The Sun.
London, England, 1845-01-16 00:00:00

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tion, defeat, and disgrace.—(Cheers.) The League
had taught the monopolists this lesson, that they could
not attempt to carry but their principles by astringent
means. Wheat and corn was grown by the aristocracy,
end so were surplices and gowns.—(Cheers.) Well,
but after all this, was it net better to have a half-loaf _
than no bread ?—(Cheers.) The leaders of the Corn- - Act VATZ Pexiel
law League had used all means in their power for the'
accomplishment of the great object they had in view,
and they had succeeded in a most eminent de-
gree,. Their great efforts now must be on. the
hustings. That was the principal focus to which their
strength was to he applied. Now, how does the Anti--
Corn-law League act, notwithstanding ail that had
been said against it ? Did it follow the footsteps of
the Duke of Buckingham ?—(Cheers.) Did it employ
dirty tricks and unworthy proceedings to pi ocut.% its
ends ?—(Cheers.) The mandate of the League hai
gone forth that the people shall have cheap bread: •
and that mandate will be carried out, not by the
means of trickery on the part of the League, but by
the means of the people themselves. He should like
to see her Majesty—God bless her—(Cheers)—
come to their free trade bazaar next May ; of course
he did not expect her to take a stall there—(Laugh-
ter)—but he was sure that none would be received
with a more hearty welcorne.—(Cheers.) Now it was
useless to disguise facts. The leaders of the League
had shown themselves to he men who would never
cease to persevere in obtaining the great object which,
ere long, they hoped to obtain. In the great cause
in which they were engaged, they had not a better
or more hearty friend than Colonel Thompson—
(Cheers)---and he trusted that the time was not far
distant when they would see him in the House of
Commons fighting the battles of the League.—
(Cheers.) What was the object of the League ?
Why, to make bread cheap, to enable the labourer
to be well paid, and to ensure the people a consti-
tuency which would send such Members to Parlia-
ment as would look to their interests. The Corn-
law League wished to make a county election a
reality and not a farce.—(Cheers.) They call
this the interference of strangers! There is an
absurd way of speaking of the League as a
stranger everywhere ; I contend that the League is
now a stranger nowhere ! We are dowesticated in
London ; besides, the League is with every one who
sees clearly, and whose heart beats strongi: for the
cause of free trade.—(Cheers.) We, here, are the
League in London ! and, if you look abroad into
the towns and districts of the country, wherever men
see the true interests of the nation, and
feel the wrongs of the poor, and rising up
against oppression, say this tax upon the bread
of the indigent shall not continue—these are the
League! The League are there ! When Lord Ducie
or Lord Radnor rise in their place to address their
fellow Peers, then the League is in the House of
Lords—(Cheers)—and when by any chance, however
remote, a courageous thought shall arise in the mind
of the Premier, and one honest determination• in this
matter should come from his mouth among his col-
leagues, then the League will be in the Cabinet.--:-
(Loud cheers.) Principles of this nature are like the
air and water ; they have an elementary omni-
presence ; they are wherever there is the light
and warmth of feeling. Besides, what is county
representation ? Are not towns and cities
part and parcel of counties ? Are they foreign
countries ? Are they " aliens in blood, language,
and religion ?"—(Loud cheers.) Are not most coun-
ties made of the towns and cities in them ? Do they
not arise as the crown of the riches and fertility of
your prouder counties ? And where there is no such
fertility, but where natural treasures lie below the
surface, do we not find works and harbours on the
coast? Why, the towns and cities make the
counties, by a work which may almost he
compared to creation; they give to them
the numbers, wealth, grandeur, and impor-
tance which nature seemed to have forgotten
or overlooked.—(Cheers.) What would Middlesex
be if you struck London out of it ?—(Cheers.) Nay,
what would your most rural counties be if you took
froal them the advantages of their towns ? 'Then the
richest counties, those said to be the most independent
of towns, what would they do if you did not buy their
wheat at their own monopolist price ? Do you
not often feed their poor who seek a reflige
here ? Do you not supply with employment their
refuse and surplus hands ? Do you not give shelter
to the victims who seek refuge here ? And, besides
all this, do you not purchase their game ?—(Cheers
and laughter.) Cities are the hearts of counties,
and are the last portion of them that ought to be
left unrepresented. If it be said they have their
own separate representation, I say, it is not so
at all. It is property that is represented under the
authority of the law under which we live, and who-
ever has a freehold of forty shillings a year, there
the constitution supposes, and, by supposing, requires
and demands of us, if we are patriotic, a correspond-
ing vote also. It is not your forty shilling free-
holder who is represented by the city or town
Members ; he has yet his claim to make ;
and well is it when that claim can be
urged with such happy results as promised
to attend it in the present instance, for in
this plan there is a moral good beyond, per-
haps, that which in its original conception was
thought of. It tends to act upon the character of the
entire labouring population of the country, upon the
working classes, and the more toilsome portion of the
middle class ; it holds out to them the hope and pro-
mise of an incitement of the most desirable and ele-
vating description. It says to them, " Become a
proprietor of a portion, however small, of this our
England. Have a stake in the country. Be
something here. It was thought - a wise
thing when, by the measure introduced by the
late Mr. George Rose, the savings banks funds were
connected with the public funds of the country. It
was thought a judicious link by which to connect
those who could amass only very small sums with the
national institutions and interests. If it was wise and
good to endeavour to make all who could have a pit-
tance become fundholders, it must be at least
as wise and good to induce them, according to
their proportion or means, to induce them to
become landholders also, joint shareholders in
their lovely and beautiful country—their country,
as much as it was that of the wealthiest noble
whose lands cover half a county.—(Cheers.) It
gives them a tangible bond of connexion with society,
and a feeling of independent and honest pride ;
they are put in possession of that which was necessary
to citizenship in the republics of ancient days, and
which was best adapted to cherish in them a feeling
of consistency, propriety, and dignity of character.
The poet Campbell describes the feelings of an outcast
when he wanders through a village ; how he looks
wistfully at a cottage with a little garden ; how he
hangs over the gate and says—
" Oh! that for me some home like this would smile!
Some hamlet's shed to yield my sickly form,
Health in the breeze, and shelter from the storm."
And such, too, is the hope of those whose lives have
been spent in toilsome exertions and constant en-
durance. Let them take opportunity by the forelock,
at least to such an extent as this; the present
licy
f '
holds out such an incitement to millions of
country; may the spirit rise to spur them onward to
seize, and, obtaining it, they may think they are on
the high-road towards a better choice of legis-
lators, and a more complete identification of the
interests of those who toil with the interests of
those who think, a better direction for the different
classes extending throughout the different demarca-
tions of society. The House of Commons may then
better show what it is to have a full, fair, and free
representation of the 'Commons of England.—
(Loud cheers.) You have had well-dissected to
you this evening the constituent elements of •
great financier. You have heard something of the
prosperity of the revenue. I have a notion that the
revenue is most prosperous when more money re-
mains in our own pockets than when it
is taken out of them.—(Cheers and laughter.) This
comparative prosperity, for it is only comparative, has
falsified every assertion of the monopolists, and has
verified every prediction of the leaders of the League.
—(Hear, hear.) We rejoice that there is such a
comparative prosperity ; but yet, how far has it
gone towards the reduction of the miseries still en-
dured by a very large portion of the community
Take up the daily newspapers,
n,cswherhips: sinalnudesltsd,eo
fryyout
deaths b;
look at them fored r
again
aaoani
rnyh
wretch
odvrraeeoylt
perishes
asonsactibrcuenidylehad
any nutriment for d
days and nights ! While there are
such scenes as this, it is not for our efforts to relax, it
is not for us to " bate one jot of heart of hope" in this
straw, meeting
in destitution—someth
e againcorann
great
that
ystruggle,another
rem testimony
remains
nbs u tun
thtstillou
thetcoh
e‘
dt
fearful pressin
the
suhhceechsession witlout
et
eria
differentmg hout not n
o."f
societies l 1 1T lshee ;
continually forming ; societies such as you have heard
of, for grinding and baking the bread for the poor—
societies for furnishing the poor with baths and wash-
ing-houses—societies for setting them to work—so-
cieties for putting them into better dwellings—
societies for relieving the wants of the poer needle-
women. And the leaders of the League have been
blamed, because they looked coldly on these societies,
and evinced a jealous, or, at least, an indifferent feeling
towards them, as if they must be indifferent or careless
of the wants of the poor, unlessthey entered into
these specific modes, or attempted modes of relief, the
fact being that the leaders of the League are not less
solicitous for the removal of the mischief than those
who thus complained of them ; but they show that,
as measures of relief, these are mere pretensions, and
so miserably inefficient as to be scarcely worthy of a
thought, while the great battle still remained to be
fought about that which could alone reach the root of
the evil, and abolish it from the country. It was a
deep feeling, and not a want of feeling tbr the poor,
that occasioned this mode of adverting to these exer-
tions; but allow me to say, that those who are- so
on the 'part of free traders,
might, if they had
quick to detect what is represented as hostility