The Sun.
London, England, 1846-08-21 00:00:00

TIIE sUN, LONDON, PRIDAY EVENING, AUGUST fit, 1846.

own national limits in our free-trade agitation. We neither
sought for aid abroad, nor stipulated for conditions with
other countries; nay, I will candidly admit to you that any
admixture of such lortsign elements would have only. compil-
e :eel and retarded cur mevement. Would to Heaven that
every other people were left as we were left, flee to carry out its
own dodiestic refortne, without the intervention of extraneous
influences. Having said this, you will not suppose, if I add
a word or two upon the proceedings of our League, that I
do it with the view to incite you to imitate us. The League
was organised solely for ihe purpose of disseminating
amongst the English peopls those truths which Main
Smith and your own Baptist Jay had promulgated half a
cetltury before. We wished to make their principles,
which had been confined to the knowledge of the learned
few, familiar to the mass of our countrymen. Our object
was to prepare public opinion for the removal of all tho.e
impediments; *hide, under the name of protective duties,
prevented the flee exchange of our productions for those
of all other countries. We wished, moreover, to teach
the Government that its duty consisted in abstaining
from all interference with trade. The doctrine of the
League could not. he better explained than in the words
of your own great Turgot, written I believe before Adam
Smith published the " Wealth of Nations." "Ge que l'Etat
doit a chacun de ses membres, c'est la destruction
des obstacles, qui les glineraient dans lour indust-
trio, ou qui les troubleraient dans la jouisscnce des
produits qui en seraient la recompense. Si ces obstacles
subsistent, les bienfuits particuliers ne diminueront point
IA pauvrete generale, vireo que la cause restare tout entiere."
There, gentlemen, all that I have spoken or written in Eng-
land for the last seven years has been only an amplification
of this maxim of your illustrious statesman. The League
raised funds, established its own journal, printed hundreds of
tons weigh of tracts, which were distributed t moughout the
land, and sent forth its missionaries to lecture in every town.
Copying, in our moral warfare, the tactics of your great
general, we precipitated all our_ force upon one
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surrender at discretion. I shall not dwell upon the details
of our struggle further than to give you one or two of the
great arguments with which our opponents managed so long
to maintain their grounds If you should find them to re-
emble those which you areeccustemed to meet with in France,
it will not surprise me, for as truth everywhere wears the
same divine aspect, so error must always disguise itself in
similar sophistries. Our opponents, the monopolists, pleaded
that they were heavily taxed by the Government, and that,
therefore, they required protection. Oar reply was, that we,
the free-traders, were as heavily taxed as they, and that that
was one great reason why we could not afford to pay addi-
tional taxes for their protection, and after a seven years' trial
before the tribunal of public opinion it has been decided that
we were right. Then they urged how dreadful it would be
to be dependent upon foreiguers for food—that if it had only
concerned articles of clothing, or wood, or iron, it might
have been tolerated; but what madness to be at the mercy
of foreigners for corn ! Well, the people took time to con-
sider this terrible plea, and at length decided that they
would not subject themselves to famine during the time of
peace for the fear of being starved in case of war. But the
great argument of all is to come. Our opponents set them-
selves up as the representatives of native industry; they
protested that they were the great employers of labour,
the supporters of the revenue, and the main pillars of the
State. We modestly ventured to suggest that an interest so
powerful ought at least to be able to support itself, without
putting its hands into other people's pockets. We were then
assailed as traitors to England, who wished to ruin our native
country to enrich foreigners; we were denounced as the
friends of France, America, and Germany, nay one of the
protectionist journals actually charged us with being in the
pay of the Emperor of Russia. In vain did we try by argu-
ments and facts to put an end to this ever repeated tale of
native industry. Oh, the hundreds of dull speeches that I
have been doomed to hear in the House of Commons in de-
fence of native industry ? I shudder when I think
of their length and weight, and wonder that I am
alive to tell you of my sufferings. At last the judg-
ment of public opinion saved me by declaring that
ail kinds of industry were equally native industry, and that
to one portion of it was entitled to any privileges at the ex-
pense of the rest. There was one class of our opponents, the
most able men in the ranks of the protectionists, who seeing
the impossibility of defending any of these argumeets sought
refuge in an abstraction: " We agree with ycu," said they,
" in principle we admit that you are right in the abstract."
To them we replied, that we were not fighting with a
phantom, but with a pretty numerous body made up of
flesh and blood, and which was making free with other
men's property ; we asked them if they were prepared to
maintain that the eighth commandment was an abstraction.
Oh, give me an opponent who will admit that I am right in
the abstract! We felt that we bad nearly finished our
struggle when our ablest adversaries were driven to admit
the justice of our principles in the abstract. I must not omit
to do honour to one class of our antagonists who had the
prudence to resort to prophecies instead of appealing to
the facts and experience of the past. They always argued
in the future tense. They predicted for seven years without
ceasing, that if the corn-laws were abolished the land of
England would be thrown out of cultivation, and no rent
would be paid to the proprietors. -Well the corn-laws are
abolished, and these very men have since been selling and
letting their land higher than before. I am delighted for their
own sakes that they have proved as false in prophecy as they
were deficient in logic. The same men predicted that if we
threw open our ports without stipulation with foreigners, that
other countries would,not follow our example; unluckily for
these prophets the last mail from America brings the account
of the passing of a new tariff in the United States almost as
liberal as our own, and I am told his Holiness the Pope is pre-
paring to add his infallible testimony to the truth of free-
trade principles. But lam wearying you with these recitals.
Suffice it to say, that our victory was achieved after more than
seven years of discussion had elicited every argument in de-
fence of protection which the ingenuity and the sincere
alarm of the
_protectionists could devise. If you ask me
whether the question is settled for ever, I answer, Yes ; for
in England we never recede one inch in the path of reform,
when every step has been gained by the force of reason and
argument. Besides, we have no man deserving the name of
a statesman who would undertake a Government founded
upon the protective principle. Ido not speak merely of Sir
Robert Peel, who has immortalised his name by the part he
took in the emancipation of our commerce, or of Lord J. Russell,
who so nobly supported him, but I mean that there is not one
member of the late or present Ministry who now advocates the
principle of protec.ion. One and ail have modestly repudiated,
on the part of Government, the right of interfering with the
freedom of individual industry and enterprise. Gentle-
men, I should not be doing justice to my own feelings, or the
views of those with whom I have had the honour to co-
operate in England if I sat down without saying that we
look for far higher results from the universal application of
our principles than those to which I have alluded. Doubtless
it is good to extend commerce, to multiply the comforts of
life, to stimulate industry, and increase the rewards of labour;
but, valuable as are these physical gains, free-trade is des-
tined to confer a far greater moral blessing upon humanity.
You have joined this evening in drinking a toast to "peace"
—a sentiment which will find a response in every English
free-trader. True, we have now peace in Europe, but at
what cost is it preseryed ? Everywhere we see preparations
for war. Peace is upon our lips, but war resounds from our
arsenals. The world sighs for some better guarantee
against that scourge of humanity than is to be found in
enormous and costly armaments by land and sea; for ex-
perience hes, unhappily, proved that the warlike passions of
communities are more likely to be stimulated than sup-
pressed by the threatenings which surround them. To
render peace something better than an armed truce,
we must array on its side such a preponderance of ma-
terial interests as shall prevent the possibility of war. Here,
then, is the mission of the free-traders! Do we believe that
the daily end hourly interchange of mutual services
which must follow from the triumph of our principles
would afford the surest safeguard against national hosti-
lities? Do we believe that free trade, if adopted by all
countries, would make the universal people the negotiators
of peaceful relations with each other, and thus put an end
for ever to our present system, by which the balance of
peace and war between two great nations trembles uron
the finger of diplomacy? If we sincerely believe
this, then it is our duty to strive to demolish those barriers
which separate man from his brother man, and which pre-
vent them from interchanging the kind offices of
humanity. Let nations meet face to face in the spirit in
which we meet together this evening, forgetting that we
are Frenchmen and Englishmen, and remembering only
that we are men. This must be the object of every tree-
trader, each in his own legitimate sphere. Gentlemen, I
heartily thank you for the patience with which you have
listened to this imperfect expression of my sentiments, and,
in conclusion, I drink with you to the " Union of all
Nations."
This toast was received with great enthusiasm, as were
also several others in favour of free trade, and the ameliora-
:ion of the condition of the labouring classes, which were
aroposed by different gentlemen.

THE ANDOVER UNION.
REPORT FROM THE SELECT COMMITTEE.
The Select Committee appointed to inquire into the admi-
nistration of the poor-laws in the Andover Umion, and into
the management of the union workhouse, and into the con-
duct of the Poor-law Commissioners and their late Assis-
tant-Commissioner, Mr. Parker, with reference to the two
investigations held at Andover, and into all the circum-
stances under which tit% Poor-law Commissioners called
upon Mr. Parker to resign his Assistant-Commissionership ;
and who were instructed to inquire into all the circum-
stances under which Mr. Day was called upon to resign
his office of Assistant Poor-law Commissioner; and who
were empowered to report the minutes of evidence taken
before them, together with their observations and opinion
thereupon, to the House ; have considered the matters to
them referred, and have agreed to the following resolu-
tions :

petition from another union complaining of its injurious
effects was presented to Parliament in 1842, it appears that
no order for the absolute discontinuance and abolition of the
practice was issued by the Poor-law Commissioners until
November, 1845. As, however, the practice of bone-crush-
ing in workhouses is discontinued in the Andover Union-
holm, and prohibited by a general order of the' Poor-law
Commissioners, it does not appear necessary to remark
further upon this point than to say, that by a very irregular
and improper practice the produce of the labour of the
paupers in bone-crushing at the workhouse is stated to have
been disposed of among the guardians, by the chairman
puting up the same at a sort of mock auction in the board-
room.

7. That it is the opinion of the Committee, that this em-
ployment—or in fact any labour which can justly be con-
sidered of a penal or disgusting character—should not be
adopted by boards of guardians, as such a course must tend
to prevent the really destitute poor from entering the union-
house, and is not consistent with a mild and considerate ad-
minis•ration of the law.

8. That from evidence given before your Committee, they
believe that instances have occurred in which inmates of
the workhouse have not received the extra allowance to
which they were entitled ; and as regards the sick, inasmuch
as it was not the practice of the medical officer of the work-
house to make any such orders for extra allowance in writing,
or to record them in a book, as provided for by the work-
house regulations, there has thus been no satisfactory check
upon such abuse.
9. That the Committee are of opinion, that if the medical
officers of the Andover Union had held their appointments
during good behaviour, instead of being exposed to removal
at frequently recurring periodical elections, and had they
been in a position of less dependence upon the guardians, they
would have been in a position to execute the trust reposed in
them with much greater advantage to the interests of the
sick poor, and the abuses which have been exposed before
the Committee would have been earlier disclosed and more
efficiently checked, if not prevented; and your Committee
would refer the House to the order of the Poor-law Commis-
sioners of March 12, 1842 (Article i 0), in which, while it
permits an annual appointment, the Commissioners have re-
cognised the principle of the appointment of medical officers,
" until they may die or resign, or become legally disqualified
to hold such office, or be removed therefrom by the Poor-law
Commissioners."
10. That no remonstrance appears ever to have been
made to the Poor-law Commissioners by the chairman, any
member, or officer of the board, or by any Assistant Poor-
law Commissioner, upon the subject of this omission, or in
reference to any of the instances of irregularity and mis-
management which have been stated in evidence before the
Committee.

11. That the evidence before your Committee leads to the
belief that a general system of laxity has prevailed in regard
to the accounts of the union; that many important books
have remained for long periods unchecked; and that in this
respect the board of guardians, and more especially the clerk
of the union, have failed in the due performance of the duties
which they respectively owed to the ratepayers and the poor
of the district.

12. That your Committee cannot omit to mention, as one
contributing cause of the irregularities prevalent in the union,
the circumstance that the clerk has, from the commence-
ment, been permitted, with the knowledge of the Commis-
sioners, to act by deputy; a state of circumstances in which
it is obvious that the personal respectability of the principal
affords no security for the due and honest discharge of
the duties of the office, and from which, in this case, a
serious defalcation in respect to the funds of the union
(subsequently, however, made good by the principal clerk
out of his private funds, for the particulars of which your
Committee refer to Paper No. 3 in the Appendix) appears to
have taken place.