The Sun.
London, England, 1849-03-29 00:00:00

pretty well situated as regards stocks and contracts,
and they manifest considerable indpendenee and

7')Ltess,

IVIDAT.I

NECH 26.—The fa,

tiny 11 b 5 ut.oe exti eLL.4,2iy

dullest we have had this year. Very few buyers have
attended, and those showed no disposition to purchase.
In the wool market there has been little or nothing do-
ing, but former prices are well maintained.

HALIFAX, Minca 24.—There is no noticeable change
since last week, either in worsted goods or in yarns, and
our last report might be repeated this week without
variation. Wool is also about the same, and though it
cannot be quoted lower, is, perhaps, the turn in favour
of the buyer.
LEEDS, MARCH 27.—Our market continues very
much in the same satisfactory way which we have
had to report lately; as yet, however, the transactions
for the home trade are only very limited, while the de-
mand for export seems to make up pretty well for the
deficiency in the former. Prices remain without any
material alteration.

FRANCE.

M. Napoleon Bonaparte presided at the popular
Electoral Committee held at the Hotel de Ville yes-
terday. A number of operatives were present, who
loudly cheered the sentiments given expression to by
the Emperor's nephew in a speech in which he declared
his strong disapprobation of the reactionary tendencies
of certain political celebrities.
Napoleon Bonaparte has prepared an amendment
to the budget of the Minister of the Interior, allocat-
ing a sum of 25,000 f. towards the erection of a monu-
'4 ment to the memory of the late Marshal Ney.
44 A letter from Toulouse states that the votes for
'si Municipal Councillors in that city, at the election
which took place a few days since, were divided
amongst the political parties in the following propor-
tions :—For the partisans of Henry V. and of the
Count de Paris, 16,202 votes ; for the partisans of
Ledru Rollin, 8,306 ; and for the friends of Louis
Napoleon Bonaparte, 1,608. The friends of the Pre-
sident of the Republic assert that this result is to be
ascribed to the exertions of M. 'Delmas, the Prefect
of the Department, whose Legitimist tendencies are
well known.
es.

FRANKFORT.
'36 The Frankfort papers state that M. Pfordten has
u3'a declined the Regent's offer respecting the formation
of a Cabinet, and it is stated that M. Korner, who
was also sent for, has taken the same line of action.
The three persons whom the Oberpostamts Zeitung
now mentions as likely to suit the Regent's views are
the Count Lerchenfeld, Baron Konneritz, and M.
Heckscher. The Austrian members have of late
(since the division on M. Welcker's motion) thought
proper to ask for the protection of the Speaker of the
House. They complain of the contemptuous treat-
ment they receive at the hands of the other members.
This seems somewhat pusillanimous in a victorious
party.

REPEAL OF THE MALT AND HOP
DUTIES.
14 A county meeting, convened by Mr. R. S. Streatfeild,
High Sheriff of Sussex, in pursuance of a requisition
from 286 persons, being respectfully owners and men-
-136 piers of land, bankers, merchants, traders, and others,
inhabitants of the county, was held yesterday at Lewes.
The requisition emanated from a meeting held at Battle
about a month since, when Mr. J. Villiers Shelley, the
unsucessful free-trade candidate at the last election for
I". East Sussex, presided, and resolutions were passed urging
- on the Government the necessity of repealing the malt
and hop duties, and removing the fiscal and other burdens
which now prey on British agriculture, and praying for
'72 the reduction of the national expenditure as the best
ai means of carrying out those objects.
The meeting assembled in the Corn Exchange, attached
'34 to the Star Hotel, a room capable of holding between
2,000 and 3,000 persons; but an adjournment took place
to hustings erected in front of the County-hall. The
High-Sheriff presided; and among the influential persons
present were, the Earl of Chichester, the Earl of March,
M.P., Lord A. Gordon Lennox, Sir H. Shiffner, Mr. R.
Prime, M.P., Mr. A. E. Fuller, M.P., Colonel Wynd-
ham, Mr. H. Wyndham, Mr. J. V. Shelley, Mr. John
Ellman, Mr. Walter Wyndham Burrell, Mr. W. D.
Lucas Shadwell, Mr. W. Cuningham (late free-trade
candidate for Brighton), Mr. W. Townley Mitford, Mr.
John Borrer, Mr. E. Wyatt, Mr. W. Rigden, Mr. J.
Ide, &c. The requisition calling the meeting having
been read, cries of "Adjourn" were raised by the free-
trade party, and were met by shouts of "No, no," and
" Go on," from the Protectionists, who had taken early
possession of the space surrounding the platform. These
cries alternated for a considerable time, till at length an
adjournment took place to the temporary hustings
erected in front of the County-hall.
Major CURTEIS said he was well acquainted with the
Rapes of Hastings and Pevensey, and could bear wit-
ness to the extreme distress of the farmers, unexampled
in the county, unequalled in the kingdom. The farmers
could not meet their engagements—their tradesmen's
34 bills and their taxes were unpaid; wages were being re-
. duced, and their labourers turned off; not because the
• labour was not wanted, but because the farmers had not
the money to pay for it. Rents were unpaid, or, if paid,
asi they had been paid oat of capital, and good, useful
farms had been thrown on the bands of the landlords,
who were, in many cases, not in a position to occupy
them. He bad also been informed by the stewards of
various properties in his neighbourhood, as well as by
the farmers, that unless some relief was given them
~e, immediately they believed that one-third—he had also
been told one-half—of them must fail at Michaelmas
next. This state of things was caused by the bad
crops of last season—(Cries of " Free-trade l")—and in
his neighbourhood by the heavy duty on malt limiting
the consumption of hops. There was no time, then, for
delay. Whatever was to be done must be done at once,
or the ruin of the farmers would be completed.—(Lower
the rents.) He agreed that everything ought to be con-
ceded, and that forthwith, or the relief would come when
one half of them were done up. He and his family
were owners of considerable estates. As for himself, be
was also a large practical farmer. If the farmers failed,
he failed; if they went, he went. It would be madness,
therefore, in him to advocate anything which he con-
sidered to be injurious to the landed or farming inter-
ests. Farmers bad no right to abuse Sir R. Peel and his
10 party.—(Cries of " Ob, oh!") Who forced Sir R. Peel
and his party on the country? Who gave Peel and his
party a character?—(Hear.) Their present leaders had
counselled them not to depend on leaders, but on them-
c'e selves. In what great question of agricultural politics
had their leaders ever led them on to victory. They
might, perhaps, have won a battle or two, but they
had always lost the campaign, and had been obliged
to submit to terms ten times worse than those originally
c, offered to them. Their leaders would again deceive
es them. The resolution of Mr. Disraeli, the other night,
IX was merely a tub thrown to the whale to put the farmers
7 on a wrong scent.—(Hear, hear; no, no.) Look not
- (said the Major) to the hollow cries about protection
and free-trade, but stick to the malt and hop duties—
isfi and they are gone; but, gentlemen, if you allow your.
selves, now that the malt and hop duties are more than
ea half repealed, to be hallooed away—to he whipped off
the scent—in order to recover what you possessed fie-
a( im years, and were obliged to give up, you deserve, and
i richly deserve, the ruin that stares you in the face. The
6d farmers had to seek one of three things—they must re-
nd gain protection, obtain a revision of local taxation, or
procure the repeal of the malt and hop duties. If it took as
Is as many years to get back such aprotection as would prove
a relief to the farmers as it took to g
firm convictionet free-trade, the
6d farmers would be done for; and his
t was that protection was gone for ever.—(Hear, hear,
' and cries of " No," and "We will have free-trade.")
3d.
63 He had heard the same stout speeches when free-trade
6d in wool was first established. Their leaders told them
4 they would compel the Government to go back to pro-
id. tection to wool. Did they?—(Hear, hear.) Prot ec-
od tionist newspapers deceived the farmers when they said
• there was a reaction in favour of protection. Why did
not the Protectionists oppose the return of M. Peel, son
of their dearly beloved friend Sir Robert, for Leominster?
Why did Lord Lewisham say in Staffordshire that, al-
though if he had been in Parliament he would have
:e. votes against free-trade, he Would novr give It a fair
trial?—(" It has had a very ruinous trial.") He said
that free-trade would not have bad a fair trial till six
months after the next harvest, and not then, unless there
should be no cause either in England or on the Continent
to disturb the price of wheat. How many farmers would
be able to stand that trial? Judging from his own
neighbourhood, he should say, not many. The average
price of wheat in the Channel Islands was about 465.;
this would be about the price of wheat in England, and
any agreements by which the tenant was to give a rent,
based on higher prices, ought to be cancelled. Protec-
tion at all events could not be regained in a short time—
in time to prevent the ruin now impending over the fer-
al mer. As for a revision of local taxation, after the deci-
sion which the House of Commons had just come to,
that could not be obtained in the next year. The malt
and hop duties would afford relief, and there was no
reason why the commencement of that relief should not
be as early as even a month. Major Curteis expressed
an opinion that, beset as the question was with difficul-
ties, the time was not distant when funded property
would be made to share the burdens of the country; but
at present he looked for a relief of the distress of the far-
mer to a repeal of the malt and hop duties. He then
moved—" That the malt-tax is unjust in principle and
oppressive in operation; that it possesses all the ele-
ments of a bad tax; that it is levied on the middling and
industrious classes, who are taxed highly in most other
articles of daily consumption; that, in addition to this
tax being chiefly raised from the industrious classes, the
malt-tax is most injurious to the farmer the demand for
whose produce is greatly limited, not only by the dimi-
nished consumption of beer, but by the restriction im-
posed on the application of malt to the feeding and fat-
tening of cattle."
Mr- H. &Lams, the great breeder at Romney Marsh,
seconded the resolution in a free-trade speech.
Mr. J. ELLMAN, after a lengthened speech in favour of
a return to protection, moved, by way of rider to the
resolution—" But that this meeting is of opinion that
if foreign barley be allowed to be imported, as at pre-
sent, at a merely nominal duty of Is. a quarter, the bene-
fit which the British farmer would otherwise receive from
a repeal of the malt-tax would be principally enjoyed by
the foreign grower."
Mr. E. WYATT, of Chidham, seconded and
Sir H. SH/PPNER supported the amendment ; as did
likewise the Earl of March, Mr. Prime, and Mr. Fuller.
Mr. SHELLEY opposed the amendment, and desig-
nated protection as a " humbug."
The Earl of CHICHESTER spoke against both motion
and amendment.
The rider and motion were then put to a show of
hands, amidst great confusion; but