The Statesman.
London, England, 1820-05-02 00:00:00

THE STATESMAN•

to the superiority of his creed, over the infidelity, or,
at best, the doubts of his fellow-sufferers. All, in-
deed, Ikaintaisiod an outward show of firmness, and
thus proved that what they bad resolution to suffer,
they would have had strength of nerve to execute ; but
that show of firmness was of a very different character.
In TtDD and Hiiuscr it appeared a brutal indifference;
in Eras an assumed turbulence of spirits : in THISTLE-
WOOD a contention of manliness with horror, in which,
though the latter was perceptible, the former remained
unsubtlued. In DATIDPON alone it bore the calm and
unassuming composure of a resigned spirit. Tuts-
rtoswoo o could not conceal the mental tempest which
raged beneath his outward peace and professed
infidelity. His address to TIDD upon the scaf-
fold, " shall soon know the grand secret,"
proved that the consciousness of immortality forced
itself upon his soul, even at the moment of •p-
-parent annihilation. And what terrors must it not
have brought to a guilty, and perhaps unrepenting
spirit. DAVIDSON spent his last moments in fervent
prayer. The robber on the Cross was forgiven—let
us trust that the intended assassin wet with similar
mercy ; and let us retest, with a consoling hope, that
the fountain of that redeeming mercy flows for all, and
that even the most hardened may find grace in the eyes
of Him, whose existence they have rashly denied, and
whose saving faith they have blindly abandoned.

For four years has the kingdom of England enjoyed
profound peace, and from the commencement of that
period the attention of the whole empire has been
turned to one great question—the employment of the
people—yet no practical advance towards the accom-
plishment of the object is discernible; on the con-
trary, though urged by the most desperate symptoms
of national disorder, which all men now admit to ori- I
ginate in the want of such employment ; though the
progress of agriculture is stopped if the art be not re•
trogading—though the demand for the staple mann-
fActures of the country decrease must alarmingly—
thong!. commerce languishes--and lastly, though re-
venue falls off and the public securities sink, yet not
a solitary attempt has been set on fo to obviate the
sure, the inevitable d ertiction that mint termi-
nate this lamentable inactivity. In the mean time
the country is sinking faster and faster, and deeper

and deeper.
It has been shown how impossible it must be to
hope or expect a peaceable or a prosperous community
while starvation and misery press with such severity
st#on the people. The irremediable condition of hope-
lessness to which the country must lie reduced is nil-
nifeet, unless some NATIONAL IMILAPURE for the employ-
ment of the industrious be institu•ed. It is time to
convince the Legislature that the bulk of the nation
are not blind to the duties which have devo'Ned upon

Administration.
We esperiones as evil. obviettsly irrempvable by in-
dividual effort, or by the efforts of th'e whole swift,-
in their individual powers and capacities. 'I he wisdom
of no one man has yet been able to elucidate so clearly
the cause, and to proceed up to the demonstration of
the remedy, as to dash conviction upon the general
understanding. But we entertain not the most remote
doubt, that all the parts of the subject have been in-
vestigated
and satisfactorily explained by various
minds--that the true principles have been developed—
that adequate expedients have been proposed, and that
it is only necessary to collect the disjeeta ine,ohra, the
scattered notices—to digest and to employ them. This 1
is the natural and proper department of the I.lovern-
went, and such a mass of suffering, hazard, and loss 1
---so much of every thing dangerous to liberty and
life, has been accuoittlated, and is still accumulating,
from what we must esteem the negligence or the in-
capacity of Ministers, that with such facts pressing
upon their senses, we were never so much astounded'
as at the apathy of those in whose power it lies to in-
sist upon some attempt to meliorate the condition of
the country, or upon a change of mom. It is mar-
vellous to perceive how Ministers derive strength from I
their very weakness--how the terrors of the few,
arising out of the fatal consequences of the distresses
of the many, have tended to protract for a time the
duretion of that Adtuinistration which such facts ought,
according to the judgments of reason and the lessons
of experience, to have driven from office ; for the eon•
dition of the governed, we losable ig, is the test of the
ability of the governors.
'I hat labour has ceased to ply its work,
all ord, n
of men assure us--all the public accounts that bow
upon national industry prove—all the facts that MN
the individual and the general observations demelaw
strata. It is then no longs: matter of choice. Some
monsure so stimulate and revive the palsied members
Orimeciety must be taken, ur the whole body ponds
must perish. It is for these reasons, and the meet
their force is considered the more irresistible we ate
persuaded they will appea,, that we hare looked only
to one principle, THIII PAINCIPLI Of PRODUCTION, lii
that which can free the country, without dishonour,
front its cruel ensbarrassments.-1 hat Ministers have
so long been blind or indifferent to this view of the sab-
ject. or impotent to carry it forward, is, as we este,. k,
I condemnation without redemption ; and so long as Illey
matinee in power, the country for the same resume,
tamely, that they are so blind, so indifferent, or so Ingo.
Mat, is left without hope. A loan, a property-tax, or ady
fiber tax, are only expe heats to fa ilitate the distribio 1
des of the possessions of those who have amongst thew
'behave not---expedients which relieve one class at dm
I •
apace of soother, like the room' rate. Once wail
dila Mt us endeavour to impress upon the nation, tike
tor nin of the national production is the sem raid
f the national subsistence--that the making tbie
equal and sufficient to satisfy the necessities, the rights.
and the claims of every order of the commonwealth,
is the only equitable mode of provision, and t. at this
can be effected only by increasing production, through
the instrumentality of that labour which is now silent 1
and still. All other modifications are but spoliation I
or alms giving, to neither of which ought a free, an
industrious, an ingenious, and a high-minded people
to be subjected ; for every fresh exudes, unaccom-
panied by extended resfarces, is but Ihe extinction of