The Express.
London, England, 1848-01-21 00:00:00

MANCHESTER CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

ON THE CORN LAWS.
Yesterday morning a numerows meeting of the
Manches'er Chamber of Commerce was held, for the pur-
pose of considering " the propriety of petitioning parliament
against the resumption ;of the sliding scale of duties on the
importstion of corn on the Ist of March next."
The President (Mr. T. BATLEY), in opening the meeting,
said ; In convening this meeting of the chamber, gentlemen,
your directors have been desirous of affording you an oppor-
tunity of determining whether you will petition against the
resumption of that sliding scale of duties on cora which has
always been regarded by us as a most abherrent system of
legialatien. (Hear, hear.) You will, if you please, record
your opinions in favour of the resumption of that act—not
that I anticipate any such result from your deliberations.
When the corn-law was last altered, in the year
1846, Sir Robert Peel made such an arrangement among
the conflicting interests he had te deal with, so
perhaps, upon the whole, gave very general satisfaction.
We have not regarded the terms of alteration thus effected
any settlement of the question, though we received so a
grateful boon the service the Premier then rendered. The
corn law has always been a fair and a fine weather law, and
whenever social or commercial storms have troubled the at-
mosphere. then that law has had to be put aside. The law
of 1846 has been very short•lived : it has been already sus-
pended on two occasion! since it was enacted, in little more
than the space of a single year ; and we learn with regret
that it is likely to come into operation again on the Ist March
next. Now there is probably—or at least I trust there is
• favourable harvest in store for us next year, but we are in
the hands of Providence, and we may not have a favourable
harvest, in which event the legislature will have to be called
upon again to suspend that law, though its further duration
as a law will be at an end altogether in ten or eleven months.
During the debates on this subject in the House of
Commons, her Majesty's ministers on the one hand, and
the opposition on the other, have maintained that
so long as we were called upon to supply food to
Ireland, whilst obliged to import food for this country,
we ought not to have a tax on that food ; but I fear that in
the face of that declaration they are about to re-establish
that law, and I fear that our countrymen in Ireland will
still demand our aid. And you will bear me out, that the
working man in this country can ill afford to pay taxes to
government and at the same time pay for food to the starving
Irish, while he is oleo paying a tax in the form of an exac-
tion to the privileged classes of his own country. Whether we
shall succeed in our object, in the event of determining to
petition against the resumption of the sliding scale, is of
course a doubtful matter, but I conceive we are only pur-
suing the path of duty in placing our opinion upon record,
and in declaring to the last that we are still opposed to any
exaction upon the food with which the people of this country
shall be fed.
Mr. H. ASHWORTH said, the occasion upon which we
have met is disappointing, but not calculated to fill us with
dismay. This return to a vicious system of taxation is cer-
tainly unexpected, and exceedingly unwelcome. By her
Majesty's communication to parliament, not very long ago,
it appeared that the existing navigation laws were not to be
directly repealed, but modified. You will also have gathered
from what is taking place among the colonial protectionists,
that they are also entertaining a hope that something will
again be conceded to them. And you will find, from what
has fallen from one of her Majesty's ministers, that it is their
intention, on the Ist of March, to allow the re-establishment
of the corn duties. Now, taking these symptoms, and con-
sidering the scope and bearing of them, and considering also
the prostrate condition of the country, I cannot but feel it
unwise, and altogether at variance with those sound prin.
eples avowed by her Majesty's ministers when they came
into power. We have not forgotten that memorable letter
of Lord John Russell—we have not forgotten that
when he entered into office, when famine was stalk-
ing over the country—when the failure of the potato
crop rendered it necessary that his lordship should suspend
the corn-laws without waiting for the expiration of the act,
and when he felt called upon to offer public prayer and re-
pentance for the sins inflicted by the reeent corn-laws—if he
was sincere on that occasion, if they who contrived that
public humiliation were sincere in believing that the sins of
the country could be atoned for by that means, what greater
sin had we to atone for than a bread tax upon the people ?
How stre then that before the last instalment of charity,
which had become necessary to Ireland as the result of that
sin had been doled out, to hear of the re-establishment of
that sinful law which they had first repealed and then
atoned for. (Hear.) If we are to believe that his lordship
is the penitent he appeared to be, it does not say much for
the piety of the man who is now so busily engaged in
creating new bishops and bishoprics. But leaving that ;
let us inquire how it happened he should repeal
, the corn-law, taking it upon principle, and not
upon religious grounds. I find that his measures were
more or less based upon principle, and in the letter to
' which I have made allusion, I find the following. It
is dated Nov., 184.5, when he was, I suppose, bidding for

office
The struggle to make bread scarce and dear, when it is clear that
part, at least, of the additional price goes to increase rent, is •
nsie deeply injurious to an aristocracy whish (this quarrel re-
in name in Proporty, strong in the construeuun of our
rei(nre, strong In *Mon strong in ancient associations, and the
memory of
whichimortal services. Let us, then, unite to put an end
to • system h has teen proved to be the blight of commerce
the bane of sericaltore, the source of bitter divisions =clog
classes, the canoe of penury, fever, mortality, and crime among the
rit; if his lordship believed that how happens it that he
is returning to the contrary course when he had once
thrown it aside ? There is something refreshing in the
letter before me that reminds one of old times. You will
bear in mind that in 1838 the proceedings of this chamber
gave birth to the league. We hare had seven or eight years
of agitation, two years ortranguility, and now, in 1848, we
are met together to do our work • secondlays with
ourselves if we do not finish our work properly this time.
We have spent no small sum of money ; we have published
hundreds of tons weight of tracts and speeches to prove that
monopoly is robbery ; and, gentlemen, we are not prepared
to abandon that ground. It may take hundreds of tans
more tracts, speeches, and as much money, but I believe,
gentlemen, that both will not be wanting it we are called
upon to make the sacrifice.
Mr. KEESHAW, M.P., after expressing his belief that the
government could not be in earnest in intending again to
bring the core laws into operation, said, I have no misgiv-
ings upon this subject. I have no doubt protectionists
would be glad if they continue some remnant of monopoly
for all time to come, and for them the greater the amount of
it the better; but this country, lam sure, will never submit
to the imposition of a tax upon its food. After the informa-
tion poured forth by the league, and which has so enlight-
ened the country, I believe that it will never endure protte-
tion. I was perfectly surprised myself to hear that her
Majesty's ministers did not at once say to parliament
they should propose that the remaining fragment
of monopoly should be entirely destroyed. I re-
gretted sincerely to hear the President of the Board