The Sun.
London, England, 1844-03-25 00:00:00

N*bienius ~-itiv.

LONDON, MONDAY, MARCH 25, 1844.

The most convincing proof of the effects of the
anti-corn-law agitation is to be found in the part
which the farmers themselves are now taking against
the corn-laws. When tenant-farmers come forward,
as at the last League meeting at Covent-garden
Theatre, and denounce the corn-laws as the cause of
great injustice to the farmer, bringing practical ex-
perience to bear upon this question, and supporting
theory, by their own personal knowledge of facts,
can there be any doubt of the progress of free trade
opinions? Two "bond fide real live tenant-farmers,"
as Mr. COBDEN described them, detailing the injury
vhich the corn-laws inflict, upon the very class, for
whose especial benefit the landlords tell us, they are
designed, and claiming relief from that very
protection which the so-called " farmers' friends" will
insist upon keeping around them. Save me from
my friends, is now the feeling of the tenant-farmer,
and this expression of that feeling, publicly and
openly, at the great League meetings is but the com-
;mencement of a long train of evidence to confirm
the testimony of two as practical and as truth-telling
farmers as England can produce.
There is yet another class of men who are, as the
tonopolists labour to make them believe, interested
in the continuance of the corn-laws—the farm-la-
bourers. Some of that much benefited class will, ere
long, ss e trust, be found to describe to the
vatbile the great mercies and kindnesses for
which they are indebted to the corn-laws. To show
the external appearance as to clothes and habiliments
which the protection afforded to their labour enables
them to assume—to prove by actual fact the amount
,Pceived by them for their protected labour, and to
esi:ibit the actual remuneration received in hard coin
for ti: at labour—to tell of the comfortable furniture
which is to be found in their habitations, and the
abundant supply of nutritious food, which their
wives and children share with them, and to explain
how " a hold peasantry, their country's pride," are
vfllued, comforted, esteemed, and assisted, by
the agricultural protectionist, who aims at pro.
clueing' so much good for the farm-labourer, as
well as The tenant-farmer. And if the farm-
labourer, should show decayed and worn-out
garments, as his best clothes—eight shillings a-week
as his earnings—should speak of his mud-walled
cottage of two rooms, as the only abode for his
family of many children, with scant supply of furni-
ture and bedding—and should state, that the taste of
o.;inal food is almost unknown to himself or
chatlren—can there be any doubt that if this be his
con dition now, with the corn-laws, he could not be
much worse, without them? The mercury is down
point, now—it could not go lower, then.
to starvas'ion
The tena Tit-farmer wants no corn-laws; but he
does want ste.qdY markets, and good customers, for
his produce, and those he can only find at home.
'The corn-laws spoil iris market, by making his cus-
tomers poor, and unable to give that price, and con-
stole that quantity of his produce, which unrestricted
conunerce, flourishing trade, and profitable employ-
ment would afford.

The farm-labourer wants no corn-laws ; but he
does want a fair rate of wages, constant employment,
cheap provisions and clothing. The corn-laws de-
press the rate-' of wages by the uncertainty they cause
in the markets ;P prevent employment by checking
:improved cultivation of the land ; raise the price of
Tx)visions, and thus curtail his ability to find means
-of purchasing the necessaries of life.

The Monopolists still continue to hold their pro-
eorn-law meetings, but they excite little or no public
interest—they attract no crowds—they collect no
vast public subscriptions—and they adduce no new
„arguments that will hear the test of even an ordinary
fe.xamination. Though we hear of them haranguing
th, lir dependents and tenant-farmers, now in this
con, nty, and now in that, yet few, even of their own
orgaos, pay much attention to what they say ; and
their vmost indignant bursts €f eloquence against their
poweital adversaries may be said, without exaggera-
tion, to make as little impression on the public mind
as if they were so many direct arguments in
favour of the five points of the Charter. How
idiferent is the case when the League hold their
!meclings at Covent-garden Theatre ! Though
these meetings occur once in every seven days
yet so far are they from becoming stale and weari-
some by such frequent repetition, that the public in-
terest Atached to them grows more lively every week;

and vast crowds are constantly turned away from the
doors of the theatre wherein they are held, disap-
pointed in their hopes of obtaining admission.. While
the Monopolists, with Dukes and Lords, and Heaven
knows how many wealthy landowners in their train,
can scarcely find an audience in the provinces—ex-
cept, indeed, among their own immediate dependents,
who dare not, however they might desire it, absent
themselves the League cannot find the means
of accommodating the hundreds who desire to
attend their meetings, notwithstanding that
those meetings are held weekly for the express pur-
pose of giving as many as possible an opportunity of
hearing the arguments in favour of a system of free,
unrestricted trade. We have been led to these re-
marks by the circumstance of a county meeting
having just taken place in Roxburghshire, at which,
though the Monopolists appear to have mustered in
larger force than is usual with them, yet, so far as
we can learn, infinitely fewer people were present
than have attended any one meeting of the League
at Covent Garden since the commencement of the
session. The tone held at this gathering of the
Roxburgh Monopolists was a singularly tame and
subdued one, clearly indicating that the party feel
by no means secure of their position, notwithstanding
the recent declaration of the Government in their
behalf. To be sure, Sir JOHN PRINGLE congra-
tulated his hearers on the manner in which Ministers
had lately spoken out on the corn-law question; but
there was not the slightest earnestness or exultation
in his language, nor did the meeting seem to evince—
if we may judge from the reports—the slightest feel-
ing on the subject. Lord POLWARTH, who followed
the worthy Baronet, observed, by way of explaining
the reasons why so many Monopolist gather-
ings, have recently been got up—" it may
be necessary to reflect upon the circum-
stances now affecting the agricultural interest
throughout the country at large. It is not that there
is the slightest want of confidence in the people to-
wards the Government at the head of affairs; but it
is because there is a body who have united for dis-
seminating their own views—a body who are actuated
by views which, if not purely selfish, are certainly
dictated by ignorance, and arise from those who hold
them not being aware of the extent of mischief they
are inculcating. But it is not only that they wish to
spread that view throughout the country,but it is because
they have openly promulgated that you, the tenantry,
have coincided with them in-opinion. It is for that
reason so many meetings have lately been held." To
say nothing of the sheer absurdity of his Lordship
taunting the League with being ignorant of the
nature and working of the corn-laws—just as if
those were not most likely to be best acquainted
with the extent and character of an evil who have
been among the deepest sufferers by it !—with what
justice and propriety can his Lordship deny the fact,
that the strong practical arguments of the League
have made, within the last year, numerous proselytes
among the English tenantry ? Have not Messrs. Con-
DEN and BRIGHT, in the course of their recent visits to
the agricultural provinces, found some of their warmest
admirers among the farmers ? Have they not made eager
converts even in Duke-ridden Bucks ; and even in
Dorsetshire, under the very nose of Mr. BANKES,
found many of the tenantry reading their pamphlets
and circulars with the most diligent and respectful
attention ? These things admit of no doubt—they
are matters of public notoriety ; and equally indis-
putable is it—whatever the Monopolists, for obvious
reasons, may choose to allege to the contrary—that
many of our most enlightened farmers are daily be-
coming more and more convinced of the injustice and
impolicy of the corn-laws.

As the eventful day approaches, on which the ques-
tion of renewing the Charter of the Bank of England,
—the conditions upon which such renewal shall be
granted,—and the preliminary steps to be adopted by
Government,—are to be discussed in Parliament,
the public expect, with reasonable curiosity, some
manifesto of the Premier's views and intentions upon
the subject. Committees of London bankers, of
joint-stock, and country bankers have hitherto
vainly endeavoured to elicit, by various deputations
admitted to conferences with the First Lord of the
Treasury, his real purpose. All, that they could get
from him has been—a profusion of his cold but bland
common-places; unmeaning official intimations "that
the Government is not yet committed to any parti-
cular course; that it will reserve its judgment until
it shall have had an opportunity of hearing all which
can be urged, on all sides, for or against the renewal,
on the present terms enjoyed by the Corporation in
question." What the " inclination of his opinion" (to
use one of the odd but not ineffective phrases of poor
Lord CASTLEREAGH) may be, is not matter, it seems,
to be trusted as yet to the profane world. " Manet
alts mente repostum." A report has got abroad, and
a Morning Contemporary has almost vouched its
official authenticity, that the Premier intends
to crown his gigantic labours, of five-and
twenty years ago, in paralysing the commer-
cial energies of this country, and all the main
principles of our social development and pros-
perity, by recommending to the Legislature the
total "repeal" and withdrawal of 11. and 21. bank-
notes throughout Scotland, and the establishment of
a single bank of issue. We can make great allow-
ances for Sir ROBERT'S indignation at the provoking
contumacy of the Scotch, in having not only suc-
cessfully resisted the discipline of his PROCUSTES-•
bed-like standard of 1819—upon which he lopped off,
without mercy, the redundant proportions of English
monetary prosperity; but—in having steadily extended
all the operations, sustained the enterprise, and re-
warded the laborious processes of their agricultural
industry, by upholding the anathematised small notes,
and thereby avoided the frightful panics and desola-
lation of the great commercial crises which have, on
three or four subsequent occasions, filled London with
mourning and desolation, and diffused insolvency and
discontent to the remotest corners of the land. The
idea of a single bank of issue for a country like this
—of such intrinsic wealth, with so enormous a mass
of invested capital, and the daily operations of whose
domestic intercourse, home trade, and foreign com-
merce, are represented by so vast a floating circula-
tion such an idea seems fraught with in-
herent absurdity. It is not the less consistent
on that account, however, as one of the regulating
principles of any scheme of currency that may
be projected by the artificer of that glittering cheat—
the gold standard legislation of 1819. We re-pub-
lished, last week, a portion of an article in the
Bankers' Circular of the 16th ultimo, containing a
well-deserved eulogium on the merits and services
of that fine example of a first-rate English merchant
and an upright public man, the late Mr. JEREMIAH
IIARMAN :—" He it was," says the writer of the ar-
ticle in question, " who composed and tendered that
celebrated remonstrance against the impending mis-
chief with which the Act of 1819 was charged, and
which drew forth the undignified sneers of Lords
GRENVILLE and LIVERPOOL, and Mr. ITUSKlSSON—
presumptuous men, who dealt with a case of which
they were totally ignorant, in defiance and contempt
of the remonstrances of those who practically knew
all." This premature determination of the case by
such judges, on incomplete and unqualified testi-
mony-, formed the subject (we well remember) of the
honest and manly protest against the currency mea-
sure, then about to be debated, which the father of the
Premier, the first Sir ROBERT PEEL, pronounced in
the House of Commons, on presenting the petition of
the merchants and bankers of London against it. In
alluding to the evidence taken before the Currency
Committee, the late Sir R. PEEL said (May 24, 1819)
—" The men best qualified to judge of the matter had
not been consulted Looking at the re-
port, he had found only witnesses who were not
likely to give the Government any information. The
most able had been left out, not consulted, and totally
disregarded."
The Bankers' Circular, therefore, might justly
have added the present Sir ROBERT PEEL to his
" presumptuous" trio of surely the most unfortunate
" money brokers" and " money changers" (Heaven
knows !) who ever dealt with the whole scheme of
a country's currency. Our Premier, too, was one of
the economic philosophers of Lord LIVERPOOL'S
school, which session after session arraigned the
bounty of PROVIDENCE itself, by charging on " re-
dundant production and excessive harvests," those con-
vulsive and fatal derangements of our domestic pros-
perity, which were solely attributable to their em-
pirical, crotchetty, and reckless passion for drugging
the country with their own pestilent nostrum. The
country, like a stout yeoman-patient, was neve:
better than when the State quacks of the day com-