The Sun.
London, England, 1841-09-27 00:00:00

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PRICE 5d

CORN AND' .PROVIS lON LAWS.
GREAT PUBLIC 3 TEETING AT GLASGOW.
(Abridged from the Glasgow Argus.)
Yesterday, at one o'clocks one of the most respectable and
influential meethegs ever held 5n Glasgow took place in the
Trades' Hall, -on a requisition an,:eessed tie the Lord Provost,
" for the purpose of considering tail very distressed state of the
country, and this alarming, prospects the ensuing winter, and
of memorialisitc the Queen, praying he'
r Plajcsty not to pro-
rogue the tno. Houses of Parliament une.ll they have entered
upon a full consideration of the Corn artei Provision-laws,
which, in fee opinioe of the requisitionists, are the main
The hall was
cause of the existing suffer assemblye people."
crowded to the doors by ancomposed of the eenst re-
spectable portion of the eleetcrs, and hundreds were t:ompt_lled
to go away.
Among the: gentlemen cra the platform, the meeting were
agreeably surprised to fin, Mr. Oswald, M.P., who had has.`
coed from Le;ndon for the express purpose of attending the
meeting, on seeing it annouaved in the newspapers, and the
Hon. Gen'..teman wa: loudly cheered on making his appear-
ance. rsesides' Mr. Oswald, we observed on the platform, the
Rev. D r, Heugh, the Rev. Mr. Harvey, the Rev. Mr. Graham,
Messs. Alexander Graham, Walter Buchanan, James Lotus.
den, John 'Tennant, George Stirling, John Pattison, Jas,
Co ever, .1. P. Reid, James Stirling, James Turner, John Ore,-
adrew Bannaeyne, William Gray, James Davidson, C. J.
Azimut, and Robert Sanderson, &c., &c.
, !Jr. OSWALD, having taken the chair, read, the requisition.
He said I may simply say that I quite accord wlth the views
entertained by the requisitionists, and highly approve of their
p-oposal, that the public should come forward, at this time,
and express their opinion.—( Cheers.) I think the Corn-laws
are founded in injustice—that they are unjust even to the
agriculturists themselves—and hurtful, in a very essen-
tial manner, to the trade and commerce of the country.
Believing hat nothing of importance would take place
in Parliament, I paired off with Lord Keiburne—a
very excellent pair, I should think, for his Lordship
and myself never happen to agree upon any one thine.
—( Laughter.) On Monday morning, having seen in
the Glasgow papers an announcement of this meeting, and
having read the reply of the Lord Provost, upon which I do
not think it right for me to remark, I resolved to come down,
to show my sense of what I could not help regarding as a slap at
the cause in which yin are engaged.—(Great cheering.)
Mr. MURRAY then read a letter from Dr. Wardlaw, regret-
ting his inability to be present, but concurring entirely in the
objects for which the meeting was called.
Mr. A. GRAHAM rose to move the first resolution. It ha;
been repeatedly shown, he said, latterly with more effect, by
Aar. Hume, of the 'Treasury, that the extra annual cost of the
grain and butcher meat of the consumers of this coentry, be-
yond what they could have 'purchased the same supplies for
from abroad, amounts annually to forty-four millions ; while
the accumulation of the enhanced cost on consumption to the
pt esent time would be equivalent to the amount of the whole
national debt.—(Cheers.) When these laws were passed this
country e as the only manufacturer in the world entitled to the
name. The produce of other countries, having been all agri-
cultural, could alone be given in exchange for our ma u'ac-
tures. Our rejection of this, the only medium of exchange,
has forced other countries to become manufacturers for them-
seises, and, in retaliation, to extend a similar system of ex-
clusion against us. Limitations of imports operate as limita-
tions of exports. From 1831 to 1836 our exports exceeded
our imports by 120 millions. We have exported till nothing
remains which we can receive in exchange, and our manufac-
tures necessarily are neatly approaching a dead lock. The
peculiar pressure of this system on the labouring poor is its most
distressing feature. There are 20 millions of our people depend-
ing 'I
upon their daily labour. It has been ascertained that a large
proportion of the weekly wagi,s do not exceed 103. of which it re-
quires one-half to pay for the bread of a family. Estimating
the bread tax at 40 per cent., which is below its actual amount,
the weekly tax on the labourer i 3 two shillings, or about .5/.
yearly, As every man must have bread, this burden is equiva-
lent to an income tax, but one of most unjust and unequal ap-
plication. On an income of 2.51., it is a tax of 20 per cent. ;
on one of 1001.5 per cent. ; on an income of 1,090/. half a per
cent, ; and on the enormous incomes of the landed aristocracy,
it amounts to so minute a fraction per cent, that it could only be
stated to excite laughter.—( Cheers. ) The injustice of taxing
a whole community for the aegrandi•ement of a small section of
its members is so palpable, that the adviicates of the
food-taxes have never attempted to defend them in
the abstract.—( Cheers. ) The landowners have been
estimated at 30,0004 only, and on the criteria of that, or
any greater number to which they can be exaggerated, or con-
trasted with the %%hole remaining population, their proper•
Lion of the taxes, on consumption, would be obviously very
small. Now it appears, from statistical returns, that in Great
Britain the whole agriculturists form only twenty-eight per
cent. of the population, indicating their proportion of taxation
at t orelre millions; while, :n Great Britain and Ireland, the agri-
culturists form only thirty-eight per cent, of the population, in-
dicating their proportion of taxes at fifteen m Mons sterling.
Lord Melbourne, in a recent speech, cautioned the Peers
against subjecting themselves to the suspicion of selfish legis-
lation. Stiviciott, indeed! It is no suspicion at a:I, but a
broad, palpable, verified charge, of a long course of legislation
unparalleled in selfishness.—( Cheers.) Lord J. Russell, in
the House of Commons, had recently adverted to the danger
of manufacturing establi3hinents being withdrawn from the
mother country. This, however, was practically not quite so
easy a matter. He (Mr. Graham), in elate conversation with one
of the greatest cotton machine-makers its this country, had,
from mere curiosity, asked; how far, taking into account the
extra cost of new machieery, and the cheapness of building
abroad, it mig,ht not be-Practieable, without loss, to take good
machinery, out of a mill here, and to trawling and reconstruct
it in a new shell in some other manufacturing country. His
answer was, that the thing was quite practicable, and could be
,done without much lots. Well, then, you will all say, here in
at once a remedy for the manufacturer—why does he not
transport himself at once, bag and baggage, to Saxony, or
France, or Germany, or America, where his trade is
more profitable ? 0, yes ! that is all very true ; but, un-
fortunately, it happens that the same landowning legislators
who crush the manufacturer at home, virtually forbid
him to cmigeate abroad. They prohibit him from export-
ing even the machines of his owii mill, and thus, while ti.ey se:
fire to his house in front, actually barricade his only door of
escape behind. Mr. Graham next adverted more specially
to the proposed postponement of the consideration of this sub-
ject. To that postponement he objected, in the first place, on
account of the urgency of the claim of the manufacturers, as
well as their operatives, to an immediate decision on the
causes and cure of the evils under which they labour. Masses of
the unemployed were on the brink of starvation, and threatened
some outbreak during the approaching winter. For a description
of the prevailing distress, he referred to the petition to the House
of Commons of the six hundred and fifty ministers of religion
assembled at the Conference in Manchester. These Reverend
Gentlemen had been sent by their congregations at an expense
of three thousand pounds, and were backed by the prayers and
wishes of fifteen hundred congregations, whose ministers had
addressed the Conference by letter.—(Cheers.) Their peti-
(inn, therefore, may be considered the united voice of upwards
of two thousand Christian congregations, with their pastors at
their head, denouncing the taxes on food as unjust and cruel,
and as calculated to call down the vengeance of Him who is
the avenger of the poor and the oppressed.—(Cheers,l Mr.
Graham also objected to the postponement of this question, not
only on account of the matured state in which it stood, after so
rimy years of discussion, growing in heat and agitation, and in
which discussions Sir Robert Peel himself had been a party
since their very commencement—he also objected to delay on
account cf the peculiar position of the present Cabinet with
relation to this subject, and to the circumstances under which
they obtained office.—(Cheers.) It was on account of this
very question that tke former Parliament had been disolved,
and a new one called on an especial appeal to the country.
It was on account of this very question that the former Minis-
try resigned, and the present Cabinet obtained their places.
The immediate and urgent consideration of this very question
was also the burdec of her Majesty's Speech on the opening
of Parliament.—( Hear, hear.) The present Parliament and
the present Cabir.et had been called into existence for the
very purpose of legislating in one form or other upon this
question ; for that Cabinet to hang it up for other five months
were a violation of the implied condition of their existence.
Lastly, he objected to the proposed delay, because there was no
hope that it would terminate in the adoption, by the Cabinet,
of any more liberal views on the subject. The Duke of
Richmond had recently declared in the House of Peers, that,
should the present Cabinet attempt to repeal or modify the
Corn and Provision-laws, his party would turn them out as they
had done their predecessors. " Let them only," said his Grace,
" say we will have an eight shilling duty, and a free trade in
other respects in corn, arid we who have put them now in
will again turn them out of office." There exists a most for-
midable league to perpetuate the present plundering system of
monopoly. It is doubtless as the organ of this league that his
Grace of Richmond here boast, of their absolute power to pull
down and set up whatever Ministry they please—boasts that
no man shall dare to he the Minister of the Queen, who shall

not. also be their Minister, that that man, whoever he may be,
shall hold office only to be their tool, their puppet., their slave.
Good God ! hare we all come to this ? Have we been fancying
we were freemen, while in reality we were slaves ? Have the
people of this country been dreaming that the great authors of
the Reform Act had brought them within view of the pro-
mised land, only now to awake, and find ourselves under a more
Egyptian bondage than before—the bondage of a greedy, grasp-
ing and unjust oligarchy of monopolists.—((;hears.) Air.
Graham then sat down amid repeated rounds of applause, after
having moved the first resolution,
Mr. Wm. CROSS seconded the resolution. Many a Lord,
he said, besidts the Lord Provost of Glasgow, who must now
be regarded a judge in matters of good taste, doubts, I dare
say, the good taste of our proceedings here this day.—(Cheers,
and laughter.) The pheasant shooting has begun, and it is,
perhaps, unreasonable in us to expect that the aristocracy will
postpone their autumnal battues, for the sake of considering
the distressed state of the millions of manufacturers in this
country.—(Cheers.) Earnest and suffering men do not always,
perhaps, regulate their conduct by the strict standard of good
taste ; starvation is unfavourable to the scrupulous observance
of etiquette ; but it surely becomes us, living in the midst of
distress, being part and parcel of the sufferers, humbly to sup-
plicate the advisers of her Majesty, to take our case into con-
sideration, and, if possible, to bring forward remedies for
the distress now existing in the country. In Fiance, in 1721,
the people cried for bread. Bread they did not obtain ; but
they did obtain the total overthrow of that aristocracy
which had so long trampled on their rights and liberties.—
(Cheers. ) For centuries of misrule and oppression they per-
haps took an unjustifiable revenge ; but revolutions, as a dis-
tinguished statesman observed, are not composed of milk arid
water.—( Cheers. ) Our aristocracy shrmld take warning in
time. The Sybilline leaves—the Bs. duty have been presented
and rejected with searn. They may never be offered again.
I should deprecate as much as any man to see the same opera-
tions gone into, in regard to the Corn-laws, that were rendered
necessary in regard to the Reform Bill ; but the same fee inz,
and it is well to speak plainly, the same feeling that caused the
evacuation of the benches of one entire side of the House of
Lords in 1832, perhaps may be again aroused, and
t nhen,a d.
nut till then, will the atrocious Corn-laws be totally wiped
from the statute hook.—(Great cheering.. )
cepTthoenßoene. opthrerHoEcoccasitiown,asarnedcetihveadt waithsimloilliadric,o%serri
]rave
e-
never telt it to be my duty to mingle inenmeree:trig.
strictly be called political. 1 have not be
for the opinion
ever, from fear, or from any profound respect clergymen who think
of those who condemn unqualifiedly all
eo„.
t.
) It will
proper to deliver an opinion on politwieige.n Ch a neeCilr now-
ever,
I I tell them that, in
riot, perhaps, gratify our opponents
the intelligence and worth
combination with what I deem

of the land, we beat them on the former question, ; so is it our
confidence that, as sure as morning follows night, we shall beat
them on this question too, and get the Corn-laws repealed.--
( Tremendous cheering.) There are two individuals who have
propounded opinions on this question, to whose opinions, and
to whom I would allude with all due respect. I refer to the
gentleman who has been already alluded to by the preceding
speakers, the Lord Provost of Glasgow; and I refer also to one
not yet alluded to, the Duke of Wellington. lsm Fire that