The Sun.
London, England, 1844-05-10 00:00:00

THE ELECTION FOR SOUTH

LANCASHIRE.

On Tuesday the Anti-Corn-law League met at Man-
chester, and, after some discussion, agreed to the fol-
lowing address to the electors and other persons in-
terested :

" Gentlemen—A vacancy has most unexpectedly
occurred in the representation of this important division,
We feel it incumbent to address you on this deeply
momentous occasion, when your voice is to be given
either for or against the great commercial and manufac-
turing interests of this county, and of our country at
large.
" For several years the attention of the public has
been turned to the consideration of the question of
free trade, with an extending belief that on its solu-
tion depend the security and prosperity of our national
interests. In this county especially has the principle
of monopoly been repudiated, and that of per;ect free-
dom of industry recognised as the only safe basis of
legislation. It is to the electors of the most important
division of this county that we now appeal. The
monopolists ask your support, to enable them
by law to make certain articles of common and
extensive consumption dearer than they would be if not
interfered with by the law ; for example, they would
maintain a corn-law, so that, when we have deficient
harvests in this country, we are shut out from supplying
ourselves from abroad, except at most extravagant
prices, under which vast multitudes of the poorest of our
population suffer grievous privations ; they would main-
tain monopolies also in the articles of sugar and coffee,
by which prices are raised about one-third, and a large
portion of the people are cut off from their fair and natu-
ral supply. It is not, however, in the increase of price
that the most destructive features of these monopolies
are seen, but in their operation upon trade ; in their
limiting trade ; in their shutting some foreign markets
against us, and injuring all ; in their direct results in di-
minishing the demand for labour, and reducing at once
the profits of capital and the wages of the workmen.
" Lancashire is the great home of the manufacturing
industry of Great Britain ; it is in this county that its
greatest triumphs have been gained ; it is here that the
struggles for its emancipation must be manfully carried
on. We offer you a principle and a policy the very op-
posite to that on which monopolies are based. Free
trade is recommended to you, not as a system by which
particular interests will prosper at the expense of other
interests, but as a system by which all industry, and
skill, and capital are left free to find their own channels
of employment and reward, without the meddling inter-
vention of laws passed to keep down one class that an-
other may rise upon its ruin. Free trade in all things,
and especially in articles of food, would be to us more
trade, more employment, more wages, more revenue,
without increase of taxation; less of poor-rates, without
hardship to the poor; more of social harmony, and more
of security to all than are even possible under a policy
of restriction, which all experience condemns as absurd
in principle, and most unjust and mischievous in practice.
" But we do not deem it needful, in this brief address,
to enter at length into the arguments on behalf of free
trade. We are convinced that a very large majority of
you agree with us in the opinion we have formed on that
question, and that could the voice of each individual
elector be taken, uninfluenced by other motives, there
would be a decision all but unanimous in its favour.
What are these other motives ? Among these, perhaps,
the strongest is the adherence to party ties and party
leaders. We have long ago abandoned party names and
party warfare ; they are, for the most part, a delusion,
and serve only to lead the people away from the sub-
stantial, to pursue, at the best, an imaginary good. Free
trade is strictly of no party, and yet of all parties ; it is
a benificent and just principle offered to all, promising
good to all, without the sacrifice of any, and may be
espoused by the intelligent and the honest of every
party, without inconsistency, and without the abandon-
ment of other duties.

" This election has come upon us wholly without warn-
ing ; it does not, however, find us unprepared. The seed
has been sown widely, almost universally, in this county;
it has sprung up, and gives promise of fruit in minds
which heretofore have viewed each other with hostile
feelings. The past is gone—let us avoid its jealousies—
let us forget its errors, except to shun them. A season
of terrible distress has visited us since our last exercise
of the electoral franchise. We have seen trade pros-
trated, capitalists ruined, farmers and shopkeepers sink-
ing, multitudes'of honest artisans of every kind beg-
gared, the hives of-industry a scene of threatened tumult
and danger, and every man asking of his neighbour—
" What is the cause of these calamities ?" and the future
is before us less clouded for the moment, but promising
greater perils, if our course be marked by no greater
wisdom than the past.

"Electors! we ask you to think on these things. Go-
vernment can only be what you make it. It is a being
of your own creation. Send honest and enlightened
men to Parliament, and you will have a Parliament that
will pursue an honest and enlightened policy. Be no
lobger the sport of party names; they never can save
you. Be united, as a great commercial, and industrious,
and intelligent community, and your free voices, given
at this election, shall go far to determine the duration of
that system under which your country has suffered, and
is still suffering, so heavy misfortunes.
" In conclusion, we implore you at this election to
weigh well the principles of the candidates who offer
themselves for your suffrages, and to vote only for the
man whose votes in Parliament will be given in favour
of the abolition of all monopolies, and for the full adop-
tion of the great and just principle of free trade with
all the world.'
"By order of the Council,
" GEORGE WILSON, Chairman.
"Manchester, 7th May, 1844."

WHOLESALE MARRIAGES..—DUring the whole of
Tuesday, Duke's-place, Aldgate, and its vicinity presented
a gay and animated appearance, in consequence of the nu-
merous weddings which had taken place amongst the
" ancient people." In the Roman Catholic Church mar-
riages are prohibited, except under peculiar circumstances,
during Lent, so that it is a very common custom in Ireland,
ti
especially the humbler classes, for a number of couples to
get married on the Shrove Tuesday. Amongst the Hebrew
community a similar prohibition for twenty-eight daysexists, exists, an yesterday being the day preceding the commence-
ment of the prohibition, no fewer than twenty-eight mar-
riages were said to have been solemnised at the three eastern
Synagogues—namely, Dukes's-place, Great Saint Helen's,
and Loadenha 11-atroot.