of the Poor-law Commissioners gave a lament-
able account of the chastity of females in the
agricultural districts, and believing that the females
in the collieries and mines are not worse than those in
the agricultural districts, we will not imitate some of
our Contemporaries, by quoting the rather offensive
accounts which the Sub-Commissioners have given
of the behaviour of both sexes. 'Whoever chooses to
pry closely into the details of society will find similar
scenes in almost every part of it.
It is of more consequence, we think, to observe,
that females have naturally no taste for labour in the
They love to dress and adorn their per-
sons ; and where such a taste is encouraged,

mines.

as it is with us, the women, as the rule,
are prone to finery and indulgence, and dreadfully
averse to drudgery. We feel quite confident, there-
, fore, as the rule, that women do not work in the col-
lieries and mines except from dire necessity; and if
they could live like ladies above ground, no power on
earth could convert them into " getters," " trappers,"
" hurriers," &c. &c., in the bowels of the earth. We
are not surprised, therefore, to find in the evidence
such statements as these :
Mary Barnett says—l do not like working in pit, but
I am obliged to get a living.
Patience Ilershaw says—l wear a belt and chain at
the workings to get the coves out. I would rather work
in the mill than in the coal pit.
Ruth Barnett says—l come down into pits in linings
of old trousers, which I take off. I wear an old waist-
coat and shift. Ido not like working in pit. I would not
do it if I could help it.
Another quotation :
Betty Harris, aged thirty-seven, drawer in a coal-pit,
Little Bolton, Lancashire, says—"l have a belt round
my waist, and a chain passing between zny legs, and I
go on my hands and feet. The road is very steep, and
we have to hold by a rope, and when there is no rope,
by anything we can catch hold of. There are six women
and about six boys and girls in the pit I work in :
it is very hard work for a woman. The pit is very wet
where I work, and the water comes over our clog-tops
always, and I have seen it up to my thighs. lam not
so strong as I was, and I cannot stand my work so
well as I used to do. I have drawn till I have the skin
off me ; the belt and chain is worse when we are in the
family-way. My feller [husbandl has beaten me many
a time for not being ready. I have known, many a man
beat his drawer."

Here is abundant evidence, then, that the women do
not like the work, and it is, therefore, clear that they
would not engage in it if they could help it. We
have so much confidence, too, in their Mother's love,
that we can assert that they would never consent to
their children going and engaging' in such severe work
at the early age of five or six, if they were not driven
to do it by their poverty. Assuredly they would
keep their daughters out of the coal-pits if they could
subsist without driving them to such labour. The source,
therefore,
of all the terrible evils which belong to the
coal-pits lies in the poverty of the people which legisla-
tion causes and cannot lessen. Whatever may be Lord
ASHLEY'S plan, his law will have this, in common with
all the factory Acts, the appointment of a number of
Commissioners and Inspectors to carry it into execution,
who must be paid out of the produce of labour, and
will add either to the toils or to the poverty of the
people. The true way to keep women from working
in coal-pits is to make such labour wholly unneces-
sary, in order to provide for the comfortable sub-
sistence of themselves and their families. That this
is within the power of legislation we do not believe ;
that it would not be their happier lot did legislation

not interfere with labour, and withhold from it its
due reward we will not positively assert ; but
we are quite sure, on that, principle, we
have borrowed ~ in another article from Mr.
MACAULAY, that the Legislature can do nothing so
beneficial for these people, as to cease from plunder-
ing them. By the law that the Legislature has just
passel, these poor toiling infant girls and mothers
are at this moment, and every day of their lives,
obliged,
before they can oat a morsel of bread or a

piece of potatoe, to pay a tax to the rich land and
mine owner of 13s. per quarter on wheat.
The coal-owners, who are the parties that most
profit by the employment of children and women in
mines, should imitate the Duke of BTICCLEUCH, who
has refused to allow them to work in his mines with
the happiest effects. Of course, he raises the wages of
the men, and gives them work in proportion. If other
coal-owners will do the same, and not be quite so rapa-
cious as they now are, there will be no occasion to en-
cumber the statute-book with an additional penal law.

;we willingly correct a great error in an article on
the sth instant, headed " West India Steam-packets,'
into which we were led by misrepresentation. In
that article it is stated that Lieut. APLIN had been
cashiered for his conduct with respect to the delay of
the mails. Lieut. APLIN informs us that we have
been grossly misinformed, and furnishes a copy of an
official letter from the Admiralty in answer to his re-
quest to be superseded. This proves that the state-
ment furnished to us is wholly untrue, and as it is
calculated to create an unfavourable impression with
regard to the Gallant Officer, we are happy to give it
the most direct contradiction. He was superseded at
his own request, and no imputation, therefore, can
rest upon Lieut. APLIN'S character, either as a gen-
tleman or a naval officer.