THE CORN-LAW CONTROVERSY.--A friend has placed in our hands numbers of
the tracts which the corn-law reformers of England circulate among the
people. They are about the size and length of the religious tracts of
this country, and are put up in an envelope, which is stamped with neat
and appropriate devices. These little publications comprise essays on
all the topics involved in the corn-law controversy, sometimes in the
form of dialogues, sometimes of tales, and sometimes of extracts from
famous books and speeches. The arguments are arranged so as to be easily
comprehended by the meanest capacities.
The friend to whom we are indebted for these is well informed on the
subject, and says that a more advanced state of opinion prevails among
the people of England, in relation to the operation of tariffs, than in
this nation generally so much more enlightened. It is a singular
spectacle which is thus presented to the eyes of the civilized world.
While the tendency of opinion, under an aristocratic monarchy, is
towards the loosening of the restraints under which the labour of the
people has long suffered, a large and powerful party in a nation, whose
theory of government is nearly a century in advance of the world, is
clamouring for their continuance and confirmation. Monarchical England
is struggling to break the chains that an unwise legislation has forged
for the limbs of its trade; but democratic America is urged to put on
the fetters which older but less liberal nations are throwing off. The
nations of Europe are seeking to extend their commercial relations, to
expand the sphere of their mutual intercourse, to rivet the market for
the various products of their soil and skill, while the "model republic"
of the new world is urged to stick to the silly and odious policy of a
semi-barbarous age.
We look upon the attempt which is making in Great Britain to procure a
revision of the tariff laws, as one of the most important political
movements of the age. It is a reform that contemplates benefits, whose
effects would not be confined to any single nation, or any period of
time. Should it be successful, it would be the beginning of a grand and
universal scheme of commercial emancipation. Let England--that nation so
extensive in her relations, and so powerful in her influences--let
England adopt a more liberal policy, and it would remove the only
obstacles now in the way of a complete freedom of industry throughout
the globe. It is the apparent unwillingness of nations to reciprocate
the advantages of mutual trade, that has kept back this desirable reform
so long. The standing argument of the friends of exclusiveness--their
defence under all assaults, their shelter in every emergency--has been
that one nation cannot pursue a free system until all others do, or, in
other words, that restriction is to be met by restriction. It is a
flimsy pretence, but such as it is, has answered the purposes of those
who have used it, for many centuries.
The practice of confining trade by the invisible, but potent chains of
law, has been a curse wherever it has prevailed. In England, more
dependent than other nations on the extent of its commercial
intercourse, it may be said to have operated as a scourge. The most
terrible inflictions of natural evil, storms, famine, and pestilence,
have not produced an equal amount of suffering. Indeed, it has combined
the characteristics of the worst of those evils. It has devastated, like
the storm, the busy hives of industry; it has exhausted, like famine,
the life and vital principle of trade; and, like the pestilence, it has
"walked in the darkness and wasted at noon-day." When we read of
thousands of miserable wretches, in all the cities and towns of a great
nation, huddled together like so many swine in a pen; in rags, squalor,
and want; without work, bread, or hope; dragging out from day to day, by
begging, or the petty artifices of theft, an existence which is
worthless and a burden; and when, at the same time, we see a system of
laws, that has carefully drawn a band of iron around every mode of human
exertion; which with lynx-eyed and omniscient vigilance, has dragged
every product of industry from its retreat to become the subject of a
tax, can we fail in ascribing the effect to its cause, or suppress the
utterance of our indignation at a policy so heartless and destructive?
Yet, this is the very policy that a certain class of politicians in this
country would have us imitate. Misled by the selfish and paltry
arguments of British statesmen, but unawed by the terrible experience of
the British people, they would fasten upon us a system whose only
recommendation, in its best form, is that it enriches a few, at the cost
of the lives and happiness of many. They would assist a constrictor in
wrapping his folds around us, until our industry shall be completely
crushed.
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ST OLAVE'S CHURCH.--The rebuilding of this church in the early part of
the last century cost the parishioners a less sum than the organ. The
old church having fallen down, the new one (that recently destroyed by
fire) was erected by raising an annuity of 700_l_., and the granter died
after receiving the first half year's payment of 350_l_. The organ was
the most ancient instrument in the metropolis.