The Sun.
London, England, 1846-01-21 00:00:00

land, and had before been given overbj;--many gentlemen,
as it was always inundated with water, and possessed no
comfort or accommodation for either men or animals.
It was divided into about six fields. As he took it with
the view of knowing something about agriculture, he
tried to get a ploughman to plough the land, but' found
it quite impossible to do so, as not a man would gxa out
of his usually beaten track ; in fact. the only difference
between the man who followed the plough and the horse
who drew it, was that the horses went before the plough
and the man followed, as he possessed sufficient ine-
nuity to guide it. At the end of his first year's posses-
sion he found himself 2004 out of pocket, by way of an
encouragement to his farming. Ile at length got an old
working man, whose name he would give to the meeting
—his name was Sparks—who, having a few acres of land,
tilled them himself. lie had no capital, no talent—but
one pony and his wife.—(Laughter.) That man dis-
covered what was the fault of his own land—it was full
of water. He first began with a small portion of it—
about an acre—and drained it ; and, by perseverance,
he at last got about half of his land to rights. lie
spoke to him, and remarked how well he got
the water off his land, and what crops he had
made grow there, and was informed that by this
means he had produced a crop of oats of eight quarters
to the acre. lie took the advice of this man, and with his
assistance he got his 40 acres in a pretty pod state.
The second year of his possession he only lost 451. ;
the third year the amount on both sides was square,
and now, at the end of the fourth year, he was 1001. in
pocket. He went to Scotland last year, and he there
saw lands cultivated, with an unfavourable climate, which
put them three weeks later than the lands in this
country. And yet they grew as fine crops as could be
seen in England ; so much se, that the farmers did not
care a straw about the corn-laws. Why should not the
landlords of this country, instead of making long
speeches to their tenants, give them long leases,
and give them or sell them draining tiles—they might
easily manage so as to have the price of the tiles repaid
to them. If such things were done, this country could
be made an exporting, instead of an importing one. In
18:31, Lord John Russell saw the impossibility of
carrying on the corn-laws, and he therefore proposed to
give a fixed duty of Bs. per quarter. Tne protectionists
refused to have it, and turned him out of office, and since
that time they had been struggling to maintain
the protection system ; but the last year of
that system was come. The protectionists had better
have taken that offer when they got it, for
he hoped to see a total repeal of the corn• laws this ses-
sio:n, without any further taxation put on the people to
compensate themselves for what they had been robbing
the pcop,'e of these last forty-five years, and the state
of the couCtry would then be an example to the world, -
instead of a ,liegrace to it.—(Hear, hear.)
The second ,:estmucioil-lia. then put, and carried with
only one dislentib:ht voice.

The Hon. Mr. Boi.Tv ERIE said that any further ex-
pression of opinion on the subject, after what they had
heard that night, would be uncalled for. They would
readily agree to the resolution which he held in his hand,
and which was, " That nainst legislative enactments
which tax and impede the sui.`ply ot food, we most so-
lemnly protest; and as the corn-,laws havr produced the
:earful calamities before enumera:ed, this meeting re-
spectfully, but firmly, calls upon Pa.rliattient„ for their
total, unconditional, °and immediate abolition." He had
a few words to say with regard to the t,pposition that
had been maintained against the progress (..`f the Anti-
Corn-law League. The people who opposed it were
not strong in numbers or in intelligence, but tuey were
strong in wealth and station; they were
" Proudly secure,
Yet liable to fall by weakest subtlety;"
they had strength, but were unable to use it ; and, like
an unwieldy animal, fell a prey to others less strong but,
more active. In a question like the present they could
not expect to be unanimous, and, of course, some weak-
headed people opposed it—old women, as he called them,
who were headed by the Morning Herald. That journal
put him in mind of what he had seen in Somersetshire.
When a cart had to go down a hill a donkey was tied
behind, and the animal, of course, not feeling inclined
to descend resisted violently, and hindered the cart from
going too quick, and so the opposition of the Herald only
retarded for a time the cause whose safety it thus secured_
more effectually. They read in history that the Doctors
of the Sorbonne, in Paris, had decided that the teaching
of the Greek and Latin languages tended to subvert
Christianity, but the event did not prove it so. So the
protectionists thought that the corn-laws' abolition would
injure them, but it would in a short time do them good.
He would no longer occupy their time, but would pro-
pose the resolution lie had read.
Mr. HEALEY, in a very able speech, seconded the re-
solution, which was then put to a show of hands, and
carried unanimously.
Mr. DEESING proposed " That the following petition be
presented to the House of Commons, and that Mr. El-
phinstone be requested to present the same?'
Mr. WALKER seconded the resolution.
The petition was then read, and the motion carried
nein, COP.
A call was then made for Mr. George Thompson, who
came forward and addressed the meeting in a speech of
very great length, inculcating the necessity of holding out,
without compromise, for the total and unconditional abo-
lition of the corn-laws, and commenting on their demo-
ralising effect or the people.
At the conclusioti of his speech,
Thanks were voted to the Chairman, and the meeting
separated at half-past ten o'clock.