The Sun.
London, England, 1844-09-10 00:00:00

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HISTORY OF THE LE 1C IJE.

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THE SPEECH OF AUGUSTUS STiIFFORD
O'BRIEN, Esq., Member for North Northampton-
shill., in the House of Commons, Wednesday, June
26, 1844, in the Adjourned Debate on the lion. C. P.-
Villiers's Motion fur a Repeal of the Corn-laws. iSik,A.aribi
William Blackwood and Sons, London and Edinburgh.
1844. Pp. 28. Published for the Agricultural Pro-
tection Society.
We have often thought that a concise and accurate
history of the League would be both interesting and
useful. A narrative of the rise and progress of an
association, whose avowed object is the removal of all
restrictions upon commerce, in perfect confidence that
the consummation of their labours would produce
employment, and diffuse comfort and happiness
amongst the great body of the people, would neces-
sarily contain matter for anxious inquiry and solemn
reflection. But that a " History of the League"
should be published for the Agricultural Protection
Society, bearing the respectable, yet imposing names
of Messrs. Blackwood, containing only a speech of
Augustus Stafford O'Brien, Esq., M.P., in the House
of Commons, albeit carefully prepared, and afterwards
revised and corrected by himself and his colleagues of
the Publication Committee, was indeed prefer .cpcm!
We do like the "litera scripta manet" principle.
To all public speakers " just allowances" must and
ought to be made. A fertile imagination ; the ap-
plause of a listening audience ; the excitement of
rude or impatient antagonists, sometimes betray the
practised orator into exuberant metaphor, complacent
confidence, and rash or unconsidered declarations.
But when the lucubrations of calm contemplation
(and such this speech undoubtedly is) have undergone
revision and correction, and are issued to the world for
profit or for fame, Avg...and all have a right to scru-
tinise, to test, to compare, and, if need be, to deny, to
contradict, and to expose. This principle Mr. O'Brien
has largely applied to the speakers and writers of the
League; for about three-fifths of the publication be-
fore us consist of extracts from the circulars and
papers of that body.
To those who have read, in the Parliamentary,re-
ports of the day, the speech of Mr. Stafford
O'Brien, as it was delivered in the debate on
Mr. Villiers's motion, little had been said of this
pamphlet beyond calling attention to the affected im-
portance of its title. But as the Publication Com-
mittee have probably destined this favourite produe-
of their chairman to bear upon the title-page of some
future edition the stately announcement of " seven-
tieth Thousand," a dignity already conferred by
them upon the work of a Fleet-street tradesman,*
we should be wantin:, in respect to the "Member for
North Northamptonshire" if we were not to do what
in us lies to ascertain the validity of his claim to such
extensive notoriety.
Few readers will take up this reprint of Mr.
O'Brien's harangue without being prepared for dis-
gust or entertainment in a competent proportion of
abuse of the League, nor do we think that either
class will he disappointed. And inasmuch as the ob-
ject of this publication is to describe the character,
conduct, and proceedings of the League, we will
commence our notice of the literary part of Mr.
O'Brien's work, with his description of the members
of this pernicious confederation' :
" Take one of our modern philosophers ; one of
those men with just knowledge or rather sciolism
sufficient to addle their heads and harden their hearts;
men who have learned so very little, and that little
so. very badly, as to be actually ignorant of their
own ignorance ; who are ever ready to spring to an
abstract remedy to prescribe for a complex case ; who,
untaught by the consequences of a thousand errors,
continue still to dogmatise and blunder; men to
wham experience comes in vain, and to whom time
only adds obstinacy to error ; who, without the least
power of seeing into the life and truth of things, are
ever enamoured of some tawdry theory, and ready at
all hazards to embrace it ; who never looking high,
or deep, or far, are perpetually patching and re-
daubing their systems, which are as perpetually
splitting and cracking, falling to pieces and
passing into infinite nothingness as soon as ever
practical life comes near them with its touchstone; and
who reject nothing except toleration towards those
who differ from them, and veneration towards those
who hare gone before them. These are the men—it
were easy to mention more of their characteristics—
of whom Napoleon said, Give them power, and
they will grind the happiness of any nation to pow-
der and lam sorry that the Noble Lord (Howick),
with his abilities, with his earnest convictions, and
with his honest purposes, should for a moment lend
himself to them; for their power would be the weak-
ness of our country, and their ascendancy would peril
he existence of all we hold best and dearest in it."

We believe there is no class in society, from the
Peer who makes the laws, to the peasant who suffers
by them ; from the merchant who imports the pro-
duce of foreign climes, to the handicraftsman and me-
chanic whose labour moulds that produce into a ser-
viceable form ; from the landowner whose rent-roll
is his boast, to the tiller of the soil who starves amidst
the plenty he brings forth; which has not sent forth
its numbers to swell the ranksof the League. Bishops
we believe there are none, but of ministers of the Gos-
pel a goodly array; and, in our cursory glance, we
have also noticed the names of officers of rank in
the army and navy, physicians, and barristers.
This varied band, amounting in numbers, if we
mistake not, to very many thousands, must be
especially grateful to Mr. O'Brien for hie
estimate of their learning, knowledge, principles,
and conduct. Difference of opinion may exist upon
any subject of general or national interest, without
imputing to the one side or the other "impudent in-
terference," " insulting arrogance," "impertinent
presumption," or a wish to " destroy the institutions
of the country." All these expressions, and others of
a similar tendency, are to be found in Mr. O'Brien's
pamphlet ; and possibly we may hereafter find reason
to regret that he should have deliberately indulged in
language of calumny and vituperation towards older
and wiser, if not better, men than himself.
In the commencement of his speech, the Honour-
able Member for Northamptonshire trusted that, as
the corn-law was the subject of the debate, the House
would excuse him if he confined himself more strictly
to it than Lord Howick had done. Those who came
to listen, and to learn or to judge, would reasonably
expect from a Member on that " side of the House,'
after such a preface, some reasoning and argument in
opposition to the motion of the Member for Wolver-
hampton, tending to prove the policy and prudence,
or at least the expediency, of the corn-law as a mea-
sure of general benefit and utility, founded upon the
advantages which the nation, or " the agriculturists as
a class," have derived from them since the termination of
the war. In the address of a Member who could
" scarcely imagine a more noble office than that of
a statesman devoting himself to the examination of
the vast question of the people's food ;" in a debate in
which that vast question was the only subject, some
of the results of his " ability, knowledge, and experi-
ence," might have been brought forward with peculiar
fitness ; but throughout a lengthened speech, not one
passage in favour of the corn-law can be found, ex-
cept the following trite remarks :—" The arguments,
Sir, in favour of the principle of protection have
been repeated in this House as often as the question
has been brought forward. The particular burdens
upon land; the necessity of being independent of
foreigners for a supply of food ; the desirableness of
maintaining agriculturists as a class in the important
position they now occupy; the perils of so vast an. ex-
periment in the face of all experienceiinctehinesge the
against
eainst
reasons which, in my mind, are col
the abolition ofoiy neouors;
corn-laws. I do
that to other
minds do not say not say that
they are the o
minds they are the best ones."
Upon this text, often as we have heard it, Mr.
O'Brien might have expatiated. The opportunity
was afforded him of furnishing the public with
information which has long been sought.
The nature of " the particular burdens upon land,"
Ro-
bert Peel; the county rates and the malt duty, accord-
ingwhether they be the poor-rates, according to Sir
to Lord John Russell ; or the hop duty, land tax,
and
tithes, according to others; the manner and the
proportion
in which all or any of these burdens press
peculiarly on the agricultural interest, and the rea-
son why one class of persons in a community should
be protected at the expense of the remainder, would
have been listened to and read with attention. These
are points on which information would be valuable, be-
cause it would be new ; for no author or orator has
hitherto made out even a prima facie case in favour
of protection on the ground of any one or all of the so
called peculiar burdens. ‘
fo-
reigners" has become a by‘iveNndependnc
ord ,• the
ee of
arguments
against it are as well understood as the plainest
aphorism, whilst those which have been brought
forward in its support have fallen into disuse by
absolute inanition. But " the desirableness of main-
taining agriculturists as a class, in the important
position they now occupy" is a phrase (but no more
than a phrase) deserving more notiicee.
allude
whom does Mr. O'Brien here speak ? floes
S
doubt-
to tenant-farmers and farm. labourers ?
!they
will alas • ey
and form two very important classes.
less are agriculturists in the proper sense Tor the term,
' Dieoes -t,he im.
of the " position they now occupy
will look around in vain to discover, tBI importance
produce,s occasioned
hie
sipos t:ion consist in the
p uncertaintyortan ce of tohle
ttheie price
fer
nished, and his fields
d► Alr.. O'Brien defends ?
io having
which
he
dares neither
ravaged by animals h
by these
that produce
capital in land, the possession use nor destroy
session of which he may
? In the investment of his
be deprived of be knows not how soon, or for what
without return 2
capricious or fortuitous reason,.
submit to by accepting an occasional allowance in
re-
turn or recompense . the degradation he must

Seventieth Thousand. Corn Laws. An Appeal to
Tradesmen in Town and Country, by One of Themselves.
London: John 01livier, 59, Pall-mall, 1814. (N.B. Sold
by the Avieultural Protection society,_ D.)