The Sun.
London, England, 1826-09-07 00:00:00


A knot of six or eight obscure individuals, 'leaded by
a Mr. B. Wills, yesterday engaged a room at the King's
Head, in the Poultry, for the avowed' purpose of getting
up a meeting to petition against the corn laws, I nit for the
real purpose of achieving a little • ephemeral nc ,toriaty
publishing to the world their antiquated not. ions upon
things in general through the medium of the ne soPsPers•
The reporters, who formed an immense major ity of the
meeting, were vastly edified by hearing from it dr. Wills,
&it Of all an harangue to prove, what nobody ha I hitherto
disputed, that the present system of corn laws must umi
dergo revision ; and next, a still longer harangue, to prove,
that any 'alteration in that system would produce i little or
no benefit to the community, unless it were am aril°
by a legislative enactment, that all the waste lam id the
'country should immediately be taken into cultivat ion, and
that a minimum--namely, two bushels of wheat for each
labourer—should be fixed for the rate of wag vs.
Wills and his cronies-, who are evidently men of c ply °",
idea, seem to have forgotten that much of what WS 1 called
waste land, and was reclaimed during the war, has icently
been throWn out of cultivation, on account of its utter
incapability to return any thing like a remuneratie
to the labour and capital 'bestowed upon it by th culti-
vator, even under the present system of resided( in and
monopoly enjoyed by the agriculturist ; and that thm
of a minimum rate of wages for. the labourer no al be
utterly useless, without fixing at the same time a inn timw"
for the state of distress to which his employer may. be re.
duced. The old proverb, which sap, that half a I. oaf is
better Amin no bread, ought to teach the- open itives
throughout thecountry, that it is better (Or them to have
small wages`than none at all;. for it is as clear as
that
some of Mr.\Vills's associates of yesterday wore dirty
s hints
and darned stockings, that when the' capitalist finds th• it he
cannot'affOrd to pay the operative the •Winimuin at w
Bich
Mr.Wills wishes the legislature to fix his wages, he must ;sia a
matter of course, leave him to get- through his misery a s
e
can, withOut any wages' at all. A resolution was carried to pre
sent a requisition to the Lord Mayor', calling upon him to er
vine a public meeting of the inhabitants of London on the
subject of the corn laws ; but when the requisition W
presented to some gentlemen who had en price
tered the r. loo)
refused 't6,sign it, though friendly to the mai"
during the discussion anti had taken some part lab 4'1. it
c ts
a
purported to have in view—nay more, they requeste
td
reporter, as Matter of favour, not to mention that thcy uti
taken any share in the proceedings of the day. The etn I
d ring
other circumstance worthy of notice which °Wee- du a, 4
the time our reporter attended, the sitting of this se
Mayor had told him that he was ready, %when prof' erg}.
coterie, was an annunciation from Mr. Wills, that the I aoru
ealled upon, to summon his FelloW-Citizens to the conside
don of the, propriety of petitioning for an alteration nt,the
present corn laws, and of inquiring into the cause °I• t•
distress now prevailing. By a singular hallucination cf„liri*
tellect;: Mr. Wills, in commenting on this piece of i
mation, told the meeting, or rather the reporters, wl, o at"
tended it;that be deemed an inquiry into the causes 4 J tAir
distress more necessary than an inquiry into the best 10
of relieving it—a mode of proceedinr, which appears to
as 'wise as to let a man clic, and Lien to set his el- actor
about inquiring what were the SymptoMs and the car $e5
the disease which terminated in his death.