Star.
London, England, 1821-12-28 00:00:00

LONDON.

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 28, 1821.
Hazy Imoczne.—Holiday skate bask.
THE FUNDS.

The Stock Market is more steady to-day the
panic has subsided, and Consols fur the Account
have improved to 7734. The purchases made yes-
terday, it is ascertained, were for the Bears, who
had, on the previous day, sold largely on 'Change.
'The Jew Bulls took advantage of the depression
caused by the 'Change Bean, by buying up all Stock
offered, and have in consequence increased their pro-
fits. The system of jobbing on the Exchange s, we
think, injurious to the Public, as a combination of
either Bulls or Bears is calculated to produce a false
fluctuation. We recommend to the Committee of
the Stock Exchange to declare all such bargains
illegal.

Agricultural Meetings seem 1110 W to be the order
of the day: nor can it surprise any person that men
suffering as the proprietors and occupiers of land do
at the present moment, should, like the drowning
man, endeavour to seize upon any twig that may
help to keep them above water. But whence the
present distress ? If we give credit to some, who
affect to have studied the subject deeply, it is owing
to the importation of corn. When? Three years
ago !! Let it be so for the present moment. Im-
portation, under the operation of the present Corn
Laws, has caused corn to fall in price! and the in-
ference is, that there ought to be a duty upon all
corn imported—no matter what the scarcity at the
moment may be—of forty shillings a quarter!! Will
this, Gentlemen, remedy the evil of which you com-
plain—namely, low prices? If the importations which
took place three years ago be the cause of the present
low price of corn, what has caused the depression in
the prices of beef, mutton, lamb, veal, and poultry of
every description? Is this also to be attributed to
importation ? If so, we ask when, or where, these
importations took place?
Gentlemen, you are deceiving yourselves ; 'or suf-
fering others to deceive you, and to prompt you to
seek a remedy for your present distress by an act dis-
honest in principle, and which, even if you could carry
the measure, would leave you where you are. It is
impossible, by any coercive law, to benefit cne class
of the community, without injuring other classes pre-
cisely to the same extent. You would like, by any
means, no matter m hat, to see tke price of grain so
fixed by law, that the quartern loaf should never be
sold for less than one shilling— you would, perhaps,
prefer eighteen-pence ! Can this be effected without
reducing the labouring chivies, who are, after all,
those who have the best right to be well supplied, as
they furnish everythihg that goes to the support of
the unproductive classes :—we say, can this be ef-
fected without reducing them to a state of the greatest
wretchedness ? Can a system which, by any possi-
bility, may produce such an issue, be right in itself?
would it not ultimately defeat its own object by re-
ducing their number ? or, in othei words, diminish.
ing the very sources which now serve to supply the
wants of all. Reduce their number and you reduce
the surest means for the consumption of your own
products ; and vain will be your labours to obtain
large returns with a diminished number of customers.

" But are we to have no relief whatever under our
present distresses?' The agriculturalist may fairly
put this question. But is his the only class that may
thus speak ? No, truly ! and he has no more right to
seek redress—a fallacious redress too—at the expense
of other classes, than they have to seek redress at
his expense.

It is an incontrovertible axiom in civil economy,'
that a community can continue to contribute from
its gains to the necessary expenses of the State—or
wasteful expenditure—for this alters not the result,
just so long as the labours of the productive classes
can maintain themselves and those that are idle, or
who, however busy they may be, add nothing by
their labours to the common stock. When a State
gets beyond this point, one or more of the classes of
the community must begin to suffer—and that se-
verely ! At first this falls on those who are least able
to protect themselves, namely, the very classes which
minister to the wants of all—the labouring classes ;
of whom undue advantages are taken by the very
men who have been made rich by their labours.
Wages get reduced and indescribable miseries follow.
But evils arising from a larger expenditure than the
productive labourers can furnish, at last spread them-
selves over the whole community. The labouring
classes, unable with their reduced wages to satisfy,
to the full, the cravings of nature, are obliged to go
with, often, less than a half meal. In other words,
the demand for the products of the agriculturalist
are reduced a half, and yet he wonders at the large
supply in the market and the consequent reduction
of price !

A reduced number of consumers and low wages
are absolutely incompatible with high prices of corn.
You might as well, by legislating, attempt to alter
the times of sun-rise and sun-set, as to reconcile them.
And should it be said this is not intended, the case
will not be altered ; for plain it is, that you seek, by
high prices, to pay yourselves at the expense of others ;
aad whatever may be the sirsuimus route of the ope,

'ration, what you want to get must come from those
who are productively employed—and this for a self-
evident reason—none else ate producing anything
either for themselves or for you. You are aiming at
an impossibility, and sooner or later you will be con-
vinced of it.

But is there no remedy left? Yes, there is, a very
sure remedy, if properly pursued ; but, even if pur-
sued with every degree of energy and prudence, one
of slow operation :—namely, a real and efficient re-
duction of the public expenditure. There is no other
remedy but this—or else to encounter the dangers to
which other nations are exposed. Yes—and every
day's delay tends to increase the danger and to hasten
such a crisis. In what do Revolutions originate ? In
distresses of one kind or another. The Landholdets
and Occupiers are now suffering—they feel the evil—
they endeavour to avoid it, and to throw the burthen
on others : but this cannot be done without injustice
—and injustice is oppression, on whoever it may fall
We like not, for reasons which must strike every pm,
dent reader, to trace the operation through its various
windings and ramifications. Enough shews itself, on
the bare surface, to put wise men on their guard, with
respect to palliatives, which can only tend ultimately
to aggravate the evils that are now complained of by
'all classes—except the Consumers of Taxes.

The Paris Journals of Tuesday contain a report of
the proceedings in the Chamber of Deputies of the
preceding day, which throws some light on the state
of parties in France, though it does not develope
much of the policy of the Government. The Sittings
commenced with the Minister of the Interior (M. Cos-
wens) presenting a law project on the salutary policy
which had been adopted by the Chamber of Peers.
The new Minister was treated very uncourteously
by the Members, who called out on all sides---“ Speak
louder!—get somebody to read for you r The Pas-
SID/MT rang bis bell and called silence, and the
Deputies talked to each other while M. Commie
finished the reading of his speech. The Chamber
then proceeded to the order of the day on the law
project relative to the provisional three-twelfths of
the revenue.

M. de Coaflei.Laa, the only Deputy whose name
was inscribed for speaking, mounted the tribune, and
voted against the provisional tax, unless Ministers
gave a formal assurance of terminating the precarious
state in which France was placed relative to foreign
Powers.—" What idea," he exclaimed, " What na-
tional pride, animates the Representatives of a Nation
formerly so great, but which now only fills up the
vacuum that is left on the map of the world, by the
magnitude of its Budget?—(Bravo! on the left.).-1
You are asked for three-twelfths provisional. Open
your eyes, and you will see that provisionality itself
is infused into all the branches of your system, and
enervates and withers you—(Marks of approbation
on the left).—You have provisional justice!—when,
instead of a Law on the Jury, which is so necessary,
and which has been so frequently promised, nothing
but a system of penalties, of suspicion, and of censor-
ship, is thought of—a system which degrades the
most generous and most ingenious of civilized na-
tions." He proceeded—France now had a provi-
sional system for the interior, a provisional public
credit, and a provisional war system—a system which
was opposed to the passing of a law dictated by na-
tional feeling, which would unite, by one noble tie,
the veterans of whom France was proud. This pro-
visional state of the War Department deprived
France of a guarantee against possible events, which,
perhaps, were near at hand—a guarantee more satis-
factory, and more worthy of a brave people, than
that of foreign mercenaries, maintained at double
pay—(Murmurs on the right, and interruption).—
(Voices on the left—" Can such murmurs be heard in
a Ft ench Chamber r)—The Speaker continued—" I
might also say you have a provisional state of foreign
affairs: but human blood shed with impunity in the
East by barbarians—but the cry of despair from our
neighbours, who extend their arms towards us, and
who have been delivered up to foreign bayonets—but
the political balance of Europe broken in the face of
France—but our maritime commerce repressed, I
might almost say, excluded by the free States of
South America, while that of our skilful rivals is, by
an opposite conduct, become more flourishing than
ever among these people. AU these things announce
to us that this single vice in our political existence
requires from us a guarantee before we vote the three-
twelfths. Gentlemen, if the interests of the country
be, in your eyes, above all considerations, recollect
how often you have had cause to repent allowing a
similar opportqnity for taking securities to escape you."
M. de Vittate, and M. Cossuullt PERRIER, after-
wards bore a part in the discussion—the former taking
credit for a diminution of taxes to the amount of 34
millions, and the latter insisting, on the contrary,
that there was an increase in the supply for this year
to the same amount, the last Budget being for 866
millions, and the present for 890.

M. Naomi complained, that fixing the imposts of
1822 by those of 1821, was adding to the taxes of the
ensuing years the extraordinary taxes of the present.
He proposed to add to the Ist article of the Law Pro•
ject the following words 5..:“ With the exception of
the local contributions, which, being granted for a li-
inked period, shall cease to be collected on the Ist of
January next."

M. CASSIIIIR PERRIER, and General Foy, both ad-
najtted, that, under the present circumstances, it wit