The Sun.
London, England, 1840-03-16 00:00:00

posed to the insult and the injury. Little as the
public now respect the mass of fiction and absur-
dities which the Judges call the libel law, that
little will be made much less by the present ex-
posure. The Commons have declared that the
law is so had that it must withdraw itself and its
servants from under the jurisdiction of the Courts,
and it leaves the community to their merciless in-
fliction.
The nature and objects of the action being
laid bare to the public, it will understand why
the gentry that haunt the Courts, and are
nourished by lies and frauds, should have rallied
round Mr. STOCKDALE, and have petitioned for
the continuance of his power to set Courts, barris-
ters, and attorneys, in motion. Half the bar, and
two-thirds of the attorneys, would be obliged to
find an honest means of gaining a livelihood, were
persons like Mr. STOCKDALE not privileged to
file lying declarations, and did no Courts enable
them to consummate their fraud. The whole case is
becoming most instructive. It shows the Courts
giving effect to fraud, the House of Commons dis-
regarding the public, and petitioning barristers
and attorneys patronising knavery.

An enthusiastic meeting has been held at Ken-
dal, to second the exertions of the Manchester
Anti-Corn-law League, and do honour, in the per•
sons of Dr. BOWRING and Mr. MILNER GIB-

sox, to the principles of free-trade. We beg
leave to recommend to the attentiibn of our readers

the abridged report of the proceedings, as it ap-
pears in another part of The Sun. In particular
the speeches of the two gentlemen we have men-
tioned deserve much consideration. We could

with great pleasure quote and enforce several pas-
sages from both speeches, but we must content
ourselves with referring to them.
It gratifies us to perceive that a landowner, Mr.
CRACKANTHORPE, was present at the Kendal
meeting, and made speeches in favour of the abo-
lition. We refer with pleasure to his remarks, and
must add that he is by no means the only right-
thinking landlord. At the late Doncaster meeting
a Mr. CHADWICK, another landowner, took a
decisive part against the Corn-laws, and we hope
and believe that the number of landowners who
begin to doubt the wisdom of Corn-laws, must be
on the increase. It is impossible that they can
resist the demands of reason and justice. It is
impossible that they can be deaf to the voice of dis-
tress which is now rising throughout the land ; it is
impossible,we should think, that they can avoid coin-
_ _

ing to the conclusion with Mr. CRACKANTHORPE,
that they must, for the safety of their property, no
longer resist the repeal of the Corn-laws. That is
an opinion which we have frequently laboured to
impress on the landowners, and now when they
find it earnestly advocated by one of themselves,
they may perhaps believe that it has some founda-
tion in fact.

The meeting at Kendal speaks, in another man-
ner, most impressively on the point. Several speak-
ers openly reprobated the conduct of the House of
Commons, showed its untrustworthiness to legislate
for the people, and came to the conclusion that an
extension of the suffrage could alone secure good
laws. Hunger and distress are fast alienating the
masses from the aristocracy, and as long as the hit-
ter must patiently submit to be branded as plunder-
ers, as taxing the bread of the poor to enrich them-
selves, that alienation will continue and will increase.
Its conduct is weighed and appreciated by the
masses as well as by the most acute public writers ;
and it may as well expect that the masses should all

become pickpockets or burglars, or the patrons of
those nuisances, as continue to respect bread•taxing

landowners.

The aristocracy has no means of keeping the
millions in submission against their own will. It
has hitherto been maintained in its possessions and
its power, in its rights and its privileges, by the vo-
luntary homage and respect of the multitude ; let
the disposition of the people be thoroughly changed,
and no reasoning will convince the masses of the
justice of the present appropriation of the soil, and
no coercion will suffice to make them respect the
present right of property. The aristocracy, by
upholding the. Corn-laws, is endangering interests of
infinitely more importance than that. portion of rent
which the abolition of thebread.taxwould extinguish.
We have noticed lately that two or three meetings
have been held in Scotland, one at Renfrew and
another at Pollokshaws on Monday last, to peti-
tion for the repeal of the Corn-laws, at which,
though the masses expressed themselves decidedly
hostile to the Corn-laws, they refused to petition
for the repeal unless the petition contained words to
this effect—" That while we are anxious for a re-

peal of the Corn•laws, we are also satisfied that the
general interests of the people cannot be properly
attended to until the suffrage is extended to
erery man of twenty-one years of age, of
sane mind, and untainted by crime." Now the
aristocracy say that Universal Suffrage would ex-
tinguish them, and on that ground they resist it.
The people, therefore, ingreat numbers already reject
the dominion of the aristocracy, already they say that

its power must be put an end to ; and how will the
aristocracy, unless it return to the paths of
honesty and justice, remove that impression ?
How, too, when they are united can they be
coerced? For us it is a fearful thing to see
the mass of the population, in proportion as
they grow in knowledge, lifting themselves up
against their rulers, casting off their allegiance,
changing respect fur hatred, and preparing to de-
' stroy those whom their forefathers followed and
,obeyed.
And for what purpose does the landed aristo
cracy prepare these immense evils for society ?
Does it suppose that it is enriched by the Corn-
laws ? if it do, it is mistaken. It means to enrich
itself we know, but men do not always accomplish,
particularly by a law, what they intend. The in-
crease of rent is dependent on an increase of popu-
lation, and to keep the supply of food short is to keep
down the people and keep down rent. The peo-
ple must be fed, and as they will always increase
up to the average supply of food, be it what it may,
we are inclined to think that in the long run the
average price of grain will be no higher with a
Corn-law than without one. The vast, the inap-
preciable difference between the two cases is, that
with trade free and unrestricted the people would
always be growing up to the ever-growing sup•
ply of food ; and with Corn-laws they
are, every three or four years, starved
do xn to the level of the scanty supply. We
have years when wheat sells for 365. the quarter,
and years when it sells for 80s., and if we had the
whole world open to us, exporting when the har-
vests were -abundant, and unportina when they
were scanty, we should have a tolerably steady
price, never sinking to 365., to stimulate the increase
of population, and never rising to 80s., cruelly to
starve the people. At the same time with a
power to purchase food from all quarters of the
world, the population would increase more rapidly
than at present, and rents, instead of falling, would
probably rise. The landlords, from their selfish,
short-sighted avarice are in fact,well a
inflictings anthe
irre-
parable injury on themselves as
it
community. If it be me, as we believe is, that
the interests of all classes arc identical, how is it
possible for the landlord to escape—the farmers,
we know, do not escape—those evils which the ac-
cursed Corn-laws bring on the bulk of the labour-
ing classes?