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Northern Star (1837-1852), 24th October 1846, Edition 1 of 3, Page 4

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    • •¦— — ' . — ' —-——LIBERAL BOOKS ok POLITICS, THEOLOGY, ASD SOCIAL PROGRESS, Published, and Seld, Wholesale and Retail,
    • THE NORTHERN STAR. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 24, 1846.
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      CHARTIST POEMS , BY ERNEST JONES . Price Three Fence . The wish having been expressed in several quarters for the author to publish in a collected form his Poems Chat have appeared in the Northern Star , he begs to announce that a revised and corrected selection under the above title is now oa sale . Agents arc requested to send their orders to the author or to Mr . Wheeler , at the office of the N . C . A ., 83 , Dean Street , Soho , London , or to M'Gowan . < fc Co ., Printers , 16 , Great Windmill Street , Haymarket , London , where copies may he procured .

      •¦— — ' . — ' —-——Liberal Books Ok Politics, Theology, Asd Social Progress, Published, And Seld, Wholesale And Retail,

      •¦— — ' . — ' — - ——LIBERAL BOOKS ok POLITICS , THEOLOGY , ASD SOCIAL PROGRESS , Published , and Seld , Wholesale and Retail ,

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      CHARTISM . 01 thou lovely ISM ; how many ISMS thou hast survived , and how many thy all-powerful truth and spirit has consigned to the tomb of all the follies since one great fool boasted of thy final overthrow and death . Thou hast withstood the poisoned arrows of the whole press gang ; the vengeance of Governments the . spleen of monarchs ; for in thee Royalty sees justice , in whose presence it cannot longer live a life of prostitution to those who would hide your strength , or withhold your principles and your unconquerable resolution to be free .

      Thou hast paralysed the impotence of faction , and compelled the sceptic and unbeliever to acknowledge thy greatness , and justice , and wisdom . Thou hast triumphed over class-made laws , corrupt judges , packed juries , and false witnesses ; and hast stricken slander dumb , and left the reviler nought to object to but thy imperishable name , preserved through a rapid succession of varied tyrannies . Thou hast survived , buried , and exposed , the fallacies of the League , and hast made Whiggery a noxious smell to stink in the nostrils of all men ; yea , thou hast compelled it to change its hated name to one not less hated and suspected .

      Thou hast strangled Irish patriotism , and hast raised the only true standard of liberty in that country , which , though neglected or feared for a time , will , nevertheless , be yet the rallying point of the faithful and true . Thou hast withstood the MORAL PERSUASION of the policeman ' s truncheon , and the physical force of the soldier ' s bayonet . Thou hast lingered for a dreary season of defeat in dungeons and upon the treadmill ; in the transport and in foreign climes ; in the loathsome cellar and

      the charnel-house ; but still thy spint walks abroad , flirting upon the passing breeze , hovering over thrones , and shaking the mystery of class legislation to its very centre . Thou wast struck down by the double hand of fraud and treacheryia 1839 ; hut again the dreaded hostages of the enemy came forth from their Whig fastnesses ; and , in the midst of death , you still lived . In 1842 , you turned faction ' s anticipated triumph into Chartist conquest : and , in an eight days' battle -with the combined forces of "Whig and Tory , you gained a signal victory at Lancaster ,

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      of the grand results of winch you have never yet made a fair estimate . Think of three long benches of working Chartists , obeying the summons of the enemy ; meeting them before a jury of their own , witnesses of their own , selected , from their own police ; their own LAWS , expounded by their own Attorney-General and his devil , and four more of their legal staff ; and , after defeat , another skirmish before FIVE of their own judges . Was there ever such a poor man's triumph over the rich . MAN'S LAW ?

      Thou hast survived the terror of UNJUST JUSTICES and the power of tyrannical capitalists , and above all , thou hast survived the more deadly enemy , thine own contentions , animosities , and jealousies , and now behold Chartism , not crushed or intimidated , not falling back from where it was last stricken , but rising like a giant and already on its onward march . Despised yet secretly checking and controlling the councils of monarchs and their slaves . Taunted with disunion and want of concentration , yet dissolving as if by magic all the pigmy combinations embodied for its seduction , or overthrow . Charged with impotency , while none can meet it without being convinced of its union and strength . The lion has once more awakened from his long slumber , and with a portentous and ominous howl is again preparing for another skirmish with faction ' s forces , bidding defiance to all , and the watchword of his battle is , —HE WHO IS NOT FOR US

      IS AGAINST US . It has cost us eleven long years to destroy the weeds of Chartism and to fallow the field of promise , and now we have sworn that those seeds shall not again endanger the full growth of the ripening crop , but that like gcod farmers we will make manure of their rottenness to fertilize the harvest and fill the grain of Chartism . If 1839 and 1842 were characterised by illegal prosecutions , and if we were asked to point out a single distinct triumph that Chartism has achieved in those its former struggles with faction , we answer—That the LAWS of libel .

      conspiracy , and sedition have undergone no change since those times , and yet no government would now dare to strain them as before to suit its own tyrannical purpose : is this , then , not a triumph to have weakened the oppressor ' s power and . to have broken his staff and last remaining crutch ? Now , in 1846 , the land is once more redolent of Chartism , the supine forces have been once more recruited from John O'Groat ' s to the Land's End—no more does Scotland dissever itself from England upon some abstract question of mere national prejudice or pride . The petition that has been adopted by the

      Convention has been all but universally approved by the nation , while the fanatical schism , by which pedlars hoped once more to disunite us has been as universally rejected and laughed at . Our chief , strong—aye , rivetted—in our affections , needs no mistives to keep himself or his triumphs green in our memories , be too recruits his strength for the coming campaign , while his army is being marshalled for his service , and ready to obey his word of command , and in passing we predict that such an entertainment was never seen in England's metropolis , as that which awaits our hero upon the eve of the next session , when we shall be able to gladden him with our improving prospects and assure him of our continued affection , demotion , and

      regard . Duncombe is the master-quill in the wing of Chartism ; his unswerving and manly course gives an impetus to the cause , while of old the democratic ranks were ever trembling in apprehension lest the altered policy , or treachery of a leader , should weaken or altogether sacrifice the party . THE LAND AND THE CHARTER are now upon the fluttering banners , and the enlistment of TWELVE to aid in their attainment , fills every heart . Right has trampled over might , and justice has put tyranny to flight . The honesl leader of English Chartism is allowed to live in the enjoyment of repose , none asking WHERE IS DUNCOMBE ?—while the leader of Irish humbug trembles in the midst of famine which he has helped to create , all crying

      aloud , WHERE , 0 WHERE , IS THE LIBERATOR ? Thus it ever is , the race of deception and fraud is ever measured by the cunning of the deceiver , and the / oily of his dupes ; but his course is ever beset with brambles and pitfalls , while that of the honest man is clear , and unimpeded , save by those obstacles which the superior strength of an enemy , or the treachery of the friend , may interpose . Now then is the hour for the revival of Chartism . The enemy is weakened and stricken by vengeance . We must take advantage of that weakness ,

      and not afford them a triumph in our folly . The Election Committeee has published an address , not to sections , but to nations ; and , according to the Lion ' s motto , Chartists will not tolerate or allow of any sectional use being made of their policy , and we have been already grieved and mortified at finding the men of St . Pancras fall into the error of nominating a mere Whig on one of their local committees . This is not the principle by which we are to win . Mr . Wagstaff ' s CONDESCENSION in presiding over a Chartist meeting , and declaring himself

      for AN EXTENSION OF THE SUFFRAGE , does not constitute him such an ally as the committee relied on to carry out its recommendation . This is just the mode by which Chartists have been invariably entrapped . They are charged with vindictiveness , whereas their besetting sin is over-confidence , and too much thankfulness for every slight favour , or no favor at all . If Chartism is to maintain its position , it must fight all other isms single handed . Mr . Wagstaff is not a Chartist , and , therefore , in the name of Chartism , we solemnly protest aginst his appointment as a committee-man to arrange for the election of Chartist representatives . HE WHO IS NOT FOR US IS AGAINST US . MR . WAGSTAFF IS NOT FOR US .

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      THE AGE WE LIVE IN . In this moving , springing , jumping age of ours , when the valet is better dressed than his master , the courier more fashionable and better informed than his employer ; when the once ignorant clodpole farmer laughs at the presumption and folly of his landlord , and when the shop-boy sneers at his clownish old master ; when the intellectual labourer criticizes every word of the most profound writer and every speech of the most noisy representativen such times it is truly amusing to see the shifts to which faction is driven to mould this knowledge , fishion , improvement , and conceit , to its own

      purposes , lhere was a time when it was little short of treason to doubt the omnipotence of a landlord , or the wisdom of a great statesman , but now tbei r follies have been so numerous and glaring , that even their stray sentences of common sense are but cautiouslyand sceptically received . and that after much , deliberation . The press too was wont to be an accredited prophet , whose forebodings regulated our household and our thoughts , and to doubt whose accuracy was little short of stark staring madness ; but now , good lack , the poor editor shares no better fate than the poor bumpkin , his guesses as to the

      future , and strictures upon the past , are insolently scanned and as insolently rejected . Our thunderer swells with indignation to bursting that its close columns of bombast could not arrest or even retard the marriage of the Infanta with a French Duke , and sets down all the rejoicings upon the occasion to the hired approval of LACKEYS and FLUNKEYS , forgetting how often the same journal has metamorphosed the shouts of a hired police into national approval , when not an independent tongue wagged applause . The Thunderer is also exasperated at royal favours being heaped upon French officials am

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      tools who aided in maturing the wedding , while it is fired with wrath at the notion of not a single political prisoner being made the object of royal clemency in the midst of national rejoiciUtr , forgetting , no doubt , that we have had a royal marriage and four royal births , without mercy being extended to the poorest of the poor , not for taking up arms against authority but for merely having attended public meetings in a peaceable , orderly , and respectable manner ; tyranny which , claimed a monopoly of power upon the charge of popular ignorance invariably pouncing upon the best informed and most honest as its hostages . So muchfor | our Thunderer ' s foreign embarrassment , and now turn we to a brief consideration of its

      domestic discomfiture . Verily we fear that a few more mal-apropos guesses , such as those awkward predictions about the impossibility of America and other countries to supply us with the amount of corn required for our consumption in ordinary years of average harvests , will consign " Great Jove" himself to the totnb of departed greatness . It is not long since we had famous statistics of the producing powers of America , and from which we learned , that it would take God knows how many years before the people of that great continent could spare us much beyond 500 , 000 quarters annually , and now we are gravely told , that before August we may require four million quarters of foreign aid , while monarchies are , for the most part ; pitiful beggars at the door of Republicanism .

      Here , then , is a conundrum ; solve it who can . The Times and the Free Traders never calculated upon such a contingency as the requirement of four million quarters of wheat for any one year , or that the harvests of the whole world would be considerably below an average amount : so what are we to do ? We said , that the richest market being opened , that the requirement of other countries would become the medium of speculation , without reference to their domestic necessities , and either this must be the case or the people of these countries must starve before August , by which time the

      Thunderer tells us that wheat will probably reach JE 5 a quarter — a much stronger hint to the speculator in famine to dabble in human food , than is furnished to the Government not to dare to become a competitor in the corn market . As food is the staff of life , we are justified in introducing politics when they serve to illustrate its value , and the means by which it may b e comeatable Monarchies , which are controlled by class legislation and the laws of class monopoly , are now , for the most part , depending upon the United States of

      America for their supply . That supply must be surplus after a hearty consumption , as the Yankees would precious soon kick up a bobbery if they learnt that increasing exports were likely to reduce the national store even to the doubtful point . Here , then , is a nation of individuals with a controlling power in their own hands , however it may be casually or capriciously delegated to others , who , we pledge ourselves , will not allow traffic in the food required for domestic purposes , and who recognise the merchant ' s right to traffic only in surplus , after consumption . If we require four millions of foreign

      corn , even at £ i a quarter , it will lake at least thirteen millions of our specie to pay for it ; and we draw largely upon manufactures when we allow the difference in price , £ 3 , 000 , 000 , to be made up from that source ; and take away £ 13 , 000 , 000 sterling . even , from your vast amount of gold , and what becomes of your railway bubbles , and your credit , and your national faith , and your stability , and your funds . Not taking casualties into cal culation—as we were not bound to do—have we not invariably said , that the key-stone once struck from the rotten arch of faction , and the whole bridge must tumble ; and is it not

      even so ? What one interest is now secure ? what form of government is worth two years' purchase , or which of our glorious institutions that have so long stood the battle and the breeze is worth more than the rotten parchment that contains it ? Famine has undone what tyranny has spent ages in doing , and we made no bad calculation when we asked Punch last year to adopt as a fitting subject for a cartoon , a rotten potato crowned , with the words— " Who is monarch now , " under his majesty . Famine is a hideous thing , a merciless scourge , but if it annihiliates class legislation , tyranny and monopoly , it is a welcome guest even with all its train of

      desolations . We must not fall into the error of judging of the ultimate result of a Repeal of the Com Laws from the present scarcity ; but , upon the contrary , we must keep the mind fixed upon the inevitable reality . Our readers probably have not forgotten that at the time we replied to the statistics of the Times , by which we were taught to believe that America tor almost an age could contribute but little increase to its usual exports of corn , our reply was to this effect , that the richest market in the

      world being opened for the produce of the world , would naturally divert the land now devoted to other purposes to the growth of corn . In confirmation of our anticipation , we select the following announcement from the Times of Thursday morning , copied , of course approvingly , from the Liverpool Times . •—Some intelligent persons well acquainted with the cultivation of the middle and southern sections of the United States , think that the effect of the change In the Corn / Laws will be felt ' even this year , in the diminished supply and the increased price of cotton ; and , however tbat may be , ' there can be no doubt that tbe change will in &

      few years produce a great effect or tlie price and mode of production both of that and of many other articles . The effect of throwing open the ports of this country to the wheat , flour , maize , and rice of the whole world will be to give to the cultivators of the cotton states of America a choice of crops such as they have never hitherto possessed . Up to the date of this great commercial revolution , the southern planter of the United States could grow nothing for which he could obtain a market except cotton and tobacco , and hence , however low tUoie articles sunk in price , his only choice was to continue to produce them , or to produce iu their stead articles which had no saleable value .

      Verily , we are vain enough to believe that in the long run the whole press gang will be driven to the confession that we were right , and that in the end free trade means REVOLUTION , however the GODSEND OF FAMINE may have sa ^ ed the landed interest from its otherwise immediate effect . We conclude with a prophecy— NEXT OCTOBER ,

      WHETHER THE HARVEST AT HOME BE GOOD OR BAD , WHEAT WILL NOT FETCH THIRTY-FIVE SHILLINGS A QUARTER , AND THE MARKETS OF ENGLAND WILL BE GLUTTED WITH THE PRODUCE OF FOREIGN COUNTRIES , WHILE THOSE WHO HAVE SOWN AND GATHERED THE BARVEST AT HOME , WILL BE IN A STATE OF ABJECT POVERTY AND WANT .

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      THE THUNDERER AND THE POPGUNS . It is always to us a pleasing duty to be able to contrast our views of foreign policy and domestic rule with those of our contemporaries ; and . we have now a short account to settle with the pressgang upon this score . Our review shall be a running commentary upon the most recent incidents , foreign and domestic ; nor shall we state facts which have faded from the memory of the least retentive reader . Well , then , we informed the public that Kings would not now wage war as hastily as they

      were wont to do , lest the cap of liberty should waive over the Tuilleres , or the six points of the Charter should decorate the new Houses of Parliament . The ignorant and foolish people who , in the language of Mr . M'Grath , have naught to do with the laws but to obey them , or with the taxes hut to pay them , were naturally led to the belief that their opinions and resolves had nothing to do With the councils and resolutions of monarchy and their ministers . The prerogative of the crowu is to proclaim war and to make peace , but the prerogative of the people

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      to take advantage of the embarassments of monarchs , and their ministers ; that is , if they neither reign or govern for the benefit of the people . However , that we had not made a miscalculation of the effect of the popular voice upon the deliberations of authority , may be gleaned from the triumphant manner in which the press of France beards the English Cabinet , and violates treaties , regardless of the thunders of the English press . ^ If the English people were now in that state of barbarism that cursed them when they ducked Jacobins . and shouted lustily for Church and King , the

      marriage of the little Girl of Spain to the little Boy of France , would have been more than a sufficient <( casus belli , " and before this time we should have had the announcement of a great continental war , waged in defence of England ' s greatness and honor ; but alas , the French press defies our rulers , and points to the state of Ireland , and to the growing spirit of Chartism in England , as a damper to aristocratic valour and chivalry . We pocket an insult which of yore would have set nations by the ears , while the press of the conquering nation , not content with pointing out and deriding our weakness , further reminds Prussia ' s Autocrat of the aspiring spirits

      which war would create about him ; and insolently tells the Russian Despot that his poverty , not his wfll , compels him to consent to reluctant peace . We are not about to deny any of these well merited taunts , nor do we sorrow at them , because we have often told our rulers , that to be great abroad , we must be great at home . We merely reiterate the facts then , to convince our readers that we have not taught them in error , or led theva to a miscalculation of their strength , but that we have been the first to enlighten them upon those collateral subjects which , though imperceptibly , yet incipiently , affect their interests .

      We shall dismiss our foreign relations with this single observation , that whatever the result of the marriages of the girls of Spain be in other respects , it is sure to lead to an intermidable rupture between the two innocent females . If the Queen , a usurper by the way , should have heirs to the Crown of Spain , the intrigues of France will not be confined to the tender solicitude of a physician , selected as her poisoner and the destroyer of her offspring ; but the Duke de Montpensier and his rival brother-in-law , and the Duchess and her royal sister , are placed in eternal enmity , confusion

      and strife , by the laws of primogeniture . Upon the other hand , if the Queen should have engeudered an . hereditary complaint from her prostitute mother , which should render her sterile , she will look with envy , loathing and disgust upon her more fortunate , because prolific , sister , upon whose offspring her royal crown must descend . So much for our foreign relations and positions , to those who are wont to hear annually of our pacific relations with all the monarchs of the world ;—and now for a word at lorae .

      The Irish press generally , and especially the Woy-ld , took us to task for denouncing the Whigs and praising Sir Robert Peel . Our All-mighty Peel drove some of our own friends into convulsions , and we were reviled when we styled him as the pilot who alone could weather the storm . The Whigs were a god-send to the Irish place-hunters , and consequently every glib scribbler of the Liberal press was loud in laudation . Peel ' s legacy to Russell upon his leaviug office was matter of high promise and hope to those who supposed him capable of profiting by the

      advice ; but , alas and alack a day , so much is required to arrest the march of famine , that the scrapings from patronage are insufficient to soothe the agonies and allay the anger of the disappointed expectants ; and straightway , as will be seen from onr Irish glossary , the Hibernian pop-guns open an unmerciful fire upon the devoted leader of the Whigs . The Freeman ' s Journal opens the fire , the Castlebar Telegraph follows , the Limerick Examiner' aids , and the Cork Examiner brings up the rear—one and all dealing , not only in anger and sarcasm , but in the

      bitterest vituperation of Whiggery and Lord John . They tell him in the language of Punch , that he is not strong enough for the place , and that he had better abdicate and make way for Sir Robert Peel , who alone can administer the affairs of the country under its present emergency . Now , without preference to either statesman , this is great consolation to us , as it verifies our prediction and un * fortunately realizes our very worse anticipations . True , the Liberator , who has his eye to patronage as a substitute for the tribute , still deals in excessive

      flattery of the Whig lord lieutenant , and cunningly endeavours to draw a distinction between the official and his masters . Nor is the peppering of Whiggery confined to the Repeal journals , inasmuch as we find the Drogheda Conservative , a Protectionist paper , highly exasperated against Peel ' s treachery , joining in the cry for his restoration to office . Indeed , the conversion of this popgun so forcibly bespeaks the direction in which the organs of the Protectionists much shortly fire , that we give it as a specimen of what is sure to follow . That paper says , —

      Never was the incapacity of the Whigs for the government of this country so apparent as at the present momentous crisis , when Ireland is bordering on a state of insurrection for the want of food ; not that there is not a sufficiency of grain , but from the spirit of speculation engendered by the late Treasury minute amongst the corn gamblers both on this and the other side of the channel . Sir R . Peel , last year , when the wants of the people were not so pressing , came forward , and by the establishment of depots kept the markets at a fair rate ; and from lis known determination and wisdom , corn

      speculators were prevented from resorting to those nefarious arts which tend to starve the poor . Lord John Russell must either act or resign the reins of Government into Sir R . Peel's hands ; for the united voice of a starving people will shake even Downingstreet , and be heard within the walls of the royal palaces . The poor of this country want cheap and wholesome fuod , and when this is to be had , by a little energy on the part of the government , they have a right to demand it . If the money to be

      expended on Buckingham Palace , on Royal steam-boats —and other useless luxuries were applied to the purchase of corn for the consumption of the Irish poor , the money would be better applied , and the country secured from outrage ! The Times may taunt us with our poverty—hut we owe it all to the " thimble-rig " legislation pursued by English rulers towards this unfortunate country—their abandoning it to the rule of unprincipled leaders who sold the people ' s interest for their own

      aggaandisement-We have now done with Spain and the Whigs , and we turn to a single comment upon those feelings which we described famine as likely to create in the minds of Irish labourers . We have said , times beyond number , that the Irish labourer who rose from his loathsome bed of straw , able and willing to work with nobody to employ him , with his wife and family dear to him , crying for food , would be found an awkward customer to deal with . Well , we find the declarations of those who have assembled for the purpose of claiming work as a means of buying

      food , and , as reported in the Times , so critical , not only in substance but in words , to our representation , that repetition is superfluous , and thus do we convince our readers that we have been true prophets with regard to the misgiving of monarchs , the imbecility of Whigs , and the feelings of the Irish people ; and if the duty of the press is as -well to prepare the public mind for coining events as to chronicle the past and report the present , we have faithfully discharged our high functions of Journalists .

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      presentments . The conduct of the government officials , and of the Prime Minister himself , has been severely commented upon in connection with this subject . The calamity , it is evident , however , will not have occurred without producing beneficial ag well as injurious consequences . The impolicy of maintaining the existing state of things longer in Ireland , has been forced on the attention of influential men of all parties ; They see clearly thatthe time has come for a radical and sweeping change , and propositions are now made , and supported in leading articles by the Times and Chronicle , which , but a short time since , would have been , by both these . # TM _ _ J L — £ Xl , _

      papers , branded as leading to wholesale spoliation , and stigmatized as emanating from a revolutionary 9 pirit , which ought to be put down as dangerous to peace and order . The Irish landlords and their friends do cry out all this , with reference to their articles ; but the necessity for a thorough alteralon is too obvious to permit much attention to be given , to their remonstrances . The proposition , in short , is , that the State should place itself in the position of Landlord , and afford the people of Ireland the

      means of cultivating the soil under such terms as would ensure its improvement , and quiet possession by those whose labours had added to its fertility and value . The theory of the " Times Commissioner " about the indolence of the Celt , and his incapability of making use of the splendid resources of the " green Isle , " thus throwing upon the poor des « titute and ragged millions of Ireland the blame of causing their own wretchedness , is completely upset by such facts as the following , quoted by the Chronicle ;—

      Two miles from the little town of Kileullen , in Kildare , is a tract of excessively green land , dotted over with brilliant white cottages , each with its couple of trim , acres of garden , where you see thick potato ridges covered with blossom , great blue plots of comfortable cabbages , and such pleasaut plants of tbe poor man ' s garden . Two or three years since the land was a marshy common , which had never since the days of the Deluge fed anything better than a snipe , and into which the poor people descended draining and cultivating , and rescuing the marsh from the water , and raising their cabins , and setting up their little enclosures of two or three acres upon

      i . v _ 1 _ 1 „ . . ! ! . 1 . it v _ 1 i i . . . •« . t the land which they had thus created . There are now two hundred flourishing little homesteads upon this rescued land , and as many families in comfort and plenty . Now , if two or three acres of reclaimed marsh can furnish plentiful subsistence to one family , 600 , 000 acres would do as much . for 200 , 000 families ; that is to say , for one-fourth part of the Irish peasantry , which is as large a proportion as can well be supposed unable to procure a competent livelihood . According to the most recent accounts , there are considerably more than six millions of acres of land lying waste in Ireland , of which about threefifths are acknowledged to be improveable .

      Mr . Nicholls states that most of the recently reclaimed bog . which he saw in the western counties , was recovered by small occupants , who drained and enclosed an acre or two at a time ; knowing all the while , that they would only be permitted to hold it on sufferance , and until the landlord , to whom it belonged , chose to drive them from it , and enter upon possession of the plot on which they had squatted . On these facts the Chronicle says : — One would think the most obvious idea which

      could present itself to any one who wished , to vise the waste lands as an instrument for improving the condition of the peasantry , wonld be to make that which already takes place on a amall scale take place on a large , by giving to the peasantry the inducement of property in the soil reclaimed by them , and by affording to them , from the State , sueh assistance aB may be needful . The assistance required would cost less to the State than the most moderate sum ever voted by Parliament tor Irish distress .

      It would be necessary to buy up the rights of those who are now the nominal owners of these lands ; for there can bsfto more than nominal ownership of that which has never been used since the country was inhabited , and cannot be used now unless the State supplied the means . Having become the proprietor of the whole or a sufficient portion of the waste , the State could divide it into portions of the most conyenient size , and grant these in absolute property to such of the peasantry as could produce the best certicates of steadiness and industr y , or to such as would undertake to bring their lots into cultiration with the smallest amount of pecuniary assistance . If it were

      necessary to advance to each family a year ' s food , and a trifle for tools , where would be the difficulty ? The interest of this , laid on in the form of a perpetual quit-rent , would save the State from loss , and would be but a small abatement from the value of the boon ; or instead of a perpetual , the State might receive its compensation in the form of a terminable annuity , bo as ultimately to enfranchise the land from all payment . In cases in which it would be desirable to operate on a greater scald by draining at once the whole of a large tract of country , tbe State can as easily do this for the peasantry , as Lord BesborougU can now undertake to do it for the landlords . The

      work , during its execution , would provide food and employment for the famishing people in the one way as effectually as in the other , and the State could be indemnified bj an additional quit-rent , payable from the new peasant proprietors . By this plan one-fourth or one-third of the Irish peasantry would , in two er three years , be not only in a state of present ease , but under the influence of the strongest attainable motives to industry , prudence , and economy , and with their interesls all ranged on the side of tranquillity and the law , because the law would have ceased to be their oppressor , and become their benefactor .

      It will be seen that this is , in effect , carrying out the plan of the Chartist Co-operative Land Society upon a large scale , with the machinery and means of the State . Happy will it be for Ireland , if the pestilence which has this year destroyed its potatoes , destroys at the same time the dependence of its population upon them for a * subsistence , and emancipates them from the poverty and destitution by which they have been hitherto enthralled . Dare the Whigs act on this plan of their old and faithful organ ? We shall see . In the meantime , Russell gives no sign , and Besborough and the landlords have it all their own way .

      On this side the channel prices continue to rise , and the gravest apprehensions exist as to the capability of procuring a sufficient supply of food to carry us to the next harvest . How for the calculations on that subject are of an alarmist character , and intended to subserve the purposes of the dealers in grain , we are not prepared to say , but from the general tenor of the news from all quarters , " short commons" would seem to be the order of the day at no distant period .

      Dissatisfaction with the results of free trade seems to extend in the manufacturing districts . The promises of "high wages , cheap bread , and plenty to do , " have translated themselves , in fact , into lower wages , dear bread , and short time . The glass trade in Birmingham is beginning to feel the effects of foreign competition , so much so that the manufacturers have been compelled to diminish the number of their workmen . Cash goods of a delicate

      description , formerly made in that town , are now retailed in it of German manufacture . In the Lancashire district , the state of trade is said to be of the most depressed and gloomy description . Wages have been reduced , many mills are working only four days a week , and business on the whole was , perhaps , never in a worse condition . Such are the first practical effects of the long agitated for measure of the League .

      Another horrible case , growing out of the operation of the Poor Law , has occurred at Carnarvon . Notwithstanding the verdict of the jury , it is clear that the death of the pauper was accelerated by the shameful manner in which the medical treatment of the poor is conducted in that union . Thirtyseven parishes , with a population of 50 , 000 , includiug a district of thirty miles in length , are left to the nominal care of an inadequate number of surgeons ; It is physically impossible for them to give proper ,

      or indeed any , attention to one-half of their patients . See the effects . the pauper on whom the inquest was held at Carnarvon , lay on a mass of putrid straw swarming with maggots , and without other covering save that afforded by the charity of a fellow pauper while he was dying . The surgeon of the Union having to go some miles , perhaps , to see another patient , could only afford time fora hasty glance at the poor dying creature , who was left , day after day , in the same filthy and deplorable condition . Yet this is but a specimen of the med ' ical attendance provided

      The Northern Star. Saturday, October 24, 1846.

      THE NORTHERN STAR . SATURDAY , OCTOBER 24 , 1846 .

      Untitled Article

      ~ WEEKLY REVIEW . The commencement of some of the Works voted at the Baronial sessions , has contributed to give the news from Ireland this week a quieter tone . Distress and discontent are yet far too abundant , but there are signs of amelioration perceptible . One topic of complaint with the Irish press , and in which nearly all concur , is the shameful and improper delay which has taken plac / j in giving effect to the local

      Untitled Article

      4 THE NORTHERN STAR , U October H 1846 ^ ^^——__^—^_—_ . . . ^ ——^^^^^ " ^^^^ — " ~ .

  • Citation
    • Northern Star (1837-1852), Oct. 24, 1846, page 4, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/ns/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1389/page/4/