The Sun.
London, England, 1844-10-28 00:00:00

What do we care what they do with their land—
(Hear)—whether they put down draining tiles or not ?
All we say is this, " If you do not make the most of
your land, it is no reason why we should be starving
that you may grow rushes."—(Cheers.) It is a gross
humbug, to use no milder term—(Much cheering)—on
the part of those who come forward at the agricultural
meetings, to glorify themselves about the mode in which
they choose to dispose of their private property.—
(Great laughter.) There is a gross delusion lurking
under it.—(Hear.) It is intended to make us believe
that we are indebted to them, and must wait until they
choose to supply us with our food—that it is something
like a condescension, or at least an act of favour on
their part, that they give us their food in exchange
for our manufactures.—(Hear, hear.) Now, what is the
reason that the land has not been improved before ?
Lord Stanley tells us here when these great improve-
ments began, and mark what he says :—" Even within
the last few years—within a much shorter time than
that which I have named—within the last four or five
years—l see strides which, small as they may be, com-
pared with what might be done, are gigantic, when com-
pared with what was done before." What was " done
before" ? What has been done " within the last four or
five years" ? Lord Stanley takes credit for agricultural
associations. Why, what have they been doing ? Up
to within the last year when did they condescend to talk
about the corn-laws ? From one end of the kingdom to
the other they were nothing but political clubs, for the
purpose of drawing the poor tenant-farmers together, in
order that they might be drilled by the land-agent, to be
made subservient at a future voting day ; and the whole
talk of these agricultural associations was, not about im-
proving the land, but maintaining protection to British
agriculture.—(Cheers.) And now what can these agri-
cultural associations do for agriculture ? They meet
once a year ; they generally have a man in the chair
who begins, as Lord Stanley does, by admitting his
practical ignorance of the subject upon which he is going
to dilate ; and the chairman is generally the man who
occupies three-fourths of the time of the meeting by his
speech.—(Hear, hear.) I have watched the proceed-
ings of these associations, and I have observed they have
had all sorts of people except farmers in the chair—
(Hear, hear)—and upon one occasion, in a part of Mid-
dlesex, I observe the late Attorney-General, the present
Chief Baron Pollock, was in the chair as president ; and
I must do him the justice to say (for he is a most candid
and excellent man) that he began his opening address by
declaring he did not know anything concerning what
they had met about.—(Loud laughter.) What have
these associations done for agriculture ? They assemble
men together once a year ; they bring prize cattle to be
exhibited ; they bring agricultural implements to be exa-
mined. Are improvements only to be sought for once
a year in agriculture ?—(Cheers.) Would that do for
manufactures ?—(Hear, hear.) Only think of a com-
mercial meeting once a year to see what our neighbours
are doing; whether there was any new machinery in-
vented ; or which of the hands bad discovered some new
process in calico printing 1 Would that once a year go
down, with the chance merely of finding something of
that sort ? Could not the farmers see what superior
farming there was to be seen by riding out every day in
the week to look over their neighbours' hedges ? Could
they not learn where the best breeds of cattle were to be
had from the advertisements of those who had them to
sell ? And could they not get the best agricultural im-
plements by writing for them any day by the penny post,
whether they were to be found in Manchester, London,
or Ipswich ?—(Hear.) The thing is a farce ; and when
my Lord Stanley takes credit to these agricultural asso-
ciations fur having improved agriculture during the last
five years, I say it is not due to those agricultural
associations, but to the Anti-Corn-law League.—(Great
applause.) It is owing to that that the agriculturists
and the landowners have been roused from their lethar-
gic sleep.—(Cheers.) They are buckling on their ar-
mour to meet the coming competition, which competi-
tion will do for them what nothing else will do, and what
it has done for manufactures—it will make the agricultu-
rists of this country capable of competing with the far-
mers of any part of the world.—(lmmense applause.)
They give up the whole case when they talk in this
way.—(Hear.) When they tell us what the land might
do, and what it ought to do, which they admit it has not
done, they plead guilty to all we have ever alleged
egainst them and their system of corn-laws.—(Hear.) I
ask this—Can they bring a Member of Parliament, a
theorist, into Manchester, with his books in hand, amid
can he suggest a single improvement in any of our pro-
cesses of manufacture, whether they are connected with
mechanical or chemical science ? No.—(Cheers.) I
went the otter day into several establishments with one
of the most eminent French chemists, a man renowned
in Europe ; he had nothing to say on visiting the dye
works or the print works of this neighbourhood, but to
express his unqualified admiration of the perfection to
which they had brought the arts among us.—(Cheers.)
Can they come here and say, as they say of themselves
in connextion with their industry, " you ought to pro-
duce three times as much as you produce from your ma-
chinery, for it is already done in other places which we
can name to you ?"—(llear.) No ! But what do they
say of their own land ? I have heard Mr. Ogilvy, who
was engaged by Mr. Brooke, of Mere, and other land-
lords of this and the neighbouring county, as superin-
tendent of their estates, declare—and he is willing to go
before a Committee of the House of Commons to prove
it—that Cheshire, if properly cultivated, is capable of
producing three times as much as it now produces from
its surface, and he is willing the statement should be
made public upon his authority, and there is no higher
authority in the kingdom.—(Cheers.) I say, whatever
improvement has been made in this respect, it is to the
Anti-Corn-law League we are indebted for it, and more
—the most bigotted of our opponents have made the ad
mission. Whilst they abhor the League. and detest its
principles, they have made the admission—" at all
vents," they say, " you have done good, and are doing
good to agriculture." I passed last year, about this
time, over to Knutsford, where I held a public meeting
close to the gates of Mr. Egerton, of Tatton. As I went
froin the railway station across to Knutsford, I rode at
least five or six miles through the estate of that large
proprietor, and I saw the land was in.the same state as
I believe it was at the time of the Conquest, and growing
just about as plentiful a supply of rushes as of grass.—
, ( [fear, hear.) It so happened that upon the day I was
addressing the meeting upon the race course at Knuts-
ferd, Mr. Egerton, of Tatton, was paying a visit to Man-
chester, to preside at the Manchester Agricultural As-
sociation—(hear, hear)—and I took the opportunity of
saying, in the course of my remarks, that I thought a
gentleman who had such an extent of territory as he
had, might be better employed in exterminating his
rushes, and setting a better example to his neighbours
at home, than in travelling to Manchester to preach up
improvements in agriculture.—(Hear, hear.) The other
day I met a gentleman who happened lately to be at
Knutsford, and he told me, that, whilst sitting at the inn,
there came in a number of neighbouring farmers, whose
conversation turned upon agriculture. In the course of
their conversation, one of them remarked, " What a deal
lof draining has been going on here since Cobden was
here blackguarding him about the rushes !"—(Cheers.)
We have, indeed, given them a fillip ; we have stirred
them up a little. But, gentlemen, if mere alarm of
the approach of free trade has done so much for
agriculture, what will free trade in corn itself do for it?
—(Cheers.) " Why," they say, "we should be an
sporting country if we only grew as much as we may
grow." .1
have no objection to it if, besides feeding the
e hole of the people as they ought to be fed—no short
commons I—(Cheers)—if besides feeding them well, they
could send four or five millions of quarters of corn
abroad, and bring us back tea and sugar, and such like
matters in addition. We shall then have no reason to
complain of the British agriculturist.—(Hear.) But
we do complain that, whilst they stop our supplies from
other countries, under pretence of benefitting agriculture,
they at the same time come before us at these meetings
of our own, and plead guilty to our charge that, under
this system of protection, they are not making the most
of their land.—(Hear, hear.) I speak my unfeigned
conviction—and we have the very best agriculturists
a ith us in that conviction—men like Lord Ducie, and
others, who are agriculturists by profession—when I say
I believe there is no interest in this country that would
receive so much benefit from the repeal of the corn-laws
us the farmer-tenant interest in this country.—(Cheers.)
And I believe, when the future historian comes to write
the history of agriculture, he will have to state, "In
such a year there was a stringent corn-law passed, for
the protection of agriculture.. From that time, agricul-
[tire slumbered in Engiand, and it was not until, by the
aid of the Anti-Corn-law League, that the corn-law was
utterly abolished, that agriculture sprung to its full
vigour and existence in England, and became what it
now is, like her manufactures, unrivalled in the world."
—(Loud cheers.) It is a gloomy and most discouraging
thought that, whilst this sy stem of corn-laws alterna-
tively starves the people in the manufacturing districts,
and then ruins the farmers, that it really in the end con-
fers no permanent benefit upon any class.—(Hear, hear.)
I told you in the beginning I did not believe the agri-
cultural labourer was now so badly off as he was when
corn was 70s. a quarter, but I will tell you where dis-
t.-ess in the agricultural districts is now. It is among
, the tenant-farmers themselves.—(Hear, hear.) They
are paying rent with wheat at 455. a quarter, which they
have bargained for at the calculation of wl.eat being 565.,
aid in many cases GOs. the quarter. It is owing to this
discrepancy in the prices that the tenant-farmers are now
s in g
le)
irl
arbeonutre out of
unable
to capital
employ; theyare
them—and dischargingtheirs
is the real distress now existing in the agricul-
tural districts. This state of things will not continue
either here or in the agricultural districts. What is
tne language which drops from these landlords at some
of their meetings ? It is, "We shall not very likely
have higher prices for corn this year ; we must wait for
b tter times ; we will give you back ten per cent. this
year." No permanent reduction, and why ? Because
they know that by the certain operation of this system,
in less than five years from this time, this wheel of for-
t .ne, or rather misfortune, will go round again ; you
e ill be at the bottom, and the farmer at the top, and will
have a heat again at 70e. or 80s. a quarter, giving thus
a pretended prosperity among the farmers. As sure
as you have had this revolution before, so sure will
you have it again. There is nothing in Sir Robert
Peel's corn-law to prevent the recurrence of similar
di. asters. The law is as complete a bar to legitimate
trade in corn as the old law was. I speak in the pre-
sence of merchants shipping to every quarter of the
globe, men who bring back the produce of every quarter
of the globe, and I put it to them whether, with this
sliding scale, they dare to order from a foreign country
a single cargo of wheat in exchange for the manufac-
tures which they sell ? This being the case— and it is
the whole case—you are not stimulating other countries
to provide fur your future wants, you are laying up
no store here, or stores abroad, and there will be a re-
currence of the disasters we have passed through.—
resmumr.eild
(After some further observations, the. Hon. Gentleman
Rhi seatTatm.pid,st enthusiastic cheers.)
enthusiastic eheerin
then stepped forward amidst mos
spokeeacast
z f e,l
eyeslu w s
over: cheerio', w
enteredhen thisit had subsided, he
the vast meeting, wrooasiet:-
todayn,zde

precisely the observation which you have already heard,
that this meeting may be taken as a token of the I
firm resolution which the inhabitants of this town and
district have come to, that, so long as there is an Asso-
ciation which has for its object the abolition of the corn-
law, so long will you be found amongst its warmest
supporters.—(llear.) And, although, just now, in this
district, there is not that imminent danger which we
have seen, and although some are disposed to argue
that, because we hare good harvests, therefore corn-
law repeal is not necessary, and that therefore no agi-
tation can be maintained, yet I am prepared here
to contend, that we are now in a better and more
advantageous position with respect to the carrying out
of our object than we have been at any former period ;
and, more than that, we may derive consolation and
delight from witnessing how beautifully, how har-
moniously the seasons are working round to carry con-
viction to the minds of the most bigotted, and to demon-
strata to the whole country and the world, that every
principle which we have propounded on this question is
well founded, and that experience constantly confirms it.
—(Applause.) We read of old of an invader and an
usurper, that the stars in their courses fought against
him; and may we not say, also, with respect to those
who invade the rights, the dearest rights of the popula-
tion of this country, who usurp a power to which they
have no just title—the power of feeding, or, if need be,
of starving a great empire—(Loud applause)—may I not
say that the seasons fight against them, and that year
after year, as it rolls over us, is but weakening their
power and strengthening that public opinion which we
are rallying as fast as we are able for the overthrow of
the worst species of tyranny with which any country
was ever cursed?—(Loud applause.) We are entering
the seventh year of our labours in this great cause, and
there may be some who at the thought of this may
despond. If there be any who have a right to despond,
or who may be forgiven if they feel faint-hearted, it is
surely those who have laboured hard in this cause ' • but
so far as the Council of the League are concerned, I can
state to this meeting and to the public, there never was
a time when they were more convinced that they were
right in the beginning and right now, and that in their
cause, as in all others, right must finally triumph.—
(Applause.) If you feel despondent upon this question,
think for a moment what it is you are fighting for. It is
For no paltry triumph of a faction. It is not to elevate
this mau or that man; or to set waving this flag, or to
pull that flag down. No; but you are fighting for one
of the greatest and the noblest causes which ever
united the exertions of any body of men; you are
fighting for the liberation of the industry of twenty-
seven millions of your fellow-countrymen, and not for
the liberation of their industry only, but as everything
that is established here becomes a fashion for the world,
you are also working out the liberation of the industry
of the whole human race, from all the tyranny which
monopoly in every clime and in every age has inflicted
upon it.—(Loud applause.) Six years ago this country,
and this district especially, had been passing through a
season of great commercial prosperity and of extraor-
dinary commercial excitement. At that period we found
this prosperity decaying, and this excitement being
changed into as extraordinary a depression. We were
led, as most men are led, who feel themselves getting
into danger, or in a dangerous position—we were led to
inquire why it was that this change was taking place.
We knew that Adam Smith had written, and that other
men had propounded the great doctrines of free trade,
and we knew that there were laws upon our statute-
book which in every sense infringed those great prin-
ciples. We had not, however, had our attention so
directed to this question, as to make much ado about it,
until danger was at our door. We then began to in-
quire, and we came rapidly, but still .most surely and
safely, and, I believe, wisely to the conclusion, that the
cause and the source of the miseries which then threat-
ened this district was to be found in an Act of Parlia-
ment which did not hesitate to starve the people and to
cripple commerce, merely for the aggrandisement of a
class to whom your class would seem to be of no value,
and who despise commerce from their very hearts.—
(Applause.) Well, we pointed out the cause. It is of
no use living in a free country unless the free man has
the right to advise the people when he finds anything
wrong in the public affairs of the nation.—(Cheers.)
We advised our countrymen that the source of their
evils was in the corn-law. We pointed out how,
during the good harvests of 1834, 1835, and 1836
prosperity had increased, and how the moment
that we were deprived of good harvests, the very
first season, this prosperity received a very sensible
check, and we began to go from that to the other ex-
treme of depression and embarrassment. But monopoly
refused to believe. So it always has done, and so it al-
ways will.—(hear, hear.) There is :nothing harder—
no, the nether millstone is not to be compared in hard-
ness to the heart of monopoly.—(Applause.) Monopoly
never believes till it is grasped in earnest, and compelled
to disgorge.—(Applause.) Monopoly did not believe us,
but made a variety of excuses, some of which had some
little effect at that time, but now appear to be simply
childish; and those persons who did predict in their
favour must be very sorry that what they said was ever
written or printed.—(Applause.) They said that menu-
eactures were subject to great fluctuations. Well, that is
quite true, in this country, so far as our experience of
the last thirty years goes, and so far as our experience
of the period before that goes. But then the time before
the last thirty years was almost a continual course of
war, which interferes with the regular course of industry ;
and since the war the corn-law has also interfered with
the regular course of industry; and we have no proof
whatever that any such fluctuations as we have suffered
arose from the nature of things, but rather from the
violent interference with the nature of things which has
been inflicted upon us by war in one case, and by legis-
lative interference in the other.—(Applause.) Well,
and they had the audacity to say, also, that we were
badly off because we competed with each other. Why,
if we had not competed with each other, we should have
had no prosperity at all.—(Applause.) They said there
are too many people come to Manchester Exchange,
and they bid against each other. We said, " There do
not come too many to sell, but there come too few to
buy."—(Applause.) Why, there is more competition
now on Manchester Exchange than there was
then, as far as the number of sellers is con-
cerned, and the entire of the quantity sold is cnm-
cerned; but there are more buyers than there were
then, and those who buy are buying in larger quanti-
ties, while they give a little more for their goods.—
(Applause.) They said, ton, that machinery was the
cause of our calamity ; and Sir Robert Peel—l call him
in this respect a great little man—did stoop to a mean-
ness utterly unworthy of a man occupying the position
which he occupies—that of attempting to spread this
delusion amongst the people, and amongst the working
classes. Such a notion must be very dangerous—that
machinery and improvement in machinery were the
causes of so many of the labouring population of this
district being thrown out of employment.--(llear, hear.)
And is it not notorious that there is more machinery at
work Mow than ever in this district ? is it not notorious
that it is more perfect, costly, and exquisitely finished
than ever it was before ? Is it not notorious that it is
turning out a greater quantity of work for the same
amount of wages and of manual labour than before ?
And yet, for all this, there are no persons turned out of
employment now by the invention of new machinery,
and without anything being done to remove these par-
ticular causes to which they have attributed our distress.
—(Applause.) Some of them had the effrontery to say
that this •state of things arose from a greatly extended
foreign trade, and the columns of some of the monopo-
list newspapers were filled with arguments—no, not
with arguments, but with assertions—to prove that if
we only stick to our home trade and our colonial trade,
we should be extremely well off. And is it not
notorious that these very people, the moment the
China war ceased, and the China trade was thrown
open to us, began to rejoice in the' extension of
our foreign trade, and have all along attributed
a considerable portion of our prosperity to the
opening of that foreign trade ? We have more
foreign trade now than we had three or four years ago.
This year there has been a great extension of export in
almost every staple article of British manufacture ; and
yet, notwithstanding the increase of this evil, to which
the monopolists pointed us, we find we have a return of
prosperity.—(Hear.) Then, they said again, that one
great cause of the evil was, that there was so much agi-
tation in the country. I have no doubt at all that their
uneasiness arose from that source.—(Applause,) But
it must be borne in mind, that during the last two years,
during the latter period of 1843, at any rate, and the
beginning of this year, the agitation in favour of the
repeal of the corn-yaw was carried on with more energy
than it had been at any former period ; and yet, during
the time that the agitation was increasing in intensity,
the cause of the evils in their eyes being increased, still
the evil was gradually diminishing, and we were return-
ing to prosperity at a rate none of the slowest.—(Ap-
plause.) Well, now, it is worth remarking that not a
single cause to which monopoly ascribed our distress has
been removed, and yet the distress itself, in this district,
has, to a very great extent, vanished.—(Applause.)
Well, I should suppose, then, the monopolists were mis-
taken, but I dare say they won't acknowledge it, and if
people won't swallow the things that were said two or
three years ago, they'll have a new stock for you, and
if you are not intelligent and inquiring some may
be taken in with their new excuses. But what
did we say with respect to the distress ? The
very first time that the Manchester Chamber of
Commerce met, or the very first time that the associa-
tion met, which afterwards became the Anti-Corn-
law League, the corn-law was pointed out as the cause of
the distress, and we have never varied a hair's-breadth
from it from that. time to this.—( Applause.) Well, the
distress has abated, and the corn-law is not repealed,
and therefore my argument with respect to the monopo-
listh a v e eceaxol
cewuuniadrs3ne.
bss
lesamaawibid,guhbtnhtydaabwtneihtfitacuwnhrnedfeohedoand"ii‘
aggei!odisdrthimfabrwev,eeasolthitlitsluiaidnyebdittyn,h,
norwacttt.
hdtel
fo.ofodth
a ttiaonntaou theun t
corn-law
to
ran
-law ; temporaryaii
and under
aboli-
tion,cheap, then the distress would abate. We
a repeal of the corn-law, but we have had abundant
harvests, e
os trs ,a andgre a
tthat l
relaxation
this the distress has abated, and prosperity has returned.
—(Applause.) Well, now, I consider our case to be
tolerably well proved. I think, if we take twelve men
from any county in England, not excepting even Buck-
inghamshire, and put them into a jury-box, and have
an impartial man from any country in the world to try
the cause, and we bring the facts and arguments which
we have bronght before the public of this country be-
fore those twelve men, I think they would have no dif-
ofifeutlhtye isnuffmaking s uwphitchheirthmisinddisstrai
set,toan tdh e
the real
p cpauul
as e.
tion of the country generally, have endured during the
last five or six years. Then, if our case has been
proved, and if we have all that from the past, what
shall we say of the future ? You have been told al-
ready, that it would be a proof that you had not capacity
equal to the level of ordinary instinct if you were to for-
get what is past, to disregard the lesson it has taught
you, and to'neglect to prepare for the future. The Pro-
vidence which has given two or three good harvests, may
give us one, or two, or three more; but we must bear in