The Sun.
London, England, 1829-07-23 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

We know not whether it be worth the while
to notice again the still creeping but nearly ex-
tinguished rumours of negotiations for an ac-
cession to Ministry. We would have those,
however, who are trying the experiment, to
change their mode of approach if they mean to
succeed. They wish the Duke of Wellington
to accept their services—and they insult him by
the most insolent proposition—that he should
reward the services of another with the basest
ingeitioule. They may hate Mr. Peel, because
he has given a fatal blow to their intolerance ;
but the Duke of Wellington has every reason
to love and esteem him as a brother statesman,
for they have together trodden the same path in
politics. And if there be any thing reprehen-
sible in Mr. Peel's conduct with respect to the
Catholic question, the same obloquy (his
Grace does not shrink from identification with
his colleague in this respect) will apply to
that of the Duke. But, with respect to
the relation in which these two statesmen
stand to each other, has not Mr. Peel made
a sacrifice of every thing that man could hold
dear, except duty,—we do not say to the Duke
of Wellington personally, but to that question
upon the success of which the Duke's existence
as a statesman depended ? What unheard-of and
stupid insolence, then, to expect that the Duke,
in return, should sacrifice Mr. Peel as a prelimi-
nary to the admission of some of their common
enemies, their common defamers, into office !
How monstrous, how even beastly a proposition !
Mr. Peel has sacrificed the dearest and first am-
bition of his heart—the representation of the
University of Oxford—to his union with the
Duke on the Catholic question : he has sacrificed
the friends of his youth : he has incurred the re-
proaches of his most valued relatives! And, in
return for these sacrifices and sufferings, it is re-
quired of his accomplice in guilt (if guilt be in-
curred) that Mr. Peel should now be by him
given up to the hatred of those whom they have
joined in provoking ! It is impossible to say
how long two men of independent minds,
like the Duke of Wellington and Mr. Peel, may
continue to take the same view of the method of
governing the country, but in the fair fight of the
Catholic question, they see nothing but cause for
mutual attachment and permanent union. There
is another point, also, which deserves some con-
sideration, but upon which we shall now touch
but briefly. It has constantly been acknowledged
by all parties, that the divisions in the Cabinet
on the subject of Catholic emancipation have
been the bane of every Ministry, from that of
Mr. Pitt into that of the Duke of Wellington.
It is not, therefore, we should suppose, the best
method of imparting union, and all the advan-
tages which spring out of union, to an Admi-
nistration just at present, to club together in its
composition the friends and enemies of the
measure, even after it has passed. We should
very likely have the question to fight over again,
—in the Cabinet first, next in the country, and
lastly in the field.—Times.
Dr. Southey cannot be prevented from writ-
ing on economical subjects ; but how his lucu-
brations can find admission into a respectable
Review, astonishes us not a little. He has an
article on the Condition of the English Peasan-
try, in the last Quarterly, which, from beginning
to end, is one of the most lamentable pieces of
imbecility which ever engaged our attention.—
The grand panacea of Dr. Southey is one which
was solemnly propounded in the House of Com-
mons some years ago, by a political economist of
nearly the same calibre, Alderman Waithman—
namely, a piece of ground—a potatogarden for
every labourer. If cottages and pieces of ground
attached to them could make a =peasantry com-
fortable, the Irish would be thelsappiest in the
world. There are countries eves i where the land
belongs to the peasantry, who consequently have
DO rents to pay, no burthens to discharge, and
yet they are struggling with the same difficulties
which press on the Irish. The rood of ground
of one generation becomes half a rood the next,
when an additional family is quartered on it.—
You may cut up all England into cottages and
potatoe gardens; this, however, would only be
staving off the evil day to another generation.—
New potatoe-gardens would soon be wanted for
additional families.
"If some change be not effected (says Dr.
Southey), and that very speedily, in the internal
management of those parishes into which the allow-
ance system has found its way, no man can for a
moment doubt that at no very distant period the
whole rental of the land will he absorbed by the
rates. In many parishes of this description the rates
already amount to two-thirds of the rent. In some
instances they even exceed the whole rental of the
land. The rates are steadill increasing; it is there-
fore perfectly clear that if no means can be devised
to check the progressive advance, the surplus of the
landlord will ultimately disappear. Such is the cer-
tain and inevitable punishment of those who have dis-
severed the peasantry from the land, and deprived
them of their ancient crofts and allotments. As
long as the labouring classes are thus excluded from
the soil, no improvement in the Administra-
tion—no alteration even in the principle of
the Poor Laws—no human power or inge-
nuity can avert the consequence. That the
population of parishes alleged already to have a
superabundant body of labourers will continue to in-
crease, admits of no doubt; and if the number of
hands absorbed by tillage do not increase in an equal
ratio, the proportion of idle bands will become
greater, and the pressure upon the rates heavier,
until at length the whole surplus produce of each
parish will be but barely sufficient to employ the un-
employed paupers. An Agrarian law will thus be-
come virtually established, and the labouring classes
will take possession of the land from which they are
now excluded."
,And pray, good Dr. Southey, what is bestow-
ing cottages and land on the labourers of a
parish, hut an allowance system ? Will not the
labourers continue to increase as rapidly on cot-
tages with crofts attached to them, as on the
parish allowances ? And if additional cottages
and gardens be continually required for the in-
creasing population, what is this, pray, but an
Agrarian law? Dr. Southey has perplexed him-
self, as usual, with details which prove nothing.
If he had inquired into the particulars of Lord
Brownlow's cottage system, he would have
found that it did not diminish the poor, because
a fresh pauper population began immediately to
form, which, if we are not misinformed, is now
as numerous as that to which cottages were as-
signed ; and if cottages were given to the second
crop of paupers, a third crop would won be
ready for other cottages. The case lies in a nut,
shell. The labourers in agriculture are not in a
deteriorated condition because they do not oc-
cupy land, but because in almost every pariah they
exceed the demand for labour. The labourers of
a parish may double ; but if the demand for la-
bour-do not keep pace, wages must fall. That
which increases most rapidly the capital. of the
country will increase most rapidly the demand
for labour. But the cutting up the country into
patches will not increase most rapidly the capital
of the country ; on the contrary, the cultivator