The Sun.
London, England, 1841-03-01 00:00:00

THE BREAD-TAX

We have copied from the Morning Chronicle an
article on the meeting held at Stockport this day
week, containing an extract from Mr. Cob-
den's speech. Want of space formerly and now
giving the whole of the proceed-
piurgesv,enat u
an outline
s
of which has appeared in our
Journal, but we must find room fur the follow-
ing additional observations of the same eloquent
speaker. They may serve to make our readers
dream over the almost unbounded happiness
which would await our now starving countrymen
were the bread-tax abolished, and free-trade es-
tablished. But our people must only, it appears,
dream of such felicity. The law-makers who
call them themselves our fathers, and who are
said to exercise power for our good, will take
a hellish care that it shall not be re-
alised. Is there any man so besotted,
so blind, so atheistical, as to doubt whether
the laws of God and nature prevail in the
moral as in the physical world? and not doubting
that, while he sees that the transgression of the
physical laws entailson a man debility, disease, and
death, can he doubt, when he witnesses the misery
which pervades society, that it outrages some of
the moral laws of God and nature, against which
that misery is intended as the warning, and of
which it is the punishment? We have not the
smallest doubt, as Mr. Cobden says, that our pre •
sent system of restrictions on commerce, includ-
ing what we shall continue to name the DEVIL'S
LAWS, is a terrible violation of the laws of nature
and of God, for which we are punished by all that
vice, misery, and crime, which overwhelm the
land. Here is part of what Mr. Cobden said :
Now, Gentlemen, you have heard something of the foreign
competition which afflicts us. If we followed the laws of God
and of nature, we should hear nothing of foreign competition ;
for God has given enough in the wide world for us all. We
are not striving and fighting against the Germans merely for
some miserable district in Europe ; what we claim is the right
to trade with all the countries of the world, and to bring back
what they have to give in exchange.—(Applause.) And this
traffic opens up to the people of England a prospect greater by
far than to any other country, since you are always wanting
what tlfey have to give in exchange, corn and other articles of
food, which they have in great abundance.—( Applause.) Go
to South America—there we have an almost boundless extent
of land, watered by immense rivers, flowing through plain of
which we in Europe have no conception. 'I hink you, if we
were allowed to bring back the productions of those vast plains,
that we should not be able, growing as our population is, to sa-
tisfy the wants of the people in so small a speck as this island is ?
But you go to South America, and bring back cotton. I'll
take you to the River Plate : my friend, Mr. John Brooks,
who sends goods to Buenos Ayres and to Monte Video, shall
take a cargo up that majestic stream : there, from those enor-
mous plains of which I have been speaking, are countless
numbers of castle brought down and slaughtered. The ship
that carries out the produce of your industry waits for its
freight; the cattle are slaughtered, and you bring the skins
because they are wanted for boots and other accoutrements for
the rich ; the horns are brought because they are wanted for
umbrella handles, and something else, which the man in mode-
rate circumstances may require—( A pplause)—the very hoofs are
brought because they are to be made into glue, for some other
classes to use; nay, the very bones are brought, because the
aristocracy may use them for their hot-beds, and thus raise the
price of what you want.--( Applause. ) But what becomes of
the meat ? Oh, the meat is dried and preserved, and there it
remains stocked up in warehouses ; and if Mr. Brooks could
ship that meat, he could bring it to Liverpool, and deliver it at
I%d. apound—(Loud applause)—but that meat is not allowed to
be brought to England at all.—( Hear.) But, when we talk of
Brazil, and the whole South American continent, vast as it is,
and boundless in its means of production, yet it becomes in-
significant when it is compared with the prospect that is held
out to you, to-morrow, of trade with America—with people of
your own blood and your own language.—( Applause.) 'I he
Mississippi valley itself, over which people are stragglingly dis-
tributed, living, sometimes, at distances of fifty miles from earls
other, it has been calculated would produce food enough for
the support of the whole world at present.—( Hear, hear. )
That seems a vast conception, too vast almost for us to grasp ;
but I will narrow it, and take one State that has lately been laid
out in that valley. The state of the Illinois lying in the north-
west portion of that valley. lhat State alone, it has been shown
to me by an intelligent gentleman who went into the calculation,
is capable of producing w heat enough to give every man, woman,
and child, in the United States, in the British Islands, and in
France, three pounds of wheaten bread every day of their lives.
—(Loud applause.) And that State does not comprise one-
thirtieth part of the territory comprised within the domibion of
the United States. Now, gentlemen, the great advantage
which you would have, if you were in possession of your right
—for it is a right, an inalienable right, as much as life and
liberty—your right to exchange the produce of your labour for
the food of the United States, of Brazil, and other countries
—the great advantage would be this, that you would be mono-
polising, to a certain extent, the trade of all these countries,
since your merchants would he the only parties who would be
able to take in exchange the corn and other provisions which
those countries have to give.

MONUMENT TO THE DUKE OF
WELLINGTON.
We have had an opportunity lately of viewing
the preparations made by Mr. Wyatt for com-
pleting the equestrian statue in honour of the
Noble Duke, to be placed on the arch at Hyde-
park-corner, and we are confident that he will be
as successful in this undertaking as he has been
in the beautiful monument erected to George the
Third in Pall-Mall East. No man of the pre-
sent day, we believe, is so well qualified,
as regards taste and execution, for erecting
equestrian statues. He has paid great attention
to this department of the
art ; he is indefatigable
in making improvements in casting ; and we
confidently hope that this monument will do
credit to himself and the illustrious warrior to
whom it is to be erected. We understand the
work will not be completed in less than two
years ; but when we take into account the nu-
merous and difficult operations connected with it,
and compare these with undertakings of a similar
description, this will appear a very short period.
The model for the horse is perfect, and the bust
is the best likeness of the illustrious Duke that
we have seen. The bust, we understand, has
been cast from a brass gun captured from some
old enemy, now allied with England; the boots
are made of the same material ; and it is to be
hoped that the Government will supply old guns
enough to complete the group. The statue will
be about thirty feet high, the weight of the metal
from fifty to sixty tons, and altogether it wi 1 be
the most magnificent statue erected in ancient
or modern times. We cordially wish that the
hero of a hundred battles may live to see it from
Apsley House, and enjoy the gratitude of his
country before he sinks into the grave.