The Statesman.
London, England, 1821-11-30 00:00:00

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IMPROVED STATR OF rHE COUNTRY !

[IRON Tile neutral. MERCURY Or LAST iatuunae.l
In proof substantial and decisive of the improve•
ment in trade, commerce, manufactures, and agri-
cultural concerns, of which the veritable Courier
and other Ministerial papers is town, and their 4or-
responding satellites in the country, have taken upon
themselves lately to assure the public, last &fur-
„,,r4ay °night's Gazette presen s ds with a list of Pot:Te-
ma BANKRUPTS, amongst which is a Baronet, and
several other persons known recently to have been
• teen of large property; but, perhaps, the most strik-
ing' fact of all others connected wtth this important
subject is, the applies:don made to the Lord Chan-
cellor, on Me part of certain Tenants of lands, to
hare their Rents loitered on account of the reduced
ritlue of the produce of their farms. 'lids is an ap-
plication, respecting which, before he lieciol.., the
Chancellor may be excused for laying hie hand
upon his heart, appealing solendy to lois Maker
and--doubting. And may it not fairly be asked
whether lee who concurred with his official collo..rues
in ordering the Bank of England to rinse payment
of their promissory notes. can, consistently uml con-
scientiously refuse to authorise a compulsory reduc-
tion of Rent, proportioned to that reduction in t.e
retiree of fareerprodnce and ofall real property, which
again he and his colleagues have occoiioned by their
other financial measure, called Mr. Peel's Act
This application involves a multitude of import-
ant consideration., which shall shortly have a full
*hare of our undivided attention : whilst at present we
• recommend the general contemplation of it, as furnish-
ing a most novel, most striking, and most important
proof of the situation into which the country is now
being reduced by storm weathering pilots, heaven-
. torn' minister% sycophancy, and folly. And will these
appalling facts, above, below, around, never awaken
those who still sleep with the sword of Damocles MlS-
prnifed by a hair over their devoted heads, or who, as
if possessed by evil spirits, rejoice in the delusion
srhich is about to destroy them ?
ss 'Tit; a fearful thing to see •
se go many Maniacs dancing in their chains."—Coors*.
Dining the last Session of Parliament, as is well
known, a Select Committee was appointed, in the usual
• way, nhieh every one now well understands, for the
avowed pu 'pose of inquiring into the state of extreme
- distress and danger, in which the landed and agricia-
tura' interests have been plunged under the adminis-
don of Lord* Liverpool, Castlereagh, and Sitlutouth.
--This Committee, se appointed, sat and adjourned,
and adjourned and sat, for several months, in
t:-It tom-se of which time the evidence of a great
neither of persons was heard and recorded before this
same Committee, whose invalnable labours at length
t-rminatril in their acceptance of a most polite, most
cattrteone. and most iriesistifole invitation on the part
or one of the Ministers to—olinner, and in the produc-
tion of what is termed a Report on the bill of fare which
bad been provided. This was considered at the time
bit an odd sort of conclusion to a three months' con- ,
sideratiOn ore subject which involved the vital interests
of nine-tenths of the country gentlemen of England
(for we believe tl.at even ?pm there is not in numberij
more than one-tenth of then) who are retainers of the',
Minister, or who prosper by taxation,) and of ninety-,
nine out of one hundred of the yeomanry and farmers
of the country. Various reports of great difference of ,
o?inion between fhe Ministerial Majority and the
Alinisteritl selection of Minority Members prevailed
during the long protracted sittings of this tensed ,
Committee; and it was even rumoured (though of
course without solid fonntlatioo) that something like
a mutiny amongst certain thick and thin adherents of
Ministers was apprehended. How all this terminated
is now well understood; but not so the elaborate Be-
lton of this most segacious dinner-ending Committee,
which deals in hypotheses rather than facts, and is
made up of ifs and ands, of matters conjectural and
winters relative, of hopes and of fears, of studiously
obscure adnikion of past blunders, and of the usual
pillar of trust, which all dabbler* in poli•ies, whose
plans have proved either abortive or mischievous, never
fail to have resonrse to ; the expression of a blind or
conning faith that time will mend what they have
marred ; and that things will in the end come round.
There are also some distant and rather coy allusions
to the always easurd, but now stale and musty non-
sense of the transition story, whose powers of delusion
knaves and fools have either trus-ed in, or been de-
ceived by, for the last six years. But it may be asked,
and asked with regret and indignation, whether such
a Report, or any Report short of one which, clearly
anti candidly tracing the present distresses of the
Landed and Agricultural Interests and of the Country
at large ts their true cause, dictated relief from those
distresses by the removal of the cause, could be in
the least creditable to the reporters,*satisfactory to the
sufferers, or conducive to the restoration of that pros-
perity and safety which have been sacrificed to prin-
ciples, of despotism wool base self-interest ? Let it
not be' said that the sulloct is a difficult one, and that
the 'froth is entangled amidst mews of mete; the true
principles of politics and of truth are everlastingly
the same, and an honest and patient recurrence to those
principles, and applica•ion of facts undistorted by
party bias or seltioh predilections, could not fail of ex-
hibiting broth a retrospeet of the past, and a represen-
tation of the parent, pot only correct in outline, but
without false colouring, It was very evident that
with the prices for farm produce, note producing ruin
to both tenant and landlord, the farmer in 1792 was
doing well ; and it wao equally clear that the only
material difference in his circumstances operating too
his disfavour nose tool Men wasobat he is at present
called opon to pay more than fourfold the weight of
taxes and other pecuniary burdens to what he was
then, nut at t all No oNKATt.It SiZANS: It was, and is,
also notorious, that farm produce sells amongst our
Continental neighbours at lower prices than it is even
now selling fur here, and that the farmerii there can
afford so to sell it. income they are comparatively
li.tle hardened, atatiy " untaxed and untithed." • is
it possible, then, that the " wayfaring man,.iliougb a
fool," could fail of drawing the right conclusion as to
the nature of the appropriate and only. remedy? •Is
It possible. that the 'wideste now published by order
of the House of Coasasous. which dlbeleses the follow-
ing important facts, and a multitude of others, all of
similar teadeoey, could be mistaken by-potions anxious
only to do the toiletry justice :

Ariake's& wii• gild eat of the Sioeki in 1011. at
iseisesee is% she sail is. 1014 t*e thesehadtipes

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