DEVIL'S DUST.
Ma. FERRAND informed the House of Commons, that "shoddy- cloth was made from old woollen rags, reduced, by means of power- ful machinery, as nearly as possible to their original form of wool, and then worked up into a sort of cloth. In tearing these old rags, a great quantity of dust was produced, which the people called
dust.' Such was the cloud of dust produced by this process, that people in the mill could not see each other at a dis- tance of three yards. The rooms in which the process was carried on were small, and the machinery used propelled with great ve- locity." But that the Member for Knaresborough is one of those who may thank the gods, with Audrey, "that they have not made him poetical," one might be tempted to take this for a satirical de- scription of a debate in the House of Commons. The small rooms are the type of the old House of Lords, into which the more nume- rous House of Commons is at present squeezed, like an overgrown schoolboy into the jacket and trousers of one several years his junior : the great velocity of the machinery used can scarcely tran- scend the glibness of some Members' tongues—Mr. FERRAND'S, perhaps, among the rest : and what are debates in the House of Commons, but a ripping up of old fallacies to weave them into new sophisms, when the original ones have from frequent use been worn shabby and threadbare ? Even the "Devil's dust" is to be found in such abundance, that, so far from the orators being able to see each other, one is tempted often to imagine that not one of them ayes what himself would be at.
Take, for example, this very "Devil's dust," which Mr. E'ER- HAND has been of late so pertinaciously throwing into the eyes of his colleagues—what effect has it produced ? Honourable Mem- bers contradict each other ; honourable Members tauntingly cry to each other, "You dare not move for a Committee to inquire into this matter." Mr. VILLIERS says it is Mr. FERRAND'S duty to move for a Committee : Mr. FERRAND says he defies the honourable Mem- bers opposite to ask for a Select Committee for the purpose of proving or disproving his assertions ; and at last, Mr. FERRAND is .driven to give notice, that unless some Member on the other side of the House would move for a Committee, he should.
And what is this Committee to do when appointed ? Mr. Fes- RAND says that some members of the Anti-Corn-law League are dishonest, and that some of them oppress the poor. He does not say this of all of them—be does not even say that, taking them as a corporate body, so many of them do these things as to entitle him to charge all. He speaks of the misdemeanours of individuals. For years back, there have been Commissions and Committees innumerable to inquire into the working of the Factory system ; and a Commission to inquire into the employment of children in general La about to have its report laid upon the table. Laws have been enacted to prevent overworking in factories : if a manufacturer sell a spurious article as genuine, an action may be brought against him, and the consequences of one exposure would deter others from following his example. The House of Commons has more than enough of indispensable business in hand ; it has no time to waste in such make-believe working. Nor is this the worst : Mr. FERRAND brought forward his accusations as an argument against repeal of the Corn-laws ; but in the angry discussion and irrelevant inquiry to which he has given occasion, the Corn-laws are in a fair way to be left out of view altogether. What bearing have Mr. FERRAND'S accusations upon the ques- tion whether any duty should be paid upon the importation of foreign corn ? Even though his charges attached as generally as from the sweeping boldness of his first general assertions it ap- peared, the cry for Corn-law Repeal is not affected thereby. A duty on imported grain, if it has any effect, must keep corn from market that would otherwise come there : keeping corn from market that would otherwise come there, is to make some members of the community go with less food than they might otherwise get. The first direct operation of the Corn-law, therefore, is to do mischief. The burden of showing that this mischief is accompanied by a coun- tervailing benefit lies with those who make the assertion. It is not enough to say that the agriculturists bear more than their share of the public burdens : the truth of the assertion is denied ; and they who make it ought to prove it, and moreover, to prove that the imposition of a tax on imported grain is the only way or the beat way to readjust the balance. They who assert that without the duty on imported grain agriculture could not prosper in this country, are bound to prove their assertion: its truth is denied, and no man is expected to prove a negative. This is the real question ; and Mr. FERRAND'S accusations of This and Co. or That and Co. cannot affect it either one way or another. They may be the Devil himself, as they are said to work with his dust, but that is no reason why the whole community should be kept from swallowing enough of bread in addition to being obliged to swallow the said dust.
Mr. FERRAND may say, the manufacturers began this scolding- bout. There is something in this ; though perhaps the manufac- turers might be able to show that the cases are not exactly parallel. They say of the landlords, "They made the Corn-laws, and the Corn-laws do this mischief' : Mr. FERRAND says, "The manufac- turers favour the truck system, put starch in their bad calicoes, and drive a dirty trade which creates a great deal of dust": but all this does not make the Corn-law innoxious. The manufacturers cry, "Hate the landlords, because they make bad laws": Mr. FERRAND says, "Hate the manufacturers, though on this occasion they may be advocating what is right." Both parties use foolish and wicked language ; but Mr. FERRAND'S is the more illogical. The Anti-Corn-law leaders, however, would do well to take a lesson from this attack upon them. Do they feel more inclined to submit to the Corn-law since Mr. FERRAND galled their self-love ? if not, do they think that the landlords will feel more inclined to repeal the Corn-law by having their self-love galled ? The land- lords cling to the Corn-law because they think it benefits them, and because they have persuaded themselves that it does not do so much harm to other people as men say. Before taunts and in- vectives can have any effect, some at least of the Corn-law sup- porters must to a certain extent be disabused as to these fallacies. To begin with vituperation, is to begin at the wrong end : it is forgetting the moral of the old fable about the Sun and the North Wind trying for a wager which could soonest make a man part with his cloak.
We are quite aware of the kind of animals we are casting pearls before, and would have spared ourselves the trouble, were it not that this individual case is of wider application, and will serve to illustrate the general principle—" that kicking up a dust is the worst way in the world to set about seeing clearly."
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