The Sun.
London, England, 1846-10-15 00:00:00

Peel upon a question similar to the present; and it was
thought desirable that another meeting of a similar
character should now be called, in order that the work-
ing classes should take the lead in a movement so impor
tent to th,riselves. The time for opening the ports had
now evidently arrived, and the only question was," How
soon can they be opened r—(llear hear.) The pressure
which must arise might and would be dangerous to the
peace of the country, if the
people thought the-country
had net a sufficieecy of food. To peavent outbreaks, it
was a duty to suggest the propr. 4 of memorialis-
t+
ing Lord John Russell, to induce hit 6 open the ports
--
at once for all kinds of grain.-(Ape :Lise.) - He hoped
this example would be followed elsewhere with such
spirit as to induce L6rd John Russet] to consider the
importance of the memorials • and the state of the
country, and accede at once to the reqdest of the people.
He believed the Government only warded an expression
of opinion on the paft of the people, Who had but to
speak in one universal echo, and the thing was con-
summated.— (Applause.)
Dr. JOHN WATTS, in moving the first resolution, said
that if Sir Robert Peel had a reason last-year to repeal
the cern laws, Lord John Russell had a double reason
now to open the ports. Manchester and its vicinity
contain about 300,000 people, and if each consumed a
41b. loaf per week, the difference In price would amount
to 3,1251. per week, which would put 104 tradesmen's
shops in the receipt of 301. each per week, or would em-
I ploy 2,125 men at 20s. per week. ~ If two-fifths of the
men were thrown out of work, there would soon be 1,2e0
families, or 6,250 individuals, . extra-dependents upen
parochial relief. Riot and murder had already com-
menced in Ireland ;, famine NisV.t 94thness, where they
were not only without pateereS, but the herring fishery
had failed ; and in London there were 7,000 to 8,000
journeymen tailors out of employment. This was the
first trade that felt the effects of distress ; for people
must have food, but could do awhile without new cloth-
ing. The duty last week was-Bs. a quarter on wheat ;
and it was important not to have a penny of difficulty in
the way of raising supplies of food. and preventing
tumult. There were two good things to be got by open-
ing the portse—commercial relations would be drawn
much closer, and csnsequently friendly feelings between
nations. Then the import duty was a sort of gam-
blir'eetable, and people were always ready to lock up
food when-the people were starving, in order to reap
a richer harvest of profit from it. There was now
immense corn-jobbing. Open the ports, and this
gambling would be at once knocked on the head, and
food would be obtained for all. Suppose we imported
only half a million of quarters, knocking off the 84.
duty, the result would be a saving of only 200,0001,
which, if turned over only once in two months for a
year, would find employment for 23,077 men, at 20s. per
week, paid in wages ; and if these men were heads of
families, it would relieve our parishes from 75,000 indi-
viduals, who, without such return, must become charge-
able to them. Perhaps Ministers thought the people
apathetic ; but the apparent apathy had arisen from the
fact that the people hesitated before they would throw
any impediment to Lord John Russell's carrying out
his own policy, as they had great confidence in the man.
He concluded by moving the first resolution, for opening
the -ports.
Mr. JOHN TEER seconded the resolution. In Ireland,
instead of opening the ports, the Government opened
the barracks, and poured soldiers in upon a starving
people, who had no diSposition to riot.—(Hear.) Could
soldiers calm the storm that hunger must necessarily
produce ?—(flear.) He hoped there would be no vio-
lation of the public peace in Ireland. He thought that
people had manifested a degree of patience and forbear-
ance which he feared would not have been manifested in
this country. There was one thing in favour of this
meeting as regarded its influence,-that it was one not of
Chartists, Whigs, Radicals, or Tories. In Manchester,
at this moment, the feeling in favour of opening the
ports was general, and pervaded all classes, from the
weaver to the richest manufacturer.—(Applause.)
Mr. CHARLES PORNTNEE said he was glad to see so
large an assemblage, and he hoped they would keep to
the specific business and duty of the meeting—to memo-
rialise the Government to open the ports. • Already
Dundee had sent up a memorial; and he hoped Man-
chester would be at all events second in calling the at-
tention of Government to this matter. They were now
constitutionally assembled in the Town-hall of Man-
chester—a circumstance which wouli give weight to their
memorial.—(Cheers.)
Mr. GEORGE FREDERICK MANDLEY also supported
the motion. lie said he had f,r some time abstained
from politics, but observing that the price of the people's
staple articles of food had been enormously advanced, he
could not, as the head of a family, and one sympathising
with •working men, refrain from coming to make some
statement of facts, which, from his peculiar position and
means of information, had come to his knowledge. It
was 'to 'him a delightful circumstance that he could stand
there, and (though there were high prices of edible
stuffs) vindicate the providence of God, by denying that
there was famine. Nevertheless, be could support this
motion, because he doubted not that if the ports were
opened there would be a check given to that large
amount of speculation in corn which had run it up to the
present high price, and was doing enormous mischief to
the working classes, and all who were engaged in the
regular trade of the country. Every one who had
heard the speech of Mr. Watts must be satisfied
that every shilling extra taken from the working
man in the shape of food must operate to the dis-
advantage of those engaged in textile manufactures; it
must affect our home trade, and he was assured, on
most undoubted authority, that it was doing so to an
alarming extent.—(Hear, hear.) The whole of the fall-
ing off in trade he did not mean to say was owing to
this circumstance, because there was the war in Mexico
and the rising in Kafirland had some influence upon
trade. His main object was to show that the high price
of food was not the consequence of scarcity, and he had
in his hand tables which would show that there was at
the present time in this country a larger amount of
wheat and wheat-flour than was ever known in this
country.—(blear, hear.) The document he held in his
hand, and which he should quote from, was not a mere
o
newspaper paragraph, but a return issued by Mr. Porter
f the Board of Trade ; and it would show that at this
time, when people were talking of the impending famine
—when owing to the abundance of money speculators
were advancing the price of food so rapidly that the
price of the 41b. loaf had gone up from 63. to-Bid. in six
Or. seven weeks only—there never was such an abun-
dance of food in this country. The table which he held
in his hand to quote from first. was, a return giving a
three years' comparative statement of the quantity of
wheat and wheat-flour imported into this country, and
entered for home consumption, and of the amount ex-
ported, during a period of seven months in each year
ending on the sth of August, namely the years 1844, 1845,
and 1846. The imports 'of wheat and flour were, fur the
seven months ending sth of August—
Quarters of wheat. Cwts. of flour.
1844... ........ .. 809,667
1e45 201,761
1846.. ... 998,876 .

••• _
—(Loud cries of "Hear, hear.") Now, then, the next
item was the amount entered for home consumption
within that same period of time in each year, and he
would call their attention to the circumstance that there
was entered for home consumption in seven months, end-
ing the sth August—
Quarters of wheat. Cwts. of flour.
1844
1845 72,720
1846 1,798,329

And this last year, let it be remembered, was the year
of famine!—(Applause.) The quatity of oats imported
in 1844 was 85,198; in 1845, 234,857; and in 1846 (in
the same period of seven months), 328,886. Add to this
that in the present year there had been imported 92,689
quarters of Indian meal, whilst there had been none of
that article imported during the two previous years.--
(Eiear.) It was an interesting fact, before they went
further, to see what stock of grain and flour there was
in the country at the commencement of the periods he
had named. There was in bond, then, on the sth Des
comber, 1845—wheat, 794,250 qrs.; oats, 108,600 qrs.•,
wheaten flour, 405,455 cwts. Any gentleman who had
been observant of what was going on around him, would
have seen corroborations of this excL ss of food, for it
was a subject of remark that there was a larger amount
of wheat-flour traversing our streets at this time than
was ever seen before.—(Hear, hear.) This was not a
periol of famine in wheat, then. The Farmer's Maga-
zine corroborated this statement, for it said the crops of
the
quality present
a nd yyeareld
of werethe well got in, large, and that the
wheat were never finer.—(Ap-
plause.) The parties who were causing high prices,
then, were the speculators. And let it not be supposed
that he was inveighing against speculators, because he
held that capitalists had a right to invest it as they
thought to the best advantage, and it might be a ques-
tion whether, in times of real scarcity, the heightening
of the price did not dog od by keeping the people from
at once exhausting their stock of provisions, and by
spreading the consumption over a longer period. Re
was anxious the more to make these facts known, be-
cause the editors of newspapers,' who are mdt engaged
personally in commerce, and consequently dependnt
upon interested parties sometimes for information, had
been putting abroad grossly unfounded, or at least mis-
leading, statements. The Times had stated some time
since that there were not more than 700,000 quarters of
corn in bond, but said nothing about the fact that
2,700,000 quarters had been released from bond in two
months.—(Hear, hear.) But the poor were being robbed
of the increased quantity that individuals might have
the advantage of an increased price. He held in his
hand the Neil, York Courier and Enquirer of September
16th, which corroborated his statement that there was
no fear of famine, for it said that the Drops of grain
there exceeded this year the crops of last year, and that
the people of the states could not, by many tens of mil-