The Sun.
London, England, 1839-12-31 00:00:00

ANTI-CORN-LAW LECTURE.

A very numerous and respectable meeting of the in-
habitants of Southwark took place in the large room at
the Three Tuns yesterday evening, to hear a lecture
delivered by the eloquent Anti-Corn-law lecturer, Mr.
Paulton.

Mr. APSLEY PELLATT, who was called to the chair,
said that they were aware that, in various parts of the
country lectures had been delivered on the all-important
subject of the Corn-laws. They were that evening
favoured by the presence of a gentleman who had
kindly undertaken gratuitously to lecture to them ; and

he, as Chairman, would not detain them further than

by simply introducing to their kind attention Mr. Paul-
ton, of Manchester.—(Cheers.)
Mr. PAuLToN then commenced his lecture, by say-
ing that he came before them upon that occasion as the
representative of the Anti-Corb-law League of Manches-
ter, to solicit the aid and co-operation of the men of
Southwark to help them in carrying on the struggle
against monopoly and injustice.—(Loud cheers.)
He addressed them, not as a Corn-law repealer merely,
but as an apostle of free trade.—(Hear, hear.) In
that capacity he recognised no distinction of party or of
persons, was the cause of universal justice that he
advocated it, and every approximation to the full re-
cogniLion of its claims drew nearer to each other the
entire brotherhood of man. The Corn-law question
was not to be regarded as a mere political or party
question—in it the Tories, fete W higs, the Radicals, and
the Chartists had a common banner round which to
rally ; men of all political parties and opinions had ex-
pressed their opposition to the Corn-laws, and could
conscientiously, without any compromise, join in the
cry for the repeal.—(Hear, hear.) Perhaps no indi-
vidual had had a better opportunity of arriving at the

actual condition of the different classes of society in this

country than had fallen to his lot during the past year.
He had lately passed through the 150 chief towns,
many of the agricultural districts of England and most
of the farming districts of Scotland ; he had mixed much
with all classes, and had endeavoured to ascertain the
actual state and social condition of the people. The

fact that most struck his observation was the lamentable
ignorance displayed by the middle classes of the absolute
wretchedness in which the mass of the population were
involved. Very little intercommunication took place
between them ; the different circles of society seemed
to revolve, almost independently of each other, round
each other ; unity was prevented, and there prevailed so
much mistrust as to prevent confidence on the one side

and exertion on the other. Unless a considerable altera
tion in the basis of ;society took place, and unless there
was an immediate amendment in the physical condition
of the people, he feared,that peace, law, and order would
perish before physical destitution. Misery and
wretchedness abounded in the land. Everywhere
that he had been had the same sad tale of pri-
vation and suffering been told—everywhere had the
famished victims of monopoly proclaimed their !con-
sciousness of wrong.—(Hear, hear, hear). He saw evi-
dence of this even in the palliative system of repression
which was directed towards effects, and overlooked
causes. Were they not called upon to support a rural
police ; was it not attempted to cut down pauperism
by the New Poor-law, and the extension of the standing
army ? What did those facts indicate ? Were they
not living, undeniable, nay, acknowledged testimony of
misery and crime and political discontent, which were
upheaving the very strata of society, and required for
their repression a multiplication of coercive means? In
a country like this, those were fearful indications.—
( Hear). A wise Govenrment would read them with a pro-
phetic spirit, and while every Constitutional means were
adopted to repress them, it would determine at the
same time to investigate causes, and when they found
those causes uproot them.—( Hear.) It was impossible
to mistake the chief cause. Dear bread was of itself
an unmitigated evil. The Corn-laws were to be dreaded,
not so much for their immediate as for their indirect
effect. It was the fearful panic, and the commercial
distress, which constituted their greatest atrocity. On
commerce the population of the large towns depended
exclusively for employment, and the Corn-laws not only
shut our commerce out from foreign markets, but de-
stroyed the demand in our home manufactures at the
very time the utmost activity was required .. o
supply the wants of the people. Could any cm-
mercial man who knew any thing of the et-ral
state of the country doubt for an instant as to titer; ause
that had produced the present stagnation of:- L tie, and
the disorganisation of every branch of industry? The
cause was palpable in the fact, that upwards of twenty
million pounds more had been paid for bread alone
during the last two years annually than was paid in
1825, whilst the home demand for manufactures had
been proportionably lessened. Not only was the loss
of trade abroad felt, but the glut produced in the home
and foreign market had reduced the price of ware
below the cost of production ; and there was not
only a sacrifice of interest but of capital. To make
" confusion worse confounded," we were obliged to carry
our gold out of the country to pay for the foreign corn,
and the rate of interest was increased at the very pe-
riod that our warehouses groaned under the weight of the
unsaleable produce of the hood-luom and the steam -
engine. The commercial crisis of the last year was only
one of a series which had occurred from time to time
with increasing violence for the last twenty-five years.
There was no instance of a commercial panic
in connection with the low price of food. Those de-
structive vibrations of commerce might be traced to
those impious laws that limited the supply of food to a
single climate and a single soil, disregarding those ad-
vantages which the bounty of Providence had placed at
our hands ; thus producing rivalry between nations,
which otherwise would be like kindred drops mingled
into one. He would now give a short sketch of the
history of Corn-law legislation in this country. In 1436
a statute was passed legalising the exportation of corn
only when the price of wheat should be at or
above 6s. Bd. per quarter—equivalent to about
12s. at the present time. But in 1463 another
remarkable feature in the history of the Corn-laws pre-
sented itself. The landlords, finding that richer soils
and kindlier harvests prevented them by exportation
from keeping the price of corn up to an extravagant
rate, they, by a statute passed in 1463, secured a com-
plete monopoly of price in the home market by forbid-
ding importation of grain unless the price in the home
market exceeded 6s. Bd. a quarter. That rob-
bery (for he could call it nothing else), was be-
neficial, to the landowner, but injurious to every
other class of the community. When the price
of corn was high on the Continent the landlord
could export to equalize the price here ; but if the
price of corn was low on the Continent and
high here, then the ports were of course closed,
and the people must either starve or procure from the
landholder, at his own monopoly price, the wretched
means of existence.—( Hear, hear.) The next remark-
able era in the history of the Corn-laws, was in 1688.
By the very first statute of William and Mary, chap.
12, not only was the exportation of corn permitted,
but an actual bounty of ss. on every quarter of wheat
exported, while the home price remained at or below
48s. a quarter, was positively abstracted from the
pockets of the nation to be given to the landholder to
enable him not only to keep up the price, but to bribe
the foreigner from purchasing wheat at a lower rate than
Britons themselves could purchase it on their own shores.
That Bounty Act on exportation continued in force up
to 1773. The landholders were somewhat deceived as
to its results. The prine;ple on which it was framed
was decidedly selfish, but they had overshot the mark ;
and in 1773 that Act was modified by another statute,
simply imposing a nominal duty of 6s. whenever the
home price of wheat should be above 48s. a quarter.
That was the most lenient Corn-law ever passed by a
British Legislature ; but by a succession of Acts from
1791 to 1804, they raised the nominal duty from 6s. to
245. 3d. a quarter, whenever the home price of wheat
should be below 565. a quarter. In 1804, in spite of
the pressure of the war taxation, they raised the
limit from 60s. to 635., and imposed a prohibi-
tory duty of 245. 3d. From 1804 to 1815, that
last law remained in farce. The landlords were doing
well—they did not wish to moot the question. Bad
harvests, inconvertible paper, and the bloody war kept,
the price of wheat steady at an average of 41. 17s. 6d. a
quarter. Could they desire more.?—(A voice—" I should
think not.")—(Great laughter.) In 1815 when wheat
was selling at 61. 12s. a quarter, a Committee of the
House of Commons recommended an increase of the
import duties. At the termination of the war in 1814
the prices of agricultural produce fell materially ; but
during the war, from 1809 to 1814, when the market
price of gold was 25 per cent. higher than its represen-
tative value in Bank notes, the rents of the landlords
were paid in Bank notes, and those rents increased cor-
respondently with the price of corn. Corn rose during
those years from 755. to 61. a quarter. Under those cir-
cumstances the farmer could afford to pay his extrava-
gant rent, and realise for himself satisfactory pro-
fits on his capital. But it must be: remembered
that during that period the high profits of the
farmer as well as the double rents of the landholder were
paid in reality by the consumers of agricultural produce.
—(Cheers.) During those years the Continent was
closed against our manufactures by the Berlin and Milan
Decrees of Napoleon, and our manufacturers were com-
pelled to sacrifice their productions in order to provide
for the payment for foreign corn in gold, when gold was
25 per cent. in value above the price of the paper in
circulation. So that from 1809 to 1814 the landholders
pocketed 25 per cent on the manufactures of the
country.—‹ Hear, hear, hear, and cries of " Shame.")
Mark the consequences :—as far as the consumers
were concerned they had been shown ; but the
•.
producers of corn ultimately suffered seriously. In
1813 the harvest was a redundant one. So -great
had been the fictitious stimulus to agriculture by the
high price of the last six years, that in 1813 the price
which had been 1255. fell to 745., and in 1815, to 645.
a quarter. A large proportion of the farmers were
ruined—general confidence ceased—a run on the banks
ensued, and in 1814, 1815, and 1816 no less than 240
country banks stopped payment.—(Hear.) As to the
ruin of the farmer, that was a matter of indifference to
the landholders. They led him by prohibitory legisla-
tion and inconvertible paper money to invest his capital