The Sun. — 1841-07-05 (London, England)

WILLOUGHBY DE ERESBY—has proposed a new scheme for altering the present duties, by which he is willing to remit' a small portion of the rentowners' plunder. Whereas the duty is now, when wheat is 60s. per quarter, 265. Bd., this Lord proposes to make it 20s. Bd., and to let in wheat, duty free, when the price is above 70s. We are grateful for his condescension in considering his slaves, and we are pleased to find even the bread-taxers themselves suggesting alterations in their taxes. Their misgivings of its justice warrants the heavier charges which honest men, who do not profit by it, bring against it. The ground on which Lord WILLOUGHBY DE ERESBY proposes this alteration is as follows : I think that a fair remunerating price to the agriculturist would be, for wheat 58s. per quarter, barley 325., and for oats 245. From the best information I have been able to obtain, foreign wheat, including all expenses of freight, &c., can be purchased in England, in years of average produce, at 365. a quarter, barley at 235., and oats at 18s. You will see by the scale, that the duty added to these prices will make up the prices which will, I consider, afbard a fair, but by no means a large, profit to the agriculturist. Now, we beg the people of England calmly, but duly, to consider the basis here laid down for legislation. " from the best information I am able to obtain," says this law-maker, "foreign wheat can be purchased in England at 365. a quarter." When a Noble legislator tells the people of England that they are to be hanged if they murder a fellow-creature, or transported if they steal a purse, the people of England will comprehend and approve of his law, because they know, as well as he knows, that murder and theft are crimes. But when he tells them that they must pay a tax of 20s. a quarter on wheat, because foreign wheat may be purchased here for 365. a quarter, he speaks about what they have no knowledge of whatever. They know nothing of the price at which foreign wheat may be on an average of years purchased in England. He introduces, therefore, an element into his legislation of which the bulk of the people can have no cognizance, and, as far as they are concerned, he might as well say the selling price will be 205., and the duty ought, therefore, to be 365., as what he does say. Independently of all other considerations, we presume to assert that this assumption on the part of Lord WILLOUGIIBY DE ERESBY and his fellows, of a species of knowledge which the bulk of the people cannot possess, as the basis of a most important law affecting their subsistence, vitiates such a law from beginning to end. But what does lie himself know about the average price of foreign wheat? Mind he and the other bread-taxers do not make his law for the ten or twenty years which are passed ; they are beyond his reach. He makes it to rule over the destinies of England during the next ten or twenty years. If he were to say that the sun has risen at six o'clock on the 21st of September for the last few years, and will rise at six o'clock on the 21st of September for the next few years, let us make some law regulating our calendar, on that principle we should make no objection. There is certainty in that. But on what ground does he or any man presume to conclude, because foreign wheat, as he says, may have been purchaseable in England at 365. per quarter for the last ten years, that it will be at the same price on an average of the next ten years? We boldly affirm that there lives no human being who possesses the least data for coming to such a conclusion, and that a law based on such an assumption, rests solely on the avarice and fearborn fancies of such rent-owners and breadtaxers as Lord