The Sun.
London, England, 1844-03-21 00:00:00

this country at one time petitioned that the roads
leading to this metropolis might not be improved.
because it would lessen the value of land; and yet
the roads had been improved, and with increased
facilities of communication the value of land had in-
creased.—(Hear, hear.) At the last election, the
tenant-farmers cried out "No surrender of the corn-
laws," and, under the influence of the landlords, they
returned a monopolist House of Commons ; but he
believed that no set of men were ever so deceived as:the
farmers had been six months after the passing of the
last Corn Bill and tariff. If those electors could exer-
cise their independent and free voice, he firmly believed
that 99 out of every 100 of them would dismiss Sir
Robert Peel as a bad doctor, and call in another and
more skilful physician.— (Laughter and cheers.)
Yet the very men who had confessed themselves
deceived on this question were now rallyinc, round
the professed farmers' friends, in the shape of' Agri-
cultural Protection Societies.—(Hear.) For his own
part he rejoiced in the formation of these societies,
because he believed that their opponents must now
either discuss the question, or confess themselves
beaten.—(Hear, hear.) Discussion would tend to
elicit the very same information which would have
been elicited by the Committee of their friend Richard
Cobden, had that Committee been granted.—( Hear,
hear.) In the debate which took place upon his mo-
tion, an Hon. Member stated that a Mr. Day had
been somewhere and shattered the arguments of the
Anti-Corn-law League. He hoped these Protection
Societies would let in upon their dark minds the light
of day. He confessed, however he had some doubts
as to their ability to do so. A few weeks ago a
county meeting was called in Somersetshire, and
though not living in that county, he attended, in
order that he might pick up some information. A
more triumphant refutation of the principles of pro-
tection he had never heard than at that meeting, and a
more triumphant decision in favour of free trade was
never made. A few days after a Protection Society
was established in Bristol. From the advertisement
calling a meeting for that purpose, he, and several
brother farmers considered that every agriculturist
had a right to attend and take part in the discus-
sion. On applying to the chairman, however,
they soon found that such was not the case.
—(Laughter.) Had the question been dis-
cussed, he had no doubt that the majority
of those present would have determined to form
; a society for the protection of agriculture, in con-
nexion with the Anti-Corn-law League.—(Laughter.)
With reference to this meeting, the Mark-
lane Express boasted of the attendance of 600 far-
mers, in a room which, however it might be crammed,
would literally hold no morethan 200.—(Laughter.)
While, therefore, he rejoiced in the discussion which
would be elicited by means of these Societies, he must
say, that he thought they themselves were but little
inclined to it.—(Hear, hear.) Had the time per-
mitted, he would have npticed at :some length the
arguments brought forward in reference to the taxes
imposed on agriculturists. He would notice only one
point. He did not believe that the farmers paid an
inordinate or unfair proportion of the taxes.—
(Cries of " Hear, hear.") What would be the effect
of the remission of a certain portion of the taxes ?
Landlords knew very well that they could only
reasonably expect their rents from the surplus which
the farmer produced after the expense of cultivation
and his own maintenance had been provided for. If
a riding-horse or a shepherd's dog were wanted, and
a tax was pai .1 on this account, this tax must come
out of the rent, and the landlords very wisely remit-
ted the taxes upon riding-horses and shepherds' dogs,
knowing that, in point of fact, this would be so much
augmentation of their own rent.—(Hear, hear.)
From what he had said they would see that he was
opposed to the corn-laws even from interested mo-
tives, setting apart any higher motive.—(Hear,
hear.) But he was also opposed to them because
he believed them to be immoral and unequitable,
laws. He believed they were immoral, as regarded
the labouring population; he believed they were
inequitable, because they were maintained at the ex-
pense of the many for the benefit of the few.—(Hear,
hear.) Rather than live on the wages of the indus-
trious himself, he would doff his coat and go to work
to-morrow.—(Hear, hear.) The religious Society
with which he was connected interfered but little,
comparatively speaking, with politics. He thought
this subject ought to be discussed calmly and delibe-
rately, apart from 'politics. His creed was " Civil,
religious, and commercial equality."—(Cheers.) But,
while he disclaimed any political feeling, he would
candidly avow that he advocated a repeal of
these laws from a belief that they were
injurious to his own interests, that they were injurious
to the poor, and also that they were decidedly unjust.
He wished his brother farmers calmly and delibe-
rately to inquire into the erect of these laws ; and he
hoped that the Anti-Corn-law League would not re-
lax in its endeavours to enlighten their minds.—
(Chees.) If they could only employ a few sound
practical tenant-farmers as lecturers, he believed
they would do an amount of good, and further the
cause of free trade. The minds of the farmers were
already alive on this subject. He had reason to be-
lieve that the effect of the county meeting, in
Gloucester had been entirely to change the
opinions of many tenant-farmers, who were
before opposed to the repeal of the corn-laws.
The principal element of real power was knowledge.
Let the farmers become enlightened on this subject,

_ •
and then he would only ask them to do what their
consciences dictated. He would ask them to become
freemen in every sense of the word, and he would
say to them, " Remember that he only is a freeman
whom knowledge on this question makes free.'!
Mr. COBDEN then came forward to address the
meeting, and was received with the most vociferous
applause, which was continued for upwards of a mi-
nute. After the cheering had subsided, he said, he
thought they would now be at no loss to understand why
it was that he was refused a Committee to inquire into
the condition of tenant-farmers and farm-labourers.
—(Hear, hear, and cheers.) He came before them
from. that other Assembly, as a court of appeal, and
these were his two first witnesses.—(Great laughter.)
They had heard to-night two speakers who were
bona fide real, live farmers.—(Laughter.) Of their
talents as speakers, they must judge for themselves.
He had had the opportunity of visiting the farm of
one; the other gentleman he had not yet had
the pleasure of visiting. He had been over Mr.
Lattimore's Tarm, at Whithampstead, in Hertfordshire;
and he challenged his brother farmers in that county
to say whether he was not correct in stating that
Mr. Latthnore was one of the best practical farmers
in Hertfordshire.—(Hear, hear, and cheers.) Nay
more, he would undertake to say in his presence,
that on his farm he produced in a year, on an
average, one-third more than was produced on all the
land in his parish, while he employed double as
many labourers as were employed on an average
upon the same surface of land.—(Loud cheers.)
Now, this was but the beginning of the evidence
which they intended to lay before them from the
mouths of practical agriculturists, as to the benefit
which the corn-laws conferred upon their order.—
(Hear, hear.)
,7hey had heard something of the
agricultural labourers. He wished they could bring
a few of them there,.and let them see the garments
of those best of home customers' for manufactures.—

(Laughter.) Their friend Mr. Hunt had told them
that' in the protection meetings. which were held dis-
cussion was not allowed on this subject. He (Mr.
Cobden) hadinvited: discussion at county meetings.
He had held 28 open meetings in as many counties;
he hadinvited all comes,, and he was alWays glad to
find opponents.. Mention had been made of a Mr.
Day of Huntingdonshire ;-and a Noble Duke—the
Duke of Richmond—had stated, in his place in the
House of Lords, that he (Mr. Cobden) had run away
from Day at Huntingdon. Now, that was only
one of the slips of his Grace, for he was not at
Huntingdon.. It was the only place which he did not
happen to go to-t-(Laughter)—and it was the only
place where they were, out-numbered by the ma-
jority. But he did not mention this as any credit to
himself, for he could account for the defeat at Hun-
tingdon on another hypothesis. Huntingdon had
always been a little behind the other counties of Eng-
land. It was a curious historical fact connected
with that c3untry, that, it ,was the last place where
they burned old women for witchcraft—(Great
laughter)—and it was a remarkable fact, but it was
true, that up to this day a sermon was preached in
Huntingdon, in fulfilment of a bequest left by some,
charitable- person, by a fellow of a college in Cam-
bridge, against witcb.craft.—(Laughter.) Did they
not think it would be a very charitable thing, if some-
body would, in making their will, leave another
foundation to send one of these fellows to Queen's
College once again to preach against the corn-laws?
_(Laughter.) He did not see much difference be-
t Ween burning old women for witchcraft, and starv-
ing old women and little children.--(Hear, hear.)
But whilst on the subject of the Duke of Richmond's
high authority, Mr. Day, be might mention that the
protectionists had been very industriously circulating,
a pamphlet written by Air. Day, with very great
industry, and very great ingenuity—he wished he
could say with as much truth and candour—in
which this worthy gentleman had gone through
all theirspeeches for the last five years. It was no
slight task—he gave him credit for his industry—
(Laughter) —but of that heap of rubbish—for
he must confess that they had talked
a great deal of nonsense in past times—
out of that heap of rubbish he had collected every-
thing he could find that was in the least worthy of
being recorded ; and, by ingeniously transposing sen-
tences and suppressing dates, he had managed to give.
often a totally different meaning to what the speakers
intended. He would not give them more than one
instance. He wanted to prove his (Mr. Cobden's)
inconsistency. How did he do it ? He quoted one
speech, in which he told the operatives of Lancashire
that they ought to have their land at one-third less ;
and he quoted another speech, in which he told the
artners, in Bedfordshire, that he did not think that if

they had free trade in corn, corn would be any
cheaper. But though he gave the date of the first
speech, which was delivered in 1840, when wheat was
at 705., he did not quote the date of the last, which
was delivered in June, last year, when wheat had
fallen more than 33 per cent.—(Cries of " Hear,
hear.") He had sometimes found people a little
at a loss to account for their arguments; contending,
as they did, at one time, that they should have cheap
corn, and stating at another that they did not intend
to injure the farmers by lowering the prices of their
commodities. Many were at a loss to understand
how they ceuld be benefited as traders, manufactur-
ers, merchants, and consumers, without the lower-

ing of the price of food. Now these people
always went upon the assumption that they
had enough to eat already. They forgot
that there were at least 10,000,000 of people
in these islands who were not sufficiently fed, and
that the growers of wheat were raising their produce
for the subsistence of not more than 20,000,000, at
all events, of the 28,000,000 of their population ; while
the rest f the people, by their restrictive and suicidal
system, were thrown out of the market for wheat, and
were living upon potatoes, oatmeal, barley bread, or
beans.—(Hear, hear.) Let those people into the
market, bring them forward as consumers, and then
they might not only sell their wheat to these newly-
created customers, but even enable them to buy
wheat from abroad. A calculation had been sent to
him the other day by a large biscuit baker,
which was worthy of attention, as coming
from a practical man. He said that if they
gave to the people of these lands 2i ounces
of bread per dey, that would amount to
3,000,000 quarters of wheat : and if they would allow
ten millions of the people to have this extra allowance,
in addition to what they had, it would amount
to an importation of ten million quarters of wheat.
This was the compensation which they offered to the
landowners and the farmers.—(Laughter.) He
would allow the people to prosper, instead
of making them paupers, and then the farmer
would have them for customers. There were
times when corn was sold as low, nay, lower, in this
country, under the corn-law, than it would be under
perfect free trade. When they had famine seasons, as
they must have if they limited their supply to these
narrow islands, with their capricious climate—when
they had a succession of three or four years of famine
seasons, as they had had from 1838 to 1842, what was
the consequence ? Why, they starved down and ba-
nished their population. He told those farmers
who would like to have their customers at home,
that from 1838 to 1842, 500,000 persons had emi-
grated from these islands to find food in other coun-
tries.—(Hear hear.) When, at the termination of
this period oidearth, they had but one good harvest,
the agriculturists were astonished to find that they
had not customers ready to consume the extra pro-
duction of their land. Why they had been destroy-
ing their customers by bringing down the labouring
classes to potatoes and oatmeal, and sending away
every man who had the means to emigrate to those
countries which were not cursed with corn-laws.
Now he was of opinion—and he had said it in the
House of Commons, where he never wanted to pay
them compliments, or say anything that would be
too pleasing to them—(Laughter)—that neither land-
lords, farmers, nor farm labourers had derived any
benefit from this system. He believed that land
would at this moment have been more valuable in
this country if there had never been a corn-law. He
had asked the Government last autumn to send to
their Ambassador in Switzerland for an account of
the value of land in that country ; and he ventured
to say, that land in Switzerland was at this time more
valuable than land in England, although in Switzer-
land there was perfect free trade in corn.—(Hear,
hear.) He had never told the farmers, in all his
peregrinations, that they must look for their remedy
in the reduction of rent.—(Hear, hear.) He said,
most unfeignedly, that if he were going to take a
farm for a twenty-one years' lease, he
would rather take it at all the present
rental, knowing that the corn-laws were to
be abolished to-morrow, than he would take upon
himself the burden of the land if he knew that the re-
strictive system were to continue. In the first case,
he should be sure that he was surrounded by a pros-
perous community, capable of consuming all that he
could produce, and he would not confine himself to
the production of old fashioned wheat. But, in
the other case, he would dread the retribution that was
coming upon him in the shape of pauperism, income
taxes, rates of every description, and county as
well as general taxes, which, if this system continued,
threatened to render and valueless both to landlord and
tenant. Now, with these convictions, backed as
they were by the most intelligent amongst the land-
lords and the farmers, why need they continue to
take this is a close question?—(Hear, hear.) They
were no longer a body of manufacturers or traders.
They had the best of the landlords and the best of the
farmers with them, and he did not despair ofyet repre-
senting the county of Buckingham in Parliament.
The time was not far distant when the landowners
would be just as anxious to claim for themselves the
merit of being free-traders, as the West Indian pro-
prietors now were to profess their abhorrence of
slavery.—(Laughter.) Let them look to what the
League had done for the best interests of agriculture,
he meant improvements in tillage. Who could go
through the country without observing the beautiful
spectacle which the draining tiles presented through-
out the land in all directions ?—(Hear, hear.) If they
had done that by the mere fright of free trade, what
would free trade itself do for the land ?—(Hear, hear,
and cheers.) He had a letter the other day
from Northumberland, in which the writer
_ . .

said that he was connected with agriculture, and that
the manufacturers of agricultural improvements, of
draining tiles, &c., and that agricultural chemists and
Men connected with scientific improvements in agri-
culture, ought to subscribe in presenting him (Mr.
Cobden) with a piece of plate for his exertions in the
cause of agriculture. He (Mr. Cobden) should have
that piece of plate, and he would be bound the Duke
of Buckingham would subscribe to it.—(Laughter.)
Let them picture to themselves the candelabrum
standing,upon a tripod, with a sheaf of wheat in one
corner, a power-loom in another, and a ship
the third—the union of manufactures and, com-
merce with agriculture.—(Cheers and laughter.)
He had no doubt whatever that they should shake
hands on this question in less than five years from
the present time.—(Cheers and laughter.) He was
anxious that they should make the question less of a
class question, and take agriculture more and more
into their view on the subject. Agriculture was the
.strongest ground on which they (the Leaguers) stood.-
They had heard what had been said of the condition
of the farmers. There was a gentleman on the plat-
form had told them just now that he was in company
the other day with fifty farmei", when an in-
telligent gentleman at his elbow Whispered into
his ear that there were not two, out of those
fifty that would not be bankrupts in less than two
years.—(Hear.) He (Mr. Cobden) was at a large
dinner once in the Midland Counties on the occasion
of a ploughing-match, at which there were present
several landowners, and in the course of a' discussion
on the Condition of the farmers they all agreed that if
the tenantry of the comity was sold up not one or
them would be found to be solvent ; and the result of
a similar discussion, On the condition of the lana7
owners was, that if they were sold up' they would tint'
he found to be solvent. He (Mr. Cobden) then ven-
tured 'to throw in an observation; and he said,
"Gentlemen, you have had it all your own way
for these eight and twenty years, and it
seems- you were not able to take care of your-
'selves. Now let us, freelraders,have a turn, and see
whether we shall not do better for you than you haie
done for yourselves."—(Hear, hear.) Now he hoped,
after the evidence they had had to-night, that no one
would go away from that magnificent gathering with
the idea that what they asked for—free trade—could
possibly injure the agricultural, labourer. He (the
agrieultural labourer) was as low as he could be:
_ _

(Hear, hear.) What they had heard from Mr. Hunt
that night would be verified by the intelligent
farmers of all parts of the country—that if their
land was cultivated not up to the pitch
of garden cultivation, but up to the point at which
farms were cultivated in parts of Northumberland
and Scotland; that then those counties of Eng-
land would produce double what they did at present,
and that there would be three times the demand for
labour. They had heard something about the super-
stitious reverence of 'landowners. for. their acres.
Those men would not allow any changer to take place
that was even displeasing to their eye. They wonld
not allow their green lawns- to be ploughed up be
cause their grandfathers had looked upon them; and
they, therefore, must look upon them forsooth, though
their surface no longer was covered with grass,
but with moss. That superstitious reverence for the
land as it was would disappear before the stern neces-
sity which would be imposed upon the owners of the
soil, when they saw no other means of drawing their
rents and meeting their mortgages, and showing
themselves at the accustomed period in the west end
circles--than by treating thew. land as traders did
their commercial commodities, vii., as something
from which by skill, science; and capital, they could
draw the utmost possible amount 'of produce.--
(Hear, hear.) He asked the" faimers now present
what it was that was most wanted to the land of
England? They would tell him it was capital,
by which he meant, not sacks of money,
which would be useless, but more sheep—
five where there were now one, and three heads of
cattle where there were now one ; also better ploughs,
better harrows, and better under-draining in every
acre. That was the capital which they wanted; but
even that would be valueless unless it was allied with
-
labour to give it constant increase and production.—
(Cheers.) Now he asked how it was that there was
no capital on the land which was necessary for its
proper cultivation ? Why, in this country there was
at present a positive plethora of capital. Money was