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

in forcing wheat from pasture fields ; and when the 1
bubble burst he was turned out for rent, and thrown on
the parish for pay as a pauper. These terrible conse-
quences surely must have shqwn them the injus-
tice and impolicy of their selfish measures. After-
wards they brought in another Corn Bill, in 1814,
' but so vigorous was the pressure from without that
they failed ini passing it, and gave it up. But in the

following yeai. they succeeded better, and at the point

of the bayonet, with the doors of the House of Commons

guarded by the drawn sables of the military, the Legis-
lature passed the infamous Corn-law of 1815, actually

prohibiting the importation of foreign wheat until the
price in the home maket was 80s. a quarter.—(Cries of
"Shame.") This last law, however, not having the effect
of keeping up starvation prices, another Bill was
brought in in 1822:; and in 1827 Mr. Canning at-
tempted to introduce an amended line of policy, but ho
was met by the Duke of 'Wellington, who carried a

clause in the House of Lords which made the Minister

of the day give up the measure altogether ; and in 1828
the Corn-law, as it now stood, was passed, Mr. Charles
Grant, now Lord Glenelg, having been its framer and

the introducer of it into the House of Commons.
Having now completed his survey of the historical
progress of the Corn-laws, he would now proceed
to the bearing of the question as between the
British manufacturer and the British landowner.

The real question at issue between the British manufac-
turer and the British landowner was simply this. The

British manufacturer asked the landowner to be con-
tented with his estate, and with a fair rate of remunera-
tion for their produce in relation to the fair market of
the world.—(Hear, hear.) He showed the landowner
the injustice of limiting an increasing population to a
fixed soil ; he showed the loss occasioned by laying out
capital to force a soil, wringing 501. out of the people for
every Si. put into the hands of the landowner ; and he
asked whether it was justice for the landowner to
double the market value of his own com -nodity,
when he diminished by half the exchangeable value of
every other commodity. He told the landowner that
the Corn-laws, and the Corn-laws alone, forced the
English merchant to meet the Foreign merchant on un-
equal terms, and that this inequality must injure com-
merce, and ultimately reduce the money rate of wages
here to what they were abroad. What was the land-
owner's reply to this ? He called it insolent clamour.
He would talk of the agricultural distress caused by
his own rapacity ; but he saw only the splendour and
the luxury which surrounded himself. If by the in-
vestment of 2,0001. in manufactures they could procure
one hundred or two hundred quarters of foreign wheat,
and if, by laying out the same sum upon land, they
could only raise fifty or one hundred quarters, was it not
clear that they were a manufacturing people, and that
they ought to export manufactures and import corn?
Was not every quarter of wheat brought from abroad
as much an actual creation as if it had sprung up in
their own workshops ?—(Cheers.) The more mouths
they had to find food for, the more would ma-
nufactures be demanded, and if manufactures could be
exchanged for food, every labourer might exchange his
own. He would labour less, because less labour would
procure for him the full gratification of all his wants.
By the present law the manufacturer was obliged to sell
an extra quantity in the foreign market, whilst the land-
owners' law prevented his buying corn in exchange ; he
could only import luxuries, which he was forced, to sell
again at half their value to the landowners. It was an
injustice to the capitalists, but it was most oppressive to
the labourers. The capitalists were the negotiators be-
tween the landowers and the industrious classes, and the
chief effect fell upon the labourers, who were forced to
do double work for half wages. That was the neces-
sary result of the Corn-laws. Neither Ten-hour Bills,
nor Eight-hour Bills, would improve their condition,
until this tyrannous measure should be torn to tat-
ters by the common sense of the people.—(Cheers.)
British skill and capital was frittered away by the Corn-
laws, because the result of those obnoxious laws was
that the manufacturers of this country could not com-
pete with foreigners. One million and a half were ex-
clusively dependant for employment and subsistence on
the great cotton manufactures in Lancashire ; but in
consequence of the Corn-laws, the exportation of yarn
had increased, on which only 4d. a lb. was spent in
labour, while 10d. would have been spent upon it, if it
had been manufactured into goods. Was not this a
gross injustice towards the labourers ?—(Cheers.) This
exportation of yarn, however, would not long continue,
for the different States of Europe were using the greatest
exertions to institute manufactories in their own domi-
nions. This was all the result of the Corn-laws.
—(Hear, hear.) The Lecturer then proceeded to
show that the same results had taken place
in the iron and hardware trades, and having concluded
this part of the subject, observed that it. now remained
for him to show that the cry of the Corn-laws being
beneficial to the farmer was a complete delusion. He
could not in the present lecture enter into the subject of
wages, but he hoped to have another opportunity in
Southwark of lecturing on this all important question.—
(Cheers, and cries of "We hope you will.") Now, as
to the question of the benefit of the Corn-laws
to the farmers, had not the experience of the
fast tw0.67 yp.rm shown that a large propor-
tion of the farmer's capital had been absorbed in
the shape of rent, whilst the agricultural labourer had
become as much degraded as the soil serf of Russia, or
the Ryot of Hindostan. Wheat had varied from 375.
to 735. per quarter, but the rent-rolls were the same as
in 1812, when wheat was at 1255. The fact was, that
in bad years the landowners got all they could, and then
when corn was high the landlord pressed for his back
rent, and so gradually absorbed all the capital. In
short, in high times the farmer only held his profits as a
sponge holds water—till the landlord should squeeze
them.—(Cheers.) There were only three ways in which
the repeal of the Corn-laws could injure the agricultu-
rist ; first, in the shape of rent to the landlord ;
secondly, in respect to the profit of the farmer ; and
thirdly, the wages of the agricultural labourer. He
would admit that a repeal of the Corn-laws might for a
time lower rents. But then the rents of the landowners
had increased enormously more than the increase
of population, whilst the money value of their
rental had been again doubled by the depreciation in the
vaiue of every species of manufacture. Did they ask
the landowners to disgorge ?—No. They forgave the
past, and asked only for justice for the future.—(Cheers.)
With regard, next, to the farmers. If 60s. were re-
quired to grow what could be bought abroad for 405.,
was it not as much waste to force the barren soil as if the
difference were thrown into the sea ? But the nature
of rent precluded the farmer from obtaining any of the
profit,produced by the cultivation of the better soil. The
Corn-laws forced the cultivation of the barren soil, so as
to afford no permanent profit ; whilst with the higher
value of the richer land the competition of the farmers
enabled the landowners to fill their pockets. And
when the farmer had to look to other employments for
such of his children as could not be occupied in farm-
ing, he would find that the Corn-laws, which had done
him no good, had blighted the prospects of his family,
It was clear from the evidence given before the Com-
mittee of 1836, by the farmers themselves, Mr. Robert
Hope, of Haddington ; Mr. Andrew Howden, of East
Lothian ; Mr. Ellis, of Leicester ; Mr. Parker, of
Essex ; Mr. J. Brickwell, of Buckinghamshire ; and
many others, all of whom proved that the fluctuating
value of wheat caused by bad soils, bad harvests, and
the Corn-laws, gave to the cultivation of wheat such
a fictitious stimulus, after a year of high price, as to
make farmers speculators, and landowners little better
than reckless gamblers. The question was really between
the nation and the landowners, and the fallacy, now- a-days,
consisted in continually thrusting the poor farmer before
the world, whilst the rich landowner kept in the back
ground. In 1836, there were plenty of farmers brought
up to prove to the landowners on the Committee that
they were ruined ; but there was not one landowner
called to show that he had knocked off a single hound,
or disposed of one racehorse.—(Cheers.) If the
farmers were thus treated, it could not be expected
that the labourers would meet with a better fate. The
Report of the Poor-law Commissioners proved their
utter destitution. In Buckinghamshire, the county of
the Marquis of Chandos—the Duke of Buckingham—
the county of the self-styled farmer's friend—(Cheers)--
the county of the hypocritical, canting Duke of Buck-
ingham—(Cheers)—who paid the interest on his mort-
gages—for there was not one man who was more deeply
mortgaged—out of the capital of his farmer—in Buck-
inghamshire the rates were 19s. Bd. on the whole popu-
lation ; yet that same Duke had lately bad the impu-
dence in his own county to declare that the Corn-law
repeal would ruin the labourers, and this declaration
he made at the same meeting that he gave prizes
elr
away
their
families such agricultural labourers as had brought up
families without parochial relief—a pretty goodint 'ca-
tion that labourers who had thus brought up their fami-
lies were not very common. In other counties the
poor-rates had been as high. And he wouldat
the
eimself
L
state from his knowledge of the peasantry h
pre-
sent rate of wages did not average more than twelve
shillings a week ; in many places they did not ex-
ceed seven. The recent appeal at Uxbridge for
relief against the poor-rates, and another appeal so
far back as August, were convincing proofs of this.
Yet in the face of these facts he had heard Sir Robert
declaring
agricultural that the C
Peel get up before the collective wisdom of the nation
to proclam hintselfapkrirteveet,
protection
ny
dfor ela
the la-
bourer.--(Cheers.) were_ theh onlyeerso
When he heard that Right lion.
Baronet his blood rushed to his fingers' ends, and he
exclaimed--how fallen is the majesty of Britain, when
one of the first of her so called Statesmen consents to
become a living political lie.--(Tremendous cheering.)
cornTh e
now: Corn-lawslvhiwhilst
tgtahe labourer gave theo labourerrerofthe last i
scarcely one bushel .
century or the
same or less labour had two bushels. If the Corn-laws
were made for the labourers, how came it that they
were now starving, whilst the landowners had doubled
their rents ? In short, so strong was the evidence
against the Corn-laws, furnished by the rgrieulturists
themselves, before the Committee of 1836, that the
Members refused to give a Report founded upon it.
And he would conclude by lamenting that the country
was in such a condition that despotism, such as this,
should be cramping her industry, and imposing the iron
fetters of an impious policy, for the purpose of making