The Sun.
London, England, 1844-10-26 00:00:00

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What do we care what they do with their
reasoni3l
eTs u.7,—hdyowuni;eoete
rushes."—(Cheers.)
makesh.tild thebe
f i(Hear)—whether they put down draining tiles or not ?
.yourtlilallti'yleoa
inistalin,yaiitysi s
grow this,
no'
i
starving
nog'
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 tew 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 corn--
pared with what was done before." What was " doze
taore" ? What has been done " within the last fe.,,r or
five years" i Lord Stanley takes credit for agri'zultural
associations, Why, what hare they been dowg ? Up
to within the last year when did they condescend to talk
about the Qom-laws ? From one end of the kingdom to
the ether any 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
aO-riculture.—(Clners.) 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 bla
practical ignorance of the subject upon which he is r:""ing
to dilate ; and the chairman is generally the man who
occupies three-fourths of the time of the me-..ting by his
speech.—(Hear, hear.) I have watelra the proceed-
ings of these associations, and I haw: observed they have
had all sorts of people exceDt farmers in the chair—
(Hear, hear)—and upcw one occasion, in a part of Mid-
dlesex, I observe t.hi 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 P—(Cheers.) Would that do for
umaufactures ?—(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 ! Would that once a year go
down, with the chance merely of finding something of
that sort ? Could not the farmers see wh....t superior
farming there was to be seen by riding eat 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 advertiseraonts 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 for 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
against them and their system of corn-laws.—(Hear.) I
1 ask this—Can they bring a Member of Parliament, a
hand mei theorist, into Manchester, with his books in ,

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 other 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 ?"—( Hear.) No ! But what do they
say of their own land ? I have heard Mr. Ogilvy, wbo
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 t 3 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
events," 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
from 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.—
(Hear, hear.) It so happened that upon the day I was
addressing the meeting upon the race-course at Knuts-
ford, Mr. Egerton, of Marne was paying a visit to Man-
chester, to preside at thie 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
of draining has been going on here since Cobden was
hero 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 t
—(Cheers.) " Why," they say, "we should be an
exporting country if we only grew as much as ere may
grow." I have no objection to it if, besides feeding the
whole of the people as they ought to be frea—no short
commons !—(Cheers)-- if besides feeding 'them well, they
could send four or five millions et,', quarters of corn
abroad, and bring us back tea n;id 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.—(llear, hear.) I speak my unfeigned
conviction—and we have the very best agriculturists
with 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
as 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-
ture 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 discoura*g
thought that, whilst this s 3 stem of corn-laws ieterea-
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 dirs+
tress in the agricultural districts is now. It is among
the tenant-farmers themselves.—(Hear, been) They
are paying rent with wheat at 455. a quarter, which they
have bargained for at the calculation of wheat being 56!.,
and in many cases 60s. the quarter. It is owing
ae grto this
discrepancy in the prices that the tenant-farmers
discharging now
their labourers, paying rent out of capital ;
is the real d unable to theyemoyand
distress now existing the
agricul.
tural districts. This state of things will not continue
them—and areem—
.theirs
either or in the agricultural districts. What is
tne l language n heregag
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
better times ; we will give you back ten per cent. this
u
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-
tune, or rather misfortune, will go round again ; you
will be at the bottom, and the farmer at the top, an will
have wheat again at 70s. 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
disasters. 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 for your future wants, you are laying ter
no store here, or stores abroad, and there will be a ese.
currence of the disasters we have passed throegt,—
(After some further observations, the Hon.
resumed his seat amidst enthusiastic chetemer.sent man
le
ars PRIGHT, M.P., then stepped
frorwardamidst mot
enthusiastic cheering, au4, wrie:o it had subsided, he
spoke as follows; —W hen I en.l.CrQd tl#s room to-day, and
cast my eyes over the vast nleeting, 'I was led to make