VOL. XI. No. 2.]

6.

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[PRICE 10D.

MMARY OF POLITICS.

348 IN PARLIAMENT. (Conti3. 22-In order to facilitate the le, ence to the quotations and rewhich I may think it necessary to push upon subjects that come before parliament, I propose to insert, in future, et the head of each article of this sort, a list of the subjects touched upon, in the same manner as the following list, which will be found, to be a table of contents to the article we are now entering abou. --1. West India Sugar. II. The Cii Possiletis III. Hanover. IV. Flourishing State of the Finances, ———I. On the 30th ultimɔ Lord Temple moved for a committee of the House of Commons, to inquire, whether, on account of the very low price of West India Sugar, it would not be proper to pass a law to permit the use of Such gir in the distilleries; whereupon Mc. B.Ver, one of the members for heitfor 3 dire, expressed a hope that nothing of this sort would be done precipitately, lest the corn-growers should be injured by the probable reduction which such a measure would produce in the price of corn. In my last number, at pa je 24, the redder has seen a very able letter upon this question. The prices of sugar are there stated; and a very fair representation is made of the distressed situation of the sugár-planters. The statement, in the same letter, respecting the purchase of French brandy for the navy does not appear to me to carry in it conviction so clear as the waiter evidently anticipates; for I cannot easily perceive how we should distress the enemy by excluding from out use any of the necessaries of life (and such, in this case, we must consider brandy) which are now supplied to our navy from his soil and labour. I do not say, that the argument, here referred to, is not a good one; I only say, that it has failed to produce conviction in my mind. But, in combating the apprehensions of Mr. Baker, the writer is, as taras he goes, completely successful. After all that we have heard about the high price of corn; after all that we have seen as to the effects of a scanty supply, knowing as we

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do, that, upon an average of years, we exchange annually more than a million's worth of our other productions for corn; after all this, one would hardly have expected to hear a member of the House of Commons, whe acts for the whole nation as well as for his immediate constituents,.. expressing his alarm lest the price of corn should be redaced. What, however, appears still more extraordinary, is, that any man, much less a legislator, should suppose, or should argue as if he supposed, that corn being at a high price was a circumstance advantageous to the growers of corn. Generally speaking, there is no trade which derives advantage from the circumstance of high price in the articles of which it treats. Partial instances of advantage in this way frequently occur; but, take time to reflect upon the natural consequences of substitution and competition; and you will find, that it is impossible that the circumstance of high price" should be generally and permanently advantageous

the persons employed in the producing or the manufacturing or the vending of any arAicles of common necessity, use, or convenience. If this be true with respect to all articles of common traffic, how peculiarly evident is the truth, when applied to the ar ticle of corn? The price of corp is the egulator of the prices of all other articles ap-. plicable to the common concerns of life: for, though it may be said, that men eat only wheat, and that, therefore, the high price of barley and cats cannot make it necessary to raise the price of the labour; yet, if barley be dear, bacon must be dear, cr, if bacon be not raised, mutton and beef will be dearer on that account. If oats be dear, the labour of the horse is raised in price; and, f you could keep the horse upon bay and straw, there would be so much less hay and straw for catle and sheep. Corn is, therefore, the regulator of prices; and, if the grower of corn sellit at five shillings a sacl, he is just as well off as if he sold it for ten skillings a sac; because, viewing, observe,` prices in their general awd fermonent effic", his land, his sced, and his labour, cost hila

but half as much money in the former as they cost in the latter case; and, as to what he may clear and lay by, a guinea laid by in a country where corn sells at five shillings a sack is equal to two guimeas laid by in a country where corn sells at ten shillings a sack How, groundless, then, are the fears of Mr. Baker! He is too honest and independent a man to have feigned an alarm for the purpose of humouring the prejudices of his constituents; or, I really should have thought it impossible for him to be in earnest. He may say, perhaps, that labour does not rise as the corn rises If it does not, the greater ought to be our sorrow; for, we well know, that, then, the hardships of the labourer must be increased. The fact, however, is so; but, then, another fact, is, that, though the corn-grower does not pay an immediate increase of wages in proportion to the increase of the price of his corn, yet, what he does not pay in an immediate increase of wages, he is sure to pay in an increase of amount in his poor-rates. One way or the other the increase he must pay; for, the labourer never receives more than is sufficient for his subsistence, and that sufficiency the corn-grower must supply, or else the labourer ceases to exist, and, of course, the labour ceases with him. But, here I shall be told, perhaps," that a similar course of reasoning will apply to the concerns of the sugar-growers; and so it would, if they were left to dispose of their property as they might choose; if there were no tax or restraint, whether as to its destination or its use. With them substitution is impossible. They must raise sugar, or nothing; and they are compelled to bring it to one market, where, too, whatever may be the price of it, they are compelled to pay the same duty. Hence the necessity of laws and regulations without end; hence the ruin of hundreds of opulent planters; hence the uncertainty of their affairs; and hence that state of distress, to which many of them are now reduced. Nothing can be more mischievous to the community, generally speaking, than the turning of corn into spirituous liquors; and this evil would, at any rate, be - lessened by the use of sugar instead of corn in the making of those liquors. Thus would our colonies be made to add to the quantity of food in the mother country; and to see such a measure opposed upon be ground of its injuring the growers of corn would be scandalous indeed; would be ashocking disgrace to the heads as well as to tle hearts of the Countrygertle nen.-11. The Лi Possidetis. These are two words, which have been rePeated upwards of three hun læd and eighty

times, during the debates, in both Houses, upon the papers relative to the late negocia tion. In America, where, they pay their members so much a day, when present and upon duty, they would have most bitterly complained of the expense of such debates; but we, happy, thrice happy we! have no ground for any such complaint: for, except in the mere trifling article of candles, perhaps, our members cost us just as much at one time as at another. The "Uti Possi"detis" mean, the learned tell us, actual possession; or the state of actual possession; and, when they talk about treating upon the basis of the Uti Possidetis," they mean, that the parties agree, by way of preliminary, or first bargain, that each shall retain all that he possesses at the moment when the negociators meet. But, if this be the meaning of the "Uti Possidetis," why not give us that meaning in our own language at once? Do those who make use of such phrases, which the stupidest wretch upon earth might earn to use as well as they, in a few hours; nay, which a parrot would learn, or which a high-dutch bird-catcher would teach to a bull-finch or a tom-tit, in the space of a month; and do they think, in good earnest, that this last relick of the mummery of monkery, this playing off upon us of a few galli-e pot words, will make us believe that they are learned? Learning, truly so called, consists in the possession of knowledge and in the capacity of communicating that knowledge to others; and, as far as my observation will enable me to speak, what are called the learned languages, operate as a bar to the acquirement of real learning. I already hear some pedagogue, or pedant, exclaim: "this

is precisely the reasoning of the Fox with- "out a tail." But, to bring this matter to the test, I hereby invite the learned gentlemen of the two universities to a discussion upon the subject. I assert that what they call the LEARNED LANGUAGES are improperly so called; and that, as a part of general education, they are worse than useless. Two months will afford time enough for any of the gentlemen just spoken of to disprove these positions. I will, therefore, give them until Lady Day next. I will publish their defence of their calling; and, if I do not fairly beat them in the controversy, and, that, too, in the space of twenty columns of my Register, I will then beg their pardon, and will allow, that to be able to speak, or write, in a language which the people do not understand is a proof of learning. But, until then, I shall dissent from the opinion, that none but clear streams are shallow, and that the muddier the water the deeper the

well.—To return now to the political topic before us; it seems, from the whole of the published debates upon it, that, bad there been no such pretty words to be brought into play, there could have been nothing to talk about which the public would have been able to bestow one moment's attention upon; for, of what importance was it, in such a negociation, whether such was the basis or not? Every one must know, that, long before a treaty could have been concluded, there must have been cessions or surrenders, on our part, or, that we could have obtained nothing from France in behalf of any other state; and, if such was the case, of what consequence was it, of what use was it, to have settled this mere form of a basis? The ministers, for what reason I know not, and I cannot imagine, insist that they did begin to negociate upon this basis; and, their opponents contend, as a matter of course, that they did not. Very little interest has, however, been excited by the dispute, every man of sense clearly perceiving that the point at issue was not of the smallest importance, and, at the same time, reflecting with sorrow and with shame, that while we were spending our time in such quibbles, like Milton's fallen angels, sitting. upon the burning marle, wrangling about predestination and free-will, our enemy was carrying his triumphant arms over newlyconquered states and kingdoms. The "Eti "Possidetis" could not charm down, it was not a spell strong enough to stifle this reflection; and, on hearing the gallipot phrase echoed from side to side, it was impossible that it should not occur to the mind of every man, that, between the two, we had been brought to our present situation; the only question, with us, being, not which had done us most good, but which had done us least injury; which had had the smallest share in producing the ruin and the disgrace of our country; a question which most men will, I think, decide in favour of the present ministers, who must work day and night for whole years, before they will be able to accomplish a hundredth part of the mischief accomplished by Pitt and his minions.-In the debate attributed to the House of Commons there was considerable interest excited by Mr, Whitbread's differing from the ministers, and even proposing an amend ment to the address. "The Opposition," as the Morning Chronicle calls them, dealt in more cavilling; but, in the objections of Mr. Whitbread there was something of rea son and solidity. "The Opposition" said the ministers had been " duped;" one of themaid, they had been bamboozled;"

"

they all said, that no negociation should have been entered into; that no belief should have been given to "such men as "Buonaparté and Talleyrand;" that it was fortunate the negociation had failed; and that we ought to resolve to be exterminated to the last man rather than treat with Buonaparté until he relinguished his determination not to suffer us to have any connection with the continent. But, Mr. Whitbread was of opinion, that there were not sufficient grounds apparent for breaking off the negociation; that, from the moment Mr. Fox became politicaily dead, an anti-pacific spirit began to appear on our part; and that, as matters how stood, the possibility of peace with France, seemed to be cut off. He therefore proposed to insert words to the following effect in the latter part of the address to the king: To assure his Majesty "of the firm determination of that House "to co-operate with His Majesty in calling "forth the resources of the United King

dom, for the vigorous prosecution of the "war in which this country is unhappily "still engaged; and to express to His Ma

jesty an earnest request, that His Majesty will, in his paternal solicitude for his "people, as far as may be consistent with "the honour of his crown and the interests

of his Kingdoms, afford every facility to "the restoration of the blessings of peace."

This amendment ought, in my opinion, to have been adopted and, my Lord Howick must excuse me, if I think his closing argument, to wit, that one man's blaming ministers for too much readiness to make peace and another's blaming them for too much readiness to break off the nego ciation, was a proof that ministers had acted wisely, had no force at all in it, and was nothing more than one of those old Pittquirks, by which, with the aid of a place and pension majority, his Lordship's solid arguments had been so many times answered. What were the opinions of Mr. Perceval to Mr. Whitbread? Suppose I knock my neighbour down without sufficient provoca tion, and a man still more violent than my self blame me for not splitting his skull, while another man blame, me for having struck him at all am I to plead the contra dictory opinions of these men as a proof that I have acted wisely and justly ?-As to the matter itself what,, I should like to know, can possibly be gained by reviving the big talk of Pittle hectored about carrying on war for ever, rather than suffer Buonaparté to exclude us from all connection with the continent; but, he could quietly slip out of place, under false pretences,

while peace was made by others, giving op all the objects, for which he had pledged himself to contend-For my part, I am thoroughly convinced, that the Emperor will, as long as our system of taxing continues, agree to no terms of peace which shall not be, in his conviction, calculated to work for our destruction as rapidly, and even more rapidly, than war. Never, in my opinion, as long as that system lasts, will England know an hour of real peace. But, of what use are high-sounding words, without deeds therewith corresponding? And, as it may become advantageous to obtain even a short cessation of arms, why should not the way to negociation be kept open? There is nothing, whether as to its effect at home or abroad, worse than being compelled to recede, either in one's conduct or one's words; and, I am greatly deceived, if Lord Howick expects to be able to keep the ground, upon which he now stands, or affects to stand, with respect to France. I am for no disgraceful terms of peace; but, to talk of recovering the contitinent is now madness; and I would be willing to make peace immediately, leaving Napoleon to take what he pleases in Germany, in Poland, and in Italy, Sicily included. I know of no treaty of alliance, that we have with Sicily. I know of no reason, whether of justice or of policy, for our carrying on war a day for Sicily any more than for Hanover. I would give up nothing that should tend, in anywise, to weaken ourselves; but, I would make not the smallest sacrifice for Russian or any other connection. There was a state of things, in which such connections were amongst our best means of defence as well as of offence against our most formidable enemy that state of things, thanks to the Pitts, is completely overturned. There is no longer a trace of it remaining; and yet, these Pitts now call upon us to carry on war, until the last man in England shall be exterminated, rather than give up connections with the continent ! If we will give up our maritime rights, or only a part of them, Napoleon will give us a connection with the continent he will give as Hanover even now, and suffer us to have certain other connections; and, though this would be to sacrifice us to those connections, and to the private feelings and interests belonging to them, I suspect, that there are persons in this country, who, upon such terms, would willingly see a treaty concluded to-morrow. This is what, in our negociations with France, we have to guard against; and, we may be assured, that al the big talk about

our honour has in it, at bottom, nothing more than the wish, if not the settled intention, of sacrificing England to selfish connections; and that, as to the bonour of this country, it never enters into either the heads or the hearts of those (I mean the newswriters, of course,) who are everlastingly repeating the word.—It was said, in one of these speeches, that the people were unanimous in their opinion, that the war ought to be continued. Yes, for the defence and the future safety of England, Scotland, and Ireland; but, to tell them that we are at war for connections with the continent is not the way to make them approve of its continuance; for, while they are perfectly unanimous as to a war for the safety and honour of their own country, they are not much less unanimous in scouting the idea of continuing the war for the sake of the continent, every part of which they plainly see at the foot of the conqueror.III. There came out, however, in the course of the debates, some observations, which, as published in the news-papers, are well worthy of our attention. The first that I shall notice relate to Hanover, and I skall give them here, as I, find them in the speech published under the name of Lord Grenville, as follows: "Now as to

Hanover, this was a nice and difficult "point, and no misrepresentation should "be allowed to go abroad respecting it. Ne

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ver was the issue of the negociation con"nected with its fate. Never did in. any "terested feeling arise respecting it. But "should it be alienated for our sake? What "if he thought we owed such a debt as that we acknowledge to Russia, to Sweden, to Naples, how muck higher the debt we owe to our own sovereign? And surely "we would avoid the disgrace of such a "sacrifice, which would confound us with "those who made such shameful sacrifices "to their own fears, or their own interests. "Hanover was attacked not as a German "territory, not as connected with the Ger"manic corps, but solely because France was at war with England; and while we

were invulnerable here, the enemy was "determined to wound us through Hanover. "But to adopt the saying and maxims of a

great statesman, it seems to be, that, "under such circumstances, Hanover should "be as dear to us as Hampshire; and when

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ever it was attacked, for British interests,

it should be defended by British magnani"mity. But the same feelings respecting "Hanover prevailed at Paris as here; and "from the first moment of the negociation, "it was resolved it should be restored to its