The Sun.
London, England, 1844-02-22 00:00:00

about to be .thrown down about them.—(Cheers and '
laughter.) Yes, the movement is progressing—it is it-
resistible. They may delude a miserable constituency
in one place, and overrule a constituency in another; .
__but the public,. intellect is_ upon its march, like the
mighty wave. of the ocean with the in-coming tide. The
tyrant of old bade the ,sea to.stop at his mandate, but
the waves came on and overwhelmed the vain tyrant,.
who thought- to resist its progress.—(Hear, hear.) We
do not want to overwhelm those men—we will only wet
their feet a little.---(Laughter.) No: the progress bf
t this great cause is magnificent. On what country on.
the face of the earth could, they do what you did last
year? :You raised 50,000 L—the income of two or three
of the sovereign princes of Germany. This year you
subscribe 100,000 t, and, if necessary, next year double
it.—.-(Hear, hear.) It is not double or win, but double
and win.--(Cheers and laughter.) Yes, the movement
is on its majestic progress. From day to day new re-
cruits fill your ranks, and we, who are the veterans in
the contest, are able to look on with delight at the ra-
pidity with which our ranks are augmented and our
peaceable troops swarm around us.—(Cheers.) The
force of public opinion is manifesting itself every-
where. Even the vilest despots of the earth, with
the exception. of the monster Nicholas, do not any longer
dare those things which they formerly perpetrated. The
sentiment of England is awakened and abroad, and it
will never sleep till the poor are righted, and the rich
compelled to be honest. (The Hon. and Learned Gen-
tleman sat down amid deafening and protracted cheers.)
The CHAIRMAN next introduced
Mr. GEORGE THOMPSON to the meeting. When the
applause which greeted his appearance subsied, he
said, when I entered this house this night to be a wit-
• ness of the reception given to Mr. O'Connell, I did not
cherish the remotest idea of being called on to address
the meeting; nor do I now feel, standing in the posi-
tion which unhappily I now occupy, that I can be any-
thing other than that shadow of which Mr. O'Connell
spoke, which was almost afraid to follow its mighty
master. Ladies and gentlemen, this -is to me a most
; exhilirating spectacle, from the circumstance particularly
that for the last 16 months I have been absent from

this country; and during all that period travelling over
Conntries where no such- Scenes or sounds as those I
have now witnessed Were ever exhibited. Though' I
have trayeUed a distance of 15,000 miles • from the spot
on which I now stand, I have not travelled any distance
so great as to preclude me from the society of those
who had a knowledge of the.proCeedings of this gigantic
bcdy, which is now guiding and" directing the ultimate
• triumph of public sentiment.—(llear, hear.) It has been
my privilege, if not to be intimately associated in labour
with-the Anti-Corn-law League, at least to possess a
knowledge of its progress from the commencement, and
to number amongst my earliest and best friends those who
have endured the burden and heat of the day. I cannot,
-"on returning to my•native land, but contrast the condi-
tion of the cause this night with its condition when I
took my farewell at a meeting in Manchester, convened
for the very same purpose as that which brings you
within these walls to-night. I knew the League when
it consisted simplyof 1,200 persons; I now meet its mem-
bers within the Walls of this building, which is the
largest in this metropolis, and which is capable of con-
taining at least 6,000 individuals.—(Cheers.) I left
you in a struggle with silent opponents, depending
almost entirely on their rank, and station, 'and
wealth, to oppose your progress. I meet you
now in open combat- with this party, their
silence broken, their- plans disconcerted, their
hopes thwarted, and their glory diminished, compelled
at last, in self-defence, to have recourse to precisely
similar measures on their own part to those which they
have condemned you for adopting. Do I anticipate
any injury to your cause from the circumstance that
- your opponents are now banding themselves together,
and occupying themselves with considering the plans
which they must pursue for the purpose of thwarting
your intentions ? 'Nothing of the kind.—(Hear, hear.)
I think it a most hopeful sign of the times, that you are
• now able, every morning, to learn what is said in every
part of the country—that you are able now to grapple
freely with—if they may be so called—the arguments of
those who will, as long as they are able, both in
Parliament and out of Parliament, endeavour to
sustain and -maintain a
_monopoly of which they
are, the patrons, and by which they live.—
(Hear.) I congratulate you on your mighty progress.
Leongratulate you on the having induced, by the ex-
cellency of your principles, the most enlightened arid
intelligent of the nation to become members of the
League. I congratulate you on having now arrayed
around your standand, all that is excellent and estimable,
or nearly- so, in the land.—(Cheers.) I congratulate
you. upon. the prospect of a glorious and peaceful triumph
over the party with which you have been long contend-
ing.—(Cheers.) Mr. Thompson then went on to say
that whereVer he had travelled, whether in England or
in India, he hadTmind the deepest interest taken in the
proceedings of this Association.-:--(Cheers.) He had
foiled the greatest wonder everywhere expressed at the
folly and wickedness of those who were endeavouring by
the distress, peverty,, and the crime of the people, to
maintain a guilty prosperity. Men who were removed
froni party influence, and who had a domestic personal
interest in thii,queition held but one opinion upon the
subject. They could not traverse regions thousands of
miles in extent,. celebrated for the resources they
possessed while engaged in bringing from the
most , remote .districts of the sea-board and
thence across the ocean, those commodities which,
if they came here would be capable of sustaining
those who were nearly perishing—they could not behold
such a state of things, and know that whatever they
sent there would come back to them in the most de-
sirable shape—they could not see and know these things
without standing amazed at the existence, in the present
day, of so monstrous and stupendous a robbery as that
which was perpetrated in this country. He had never
taken but one view of the corn-laws. That'was an all-
comprising view. It was a view of the subject which
made him an everlasting hater of those laws which cir-
cumscribed the bounds of Divine Proiidence, and said
to the' ifts of God, which had been scattered so libe-
rally over the surface of the earth for the benefit of aU,
",Hitherto shalt thou come, and no further." EVen the
national view of the subject sank into insiznifieance in
his mind when he contemplated that God- c•aAld never
have designed -that a people every day increasing, and
living upon a soil that never could be extended. should
depend solely upon their own land for food, while
the path of the ocean—the ingenuity of man—the
bravery of the merchant seamen—the fertility of distant
lands—the wants of remote nations—and the prosperity
of the world—pointed to the dispensations of God, who,
in his fatherly care of man, evidently designed that mau
should exchange the abundance of one region, in order
to contribute to' the comfort and happiness of another.—
(Hear, hear.) To prevent the advantages of such inter-
course was a practical denial of God's gifts. It stopped
them_ half-way between God and his creatures, uho
ought to be the recipients of his bounty. It brought
into existence a famished population, who would commit
a crime if they took one grain of the yellow harvest
which the Almighty had so bountifully provided for the
• subsistence of all:—(Cheers.) Let them not talk to him
of ancient rights and vested interests, of the title of the
• aristocrat to his green acres. He would give him his
title ; he respected' his rank, and, most of all, when to
that rank he added that which was more than rank—
sympathy with his fellow mortals, which should increase
in proportion as God had been good to him,
• and seen fit to withhold from them.—(Cheers.)
Let the aristocrat possess his parks, his paddocks,
his hunting grounds, and his preserves ; let him wall
those around if be pleased, and let him post upon a
bbard " Man traps- and spring guns set here," he (Mr.
Thompson) would not enter upon his manor, he would
not even look over his wall ; he would be satisfied to
pursue his journey on the dusty road, if, when be got to
the end of it, he could share in the bounty of Providence.
The aristocrat asked for protection; he had that pro-
tection in the superior fertility of his estate, in the
vicinity of the fields where his corn was grown
.to the market where it was' sold. He had it
in .the . distance of every competing country
from his own,—he had it in the hurricanes on the ocean
—he had it in the insurance offices, the land charges, the
Water charges, in the wharf dues, and the warehouse
dues—in all those he had a protection lasting as the
ocean itself—a protection of which no man could de-
prive him. But he sought more—he sought to place an
arbitrary and artificial price on the commodity which he
had for sale, and he would not allow to poor man to buy
in the world's market, but compelled him to purchase
from himself till he had 'none to sell, 'and only allowed
' him to purchase elsewhere when there could be no pos-
. sibility of his being benefited by' his withholding the
permission.—(Here some interruption took place, which,
on the Chairman intimating that the person who caused
it would be given. into the custody of the police if he
repeated the annoyance, 'ceased, -and Mr. Thompson
resumed.) He said—the view he had taken of the
subject a the corn-laws. was so impressed upon his
mind, that it was impossible for the ingenuity of man
to alter it. It was not the patriot who roused . his
countrymen to a Sense--of their wrongs that deserved
punishment, if -any • consequences that could be re-
gretted ever sprang from- agitation against unjust and
oppressive laws. No ! it was the framer of those laws
on whom the responsibility and the right of punishment
should fall. Sedition would starve if laws were equitable,
and gallows might rot and become fire-wood, if legisla-
tors were just. If the prosperity of this country was to
be restored,
loyalty preserved, and public security main-
tained, justice must be done to the people ; justice, not
only to the coloured men of the West Indies, but the
bread of England, and the labour cif England, must must be
free.—(Cheers.)
Mr. R. R. Moons, after stating that he would be very
'brief, having been unexpectedly called upon to speak
a
'that evening, said, that he would give them an outline
of the general plan of the measures by which they
.hoped to carry the question. Their meetings—the pub-
lic excitement which they caused—the spread of informa-
tion, by means of tracts and reports in the public papers
of their proceedings formed the general means
by which they would prepare men's minds to do their
work.—(Cheers.) With respect to the plan of details,
they asked the country to contribute 100,0001. They
asked London, as the metropolis of England, to contri-
bute as large!? at least, as the manufacturing metropolis,
Manchester. They proposed to expend the money in teach-
ing the electors of Englandthat it was theirduty ta send
not party.men to Parliament, but men who would vote
for liberty and free trade, and for the right of property
of the man who, by the sweat of his brow, earned the
means of his subsistence. One of the evils which they
had particularly to overcome in this country, was the
apathy of the electors to any practical question, and their
slavish bowing down to the.miluence.of party'spirit. The:
citizens of London, who had returned at the late elec-
tion James Pattison as their Member, had done more
service to their cause throughout the country than they