The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1835-03-13 00:00:00

next packet, that of the 24th February, will probably
bring us the decision of the House of Representatives
upon the subject of the claims.
These papers also contain some terrific exposures of
the shameful and terrific jobbing in the postoffice depart-
ment of this pure model of a republic. We shall endea-
vour to make room for some of the details in our next,
when the reader may expect a rich treat.

Ministers obtained a large majority on Tuesday night
against Lord CHANDOS'S motion for a repeal of the malt
duty, the speech of Sir ROBERT PEEL being one of the
most masterly and argumentative efforts that ever was
listened to, we should think, in the House of Commons.
Thus there is.an end to the factions! The question was
a touching one in a pecuniary point of view, it being
plain that the only alternative, after repealing the malt
duty, must have been the imposition of a property tax.
This came home to the hearts,-or rather the pockets of
the whigs, the money lenders, the landholders, the an-
•nuitants, and all persons of fixed. incomes, and they
accordingly voted with ministers. Patriotism loves good
ale homebrewed, but it is inconvenient to dig out from
ten to five
.hundred pounds per annum from one's in-
come, simply to save a penny upon a quart of vulgar
drink. Patriotism for ever! The whigs profess an
amazing affection for their " fellow citizens" who drag
their carriages occasionally through the mud, and cheer
them at the hustings, but they do not choose to give them
too much cheap beer. How considerate I
_ .

In the King's speech at the opening of the present
session, his majesty is advised to " lament" that the
agricultural interest " still continues in a state of great
depression." The motion of Lord CHANDOS, therefore,
had for its object a measure of relief—such a measure
as he conceived would benefit the suffering cultivators of
the soil. That liarliament as well as ministers must be
anxious to devise some plan to promote that object can-

rx:.a. for. mon-et-It b doubted, and tha r•nls quopatni.,p,
concerns the:.motion or Lord CIIANDOS, is, whether the
repeal of the: malt duty would give such relief as would
be equal to the great sacrifice of revenue that would
necessarily :ensue ? We confess we do not think it
would. We cannot see how the cultivator of barley
would, be benefited if he did not receive a higher
price .for his barley, and if he did, we cannot
see how the labourer and the other consumers of
ale would be benefited, for the advance in the price of
barley wouldiirevent any reduction in the price of beer.
As to the farmer going back to the old habit of brewing
his own beer., that is now entirely out. of the question.
The farmer and his labourer are now completely sepa-
rated, and are totally distinct classes. Formerly this was
not fir() case. They lived in the same house, fared at the
same board, tapped the same barrel, and drank out of the
same tankard. All this is at an end, except in some very
remote districts. The homely bonds are broken, the
manners are changed, the sympathy is destroyed; and
we defy the art of man to revive a system now obsolete,
and incompatible with the present state of society.
That the excise laws, and the malt duty in particular,
wrought the change, we are ready to admit; but this is
another queStion. The evil is done—the farmer and
labourer are completely alienated from each other—re-
cent events have rendered it impossible that the union
and the confidence can be restored—and therefore it be-
comes the duty of every wise statesman to seek a remedy
of a far different kind.
The landowners generally, and a large proportion of
the farmers of England, are at preseint in the condition
of the planters and proprietors of the West Indies. Their
estates are deeply mortgaged. The farmer is also in
debt, either to his landlord, to a neighbouring banker,
or some rich corn factor or cattle dealer. So that,
which way we turn,
,Ive find difficulties of an almost in-
surmountable nature. During the war, rising prices
led to improvements, and encouraged speculation. The
money borro(ved at 5 per cent. interest, and expended in
cultivatingwastes and making corn and grass grow where
they never grew before, was a safe speculation so long as
prices continued to adVance. It was, at all events, a specu-
lation of a 'post desirable kind in g national point of view.
Every acre of land .which we recovered from the waste
and wild was something gained for the
,country. It
might take a thousand pounds to convert the peat bog
into a corn field ; but, "although the land thus reclaimed
might afterwards, owing to the fall of prices, not be
worth half the money expended upon it, still the country
was considerably benefited. The speculator may have
been ruined—the cultivator, in sheer despair, may have
drowned himself in the deep ditch by which he drained
the waste—still there is the blooming spot yielding crops
of corn and potatoes for hungry weavers and ungrateful
nailors.

The whole evil has been caused by the change in the
times, the fall of prices, and the unfortunate alteration
in the monetary system of Mr. PlTT—doubly unfortu-
nate in this respect that at the time it was made this
country was upwards of six hundred millions of pound
in debt, contracted for in paper when paper money was
not worth half the present value of gold. This, at once,
put an end to improvement on a great scale, and it re-
duced the working obligant to the necessity of either
parting with his land to the mortgagee, or toiling for his
interest in a capacity little above that of a slave. He
walked the earth, like a free man, but his independence
was gone, he was under the surveillance of some lawyer,
MOSES SWEAT-THE-GUINEA held his bond, there was a
mark before his name in the tax-gatherer'sbooks, OBADIAH
MUCKLECHEAT would not renew the hundred-pound bill
which he had renewed every three' months for the previ-
ous fifteen years, charging a commission each time, so
that the poor man dreamt of the workhouse by night and
saw a sheriff's officer in every tree by day. The land-
owneris much in the same situation as the farmer. His
father, when rents were high, and wheat from ninety

shillings.to one hundred and twenty shillings per quarter,
made handsome settlements upon his younger children,
leaving-1)1s eldest son burthened with the payment and
the interest of the borrowed paper which gave this un-
natural rise to prices. We call it unnatural, because it
was..so:in appearance. In reality it was otherwise.
Wheat rat eighty shillings, paper money, in 1813, was
not so. high as wheat at forty shillings, gold money, is at
present.

However, we are-over head and ears in this difficulty,
and there is no use in disputing about its proximate cause,
or the parties who were instrumental in producing the
chang. We are all in the same ship► now—one class
beinghigh up in opulence, and another low down in debt
and almost in despair—both being convinced that we
cannot safely retrace our steps without entirely destroying
the .credit, commerce, and industry of the country. • Still
something must be done for the fanner. We cannot
allow that most valuable portion of the people, who are
in fact the heart and soul of the country, to linger on in
bitterness of spirit, in the melancholy of hope long de-
ferred, toiling in vain fur a pittance, and wasting their
blood and sinews in supporting a suspected solvency.
But then, admitting the necessity, still the question
presseg—WHAT IS TO BE DONE?.

Sir ROBERT PEEL has not answered it yet. We are
bound to admit that he has not had sufficient time for the
consideration of so complicated a question. That some
relief will be given during the present session we feel
confident. The country. expects it at. Sir ROBERT PEEL'S
hands, and it will be grateful for whatever he can afford.
We cannot see how the right hon. baronet can remove
any portion of the pressure which comes from the mort-
gagee interest unless he were to countenance an. issue of
state paper which should be inconvertible—declaring
it to be so at least for ten years. There are many
things, however, which he might do easily and benefici-
ally. He might induce parliament to suspend the present
corn laws for three years, or say fire years, prohibiting
the importation of all kinds of foreign corn during that
period, under any circumstances whatever, except an
actual scarcity, in which case the privy council should
have pwer to restore the suspended laws during the re-
cess of parliament, and the parliament to have the power
when sitting.
This would be a Godsend to the agricultural interest.
It-would revive the spirits of the farmer. It might raise
the price of corn to a remunerating price, but not higher,
for then the executive or the parliament would interfere.