The Sun.
London, England, 1844-01-29 00:00:00

mighty improvements that have been made in
agriculture, the work of the British farmer, is plain,
from the consideration that an increase of population,
without a corresponding increase of the independent
means of supporting that population, is a movement
towards weakness and not towards trength.
With these views, we shall not, as we hope, be
suspected of carping ill-naturedly at anything con-
nected with the agricultural meetings in progress ;
but, as the truth is always best to be told, we
must say that in our opinion they are making a great
deal too much of the Anti-Corn-law League. We
know that many persons are induced to join the
agricultural meetings by a fear of the conspiracy ;
and that representing that conspiracy as contemp-
tible as it really is, we run a risk of retard-
ing the agricultural organisation at which we re-
joice as much as any one; but an experience, not
of the shortest, has convinced us that though it
may not be always most profitable to the speaker
to tell the truth, it is always most profitable to the
hearer to have the truth told; and the truth is that
the League is utterly despicable—altogether unworthy
of the fears of the farmers ,of Great Britain. The
Leaguers say that they have subscribed money. We
doubt that they have subscribed more than a mere
trifle—enough to print a few tracts, hire a few lecturers,
and pay a year's rent for a few plaistered houses. The
principle of their union is to cheat, and why should
we doubt that they cheat in the details by which they
try to establish that principle ? But suppose that they
have collected as much money as they pretend, what
then ? Money may be, and no doubt it is, their deity ;
but it is not the idol of the British people. They can-
not hope to buy twenty millions with one hundred
thousand pounds. Again, the League was avowedly
formed upon the model of the Irish Repeal Associa-
tion. Mr. Cobden boasted himself the English O'Con-
nell. We do not dispute some points of resemblance,
but they happen to be such as are now under the as-
say process of a judicial iuquiry, and it is therefore not
proper to allude to them. And suppose the imita-
tion complete—suppose the League an exact copy
of the Repeal Association. The original bubble has
been burst by Mr. Smith's strong right hand, and
its fate shows the hollowness and fragility of the
imitation. Whatever the fate of the trials, the
Repeal agitation is dead for ever, and the " League"
must soon follow in the course of nature. In con-
ceding to the League, however, a vigour and vitality
equal to those of the Repeal Association, we have
conceded enormously too much. The Repeal Asso-
ciation found prepared to their hands that complete
organisation which the Leaguers have been vainly
labouring to imitate, even at a distance. The Re-
peal Association had a principle pervading, and
as it were, saturating at least three provinces
of Ireland. The League have no such prin-
ciple. The Repeal Association is thus in Ire-
land everywhere—the League is in England no-
where, except in some house in Manchester and in
the corner house of Water-lane ; for the " Punch
and Judy" übiquity of its tumblers, hired from
the Judge and Jury Court, cannot be gravely said
to constitute " a local habitation " anywhere. To
treat the thing as in any respect formidable is a
cheat, though it may be an unconscious one ; and it
is a cheat in extending which we exhort the speakers
at agricultural meetings not to assist. They may
make a danger by raising the League from its proper
state of contempt ; but in that state the League will
perish if they do not relieve it by the honour of their
notice.

LEAGUE FUND.
GREAT MEETING IN THE CITY OF YORK.

YORK, JAN. 25.—A deputation from the Anti-Corn-law
League, consisting of Messrs. Cobden, Bright, and Colonel
Thompson, visited this city for the first time this evening. The
Festival Concert-room, in which the meeting was held, and
which is calculated to hold about 2,000 persons, was entirely
filled by a highly respectable auditory, amongst whom were a
large number of the Society of Friends.
Soon after six o'clock, Mr. Edward Smith, steel manufac-
turer, of Sheffield, who had been specially invited, was unani-
mously called to the chair, amidst tremendous cheering.
The CHAIRMAN said that those who lived in a city where
the doctrines of free trade were about to be propounded for the
first time, naturally must feel some little hesitation in coming
forward as decided partisans, until they had learnt a little more
of the principles upon which these doctrines were founded. He
then took a general review of free trade principles, of which he
declared himself a decided advocate, and concluded by intro-
ducing to the meeting
Colonel THOMPSON, who was received with cheers. He
said he had no doubt that he had -been called upon to fol-
low the Chairman, in consideration of his near connexion
with the city. Thirty-three years ago he carried off one
of the best and fairest of the daughters of old Ebor and
that he considered the best and the moat gallant action of
his life. He said he could not be charged with any personal
consideration in his advocacy of free trade ; he had no long
chimneys, being, if he belonged to any particular class, a land-
owner. The question for the meeting was whether it was
possible to increase the gain of commerce by any act of mono-
poly. He contended it was not possible, and went at length
into arguments to establish his position. The protective
system was nothing more nor less than an encouragement for
one party to rob another.
Mr. Coital( was next introduced, and was received with
tremendous cheers. He confined himself exclusively to show-
ing the benefits that must result to agriculture from entire
freedom of trade. He asked the agriculturists to look at their
own affairs, and to think for themselves. His excellent obser-
vations were most attentively listened to.
Mr. BRIGHT was also loudly cheered. He seemed to be la-
bouring under severe indisposition. In the course of his long
and eloquent speech he denied that land in this country was cul •
tivated to its utmost extent, and instanced the large tracts which
existed in various places, and which appeared as if they were kept
for the exclusive purpose of growing rushes and thistles. Lord
Ashley had taken great pains to stigmatise the character of men ot
his (Mr. Bright's) order, and he had employed men to pick up
the particulars of every case which they could of injuries re-
sulting from machinery, in order to publish them to the world.
Some day, not far distant, perhaps, certain revelations would
be made on the subject. There were, it was true no long chim-
ney in Dorsetshire, and there the agricultural labourers wore
not earning more than 6s. a week ; indeed, he knew a respect-
able man at Poole, who recently informed him that he would
undertake to find 150 able-bodied labourers, who would cheer-
fully work for ss. a week. Their cottages defied all attempts
at description ; they were destitute of every comfort, and even
of decency. The land in the district was probably the
worst cultivated of any in the country, and this was the place
held up by Lord Ashley as superior to the manufacturing dis-
tricts. Mr. Bright also alluded to the harsh language made
use of by Mr. Busfeild Ferrand against the manufacturers, and
related an anecdote respecting a Somersetshire traveller, a strict
Conservative, who, in the course of a business transaction with
him at Rochdale, stated that he believed every word Mr. Fer-
rand had said about the manufacturers. He had taken that
gentleman through his own factory, which he viewed with great
interest, as he had not been in one before; he was silent, how-
ever, and the only exclamation he made use of was at the time
he was taking his leave, when he shook him (Mr. Bright) cor-
dially by the hand, and said, " Mr. Ferrand ought to be burnt
alive." Mr. Bright resumed his seat amidst great cheering.
After a fruitless attempt of some Chartists to create a dis-
turbance, the subscriptions were announced. Mr. Harris, a
member of the Society of Friends, gave s')/., and Dr. Rawden
201. ; other sums were given, the whole reaching about 1151....
a fair start for an agricultural district.
Thanks were then voted to the deputation and the chairman,
and the meeting broke up about eleven o'clock.

GREAT MEETING AT SHEFFIELD.
(From the Sheffield Iris.)
On Wednesday, a meeting was held in the Cutlers' Hall,
Sheffield, to hear a deputation from the League: The opening
of the proceedings was delayed for some time by Mr. Cobden's
non-arrival (rem - underland ; but the delay did not put the
meeting out of humour with the Hon. Gentleman. The chair
was taken by Edward Smith, Esq.
A letter was read from Mr. Parker, Member for the borough,
apologising for his absence on account of the dangerous illness
of a very near and valued relation.
The CHAIRMAN, in alluding to the deputation from the
Anti-Corn-law League, said that many who once doubted were
now disposed te admit that the principles advocated by the
League were abstr.ctedly just, and also the dictates of common
sense. After referring to the meetings now getting up by
those who called themselves the farmers' friends, the Chair-
man said there were individual duties devolving upon every
one ; and no man had a right to sit indolently by and
leave the working out of the question to others.—
(Hear, hear.) Had they not been suffering enough in
Sheffield, for the last air or five years, that they were to
have the markets of North America and the Brazils taken
from them again by. bad legislation, and not lift up their hands
and their voices against it ? Some parties were for settling the
question at issue by a moderate fixed duty. He considered that
It was an injustice to tax the labouring man, and he trusted
that their representatives would speak in terms of indignity
and remonstrance against any such proceeding. Feeling
greatly interested himself, he should now take up no more of
their time, but would call upon Mr. Cobden to address the
meeting.
Mr. COBDIEH, M.P., addressed the meeting in an able
speech, of which we can only find room for one passage. He
agreed with the Chairman, that those who entertained strong
free trade questions must not look for others to do the work.
Their opponents were now becoming violent and inflammatory,
just as the League was five years ago.—(Laughter.) The
proud Sir Charles Knightley, speaking of the League, called
the members Radicals, Jacobins, and the refuse of mankind.
He said that the League was the most pestiferous society ever
formed since the days of the Jacobin Club during the French
Revolution—its members were ragamuffins, Jonathan Wilds,
and Jack Sheppards.—( Hear, and laughter.) Who, he would
ask, would belong to a set like that? Besides, it was not safe to
belong to them, for he found that they were forming themselves
into corresponding societies, and thus placing themselves under
the ban of the Attorney-General. In conclusion he would say
that they must not conceal their light under a bushel, but must
strive to disseminate the truth. If it were true that nations
should interchange with each other the bounties which Provi-
dence had bestowed, rather than go to war with each other, it
was not a small matter that they sliould thus unite in accom..
plishing that object. There was nothing sordid in the
principles of free trade, nor io buying in the cheapest market,
nor in selling in the dearest. Buying in the cheapest market
was going into a country where there was a superabundance,
and selling in the dearest was taking that superabundance to
where the article was wanted. The Hon. Member, on resuming
his seat, was loudly cheered.
Mr. BRIGHT, M.P. on presenting himself, was loudly
applauded. He referred to his visits with Mr. Cobden to
Scotland, and to an association at Glasgow, called the East
India and China Association of Merchants, most of whom
were Conservatives, and who wished for a reduction in the
price of tea, but who found it impossible to carry their object
into effect. He also adverted to the impossibility, on all for-
mer occasions, of keeping the price of food up to a certain
amount, and to the distresses in 1817, 1818, and 1819, when
there were outrages in almost all parts of the country. He
held that the corn-laws were unjust, inasmuch as they denied
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Mr. BsiGtix said that the Chairman had desired him to
state that he should commence the subscription about to be
made by a contribution of 2001.—(Loud cheers.)
H. G. WA R in, Esq., ill. P., said he was requested by a gen.
tleman to band in the suit of 25/., under the name of Anti.
Ferrand,(Loud cheers.)