The Express.
London, England, 1847-05-27 00:00:00

next moved that a memorial to her Majesty's ministers
should be adopted embodying the spirit of the resolutions.
In doing this the hon. gentleman said, whilst be was dis-
co admit that there were other causes Lr the present
distress than the seereity of food, they had a right to insist
also that that scarcity should not be made more oppressive
by those laws which bad a tendency to deprem trade. He
denied the truth of the statements which have been constantly
set forth in the Times newspaper, that to railways were to
be attributed a vast amount of the evils the country was at
present enduring; for, he said, if the country could, as
it had done, lavish 160 millions in mingle year upon war,
surely, under a proper system, that same country was able to
spare fifty millions for constructing railways, which tended
to enrich the country, and the money employed for which
found its way hack int., the bands of the working dames. Ile
declared it to be his firm opinion, that, under the present
system of a metallic currency, nothing like a permanent
prosperity could be attained ; and referred to the amend-
ment which had been moved. He said that he for one
thought that the people were the best legislators, '
and that he should be glad to see the suffrage still
further extended. This resolution having also been put and
carried, Mr. Munfz, M.P., next rose, andeaid that whilst he
was disposed to admit that there was a emeiderable pressure
upon the trading interest and upon the poorer classes, he did
not think that (especially in llirmingh•m) that pressure was
sufficiently considerable to produce any coacentrated and
great effort to bring about a change from the present system.
He was convinced (he said) that a greater pinch was coming,
and that the government of the day was only doing other
peoples dirty work. He entertained the opinion at the
time that the present government was wrong in taking office,
because he saw that the distress which now prevailed would
be sum to come. He now felt that the government was not
fit for the time ; that it was not able to cope with the diffi-
culties which existed ; and so they were going on cobbling in a
moment of emergency and of danger: they were going to stop
railway works; which was absurd, it was like fitting the foot to
the shoe, instead of the shoe to the foot. The evil was in the
system, and the system must be remedied, if the country '
was to be any thing like prosperous. The Chancellor of the
Exchequer said, they must lower the price of their goods.
Why, the effect of that (continued Mr. Mentz) will be, that
you must lower the price you pay for labour, whereas, the
whole system of legislation for the last thirty-five years has
been to make the rich richer, and to impoverish the poor
man. (Applause.) The fact was, the present government
would go out, and another one would come in and do away
with the present system. lie, for one, believed that Sir R.
Peel would do it; he had already shown some dispoeition to
abandon his babe, fine a child as it was ' • but tke whole
question was to be discussed in the House of Commons next
Monday night he intended to take part is that debate, and
he was not going to rehearse his speech by entering into de-
tails at that meeting. They would remember, however, that
he had told them eighteen menthe age, at the time they
were agitating for the repeal of the corn-laws, that they and
the money laws were inseparable ; that to repeal one, the
other must be altered. The result showed that he was
correct. The Manchester men then said, " If we can only
take their wheat they'll take our goods ;" why what was the
fact ? That during the last six months we had imported
three times the moms of corn we ever did, whilst
on the other hand, the exports of goods had as gradually
declined. The fact was, that under the present system, gold
must either be exported, and trade paralysed, or the manu-
facturers must reduce the price of their goods to an almost
indefinite amount (because the foreign manufacturer would
reduce theirs to meet them). And so the poor man would
be placed in a worse condition than ever. (Hear.) I have
(said the hon. gentleman, in conclusion) taken as active part
in politics for the last 3.5 years, solely with the view to the
poor man's protection—the rich man can take care of him•
self, but so long as I live I shall continue to pursue the course
I have done. There is a great deal in the peoe's charter
of which I approve ; but the first thing for the working
man to attend to is to increase the amount of intell,
genes existing amongst them. I believe there is not so
much indisposition amongst the governing power' of
this country, to measures which shall increase the
working man's power, but the question is, are they fit to be
trusted with increased power? It must be remembered,
(and unhappily we again bad evidence of the fact), that the
working classes have not at all times shown that when a
pressure such as the present arises, that they hays as much
of intelligence as shall restrain them from committing ex-
cesses. A working man asked the hon. gentleman what he
considered a standard of intelligence for working men ? to
which Mr. Montt rejoined: " I consider the best proof of
a man's possessing the proper amount of intelligence to
be, if he conducts himself like a rational being under all eir-
cumstanoes."—Some other interruptions having been offered,
Mr. Music further said: This is not an election
meeting, but I
i candidly tell you that having served you
honestly for seven years n the House of Commons, I mean
to stand again at the next election. I shall stand, too, upon
the same basis as I have ever stood, as an honest, indepen-
dent man ; and when I'm not so, let any amongst you call
me to sooount, and I'il answer on the hustings. (Applause.)
The hon. gentleman concluded by expressing an opinion that
during the next twelve months there would he a greater
pressure on the industrious classes of the country than they
had yet experienced.—Mr. Spooner, M.P., next delivered
a long speech, condemnatory of the present monetary
system. He insisted that it was impossible labour
could ever be properly rewarded, iron bound as it
was by the bill of 1819. There was (he said)
an abundance of corn abroad, for which gold would yet have
to be sent, and he smelted that the Bank of England was not
to blame for not having put the screw on earlier, for that the
only result of their so doing would have been to draw upon
the working man a greater amount of 'suffering than that
which he at present endured. The late Mr. Haskisson, re-
ferring to the bill of 1819, bad told the chairman of his elec-
tion committee at Liverpool, that, in the event of a scarcity
of food in this country, something must be substituted for
gold or the manufacturers could not go on. He (Mr.
Spooner) was convinced that the worst of the panic had not
yet been experienced, and that some change in the I
present monetary system was inevitable, and that the bill
of 1819 had been far more fatal than that measure of
Mr. Pitt's which Sir Robert Peal had dared to call " the
fatal measure of 1797." Adverting, too, to the probable
extent of the demand for our goods for America, Mr.
Spooner said that one of the merchants resident in this town,
who had jest returned from America, and whose experience
of the trading concerns of that country wei vz great, had
said that, thirteen years ago, the states im two-thirds
of our goods and manufactured one-third, rt that now the
figures were exactly reversed. The hon. gentleman con-
elided by observing that the currency question was a poor '
man's question,for that, in addition to heavy taxes, by it he
was robbed of all the value of hie labour. (Applause.) The
memorial to her Majesty's ministers was then put and gree
to, and the meeting broke up.