The Sun.
London, England, 1842-12-28 00:00:00

Zte nu,

LONDON :
WEDNESDAY MORNING. DECEMBER 28, 1842

A paragraph has gone round of the papers,
sportively asserting that the Duke of BUCKING-
HAM has offered a reward for the discovery of
any new argument in ifavour of the Corn-law.
Several arguments have, in consequence, been
suggested, but it is not said whether they were
regarded as noire], and, therefore, entitled to the
reward. Though the monopolists may not have
succeeded in that object, they have certainly
pointed out a forcible, if not a new, argument
against the law. The Mark-lane Express has
this passage, which must be full of terror for the
landowners:—
The demand which has been created by deficient
harvests during the last four years has given a stimu-
lus to the growth of wheat upon the Continent; and if
there should be an abundant harvest generally next
year, we should not be surprised to see wheat at as
low a price as in 1835. In this view we are confirmed
by the Banker's Circular of the 16th inst. :—" The
four or five consecutive years of large exports of
grain from all parts of the continent of Europe and all
the shores of the Mediterranean and its connecting
seas eastward to England, have so stimulated produc-
tion that corn is likely to ba in excess beyond the
power of consumption of the population of Europe for
some years to come, and prices consequently low.
There is, for example, a marsh in the neighbourhood
of Leghorn, 30 miles in length, which a few years
since grew scarcely a blade of corn—so unhealthy
that the peasants were allowed to cultivate patches
of it without paying any rent, now covered with the
finest wheat possible."
Now what has .been the stimulus to that pro-
duction, not at home, but abroad ? Obviously
the high price of wheat in England, which is not
a natural price, the result of the increase of our
population, and the deficiency of the home
supply, but of the Corn-law. The sliding-scale
was expressly intended to raise the price, and
limit the foreigner's advantage ; but he has always
been able, except last year, in consequence of
the unexpectedly early and bounteous harvest,
to introduce the bulk of his corn at a nominal, or
very low duty. The foreigner, therefore, who
grows his corn, as the Post continually assures
us, at a very little cost, has continually obtained
for it, when we wanted any, the high, artificial
prices of England. Hence the landowners of
Mecklenburgh—and we shall not soon forget
seeing one of them, as he went across to Ham-
burgh, most complacently handling a purse
heavy with English gold—Tuscany, the Crimea,
and Poland, have in some years realised pro-
digious gains, which have stimulated cultivation
in those countries. Now were there no Corn-
law, the price here would not rise at any time so
much above the level of price on the Continent ;
the stimulus of our growing population would
be first felt at home ; and till all that our own
cultivators could supply had been consumed,
none would be brought across the ocean. That
the price of grain should rule somewhat higher
here than on the Continent, from the density
of our population, and its rapid increase, is
natural; but the great excess of price which
tempts at times, and at times rewards, foreign
cultivation, is the result of our enactments.
But what are the elements of the law-made
high price of England, or of what is it made up ?
First an artificial value is given to land, and the
farmer must promise, before he begins to culti-
vate, to pay an exorbitant rent for the use of it.
,He must pay more for all his seed-corn and the
food of his animals. He must pay more in poor
and county rates. He must pay more for wages
—for the increased rent is paid on the food of
his labourers ; and his increased expenses, in
order to bring corn to market, caused by the
law, constitute the elements of its high price in
England. Thus the Corn-law subjects the Eng-
lish farmer to heavy charges, from which the
foreigner is wholly exempt, who nevertheless
gets as high a price for his wheat, when he can
import it, in the English market as the English
farmer. Hence the Corn-laws operate imme-
diately as a premium for foreigners to cultivate
corn for our market. We know that their after
consequences, in putting an end to trade, operate
in the contrary sense and abroad as well as at
home, they carry with them all the curses of a
great system of gambling, and now make men
wild with hope, and anon make them mad with
despair.

The Mark-lane Express, in common with
other journals, blames public men for not ad-
hering to the law. That is unjust. Public men
have maintained the law as long as they possi-
bly could, and at an expense of national misery
which is now, and ever will be, a terrible re-
proach to them. The Whigs did not meddle

with it till they were compelled, and the strong-
est condemnation of the Corn-law repealers
pronounced by any statesman proceeded from

the mouth of Lord MELBOURNE. Sir R. PEEL,
too, was reluctant to take the subject in hand
but he could not help himself; though his man-
ner of handling it would have been a disgrace
even to that ingenious youth, Mr. GLADSTONE,
had he been the author of the new sliding-scale.
If he touch it again, as touch it he must, parti-
cularly with the prospect of the price of wheat
falling even lower than it was in 183:5, it will not
bpeeoopfle vhi‘shoownfree will, but on compulsion. The
expect that such a law, or any simi-
lar law can be maintained, are far more to blame
than the statesman who
opens his eyes to facts,
yields to the pressure of circumstances, and abro-
gates a law of which he is at length convinced
that it inflicts a grievous injury on very per-
sons it was intended to benefit. It is real folly
to ask and strive to preserve such a law, and
real wisdom to resolve—as it must be given
to give it up instantly-.
Those who talk and write about encourage-
ment to agriculture, who discuss at interminable
length the 'operation of manures, and yet never
carry their ideas beyond the dunghill and the

grim tide-waiter keeping out foreign corn, seem

to us to have most mole-tike views of the ques-

tion. The best manure is not to be found in the

farm-yard, but in the city. It is the increase of
customers. The best encouragement for agri-
culture is not duty on corn, but the increase of

the demand. The best system of dlrainage is the
growth of towns, which carries away superfluous
hands from the land, and supplies the means of

carrying away superfluous moisture. If Sir R.

_ .
PEEL wishes to have our fields manured, encou-
rage agriculture, and prevent the threatened fall
of the price of agricultural prod uce below the

level of 18.35, he will, on the meeting of Parlia-
ment, abolish restrictions on trade, and allow the
manufacturing and commercial reoptilation to find
employment and prosperity.

A Morning Contemporary yesterday gave a
sketch of the policy of LOUIS PHILIPPE, of
I which this is the substance. Fearing for his
throne in the years immediately succeeding the
Revolution, that Kiug assiduously courted the
friendship of England, and was anxious to con-
clude with her sonic treaty to which the North-
ern Courts should not be parties. In 1834 the
situation of Portugal and Spain sup pied an op-
portunity to form such a treaty, and. the Quad-
ruple Treaty was concluded. But -Louts PHIL-
LIPPE never meant to execute that treaty, and
promoted sedition and rebellion against the Go-
vernment, and promoted war anti, bloodshed in
the land he had pledged himself to protect, by
allowing Don CARLOS to make F ranee tire basis
of operations against his trusting ally. Having
this treaty, he used it to brib4: the Northern
Powers to favour him, and ph Aged. himself, if
they would countenance him, t hat he would n of
keep his engagements with us. In defiance .of
his treaty, therefore, he sou; ;ht. to establistC,

TAR SUN, LONDON,

despotism in Spain, and overthrow his own
ally. Defeated in this nefarious scheme, he re-
solved, cost what it might, to marry the young
Queen of SPAIN to a BOURBON. In working
out this new plan, he has employed strata-
gems to produce disturbance and insurrection in
Spain ; he has fomented civil war, and been
the real author of the carnage at Barcelona.
That is the summary of the article in the Morn-
ing Chronicle, and no man was ever accused of
more deceit and of greater cowardice and wick-
edness. He is charged with deceiving Spain,
and protracting there all the horrors of war;
with deceiving England, and risking, but for the
good sense of the people, a European war; with
deceiving the Northern Powers, inasmuch as he
wished to make them, unknowingly, the abettors
of his designs on the young QUEEN ; and he is
charged, while he sits in his easy chair, or lies
in his down and silk-curtained bed, or paces his
terrace under the security of his own guards—
not braving the war, nor inflamed, by a long flat-
tered ambition, like BONAPARTE-with planning
and promoting the worst of all crimes, sedition,
without a just cause, and civil war amongst a
distinct people. The world can supply no ex-
ample of more complicated treachery and greater
poltroonery.

In any other journal such remarks might be of
trifling importance. They might be described
as the tirade of some ill-informed, rabid demo.
crat, or as the outpourings of some furious, dis-
appointed pretender. But it is generally said that
Lord PALMERSTON writes these articles for the
Chronicle, or causes them to be written. They
are, therefore, Lord PALMERSTON'S charges—who
is perfectly well acquainted with all the secrets
of those transactions—against Lours PHILIPPE.
They are the picture of a statesman painted by
a statesman. They make us acquainted with
the motives of statesmen, and serve to explain
the intemperance of the person over-reached,
for which England has had to suffer, and the
turpitude of the person over-reaching. They
display to us the true character of the men the
people are required almost to worship. Looking
at the indescribable mass of misery, the extor-
tion, the plunder, the coercion, the innumerable
restraints and punishments the Louis PHILIPPES
inflict on mankind in every age and country, we
doubt whether a more important truth than this
of statesmen being totally unworthy of obe-

dience, confidence, and trust—of their being
some of the worst men in existence, were ever
revealed or discovered.

It is impossible to allow such charges to pass
unnoticed into oblivion. The honour of the
French nation is deeply involved in them. Will
they tolerate being made the instruments, for no
national object, of such treachery and cold.
blooded cruelty? The honour of human nature
is involved in them. Shall moral, religious,
righteous, God fearing n►en continue to reve-

rence such an incarnation of wickedness? Al

reflecting and serious persons--all the French na.
tion—must call loudly, and repeatedly for the re.

futation of these charges; fur, it' not refitted,
they must, from their own love of' good, from
their respect for virtue, cast off all reverence
for such men. It is a minor matter, but it
deserves to be noted, because it will interest par-
ties, that it will be impossible. as long as these

charges are ascribed without contradiction to
Lord PALMERSTON, and remain unrefuted by
Louts PHILIPPE, that the former should ever
hold an office in our Government while the latter
is on the Throne of France.

The inhabitants of the United States, if we
are to judge from the annual Message delivered
by the PRESIDENT, are a very religious people.
That high functionary, to whatever party he may
belong, never subjects himself to the imputation
made by Sir ROBERT INGLIS against the MEL-
BOURNE Government, but devoutly offers up
thanks, in the name of the people, for the mania
fold mercies conferred on them as a nation.
The Message this year is peculiarly marked in
this respect. "We have continued reason," says
he, "to express our profound gratitude to the
great CREATOR of all things, for numberless
benefits conferred upon us as a people." And
after enumerating some of these benefits, adds,
"Such are the circumstances under which you
now assemble in your respective Chambers, and
which should lead us to unite in praise and
thanksgiving to that GREAT BEING who made
us, and who preserves us as a nation." After
such a solemn preamble, we expected some se-
vere admonitions respecting the sins of the
people, and especially those two great national
sins, Slavery and " Repudiation." Not the
slightest rebuke of these great crimes escapes
from his lips ; and though he laments in the most
lugubrious strains the want of money and the want
of credit, he forgets to lament the sufferings
brought upon thousands of families in England
and France by a system of fraud and bad faith
unexampled in modern times. Even France,
when driven to madness by the profligacy of her
rulers, and the total ruin of her finances, did not,
like certain States, forget justice and honour,
but. paid according to her means. For the
Americans there is no such excuse as poverty or
bad goverment; for, according to the PRESIDENT,
it is a land blessed with genial seasons—the
granaries are filled with abundance—the neces-
saries of life abound in every direction, and it is
the best governed country in the world. This
omission is the more remarkable, as, in
almost the same breath in which he
alludes to want of credit, he emphatically de•
clares that the credit of a Government is the
very soul of a Government itself—a principle of
vitality, without which all its movements are
languid, and all its operations embarrassed. The
first great duty, therefore, he had to perform was
to enjoin upon the people the only course for re-
medying the evil. Heshould have taken his text
from the inspired writings, which he has evidently
read with care, and said " Pay that which thou
owest." " Thou shalt not covet any tiling that
is thy neighbour's." " Owe no man any thing."
The Giver of all Good to whom he so devoutly
pours out thanksgivings cannot fail to punish
deeds which are contrary to the principles
of morality and the dictates of true religion ; and
that nation which sets them at defiance, how-
ever powerful, cannot escape, any more than a
private individual, from the consequences of
such crimes. The punishment in fact has com-
menced. Credit is gone, trade is paralysed, and
universal reproach now attaches to the whole
American nation. They have ample means;
n
eeiyn ttloms
make r fraudulentlyrailroads
oabntadi nceadn
aennd-
atibleledinotl
comfortstitese
improve extensive tracts of territory ; and while
means,
awnesl,l
many
nthe o
of
tei neces-
sariesrthey'doe;ilviefetlie
from
unfortunate creditors are pining in want and
broken-hearted. Indignation against such con-
duct, and the manner in which the Chief Magis-
trate of a great country has passed over it, is
loudly expressed in all quarters. Let the Ame-
rican Congress, therefore, look to its true inte-
rests, and wipe away the disgrace. Improve-
ments in one State benefit all those around it;
the debt of each of them becomes the debt of
the community; and common sense and common
justice demand that Congress should recognise it
as such. There are many honourable and able
men in that assembly, and we therefore confi-
dently trust that the subject will be brought for-
ward this session; and that a country which boasts
of its liberty, its wealth, and its religion, will re-
move a stigma which now effectually excludes it
from the pale of civilized nations.

As we observed on Al iriday, Lord MANNERS'S
pamphlet, entitled " A Plea for National Holi-
days," is more to be commended for its good in-
tentions, than the snacity which dictated it.
When we glanced over two or three of its
earlier pages, we began to fancy that his Lord-
ship's views would be very likely to accord with
our own, on the subject of holidays, inasmuch as
we are no advocatesfor—what the Spectator aptly
calls—" the all work and no play system,"
but hold that occasional recreation is abso-
lutely indispensable to the mind's health
as well as the body's; we soon found, however,
abundant cause to differ with the Noble Lord,
for if be recommend an increase in the number
of public holidays, it is not so much with a view

of the people's welfare, as to the aggrandisement
of the Church. He seems to imagine, with the
Puseyites, t'iat she has not half power enough,
and accordingly he would increase that
power by every ingenious contrivance pos-
sible. Hence his lament for the pau-
city of holidays, and his recommendation
that their number should be increased, so that—
we quote his own words—" the poor and labour-
ing population of England may be restored to the
beneficent and venerable sway"of Mother Church.
Now we have no desire to see this ancient dame
exercising more influence over the minds of the
poor than she at present exercises, for we cannot
but remember that she has almost invariably
been an enemy to freedom of thought, and has
made a point of exerting her authority with a
view to keep the popular mind in a state of
" fat, contented ignorance." "We have abun-
dant reason to hope," observes Lord JOHN MAN-
NERS, " that were the observance of Sain.s-days
services encouraged, rather than discouraged by
modern laws and habits, not only would our
churches be filled with humble worshippers, but
the poor and needy would feel in many little and
unsuspected ways, far more than they can feel
now, that the Church is indeed to thenz a mother
—an endless well of comfort and consolation,
running over with blessings, temporal and
eternal, alike in the heats of Lammas
or the snows of Christmas." This is a
mere flourish of speech, which means
something or nothing, just according to the
reader's fancy. The allusion, in particular, to
the probability of the Church's proving a mo-
ther to the poor, is a special instance of rigma-
role. She may exhibit herself to them as a
grandmother, with all the indolence and imbe-
cility of old age; but we think it very unlikely
that she will ever give them proofs of her ma-
ternal relationship to them, by evincing. any ex-
cessive solicitude respecting their spiritual and
temporal interests.

The intelligence from Barcelona is to the 18th,
but is generally without interest. The REGENT,
who was still at Sarnia, had shown great le-
niency towards the insurgents, and had set at

berty almost every civilian. The war contribu-
tion, too, was to be reduced from 800,000 to
400,000 dollars. The following telegraphic dis-
patch, from the French frontier, has been re-
ceived:—

" PERPIGNAN, DEC. 23.
" General Seoane, the new Captain-General, ar-
rived at Barcelona on the 20th. General Van Halen
was to leave on the 22d, with the Regent. A delay
of a week had been granted for the payment of the
contribution.

" The Foreign Consuls, including the English one,
have offered a public dinner to the French Consul
and to the Commandant and staff of the French and
naval force."