The Sun.
London, England, 1841-04-02 00:00:00

THE CHARTISTS AND THE

CORN-LAWS.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.
SIR The Su•< of la,t evening, when commentirg
on the Hudderafiold Anti-Corn.law Tea Party, you ex-
pressed considerable pl •asure at the fact of a quantity of
females being present, but at the same t;me you deprecate
the interference of women in political matters. Thia, in
my opinion, displays considerable inconsistency in a Jour.
nal which has all along supported the right of a woman to
hold the office of head of the body politic. Now, if one
woman has a right to rule the destiny of a m;ghty nation,
I, sh >uld be glad if you would show me the reason why
ber less fortunate sisters should not interfere in political
matters, so far as the right of election of representatives
is concerned.•

And while on the subject of the Corn-laws, I should
be glad to put you right concerning the motives of the
Chartists in out-voting the Crrn-law Repeaters at their
meetings. The Repeal portion of the press have done all
in their power to misrepresent the proceedings of the
Chartists at V-te meetings
Ist. They chari.e the Chartists with being noisy and
riotous. This I totally deny ; the Repeal party were the
first to commence a dikturbance, by hissing and hooting
the Chartist speakers at all the Anti-Corn-law meetings
I have attended.

2d. They charge them with ignorance. This comes
with a bad grace from the middle class, when the Houae of
Commons, elected by them, is considered. It must be
either ignorance, or something worse, that operates on them
to vote f.r such men. The fact that the Chartists,
as a body, are not ignorant, is proved by the admirable
defences of the majority of them on their trials during the
late reign of te,ror, when the friendly middle men lent
themselves to the Government to put down every indivi-
dual that avowed himself a Chartist. Their intelligence
in proved by the glorious struggle they have made, and are
now making, for their political rights—not as a mere
bread and cheese question, but because they feel them-
selves entitled to the r;ghts of citizenship.
The Chartists do not bell, ye they would benefited by a
reheat of the Corn laws under the present system ; there-
fore, they move amendments at the meetings called for
that purpose. Mr. Cobden, at the Manchester meeting,
said that no one could dispute the injusti,e of the Corn-
laws ; for that reason, all ought to combine to get rid of
tt e i ijurtice. The Chartists know that not (yen the
most rabi I Tory can dispute the right of all to the se-
frsge. Thet efore, that is justice ; and we will ask for no-
thing less than the Peolle's Charter, as we are convinced
that nothing short of that can benefit the working man.
We have had enough of bit by bit reform in the glorious
Reform Bill we have now a greater number of enemies
to contend against than we had at that time, when we
f ,ught hard and gained nothing. We hate been taught
a lesson by that mohment, which we shall not forget.
The individuals whom we then benefited are now our bit.
terest enemies. For some of the reasons the Chartists do
not believe they would be benefited, I refer you to the
first aricle in the inclosed Circular.—l am, &e.
March 31, 1841. T. H.
[The paper referred to is the Chartist Circular, and we
possitly hereafter notice the article.—En. Sun.]
* Our Correspondent cannot have read our article, which
was intended to invite the matrons of England to take an ac-
tive part against the Corn-law.