The Sun.
London, England, 1841-04-26 00:00:00

Mr. L. WILLIAMS trusted that much good would result)
from pubieity being given t i what had passed in the
Chamber on tom, subject, aid that public attention would
be drawn to it, f,,r hitherto he believed it had beer, very
Effie regarded by the public. Mr. Williams then moved
ill!, third resolution.

Mr. Wm. M'CoNNELL seconded the motion.
Mr. PROCTER was engaged in the trade; and
though he could not speak for the whole trade, he knew
there were individuals among them who considered tlut
they required prot?ction in the present artificial state of
things. If the greater protection upon food and so forth
wi.ec retrieved, that would alter the case.
The CHAIRMAN—The resolution embraces them all. -
Mr. PROCTER said, if it had passed without observa-
tion, it would nave been understood that the silk trade were
quite agreeable to give up these duties for protection ; and
they felt that they were exposed to quite as much compe-
tition as was desirable. He was engaged in the higher
branch of o,e manufacture, which felt French competition
the most; and they felt it vary eructs at this time. But,
by the way, he begged to state that they were not agree-
able to the removal of the duties so long as other duties
existed—ht', if the others were removed, they would not
cl irt; any pi euliar privi!ecre for themselves.
Toe CHAIRMAN—I understand Mr. Procter to say that
if the du.ie. on all other articles were removed, their trade
would not claim any protection ; and that is the spirit of
the resolution.

Mr. W. RA wsoar said he belonged to a branch of trade
which had been fo•merly well protected—so well protected,
that they had now no businessat all. There was certainly
a protecting duty of 20 per cent. still left (he alluded to the
stocking trade) ; but they had been nearly two years with-
out employment. He had received a letter from a friend
et Coventry to say that there they had 20,000 ribbon
weavers, who were all engaged in the silk trade, which was
getting this boasted protection, and their wages were not
more than 7s. per week.—( Hear, hear.) Could any thing
place that trade in a worse position? It was a folly to sup-
pose that protection could be given to the workmen of this
country while we exported fifty millions of our productions.
It was a folly to say that any body but the landlord was
protected. It kept up a high artificial price for agricul-
tural produce, while it was utterly impossible to keep up
wages and profits artificially. As regarded the exportatien
of machinery, unless they c,uld get rid of the Corn-laws,
he should recommend manufacturers to be selling their
tools while they could get any thing for them. His ma-
chinery was worth as many thousands in 1836, as it was
now worth hundreds ; he was not sure that he could get
anything at all for it; it was going into the state of old
iron, and was becoming more worthless every day.
Mr. R. ROBERTS—Allusions had been made to the ex-
portation of machinery, a subject with which he was well
acquainted, and on which, ten %cars ago, he strongly, and
almost alone in this town, raised his voice against the in-
convenience and extreme impolicy of attempting to forbid
tl e exportation of machinery. Of late he had held his
tongue on this subject, for this reason. He did think, when
Mr. Huskisson brought forward his principles of !roe trade,
and a general promise seemed to he held out, by the pro-
ceedings in Parliament, that they should be carried into
effect, that it might take away, to a great extent, that sore
point in the diplomatic intercourse between this and other
countries, which the nations of Europe especially, urged
against permitting a free interchange of commodities,—
namely, that the British Government peremptorily forbade
the exportation of all labour, saving machinery ; and thaa,
therefore they wet e placed in such a disadvantageous posi-
tion that they could not accede to the free trade principles
offered by England. That was one ground why be thought
.he removal of those prohibitory laws ought to be urged.
Another war, the original error that had been committed in
permitting steam-driven machinery, water wheels, and
heavy gearing to go abroad, at a time when it would have
been, to a certain degree, a protection to this country to
maintain the prohibition, these things being the very foun-
dation of manufacturing industry. That had been origi-
nally done, he believed, because the iron-masters and en-
gineers possessed more influence in the Legislature than
the humbler classes of machine makers. He meant not
to say that we should forbid the exportation of any sort
of machinery, large or small ; he held it to be a universal
principle that at! sorts of knowledge and all sorts of pro-
ductions of human ingenuity and human labour were for
the benefit of all men—( Applanse)—but if they de-
parted from that sound elementary principle, it was
most injudicious to send away that which they might
dely the foreigner to get in the outset, forbidding him
those things only which he could construct for himself,
and giving the very foundation of our manufactures. With
regard to the silk trade, there wero very serious doubts
whether it could stand foreign manufactured silks, unless
all obstacles to free trade were swept away : and this
was what the resolution contemplated. In the same way,
in the article of leather, every obstacle must be swept away
to the free importation of foreign bides, foreign hark, and
everything that added to the composition of the raw mate-
rial ; and then the tanners and curriers would say that
they would do very well. It was not that British industry
was inferior to French—it was not that any branch of
manufacture could not be carried on advantageously, pro-
vided it were permitted to exist on equal terms. But we
must not only take away duties, but prohibitions, for the
prohibitions of the import of live cattle made boots and
shoes dear. We must give to the people the means of
feeding themselves cheaply, and then every branch of in-
dustry in the country would not only be sustained, but
would flourish ; for such was the ingenuity, the patient
persevering industry, the habitual frugality and pat simony
of the British people, that they would live by their indus-
try, and repel any competition, if they were placed on
equal terms with other nations._( Applause.) We courted
an intercourse with a people whose language and literature
were founded upon, and were continually copying ours;
we had a most beneficial trade with them, and yet we for-
bade them to trade with us. They might send their ships
and take our manufactures, but to pay us, they must first
go the sl've stases, buy cotton and sugar, and then
send it to us. And we were professing, all the while,
not only a love of free trade and of extended
intercourse with this people, but also, what every English-
man who had a heart in his breast mast feel—an abhor-
rence of slavery—( Heat, bear)—whilst we were eneourag•
ing the continuance of slavery in America in the most
palpable way in the world. If we were to take the corn,
flour, and animal food which the free States would willingly
send us in exchange fur our manufactures, our exports to
those countries would he enormously increased; they would
take all they now paid for in cotton and tobacco, and
would superadd an amazing amount, many millions a year.
The Chamber had been charged with having shrunk a
little from the position it bad taken up two years ago, and
with blinking the great question of the Corn and Provi-
sion Laws under the consideration of a general revision
of the tariff. It did not appear from the speeches there
delivered, that there was any falling off in the feeling of
the members on the subject; but be should like to see a
more pointed and distinct reference to the mischievous cha-
racter of the Corn and Provision Laws than seemed to be
implied by the resolution so far. He had drawn up two
or three clauses, which, when they came to the petition,
might be embodied in it, and which he would then offer to
the Chamber.—(Applause.)
Mr. JAMES KERSHAW, in moving the next resolution,
said he wished that Members of Parliament understood the
question as well as it was understood in this patt of her
Majesty's dominions, and would set their minds end hearts
upon putting things on a better footing.
Air. CHARLES POOLEY seconded the resolution.

Mr. DYER rose to submit the addition to the petition of
which he had spoken, but withdrew it on the Chairman
assuring him that a special meeting would be called to
petition about the Corn-laws. Mr. Dyer said he did not
look for a repeal of the Corn-laws from the present House
of Commons ; but if their petition was a third time con-
temptuously slighted, and inquiry refused, it would be the
duty of the Chamber immediately to call upon the So-
vereign to dismiss that House of Commons and appeal to
the people, and he did not believe the present constitu-
ency would elect another Bread-taxing House of Commons.
Mr. R. ROBERTS moved the next resolution, and said
he would take the opportunity of adverting to the Bill of
Mr. Labouchere for the revision of the colonial duties.
He wished to direct attention to the question how this
would affect the relative position of United States manu-
factures and those of this country, in Canada and the
British possessions in America.—(Hear, bear.) The
duti.:s levied on our manufactures imported into the
United States were on an average, at the least amount,
25 per cent. ; and the goods which were admitted spe.
dally for the use of the subjects of this realm in Ca-
nada, he believed were subject to a higher rate
than twenty-five per cent. The practical working
of Mr. Labouchere's proposition would be this: the Ameri-
can manufacturers of exactly the same kind of goods as
we exported, who were in close proximity to our colonies,
could maintain an intercourse, by paying a duty only 4}
per cent. higher than ourselves, with productions of a simi-
lar kind, made from their own staple commodity, the
growth of their own soil, and manufactured with all the
skill and energy which we know them to possess. Thus
they were to be allowed to meet us in their own
markets, while they excluded our manufactures by
a duty of not less than twenty-five per cent., thus
placing our trade in the very worst position by this
arrangement. We were thus adding fuel to the fire
by giving another impulse to American manufac.
tures, and carrying them into our own country, The dif-
ference of duty was only 4 per cent., while we bad to pay
the expense of transit, commission, freight, insurance, and
ever thing else..—[Mr. R. Cobden—And the duty on
cotton]—and then to meet the most competent, active, and
enterprising rival we had.—( Hear, hear.) Was it pos.
sible that a gentleman who had been present in that Cham-
ber, and hay heard as much as it was possible to condense
into an interview of two hours, could be a party to a revi-
sion of duties which should involve such a strange ano-
maly as this? He was positively forgetting that Canada
and the American colonies were British possessions, and
promoting an intercourse founded upon the very worst prin-
pies for our manufactures.
The Resolutions were agreed to.

---
The announcement in the papers of Friday,
under the head of " Middlesex Sessions," that a Magis-
trate of that County was accused of having offered, for a
gratuity of 3,0001. to obtain the discharge of a prisoner
confined under a sentence of imprisonment in the House of
Correction, Cold-bath-fields, has created a most extraor-
dii:ary sensation throughout the metropolis and the whole
of the metropolitan county, and various have been the spe.
culations as to who the prisoner was and whom the Justice
of Peace alleged to be implicated. From the inquiries we
have made, although the greatest degree of secrecy is main.
twined on the subject by the officers of the prison, we have
reason to believe that the person whose liberation was to
have been effected is Mr. Francis Hastings Medhurst.
We need hardly say that the magistrate, whoever he be,
must have been guilty of the basest falsehood if he de.
dared that he possessed influence in the quarter he is re-
ported to have named sufficient to effect that or any other
object inconsistent with the strictest regard to public jus-
the magistrate accused, although
lice. With respect to
his identity is known to every magistrate in the county, his
name has not yet been publicly mentioned ; but we are in-
formed that he is the son of an old and bighly-esteemed
magis.rtte of one of the Police Courts of the metropolis,
has been several ycals in the commission of thn peace, and
was formerly a most active member of the bench at the
Middlesex Sessions,--Observer,