The Sun.
London, England, 1846-01-15 00:00:00

SECOND EDITION

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LONDON, THURSDAY, JANUARY 15, 1846.

The protectionists hold their meetings in the front
floors of houses in Bond- street, and if they do ven-
ture on the large room of a decent county inn, the
attendance is so small that "a cat can be seen walking
about the room," unawed by the presence of that
remarkably tame lion which the agriculturists
dignify by the name of British. The League
hold their meetings in theatres, in halls,
in the open air, in all those places where
men do most congregate together. Two such
meetings were held last evening—the one at Leeds, in
aid of the great League Fund, the other in Covent-
garden Theatre. This last meeting was, as usual,
crowded, and Mr. GEORGE WILSON, the indefatigable
Chairman of the League (who will to-day pre-
side at a great League meeting in the Free Trade
Hall, Manchester) entered into details, showing the
progress which the League has made simply by at-
tending to the registration. North and South Lan-
cashire, South Cheshire, and the 'West Riding of
Yorkshire, are won, and won so completely, that the
monopolists dare not venture a contest. Middlesex
is won by a majority of 1,700, and it only
remains with the free traders of London, by the pur-
chase of 40s. freeholds between this and the 31st of
January, to secure three free trade Members for
Hertfordshire, and two free traders for East Surrey.
Let them not trust to any Minister to carry a repeal
of the corn-laws. The Minister can only carry such
a repeal by the firm, unflinching support of the people,
and to the people we would say, in the words of Mr.
MILNER GIBBON, " Remember the question is still in
your hands." Yes, the question is still in the hands
of the people of England, and they must insist upon the
total, immediate, and unconditional repeal of the corn-
laws. There must be no talk of compensation; or if there
be, the compensation must be paid by the landowners to
that community which they have plundered for the
last thirty years. If the account of the landed aris-
tocracy with the people were regularly drawn out,
and the exemptions placed on one side and the bur-
dens on the other, the exemptions would be found
greatly to preponderate, as we are prepared to show.
In every other country in Europe the land-tax
forms the principal portion of the public revenue ;
in England it forms scarcely one twenty-fifth part
of it. In France, and throughout Europe, the land
is subject to the payment of duties analagous to our
probate and legacy duties. From these payments the
land of the English landowner is exempt, al-
though they are levied upon all chattel property.
To place this in a still stronger point *f view, we will
contrast the relative proportion between the land-tax
paid by the rich aristocracy and the: Customs and Ex-
cise, which fall almost exclusively •on the in-
dustrious classes, in the reigns of QUEEN ANNE
and QUEEN VICTORIA. In 1706, at the
period of the union with Scotland, the land-tax pro-
duced for the year 1,997,3791., the Excise 1,792,7631.,
and the Customs 1,549,3511. In 1841, the land-
tax produced for toe year 2,037,6271., the
Excise 12,858,0141., and the Customs 19,485,2171.
Thus the land-tax has remained nearly the
same, while the taxes on articles of consump-
tion have been increased tenfold. While the
land-tax, however, has remained the same, the rent
has increased in the proportion of one to
seven ; so that an estate which, in the
reign of ANNE, paid to the land-tax 20 per cent.
on the rental, now pays only 3 per cent. Again,
look at the whole course of fiscal legis-
lation for the last century : does it not
prove the truth of the assertion of Mr.
COBDEN, that if the statute-book could by any
accident be conveyed to the moon, without any par-
ticle of information as to its history or origin, the
simple perusal of it would alone be suffi-
cient to convince the inhabitants that it
was the work of a Parliament of landlords ?
Carefully have the landed aristocracy exempted
themselves from the payment of every direct tax,
which falls heavily on the industrious. Agricul-
tural horses, agricultural dogs, agricultural windows—
all are exempt ; nay, they have even exempted them-
selves from turnpike tolls on carts carrying agricul-
tural implements, or matters used in agriculture,
so that they have actually the use of the
roads toll-free ; and, with this exemption staring
them in the face, they talk of the highway
rate as a burden pressing peculiarly upon agricul-
ture. As has been justly observed by Von RAUMER,
it is true that the Polish farmer has no highway
rates to pay, but then he has no roads by means of
which he can, at a cheap rate, bring his produce to
market, and it costs him more in carriage, in
consequence of the want of roads, than it
costs the English cultivator in highway rates.
But it is not in a pecuniary point of view that the
landed aristocracy will suffer by a repeal of the corn-
laws, as was well shown by the speakers at the League
meeting last evening. What they dread is the loss
of their usurped power of oppressing their fellow-sub-
jects; and, to quote the eloquent words of Mr. MILNER
ClinsoN, " Englishmen will deserve to be branded
as slaves if they do not throw off the ignominious yoke
which a proud landed aristocracy has imposed upon
their necks."

The French Minister of Foreign Affairs, in his
eloquent speech on Monday, was probably much re-
strained in his remarks on Mr. Por.a.'s outrageous
pretensions by the sympathy evinced in certain quar-
ters for the people of America, and the hos-
tile feelings which a considerable portion of the
Members entertain towards England; but, neverthe-
less, he spoke out boldly, and condemned in the
strongest terms the doctrine laid down that the United
States reject all European influence in the continent
of North America, and that the application of the
system called the " balance of power " will not be
permitted by the Union in the New World. " I beg
pardon of the Chamber," said he, according to one
of the reports, " for repeating this untoward expres-
sion" (cette mauvaise expression), and according to
another, he denounced it as a strange maxim,
"We admire," added the speaker, " what is great