Richmond daily times. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1853, 1852-06-21

tive parties continue to be engaged in the pleasan
task of giving and receiving, unless circumstances
should occur las may happen) to array their inter
ests in opposite factions. This is no conjecture
state OF things; 1t Is now the condition of the urbar
and rural population in Great Britain, or to speal
with greater accuracy, of England and Scotland
There upon the subject of the corn laws, these
classes are at the opposite ends of the bala.
ance The people of the cities, we mean
those engaged largely in foreign commerce.
and those interior cities, principally EN-
gagged in manufacturing the materials for that
commerce, call for cheap bread, and Intent only on
advancing their own interests, desire the free i'm
importation of foreign corn The English and
scotch farmers, and the retail merchants and 9th
Ell parasite interests, naturally enough oppos
with zeal a governmental policy that marks them
out as victims to be sacrificed to an artificial in
terest, as victims to appease the hunger of the
urban multitudes and crafty the avarice of city
capitalists. Indeed the rivalry of these opposing
interests has grown to be so very intense that the
late minister proposed alterations in the British
Constitution the effect of which, by increasing
to the Manchester party the absolute control of
government. So soon as this shall be done in
country, from what we said in the beginning of
these observations, the natural order of things is
reversed-the servant has risen above the mas
ter, the dependant above his lord, and the cities
arroganty forgettingtheir beginnings and the first
objects of their creation, aspire to rule, where in
truth they should quietly obey This fortunately
can never be the condition of things in this
country. Rural interests and rural numbers have,
and must ever have, the absolute control of public
affairs. The cities of this noble Republic, how
ever populous and wealthy they may become,
must still continue in a secondary capacity and be
content to act as the landmarks of the country
Our people, occupying country of noble ca
pacity, reaching from ocean to ocean and from
zone to zone, are we'll pleased to regard with
parental pride the nautical and commercial pros
perity of New York and Boston, and with smile
allow them
"To wear their sapphire crowns
And WELD their little tridents,"
but they never mean to abdicate the throne of
sovereignty to them. When the power of our
shall enter too largely, for the
public good into the control of affairs the people
have ready way of subduing such overgrown
pride, and reducing them to their naturally sub
sidiary position We have said that it is the
exigencies of the country that builds up the
towns. This, of course, is meant under proper
limitations. Cities have certainly existed, hay
ing but little commercial dependence upon, or
with, the territories to which they
were attached. AS for example, Tyre, Athens,
Venice. Genoa, and others in like circumstances.
But foreign trade was the pabuum upon which
they existed and waxed great, and their respec-
tive territories were but little more than market
gardens for their daily supply. And such is, at
this time, the condition of many of the cities of
Great Britain. They have gradually broken the
bond of dependence that bound them to the coun
try they are willing to cast off the yoke of ODE
dience Observation-Disclosures they have indepen-
dent sources of prosperity; they look almost ex-
clusivey to foreign commerce. and have sent the
roots of their property not into the earth, but
into the ocean.