The Sun.
London, England, 1844-12-28 00:00:00

ATC11131(

LONDON, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 28, 1844,

The Agricultural Monopolists who have been hold-
ing several public meetings of late, have, at most of
these meetings, adopted a tone which is in an inverse
ratio to their prospects. While the latter have been,
and still continue to be, gloomy and disheartening,
the latter has been boastful and exultant in no ordi-
nary degree. This was more especially the case at
the first annual gathering of the Essex Agricultural
Protection Society, which took place yesterday at
Chelmsford. At this meeting over which the Rev.
Mr. Cox presided—parsons, in general, it has been
observed, are strongly wedded to the system of Mo-
nopoly—the Secretary read the Report of the pro-
ceedings of the Committee during the year, in which,
among other matters, the members were congratulated
upon the encouraging success which the Society had
met with, " they having put down the demoralising
and dangerous system of agitation which had been got
up by the Anti-Corn-law League, by means of their
perambulating paid lecturers." The Report went on
to observe that the Protection Society had been in-
stituted for the express purpose of abating the mis-
chief of anti-corn-law agitation, and its endeavours
had been crowned with entire success. Similar asso-
ciations had been formed in almost every county
in England, " but although their efforts"—we quote
the language of the Report—"in the first year of
their existence as a body was most cheering ; yet
as their enemy was still in the field, and as he
had declared his intention never to abate his exer-
tions until he had met with complete success, it be-
hoved all Protection Societies to be most vigilant;
and the Committee hoped that the efforts of the mem
bers of their Association would be redoubled until he
was laid in the dust." Our readers cannot fail to
observe the absurd contradictory spirit that pervades
the passages which we have quoted above from the

Report of the Committee of the Essex Protection
Society. In the first instance, the Monopolists are
congratulated on their having "put down the de
moralising and dangerous system" of anti-corn-lay.
agitation. They have not merely " scotched the
snake," but they have "killed it." The agitation
of the League is not merely checked, but is "put
down"—in other words, extinguished. There is no
more itinerant lecturing—no more energetic pro-
vincial meetings—no more active, wide-spread dis-
tribution of free-trade tracts—all this is at an end;
the Essex Protectionists have willed that it should be
so, and so it is 1 Presently, however, we find—
on the authority of the very same Report that an-
nounces its extinction that the Anti-Corn-law
League, so far from being dead, is not even dying,
but, on the contrary, "is still in the field!" Yes,
and not only this, but it still continues to be so
great a bugbear to the Essex Monopolists—who,
like their own calves, are by no means the wisest of
created animals—that they are urgently implored by
their Committee to be "most vigilant," and to " re-
double their efforts " until their enemy should "be
laid in the dust !" Strange, that a system of agita-
tion which, in one sentence is formally and officially

declared to be " put down," should in the very next
be represented as being still in a state of active.
existence ! But, however crafty and sagacious
they may be in other matters, no sooner
do the Monopolists begin to talk of the Anti-Corn-
law League than they seem to be all at once scared
from their propriety, and to give free utterance tt
the most inconsistent and contradictory opinions
possible. Though their numerous Protection Societies
have, with scarcely an exception, been arrant failures

—at least as compared with the extensive popularity
achieved by the League—they are constantly boasting
of the wonderful success which their virtuous anci
disinterested efforts have met with, and speak-
ing of the antagonist power of the Leaguer
as a thing that has no longer an exist-

ence, while, perhaps in the very same breath, the)
deplore it as an evil that is not to be crushed withou
the most herculean and continuous exertions on their

part! These contradictions and inconsistencies art
only to be accounted for on the presumption that
the Monopolists are so completely bewildered by tin-
fast increasing moral and numerical power of the great
Anti-Corn-law Confederacy, that they really are not
aware of the full force of the absurdities to whicl,
they give vent when alluding to the disheart-

ening subject. And this we believe to be the
true secret of their recent incoherent utterances. We
believe that they are quite sagacious enough to foreAee
that the period is near at hand when the proud and
costly fabric which they have erected with so much
labour, and kept up with so much difficulty, will fall
in ruins to the ground, bringing its architects among
the fragments. Men who are incessantly taunted 113

such melancholy anticipations, may well be excused
if they are a little inconsistent and contradictory in
their sayings.

The speech of the King of the FRENCH on open-
ng the Chambers on Thursday is important and in-
teresting, from the absence of those very ingredients
which, at other times, would have formed the most
impressive matter of such an address from the French
throne. It announces no brilliant operations ; it
revels on the record of no new victories. These
omissions are the guarantees of a continuance of
peace and undisturbed tranquillity to the other na-
tions of Europe. This royal speech, moreover, is
conceived in very general terms. But that generality
permits us to infer that, happily, there are, at this
moment, no salient questions as to which the con-
flicting policy of France, and of the other States of
Europe, requires any special adjustment. The first
and third paragraph of the speech felicitate, in fact,
the Peers and Deputies on the gratifying circum-
stance, that the "complications" which had existed on
the occasion of his MAJESTY'S last addressing them,
and which seemed, for a time, to threaten the safety
of the French possessions in Algeria, and also cer-
tain discussions pending, at the same period, between
the Courts of St. James's and the Tuileries, which
were calculated to affect the good relations subsisting
between the two countries, have now passed away.
In the faith that this is so, we congratulate the
lovers of peace and order, the friends of civilisation
and social improvement, on an aspect of affairs so en-
couraging for the great and true and permanent
interests of mankind. There is a philosophical, as
well as dignified tone, about the terms in which
Louts PrimirrE avows that " a mutual spirit of
good-will and equity has maintained, between France
and England, that happy accord that guarantees
the repose of the world." In the same wise and
beneficent spirit the King of the FRENCH, recurring
to his recent visit to our young QUEEN at Windsor,
thus expresses himself:—
"In that visit" . . . . "I have been surrounded with
manifestations the most satisfactory to France and to
me. I have gathered in the feelings which have been
expressed to me fresh pledges of the long duration of
that general peace which secures to our country abroad
a situation dignified and strong, and at home a prosperity
ever increasing, and the quiet enjoyment of its consti-
tutional liberties."
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