The Sun.
London, England, 1844-07-04 00:00:00

" To keep his courage up."

Whence the necessity for these assertions ? Why had
the landlords found out, on a sudden, that the far-
mers were with them ? It must have arisen, he sup-
posed, from some doubts pervading their minds as to
whether the farmers were really hoodwinked and
blinded by their professions.—(Hear, hear.) But
when they told him that the farmers—that the
tenant-farmers, rose spontaneously to form the Anti-
League Associations, he told them there, in the most
public place in the world, that what they said was not
true, and that they knew it was not true.—(Cheers.)
He did not wish to be offensive, and, therefore, he
would only say it was not true in a logical sense. He
said it was not true, and he would prove it by reference
to facts. He would take the meeting at which his
Grace the Duke of Richmond attended at Steyning,
to Sussex. He knew something of Sussex, and he
fearlessly asserted that the meeting was got up by
the aristocracy and squirearchy of Sussex.—(Hear.)
If they themselves did not go round and canvass
their tenants, their agents and land-surveyors did,
and the tenants were canvassed and pressed to come
to that meeti▪
ng in just the same manner as
they were canvassed at a general election ; nay,
more, the carri▪
ages, the horses, the vehicles, down
even to the deer-cart, were put at the disposal of the
farmers, to carry them up to Steyning.—(Cheers.)
What he said of the meeting at Steyning he asserted of
almost every other meeting, purporting to be spon-
taneous, which had been held in opposition to the
League. The tenant-farmers were moved by the
landlords. They were canvassed by the agents and the
surveyors of the landlords in every part of the
country.—(Cheers.) In many cases the farmers did
not even know what was the object of the meeting.
What he told them was patent to the whole com-
munity. There was not an individual there from
the counties where those meetings were got up
who would not testify that the tenant was
at the bidding of the landlord, either in his own
person, or second hand. And who were the men
who had taken the lead at these meetings ? Could
they mention one bona fide, intelligent, substantial
farmer, like his friend Mr. Lattimore, whom he saw
sitting on the platform ?—(Cheers)—or like Mr.
Josiah Hunt, who had addressed them there ?
or like those two worthy men who had come out of
Somersetshire to deliver their sentiments ?—(Cheers.)
But while there were no farmers of that stamp, the
persons who took a prominent part in the meetings
would nearly always be found to be either an agent,
an auctioneer, or a land steward. Why, who was
Mr. Baker, of Writtle, in Essex ? This was the man
who was put forward as their great leader, and who
made speeches and pamphlets in support of
the cause. lie saw his name advertised
in one column of a paper as the author
of a pamphlet or a letter addressed to the
sParwotemerti.ounakSeocr,
of
ietY
Writtle,
;NN'ilileaP in another column, he
appearing as an auctioneer,
who was going to sell up an unfortunate farmer who
had been ruined by the corn-laws.—(Cheers.) Did
his Grace of Richmond, or the squirearchy in the
House of Commons, believe that after the en-
lightenment and education which their great
peripatetic political university, the League, had
diffused through the country, the people would
be gulled by their assertions that the tenant-farmers
had risen spontaneously to join the Protection Asso-
ciations ?—(Hear, hear.) They appeared to him to
be about as cunning as the ostrich which
had its head in the sand and thought
that nobody could see its unfortunate body because
it could not see that body itself.--(Great laughter.)
He was jealous of their taking the name of the tenant-
farmers in vain. They told them that they had been
abusing the farmers, and that it was for this reason
that they had turned against them. Why he (Mr.
Cobden)rights.—(Dear,
g hts. ihiaeda r lw a y been the champion of their
hear.)
.He was bred in a farm-house,
and, up to the time of his going to school, he saw none
but farmers and farm labourers. He should be a
traitor to his forefathers if he entered into a crusade
against one of the most deserving, industrious, and
pains-taking classes in the community.—(Cheers.)
He had said scores of times, in all parts of the country,
that he believed the tenant-farmers had been more
deeply injured by the corn-laws than any other class of
society. If they could but have the history of the
tenant-Armen who had been ruined during the last
thirty years by the blessed protection of the corn-
laws, it would form a dark calendar of woe and suf-
fering, not to be equalled by the history of any other
elass of men. An enemy to farmers ! If he were so,
at all events he had not thrust himself among them.
—(Hear, hear.) He had challenged the monopolists
to meet him in any county in England, and take the
sense of the meeting on the question of the corn-
laws. They would not accept the challenge, because
they knew that, if they did, they would be outvoted.
—(Cheers.) The corn-laws protect farmers ! Why,
the farmers paid their rents according to
tlse price of produce.—(Hear,
corn-laws kept up the price of produce, they
e hear.) If the
kept up rents, and the question was, in fact, a rent
question. He had commenced his career in the
House of Commons by telling the landlords that they
were no more agriculturist; because they were land-
lords, than shipowners were sailors, because they
owned ships; and when the Duke of Richmond got
up and said the Anti-Corn-law League, by its abuse
of the agriculturists, had set the farmers against
them, why, he told him that he did not know the
English language, for, that the term agriculturist meant
a cultivator of the land, and, therefore, could not pos-
sibly be applied to any one except the tenant-farmer.
It was not only in this wa-
y that they had heard it
pointed out that the corn-laws injured the farmers—
the corn-laws did not merely tempt. the farmers to
make bad bargains, by expecting Act of Parliament
high prices, but by distracting their attention from
other grievances that lay nearer home and were
really of importance—keeping their attention fixed
upon an ignis fatuas, which always evaded their pur-
suit, and which would not benefit them even if they
could grasp it.—(Hear, hear.) The farmer wanted
a cheap tenure for his land—he wanted a lease, he
wanted to plant good hedge rows, and to rid
the ground of noxious weeds, which were
devouring the produce of industry . and of capi-
tal.—(Hear.) The farmers wanted improvements
in their homesteads—they wanted draining—they
wanted, in short, a variety of concessions from their
landlords, and how were they met ? Why, the far-
mer could not approach the land agent or steward to
ask for assistance or redress, without them telling
him—" Oh, that is not the matter which concerns
you; go and oppose the Anti-Corn-law League—
(Laughter, and cries of "Hear, hear.") Name any
other class treated in that way but farmers. Did it
happen with any other portion of the commu-
nity that they could not seek any arrangement
of a business nature without having an Act
of Parliament constantly thrown in their
i teeth? He
had often illustrated this to the farmers n the agri-
cultural districts, and as he found that they compre-
hended and approved of the illustration, he would
now repeat it. He had often said to the farmers,
" Your dealings with your landlords are very diffe-
rent from mine with the linendrapers, my cus-
tomers. I will tell
you how the linendraper and I
manage our business. my goods are dis-
posed of to the draper at certain prices.
My traveller, at the end of six months, goes