The Sun.
London, England, 1842-09-07 00:00:00

lent

So far as h can serve the purposes of the mer-
chant, without unduly taxing the rest of the com-
munityfor, highly as we prize -commerce;' eve
would not tax the people to promote it—the.' o-
vernment is bound to serve them. A line. of
regular communication kept up steam-boats, via
Ilalifax,.the United States, and all the Western
world, at us little cost as possible,- would be of
advantage to commerce and to every part of the
empire. It would ,helP; we_ believe, like every
extension of outrelatious with the kindred_ people
of the United States, to cement the brotherly
union that ought always to exist between that
country ai.a, Logiand.- On ail these considera-
tions, as well as from a desire to keep up steam
navigation
.across the Atlantic, at pret.ent'en-
dangered by its great cost, this subject ought to
be „taken up by the Government. It devotes
tlw public inuiley to convey/ the maiis.to Halifax
and the West Indies, and it is bound to perform
that service as effe.etually and cheaply as possible.

The combinations of workmen to raise wages in
Lancashire and other manufacturing districts, is the
subject of 'a leading article in the Herald of this
morning. As the Herald is one of the advocates of
the Corh-law Monopoly, which produced the late
strike by enhancing the price of bread, our readers
may be curious to hear by what line of argument our
Contemporary seeks to convict the operatives of all
the folly and guilt which those who administer the
laws now charge them with. Hear, • then, what the
Herald says upon the subject:--
" Can they [the working classes] suppose for one
instant that capital, unless it has perfect freedom and
independence of action, will continue to sojourn
amongst them ?, The spirit of capital is the most
ethereal spirit that ever visited this every day world
of ours. Attempt to lay a hand upon it, and it
vanishes from the haunt which has ceased to
afford it security, and will seek safety in some ob-
scure retreat, it it cannot find some other spot
where the blessing of its presence would be better
appreciated. To attempt to coerce it by such a
confederacy as we have adverted to would be to
chase it away with rods of iron Is this what
the misguided men want ? Do they suppose that
they will fare more sumptuously when they have
exiled or destroyed the capital which has actually
called them into existence r Do they imagine that
their labour could be so profitably employed without
the assistance and direction of capital ? if they sup-
ply hall the markets of the world with the works of
their hands, it is capital alone which enables them to
command their monopoly. It is capital alone which,
by combining the ingenuity of one with the industry
of another, the fancy of the designer with the manual
dexterity of the weaver, enables them to enjoy all the
benefits of co-operation. Capital in relation to labour
is the belly to the members ; and would any man
strike himself in the stomach to cure a spasm or a
heartburn ?"

Instead of the " working classes" read "landlords
and legislators " in the first sentence of the above ex-
tract, and what an excellent exposure have we here of
the wickedness of Parliamentary meddling with tariffs,
sliding scales, and other impediments to the free
investment of capital ! If capital be " the most
ethereal spirit that ever visited this every day
world of ours" —if it elude any attempt
to touch it by vanishing from the haunt
where it before appeared, wherefore do. Tory
statesmen seek to fetter it by a system of artificial
starvation ? Any mischief done by the turn out of
workmen is but temporary ; but not so the operation
of laws for keeping up the price of
_food, which have
the double effect of making bread dear, and closing
the bread-producing markets of the world against the
products of capital. The arguments of the Herald
are arguments in favour of a free trade—a trade as
unfettered bi- human legislation and the coercive con-
trol of combined workmen or capitalists as the winds
that waft the condor to the peaks of the Andes,
or the waves that roll over the wide surface
of the Atlantic. Now, this is the doctrine
of The Saw: To the Legislature we say,
leave capital and labour to make their own bargains
and adjust their own differences. As they do not fix
a price upon their products, let them procure food
wheresoever and as cheaply as they can. They will
be sure to make the home grower the first offer, and
that is enough for him, seeing that they seek not
to compel him to consume all their wares
at arbitrary prices. But the temptation to rob the
capitalist and the operative is too strong for the
landlords' sense of honesty. The logic which is ex-
pected to convince the working men makes no im-
pression upon them—and hence the Corn-laws, and
the sugar duties, and the timber duties, and
the cheese and butter duties, and the fresh
and salt, quick and dead beef, mutton, pork,
and all descriptions of meat duties ! What a
set of plunderers of the poor—what a horde of de-
stroyers of capital, must not the Tory members of the
Legislature appear in the eyes of our venerable Con-
temporary tl-Kt Herald!

The inha'aitants of Derby have lately had a speci-
men of the • new system adopted by the Tories for the
suppression of public discussion, and preventing the
people from assembling and stating their grievances. On
Wednesday notices were stuck on the walls that a lec-
ture would be given in the theatre on the following
evening "up on the state of the country, and the ne-
cessity mid safety of extending political power to all
classes of the ;v)eople." In order to prevent this a
certain numb lr of the Magistrates held a
secret meetim, sent for the lessor of the
theatre, and, ,by some means or other, in-
duced him to break his engagement with those who
had obtained his )ermission to meet in that building.
The lessor, however, who does not appear to be a man
of much firmness, a again changed his opinion, and con-
sidering that a moral-force lecture could do no harm,
renewed the engage merit a second time. The acting
Magistrates, on. learning this attempt to defeat their
purposes, sent a body of police, who, according to
an address of the Municipal. Electors to the Civic
Authorities, by " sheer intimidation," induced the
lessor to authorise them to eject the persons then
in possession, and the theatre was finally closed.
Now, had there been any reasonable apprehension that
violent language would be used, or any attempt made
to excite the hearers to commit a breach of the peace,
such precautions could not be blamed ; but when it is
known that the Lecturer i s a man of peaceable habits,
that he, condemns in the str .ongest manner every act of
violence, that the party to which he belongs have
separated themselves front the physical-force men,
and trust for political changes more to education and
moral ii nprovement than t o any schemes for amending
institut'ions, however defective, we can attribute this
conduc': of the Magistrares only to a determination
on their part to prevent free discussion, and keep
down Englishmen by the military and police. Such
a syst em is entirely oppos ed to the spirit of the Con-
stitution. The people of this country have long con-
sidered the right of petiti on one of their most sacred
privileges; even in the v worst times, for the last cen-
tury and'. a half, they ha ve exercised it;. and it will,
therefore , berather a hazardous attempt, in these days
of nation al improvement, to reduce the people to a
condition against which they often rebelled even in
harbor:3las ages. If they are not allowed to meet,
how ca:,a they consider their grievances, draw
up petit ions for redress ? The one is intimately
connect( .d with the other, an d it therefore becomes the
duty of free subjects to resist this encroachment on
political rights, and join with the Municipal Electors
of Deft )y in using all lawfu and peaceful means
to resisl at once such a dangerous innovation. The
address is drawn up with moderation and firmness, and
aptly 1 oints out, in the following words, what will,
to a cc Ttainty, be the result :----" They (the Magis-
trates` may be assured that a stoppage of the lawful
far stronger and
exprel ;si on of public opinion will ultimately induce its
unlav d expression in some way
more (If mgerous.
when free discussion--the great safety-valve of
Exp?rience has ever shown that
tide will gradually increase in intensity, until
society put down, the pent-up feelings of the
maltit
fney ind vent in sonic dreadful outburst of popular
dis nation." _