The Sun.
London, England, 1844-02-29 00:00:00

among all classes of the people.—(Hear, hear.) They
told the tenant farmers in 1815 that wheat would be 80s.
a quarter—in 1822, in 1828, and again in 1842 they
were feeding the farmers into the same chimerical spe-
culations ; and now, when this system has exploded,
they are trying another last chance on the gullibility
and ignorance of the farming class, in the hope that the
injustice and mischiefs of the corn-laws may be perpe-
tuated for some years longer.—(Hear, hear.) I repeat
these Anti-League meetings are, of themselves, suffi-
cient to procure a repeal of the corn-laws.—(Hear,
heat'.) What do these meetings consist of ? Dukes and
lords of all degrees, landowners and squires, county
magistrates, game preservers, and game slaughterers,
chairmen at quarter sessions, transporters of poachers,
and the unhappy portion of the clergy of the Established
Church. They put a farmer in the chair who professes
t o be unaccustomed to public speaking—(Laughter)—but
who, having heard monopoly fallacies so often, repeats a
few of them with considerable hesitation. The abuse of
the Anti-Corn-law League is the staple commodity of
their speeches. The assertions which they make prove
two things—either the utter dishonesty of the parties
who make them, or the profound ignorance of the
landowners of this country.—(Loud cries of " Hear,
hear.") They held a meeting in Yorkshire the other
day, to counteract, I suppose, one which was held here.
Lord Harewootl was in the chair. The large landed

proprietors said there was no use in arguing the ques-
tion, as the time for argument was gone by.—(Laugh-
ter.) Putting aside, however, all the arguments which
• they used for and against—for I will not take up your
time with them—let us see what one of their declara-
tions was. They stated that one-half of the land of the
- country would be thrown out,of employment by the re-
peal of the corn-laws. Now, if I said anything so
monstrous at one of the League meetings, I never dared
come to one afterwards.—(Laughter.) If the intro-
duction of the produce of one thousand acres of
' land from abroad would throw out of cultivation one
thousand acres of land in this country, how happens it
that the enclosure of millions of acres of land in
this country has not thrown out of cultivation a single
acre of land?—(Loud cries of " Hear, hear.") I will now
read an extract from a newspaper published in 1802, in
which this argument is disposed of. (The Hon. Gentleman
then quoted from the article in which it was argued
that there was no more reason to fear that the introduc-
tion of foreign corn would throw land out of cultivation
than the improved system of husbandry which produced
a greater quantity of corn, and the increased number of
acres which had been subjected to theplough.) The Earl
of Harewood spoke of ulterior designs on the part
of the League ; if the League had no ulterior
design, the course these Anti-Leaguists are pursuing
would prove a necessity for such designs.—(Hear, hear.)
He says that we are merely a set of cotton manufac-
turers and mill-owners, and that it is cotton against
corn—that we are mere speculators—men who grind
the poor to nothing—that we are against the farmers
and landowners ; and then the Noble Lord relates .a
circumstance which your Chairman has mentioned, of an
anonymous farmer having attended a meeting in an
anonymous county, who had his stacks and crops
burned; and he then says that there is no
man in his senses can doubt of the intentions

of the Anti-Corn-law League.—(Laughter.) His senses
must have been asleep for the last five years, fur we
have been over every county in Great Britain, we have
held in that time more than one hundred meetings, we
have circulated thousands of newspapers, and millions
of tracts, which explained fully and without reserve,
what the intentions of the Anti-corn-law League are
and have been—the man cannot be in his senses,

or they must have served him to a very poor
purpose.—(Laughter, and cries of " Hear, hear.")
That Noble Lord knows nothing of the condition of
the population of the country in which he lives—he
knows nothing of the importance of the great branch of
national industry, the woollen manufacture in York-
shire, which his legislation tends to destroy—he knows
nothing of the peril in which that trade now stands. No;
that great man knows nothing of these great sources of
national prosperity, of dignities and wealth he now en-
joys, and for which he is indebted to those commercial
interests which he now affects to despise and scorn,
and, by his legislation, endeavours to destroy. He is
only known as a large landed proprietor—is one of
the legislators of the country, and has a seat in the
House of Lords ; and, according as he chooses to style
himself, is high or low down in the peerage; and this,
forsooth, is the man who comes forward and charges
us, the Anti-Corn-law League, with the most odious and
revolutionary, intentions! But I tell my Lord Harewood
that such unfounded and libellous accusations will not tend
to raise the character of the aristocracy of this country;
and if he dares to charge us with such crimes, there are
men in England now who, will yet humble the " order "
to which he belongs. (The meeting here rose en masse,
and cheered for several minutes.) There was another,
Lord at this meeting—Lord Faversham. He said that
the corn-laws were for the protection of the labouring
classes, and to prevent an overwhelming and
ruinous competition with foreign countries. I ask
what protection can there be when there are
no less than between three millions and four millions of
paupers in the country? Why, if there were ten or
fifteen millions of acres of good land, which was in want
of nothing but ploughing and sowing to give a good har-
vest, how could there be protection for the broad acres
of Lord Faversham ? The sea encircles this island,
and we cannot go abroad to get food, in consequence of
the provisions of these infamous restrictive laws. I say
distinctly that no law can operate as a protection, when
there are at least three millions of persons in the country
in a condition of pauperism. His Lordship tells the
truth in the next sentence, when he says that this system
affords protection in having labour transported from this
to other nations. Why, that is exactly what we say.
We can produce enough, we have millions of customers
anxious for the fruits of our industry, but this law cuts
us out from these markets, while it enables
other nations to compete with us success-
fully in those markets, although not possessing
one-half our skill, ingenuity, or industry, while at the
same time we are compelled to give a much larger share
of the profits of our industry to the landlord for his land
than what he would be entitled to, only for those laws
(Hear, hear, and cheers.) There was another of the
nobility there—Lord Tyrconnel. He let out the cloven
hoof most distinctly. He said, of all the delusions by
which the people were gulled, he looked upon
that of free trade as the greatest that ever
was attempted to be palmed upon the country
because it was impossible to have a system of free trade
in a country which was so heavily taxed as this ; but
(said this scion of the nobility) if we are to have free
trade, let us have it, not alone in agricultural produce,
but in everything else that can be produced in foreign
countries. Earl Tyrconnel next alluded to the fund-
holders, and hinted that there should be some adjust-
went come to with the fundholders which would be
equitable, and such as that they might bear their fair
share in the Wises frfolnithetidterttd-.

state of things. I think that the man, who departs from
the straight line of honour, consistency, and truth, gene-
rally finds it difficult to come back again to his previous
line of conduct. My Lord Tyrconnel is one of that class
who have been plundering the homes of the industrious
and hardworking people of this country for upwards of
twenty years, and now when we find that the
course thus pursued had produced nothing but wrong and
misery, and privation, and tell him th at he mustgive up his
right to plunder, we don't demand of him to disgorge,
for that which is past cannot be recalled. When we
tell him this, he turns round on us, and says, put a tax
on the fimdholder—in other words, he says, " rob him."
It has been remarked, with much truth, with respect to
the monopolists, that some one must be robbed. We
avant to bring this most extraordinary fellow to his
mind, and I will tell him, in your name, that although
we will unite to put down monopoly, yet we shall be no
parties to help him or any one else to inflict a wrong on
any one class of our countrymen.—(Cheers.) There
was also a "squire" at the meeting—(Laughter)---one
Richard Bethel', Esq., and he, presuming on the simpli-
city of his audience, said, if there were any truth which
was more self-evident than another, it was, that all the
interests of the nation were mutually dependent upon
one another, and when one suffered there must
be a consequent depreciation in the others.
Why, I must again say that this is what
we have already so frequently reiterated. Any
wrong done to us, the industrial portion of the corn-

muniiy, must eventually fall upon the landlords them-
selves at some future period. But this, said Mr. Be-
thell, was in the position of a man who had taken from
some one else what he had no right to, and when asked
to restore it, replied, " No, a great principle is involved,
society is so bound up together that no one can suffer
without involving others in the same infliction, and,
therefore, I shall not make restitution to you of your
handkerchief."—(Loud laughter.) This Mr. Bethell, be
it remembered, is one of the Chairmen of the Quarter
Sessions, and, therefore, do I speak of him with
a degree of " veneration," which I feel myself
utterly inadequate to convey to the meeting—
(Laughter)—for I recollect in my days of boyhood that I
entertained a feeling, amounting almost to awe, to-
wards the high functionariespresiding on the bench;' but
an observance of their conduct, decisions, and bearing in
after life, soon convinced me that in their decisions,
however those high functionaries might be influenced
by law, they were but little influenced by justice. In his
capacity of Chairman of the Quarter Sessions, this indi-
vidual asked, had there been any diminution of, those
taxes which pressed most heavily upon agricultural in-
dustry, or whether, on the contrary, they had not in-
creased, and were they not daily increasing ; and if the
county rates, which fell solely upon the agricultural in-
terests, were not a most oppressive impost ? " From
the station I occupy," said this Learned Gentleman,
" as Chairman of the Quarter Sessions, I have accurate
means of being informed on these subjects, and I hereby
state that the county rates are rising every day, and is
not that a reason why agriculture should be protected.
The Anti-Corn-law League did not propose that the
burdens upon agriculture should be paid out of the Con-
solidated Fund ; and not one of the many charges which
the agriculturalists bear were to be placed to the public
account." Such were the words of this worthy Chairman
of Quarter Sessions. That was the " fix" in which his
party was in the House of Commons. They know well
that Parliament can give no more protection, neither can
it take off any more taxes. All the taxes which press
upon the agricultural interests have been taken off, and
the last was that upon shepherds' dogs.—(Laughter.)
An Honourable Member belonging to the Principality
of Wales, the other night rose to propose that lime
intended for the purposes of manure should be
exempted from toll; but there were some Hon. Gentlemen
on his own side of the House, who thought, perhaps, it
would not be quite advisable to talk of this kind of
" free trade" just now ; and the Hon. Member went
back to his original obscurity, and nothing more was
heard of his motion.—(Cheers and laughter.) Mr. Squire
Bethell had talked of the increase of the county rates.
Those rates had increased—l say, from the prosecution
of poachers—from the keeping intact the preserves of the
aristocracy, and by sending to gaol a man who chanced
to be crossing a field, attended by a dog, which had a