The Sun.
London, England, 1839-02-25 00:00:00

CORN-LAWS.

EXTRACT OF A SPEECH DELIVERED AT
IPSWICH ON TUESDAY LAST.
(From the Suffolk Chronicle.)
Colonel TuomesoN said, tint, far our agricultural friend
at the end of the room, of whom he regretted exceedingly
that all the objections had not been heard. This friend
had stated, that he believed in his heart England could not
stand a free trade. Now, this depended on disproving
what had been advanced in the Lecture, on the loss conse-
quent in every instance where the greater price was given
instead of the less. If it were true that the difference of
pr.ces, or the value of it, was thrown into the sea, the won-
der was, cot how England could stand a free trade, but
how she could stand the other, inflicting loss at every turn.
The Chartists have acted like young soldiers at a siege,
who say to themselves, " What would you like best ?
0, by all means the citadel I fur when we have got
that, we shall have all the rest. So we will
attack the citadel first, and nobody shall lead us upon any
other point." It might be excusable in men new to the
trade, but it was the worst possible soldiership ; the busi-
ncss in a siege was always to bring down those points
first which were easiest carried, and then to carry others
afterwards. This is all very bad ; but the working classes
must have time to grow wiser like other people.—
(Cheers.) It was next objected, that to remove the Corn-
laws would benefit the fundholders. Now the case stood
thus :—The landed interest borrowed money to carry on
their war, and as soon as the war was over, they imposed
the Corn-laws, which cut down every man's loaf to a
half-loaf—the fundholders' included. The argument,
therefore, was—do not allow your half-loaves to be tarred
into whole ones, for do you not see, it would be benefiting,
the fundholders too ?—( Cheers.) It is grief and pain to
see such an argument produced by any portion of the work-
ing classes, because it has a direct tendency to reduce the
public estimate of their fitness to take care of themselves,
let alone their fitness to take care of anybody else. Tne
next objection was, that the agitators were cotton-lords,
annuitants of all kinds, and soldiers. As for the cotton-
lords, they are quite right not to be robbed if they can
help it, any more than anybody else. They have asked
the labouring classes to help them in removing a state
of things e hich gives the operalive half wages, and his
emplo)cr half profits; and the operatives had been made
t ansveer, that they would not have whole wages in-
stead of half—the reason why, because it- would give their
employers whole profits instead of half. They hugged
their half loaf, and filled their stomachs with the comfort of
thinking their employers were suffering too. It was diffi-
cult to say why one man as well as another should not be
accessible to the fact, that a whole loaf was better
than a half, even though somebody besides himself was
likely to have the benefit of the alteration.—(Cheers.)
Next it was objected, that the cotton-lords want to com-
pete with foreign wages. They want no such thing.
They want a state of things where they and the people
they employ should have the full benefit of the trade that
would naturally fall to themselves, without seeing it
stopped and cut off to please somebody else. But it was
asked, did they mean to give the same wages ? They
meant to give more ; less, it might be, in money amount, but
more in the substantial qunatity of what it would purchase
for the lab purer. And this from no merit of theirs, but be-
cause it could not possibly be otherwise. The masters were
fighting for a state of things where they could not keep
greater substantial wages from their workmen if tlley
were to try : and here were the workmen, in their igno-
rance of the world and things that are in it, standing up in
the ranks of the enemy, and quibbling with all their might
to prevent the consummation. It was all part of the bitter,
senseless error, which led the working classes to argue,
that because it was apparent their employers were to gain,
therefore, it followed themselves must lose. The next
objection was, that vie have a false currency; that bills of
exchange ought to be destroyed, and a gold currency alone
resorted to. There, at all events, seems to be two stories
upon this matter; for at Birmingham, which makes no
small part of the opposition at the present moment, the cry
is that nothing can be done till every man's pockets ree
stuffed into riches with paper money. The real fact is,
that there is no ground for complaint against false cur-
rency, nor likely to be, so long as payment in gold can be
procured fur paper on demand. When the case was other-
wise, then indeed there was room enough for complaint.
Your friend Mr. Childs of Bungay, will show you a silver
tea-pot, with an inscription on it commemorating that it
was bought with the difference of price of sixty golden
guineas sold in the year 1813 at Liverpool for bank
notes ; the fact being, that twenty guineas, instead of
selling for twenty-one pound notes, were selling for twenty-
eight, and the collective wisdom at the same time passing a
resolution, that twenty-one pound notes were equal to
twenty guineas in the public estimation.—(Cheers and
laughter.) Those indeed were times for false currency
but what is called Peel'e Bill has put an end to that, and I
trust we are in no danger of seeing a return- But next, it
is urged that the Corn- Laws are only one of the evils aris-
ing from a bid system of representation, and therefore we
ought not to attack them. Now, if there were any better
chance of attacking the whole at once, it would be wi.e to
do so ; but will any body show it? Where is it ? Who
can tell? If the room we arc now in was on fire, we should
never endure being told that one door or window was
only one way out of many, and therefore we must sit stil
and be burnt, unless we could be indulged in going out at
all the doors and windows at a time—( Cheers)—and this
really is the kind of advice that is given to us now; to get
rid of the Corn-laws would be a foolich consenting to get
rid of our evils by one road at a time ; a 3 wise coon there-
fore we are bound to remain as we are, till we can go out
by all the ways at once. But we are cautioned not to put
down the oppression of the Corn-laws, lest we introduce a
worse tyranny, that of the money-mongers. I do
not understand these terms of art; and till I do, it
is impossible to join in advising the working
classes to stick to the half-loaf, through terror of
some incomprehensible hobgoblin in the back-ground they
call a " money-monger." Help us to handle the " half-
loaf" men first, and then we will try if we cannot handle
the " money-mongers" afterwards. But we are told
again, we ought not to tinker one hole, and leave nine
others. Who ever said we would ?—(Cheers.) But did
I you ever see a tinker stop nine holes at once.—( Roars
of laughter.) Think only of the rule that is imposed
upon us. There are to be nine hands holding nine
hammers, hammering upon nine holes, or else all hope
is to be given up of our kettle ever being made to hold
water at all. ( Laughter and cheers.) But lam told I should I
have been doing more good by going about advocating the
People's Charter. You have been told very plainly the
reasons that made me think differently ; at all events, you
will not say a man came down here and tried to cheat you.
—( Cheers.) But we are asked again, who is to pay the
fifty millions of taxes if the Corn-laws are removed. I
answer, take away the restrictions which make us a little
nation instead of a great one, a poor nation instead of a
rich one, and which inflict losses on us, to the amount of
the taxes ten times over, and I see ItO difficulty in plying
the taxes were they ten times as great, with as much case
as we do at present.—(Cheers.)