The Sun.
London, England, 1846-01-17 00:00:00

AT MANCHESTER.

Possibly the greatest-meeting yet held by the League at
Manchester, took place last night in the Free Trade Hall,
Peter-street. Besides all the principal merchants and manu-
facturers who thronged the platform, every available corner
of the building was literally crammed.
Mr. GEORGE WILSON, the Chairman, in the course of his
address, mentioned the following additions to the Quarter of
a Million Fund, viz. v—at Leeds, 34,0001.: at Dundee,
2,0001. ; and at Stroud, Gloucestershire, 1,3001., making
the subscriptions already made amount to 128,801/. 10s. 6d.
Mr. COBDEN then proposed as a resolution, " That mer-
chants_, manufacturers, and other members of the National
Anti-Corn-law League claim no protection whatever for the
manufactured products of this country, and desire to see
obliterated for ever the few nominally pr,,tective duties
against foreign manufactures which still remain upon our
statute-book." He acknowledged the receipt of a requisition
for free-trade meetings about to be convened in Belfast and
Drogheda—the latter superscribed by the Catholic Primate,
Dr. Crolly, and all his clergy. He then animadverted upon
the non-co-operation of the Church of England, as a body,
in this great agitation for the abolition of important duties;
and concluded by predicting Sir Robert Peel's withdrawal
from the protectionist party, and the ultimate victory of the
present movement.
Mr. BRIGHT, who seconded the proposition, attributed the
recent discomfiture of the Ministry to the pertinacity of the
League, and the miserable advocacy of Peel's Administration
by the Horning Herald and the Standard. He declared that
the League would continue in existence as long as there was
one sixpence of duty on the importation of foreign corn.
After some very long and argumentative speeches from
Mr. Fox, Colonel Thompson, and Mr. Brott.erton, the usual
vote of thanks to all who had spoken was moved and car-
ried ; whereupon the meeting separated.

MEETING AT SHEFFIELD.
MR. WARD AND HIS CONSTITUENTS.
On Thursday Mr. Ward met his Sheffield constituents in
the Town-hall, for the purpose of explaining to them his past
conduct, and intimating his views as to the future.
Mr. Alderman DUNN was unanimously voted into the
chair, and introduced
Mr. WARD, who received a most warm welcome. He
spoke nearly as follows :—This was, he remarked, the seventh
time that, since he had been favoured with their confidence,
lie had come before them in the intervals between sessions of
Parliament to explain and to answer, to vindicate the past,
to talk over the future, and to strengthen or to correct his
own political impressions• by comparing them with those of
the constituency.—( Hear, hear.) The custom was a virtual
repeal of the Septennial Act, so far as Sheffield was concerned.
He looked upon the great questions now occupying the
public mind quite as much in the light of a struggle against
monopoly in votes as against monopoly in food.—(Hear.)
Why, if we had had a Reform Bill in 1815, we never would
have had the corn-laws.--(Hear.) And did any man believe
that we should have a corn-law now for any length of time,
were it not for the power entrusted by the vicious nature of
the present constitution to the smaller venal agricultural
rural constituencies, which put themselves up to auction—
sold themselves to the highest bidder—and were only secured
from disfranchisement by the universality of their cor-
ruption,—but which counterbalanced the votes of such towns
as Sheffield and Leeds, and such counties as the West
Riding.—(Cheers.) Now, the first step towards making their
representative what he ought to be, was to act as they had
acted—to make the representation of their town a question of
principle, not of money. When he was here last, he had
told them that the conduct of the Conservative party in
power was such as almost made him look on inconsistency as
the most valuable of public virtues.—( Hear, and laughter.)
He did not mean that inconsistency which was always ask-
ing for loopholes to creep out of; but that bold inconsistency
which scrupled not to claim credit for doing that which it
drove another set of men from office for attempting to do.—
(Cheers.) His principles on direct taxation he had already
stated. He believed that no Minister in future would be able
to dispense with it. They would not be able, as before,
to raise a revenue upon articles which formed the food
of the people ; and he was, therefore, quite will-
ing to countenance direct taxation, provided he saw
every year fair terms offered to the country.—(Hear, hear.)
After taking a survey of the measures which had been
passed during tho last session, and his sentiments and be-
haviour with regard to each, Mr. Ward continued :—He was
here compelled to touch on a topic upon which the course
he had pursued had been, he was aware, disapproved of by
some of his friends in Sheffield for whose opinions he enter-
tained the highest respect. He alluded to the Maynooth
Grant.—(Hear, hear.) He had no hesitation in saying that
if the thing were to do again, he should act precisely as he
did last session.—(Cheers.) His principles on Irish matters
were perfectly well known. He thought that we had three
centuries of injustice to atone for to that country, and he
would not stand upon trifles to effect that object.—(Hear,
hear.) All that injustice had been put upon the ground of
necessity to maintain exclusive Protestantismin Ireland, and
last session the same argument had been put forward when
the attempt to maintain this exclusive Protestantism had
degenerated into a " No Popery" cry that was disgraceful to
the country. For his own part he never would give way to
blind bigotry or unreasoning prejudices. There were two
classes of opponents to the Maynooth Grant. There were the
Dissenters, who maintained their own ministers, endowed
their own schools, build their own chapels, and who, taking,
those burdens upon themselves, thought they ought not to
be called upon to pay for a second State Church in addi-
tion to that which they were already obliged to sup-
port. With that class he sympathised. But there vb as ano-
ther class which took its stand upon this ground—that they,
a small section of the Christian world, enjoyed the exclusive
monopoly of Christian truth. With the first class, as he had
said, he sympathised, and had endeavoured to point out a
fund in the Irish Church by which the object might heve been
attained in regard to Maynooth without pressing at all upon
the Dissenters. By the simple suppression of those parishes
where there were no Protestants, a fund of 58,000/. would
have been placed at the disposal of the Government, when
only 26,000/. were required for Maynooth. So irresistable
was this case, so unanswerable the argument, that if the Dis-
senters, as a body, had taken it up and supported it, he did
not believe any party or Government could have resisted it.
But instead of this, they took up the ground of religious truth,
as being in their exclusive possession. The Church party in
England were not against the injustice of taxing,the Dissenters
for the maintenance of a Church to which they did not
belong, but against the application of Protestant money to
what they called anti-Christian purposes, the promotion of
idolatry, and a defiance of heaven itself. The abhorrence of
the Catholic faith was made the bond of union in Exeter-hall
among those otherwise of most opposite opinions.—(Hear,
hear.) Now, it was all very well to talk about exclusive
Protestantism in the British empire, but the Queen of Eng-
land herself was one of the greatest Catholic potentates in the
world.—(Hear, hear.) She ruled over eleven millions of
Catholic subjects in England, Ireland, Canada, India, and the
Mediterranean. Those Catholics were men, and must be
governed, and they should be governed upon just and intelli-
gible principles. Every other system of government but this
had been tried. They had tried persecution, and they had
tried proscription, but none of these courses would succeed. In
fact, there was no iniquity that had not been perpetrated to-
wards that unhappy country, Ireland. Just one hundred
years ago that day, in the age of Addison and Swift, which
was called the Augustan age of England, an Act of Parliament
was passed, which for its monstrous enormity was almost
without parallel. It would be scarcely.believed that by that
Act, which was called the nameless statute, Catholic priests
were rendered liable to an operation which, to put it
as delicately as I scan, I will describe as one
which qualified them to be the guardians of the
Grand Seignior's seraglio.—( Hear.) That Act, which was
only repealed by the intervention of Cardinal Fleury, was
one of the remedies for Irish Catholicism that had been re-
sorted to. Would Englishmen sanction a return to such a
state of things, even if they had the power? Certainly they
would not. The only policy, therefore, which was left to
adopt towards them was to treat them with justice and
mercy, and according to the great principles of Christianity.
A generous treatment on our side would inspire a generous
feeling in return. His motion last session was to endow, but
to endow from a proper source—not from the pockets of
English Dissenters—not to tax a man opposed to Catholicism
for the support of Catholicism, but to make as ample a pro-
vision as Government might choose to recommend from funds
at the disposal of the State, and which must ultimately
be applied to the support of the church of the
great majority of the country. (Great cheering.)
That motion created no ordinary difficulty and alarm.
For a little time, and a little time only, he was a man of
great political importance— the fate of Government seemed
to hang upon this question. He had no reason to distrust
the importance of its effects He had seen the appropriation
principle break up two Cabinets, and it might have broken
up a third. Well, under those circumstaeces, he had thought
it better to give up the opportunity presented to him than to
damage a principle in which he concurred. And he did not
regret the course which he had pursued; for when he looked
to the sort of opposition given to the measure, he could not
compliment his Dissenting friends on the company with whom
they took their stand.—(Hear, hear, and a laugh.) Refer-
ring then to the• manner in which this question had been
agtwrtreohtai;
etineehddchlabeos ys
het
aoLodf:hlr,
hadasadttiVs
hewis
session
chelsea, the Duke of Newcastle, and
others, he continued :—Now he had gone over a good deal of
is
pleasurea otfbhr foreshadow
fwh
aisdhoewd
hearingto whatfsr aoyhma ad
since
eirnweßewooredr words
now as to the future.—(Hear, bear.) There was a great deal
hap-
pened. There was a debate upon Mr. Villiers's motion, in
Peel—as he understood him—tbe clearest possible'l notice to
quit given to the agricultural protectionists.—(Cheers.) Sir
Robert Peel then said that the question was one of time only.
The advocates of free trade had in their ranks great intellect,
great names, great activity, but they wanted some of those
high aristocratic names of practical statesment who must
form a part in the Government of this country. They
wanted Lord John Russell.—(Cheers.) They wanted Lord
Morpeth—(Loud cheers)—and the men of the West Riding
were now sending him—(Applause)—while from Lord John
Russell they had at last received a frank declaration of his
adoption of free trade principles. The landowners would do
better with free trade, because the manufacturers would do
better ; for what the landowners wanted was wealthy
and well-employed customers. To say that we
could not compete with foreigners in any part of
Europe was a libel upon English honesty and Eng-
lish ability, and provided the settlement of the corn-
law was comprehensive and final, he had no doubt
all the alarm now felt would evaporate and pass away.
He recommended, however, the free traders not to fancy their
victory as yet certain. They might have a majority in the
House of Commons; but it was rumoured that the Lords had
determined never to pass a measure of the kind without an-
other appeal to the country. If that appeal was made, every
man must be prepared to do his duty, and take his part in
the great struggle. Let them but be united and firm, and
they would be successful ; for there never was an instance in
history in which an aristocracy, contending for its own selfish
and sordid emoluments, was successful, when opposed to the
great body of an intelligent and united people.—(The Hon.
Gentleman resumed his seat amidst prolonged cheering.)
Mr. FISHER, after passing a high eulogium upon Mr. Ward,
moved a resolution to the following effect :—" That the
thanks of this meeting be given to our much respected repre-
sentative, H. G. Ward, Esq., for his annual visit to his con-
stituents, and the candid and explicit exposition he has
given of his Parliamentary conduct during the last session ;
and that he be respectfully requested to support to the ut-
most of his power any measure that may be proposed for the
total, immediate, and unconditional repeal of the corn-laws."
This resolution having been seconded by Mr. JACKSON,
was carried unanimously : and after the customary business
had been transacted the meeting separated.

AGRICULTURAL MEETING AT
BRIDGE WATER.
A large concourse of protectionists assembled yesterday, at
the Clarence Hotel, Bridgewater, for the purpose of discussing
the merits of the present taxation upon corn, and an excellent
dinner into the bargain.
Mr. Miles, M.P., presided on the occasion ; and after the
usual loyal and popular toasts had been given, a long array of
orators addressed the meeting in succession.
The Rev. Mr. TIMING maintained that on the abolition of
the duties in question "it was impossible the taxes could
be paid, and what then would become of public credit ?"
Mr. SEALEY, the Mayor, felt satisfied that the assembly
which he addressed " must have an influence throughout the
country."