The Sun.
London, England, 1840-04-04 00:00:00

EVEN ENG EDITION.'

7 r- -11-1 TA. 13- 'l-1
11J lj i 1- 1" 1

SUN OFFICE, Seven o' Clock.

A\ TI-CORN-LA r DELEGATES.

(THIS DAY.)

The D legatas re-assembled at Brown's Hotel. There
was a mat numerous attendance of Delegates, and several
Members of Parliament were present.
Jolts lirtooKEs, Esq., took the Chair at Three o'Clock.
Mr. ConnEN, in moving the first resolution. could not
hell, giving expression to the disgust which he felt at the
Conduct of a large portion of tue House of Commons, and
in doing this he felt he was not giving expression to his
own opinion alone, but to that which he was certain was
that of the tnajority of those who had witnessed the attempt
in that House to suppress a discussion on a subject of the
Most paramount importance, in a manner, he must say,
most derogatory to the dignity of the assembly. Ile be-
lieved that those were right who had told them that it was
useless to go to the House of Commons, as they had little
to expect from that assembly. The great majority of that
assembly had been totally inattentive to the subject. On the
first nigh!, at one period, there were not above logy persons
present to listen to the clear and lucid statement cf Mr.
Villiers; on the second night that number was not ex.
seeded until about ten o'clock, when shoals of Members,
in a certain state, poured into the House to attempt to
crush the debate by their interruptions. He thought it
right to state that he believed the Whips were as much
in fault as the Tories for this. They 'had little reason
to be satisfied with either Whigs or Tories, and theit
business lay not with the present House of Commons, but
with their constituei•ts He would therefore exhort them
not to look to the House of Commons at all, but to the
creatures of that House—(Cheers)—acrd until some alte-
ration was produced in that Home they could never hope
for justice. He would conclude by proposing the follow-
ing resolution:—

" That the efforts of the Deputies to obtain a vote of
the House of Commons on the question of the Corn-laws
having been most unexpectedly thwarted by the success
ot.
the odebate ur oppone
Mr. on nts, in
Villi pre
ersm'sature motioly putting an end to
h
w.t_out any di-
vision on the merits of the question, it is expedient to re-
quest Mr. Villiers to bring the subject again before the
House as early after the Easter recess as preisible."
Mr. TAYLOR, in seconding the motion of Air. Cobden,
could not help giving a decided expression to the strong feel-
ing,of disgust he experieneed when he considered the at-
tempts that had been made to suppress the discussion in
the House of Commons.—( Cheers.) The only course had
been adopted which could have been adopted under the
circumstances. Their opponents were desirous of effect-
ing a division and stopping the debate. After Sir Robert
Peel had given utterance to his usual soph:strit s and fal-
lacies, in order that they might produce an_ effect upon the
Public! mind, by the course adopted by Mr. Warburton
;his had been frustrated. Ile had no doubt they would
nave wished to put an end to the question ; no doubt they
wishei to put an end to the effects produced by the exhi-
bition or the League of the poverty and the destitu-
tion of the country; and they would have been happy to have
dulled the: public car to this subject for the next 12 moths.
He had one subject of congratulation, and that was that
the landed interest of the country, though ever so cold and
selfish, had limits to their power, and their limits
were in the privileges of the people: In Ireland the
Middle and the labouring classes had no control
over the landlords; but in Ergiand the case was dif-
ferent, and were it not so he firmly believed that they
should witness such scenes as the oppression of tenantry
exhibited in Ireland. The interests of the aristocracy of
this country were fortunately mixed up with rhos. of the
industrious classes, and he believed no other circumstance
could secure them against the iniquities which they would
Otherwise see perpetrated.—( Hear, hear.) He felt great
pleasure in seconding the resolution.
The resolution was :hen put, and agreed to.
FALLACIES OF SIR ROBERT PEEL'S SPEECH.
Mr. BAINES, jun., came forward to propose the second
resolution. He wished to take the opportunity of making
a few observations on the speech delivered last night by Sir
Robert Peel, in the House of Commons.—( Hear, hear.)
That speech was replete with fallacies, which he did not
Wish to let pass unnoticed. Sir Robert Peel, in the
course of that speech, divided the grounds on which it was
!ought to justify a repeal of the Corn-laws, into three
'leads. The first was, that the Corn-laws were the cause
of the derangements in the currency ; the second was the
effect of these laws in producing great fluctuations in the
prices of corn ; and the third was, the distress prevailing
among the manufacturing classes, which was proved by the
present state of the country. With regard to two of these
grounds, he felt anxious to offer a few remarks on the
speech of Sir Robert Peel. He was persuaded that the
Corn-laws were the main:cause of the derangements in the
Currency. It was important to Sir Robert Peel to
Prove that the Corn-laws were not the cause of

these derangements, and his way of accomplishing
that object was a very remarkable one. The Pre-
sident of the Chamber of Commerce at Manchester,
Mr. Smith, bad taken a part upon the subject of
the Bank as to the currency, and had published a Report
/;I.P°'l the question. Sir Robert Peel had that Report in
"15 hand. Now the Right Hon. Baronet's object was to
convict Mr. Smith of having ascribed the great derange.
ent of the currency, not to the operation of the Corn-
law•
s, but to a totally distinct cause—the conduct of the
olt of England—thinking that, could he succeed in so
"ttdoi•
ng, he should of course exonerate the Corn-laws from

having been the cause of the disaster which had occurred.
The course he bad taken was pecul'ar: he said "he
wanted to show the gentlemen who professed an opinion
that the evil was exclusively to be assigned to the operation
of the Cern-laws, that the chief agitators against these
laws assigned a perfectly different and distinct cause"—and
then the Right Hon. Baronet proceeded to quote, not
What Mr. Smith bad said, but the summary by Mr. Jones
Lloyd of what Mr. Smith bad stated—and the reason why
Sir Robert had done this would soon appear.—(Hear.)
Mr. Jones Lloyd, giving his account of what Mr. Smith
stated, said—" The depression in trade which has occurred
since 1835, especially the events of 1838 and 1839, are to
be attributed entirely to the mismanagement of the circula-
tion." Let it be remembered that this was not what Mr.
Smith bad said, but what Mr. Jones Lloyd stated Mr.
Smith to have said, and Sir Robert did not read the
from the Report of Mr. Smith, which he had in his
passagei:ndat the time, but he (Mr. Baines) would read it ;
it was as follows :—Mr. Smith said, in the Report of the
Manchester Chamber of Commerce—" Ia August, 1838,
the prevalence of wet weather led to a general belief that
the harvest would be deficient, and that a large importation
of corn would be the result." The paper announced that
foreign exchanges had fallen, in consequence of the great
manaber of bills remitted to the continent, in payment for
grain. The Funds declined from the same cause. In
September the average price of wheat reached 735.
a quarter, and the duty Jolting tv one shilling, it was per-
ceived that a large amount of gold would be required to
Day for the corn. But under a natural state of trade no
drain for specie:would occur in payment fur grain, any more
than it did for tea or silk. The Corn-laws place a prohi-
bitiati on foreign corn, until the corn of the home
grower had reached a certain high price, becoming an
entire exception to the ordinary rates of commerce, and
causing, fur such sudden and extraordinary purchases
of„ grain, neees,ary demands for bullion in payment."
'bia was the account which Mr. Smith gave, but which
Sir Robert had carefully abstained from reading.—( Hear,
Lear.) The Delegates would now see why he had substi-
toted the statementof Mr. Lloyd.—( Hear, hear.) Thus
, Smith
.. .
'it distinctly assigned the Corn-laves es the main
and primary cause of the. derangement of the currency,
and stated the misconduct of the Bank of England as a
secondary cause. For they would observe, there was a
conjuncture of things pr,oducediby the present state of the
la '
n laws, and to that conjunction the Bank of Eng-
bel was said to have in some measure contributed.
--"__,( Hear, hear.) Now, it was for their judgment.
whether the Bank of England in that conjunction of cir-
e.qnastances acted wisely, hut what was prior to that was
'ae question,what produced the conjuncture itself, and that
svall in the most distinct manner in this Report alleged to
be the Corn-laws. Therefore the representation of Sir R.
heel that Mr. Smith was an authority that the Corn-
ea were not the main cause of the derangement
1 cas unfair, for he had shown from Mr. Smith himself the
erti-law was the primary and main cause of that derange-
rtrat• The second argument against the Corn-laws was,
Hat it produced great fluctuation in the prices of grain.
),„;!,was not going to observe on what Sir It. Peel had
too Wise
on this bead further than to remark that he was much
England
wise to quote that return of the fluctuation of grain in
I`,'lland, Dantzie, liamburgh, and other places, which
',lad been relied on by Lord Ashburton and Lord Darling-
;Zl). but which Mr. Labouchcre and others had clearly
irwn did not really constitute an apology for the
Itself
owing
but to prove that the fluctuation in foreign ports was
Itinielf owing to the operation of the English Corn-laws.
e Came now to what seemed to him the principal act of
l'afairnesspand the main fallacy of Sir Robert Peel. He
ittllicged that the principal objection made on the part of
ose who objected to the Corn-laws was, that they have
Zeadr uced great distress among the manufacturing and coal.
Which be (Mr. B.) felt as, urea he would' seize hsld upon,
41. quoted that return to show an increase in the exports
Co 1839 as compared with 1838, and thereby drawing the
.aelusion of manufacturing prosperity. But, then, said
lR . Peel, t. I know how this argument is met. It is
veld, this is not an argument of prosperity, but the re-
-8!, and said he should be squally justified in arguing a
And,
of trade from an increase of home consumption."
„ed, then, Sir Robert did him (Mr. E. Baines) the
moor to quote the speech he had made, and to observe
iPon it, that he had not proved his point.
On the con-
erep3a Sir Robert Peel maintained that "it was ex-
eetliogly difficult to ascertain what the amount of
some consumption at any period was." He con-
?died that a more cereplete evasion of the whole
4fitnal e argument, in reply to the mere exhibition of the
R. etc' returns of the exports, than was exhibited by Sir
sa,sPeel. could not be practised. Sir Robert Peel said it
on a difficult matter to ascertain the amount of the home
el iOsareiption— now, at the moment he spoke, the Right
taltl' iii• Barone
On: e t had the materials in his hands for ascer-
tivag it at , for that docua ent clearly showed the
ti entities of the raw material entered for home censump-
tn"' and he would have found in a moment that they were
triettacth
vlarger in 1638 than in 1839—his
crt but
—his (11r. B.'s) argu-
that as, not that there had not been a larger exp ,
Nye "Pert had he. n a proof not of prosperity, but the
much ; for that in 1839 there was actually a
a_ smaller quantity of the rsta materials entered for
atze t)risumption, and therefore the exports being greater,
the h the quantity of manufactures produced smaller ;
lasi_ 'me trade, that is the consurnotion of our 0.00 mu-
", had doubly fallen off.—( Hear.) Sir R. Peel had.
‘ eensp.rnl of this in his hands at the moms rat, but it answered
clia'il
the ediat e Purpose to be blind to it. In two wnys lie
, Egur,. Proof' in his bends, for he had his (Mr.
) used iea,r!d also the efficial tables, the last of whiea 'be
auzarw_rne.iso own purposes, for he picked cut the aiticies of
ton, oißts.dar'fitimber, but omitted those of flax, wool, cot.
( Hear., .ti other raw materials of our manufactures.—
fe 1 )--Be contended,
.therefore, that that was a per-
!et Y aaf"ir mode of dealing with that document. He had
(I"ted the
, 1ii........_ exports themselves for a purpose and an end