The Sun.
London, England, 1844-03-13 00:00:00

( at any rate he had stated it at two public meetings—that,he had
the means in his possession of proving certain heavy charges
which had been brought against the League, and that as a ma-
gistrate he was cognizant of facts which proved some men to be
guilty of crimes of which, as far as the charge had been made
public, they had stated they were innocent. If that Hon.
Gentleman knew anything of that kind, he (Mr. Bright) said
that the Hon. Gentleman himself must be accessory to the
crime if he, as a magistrate, concealed such facts from the
knowledge of the Right Hen. Baronet the Secretary of State
for the Home Department. It would be more honourable and
much mere becoming in the Magistrate and a Member of Par-
liament if he were to lay that statement before the Govern-
ment, when it would be fully investigated, rather than making
it at a meeting where only one side was allowed to be heard,
and where the friends of the Hon. Gentleman and his party
were only allowed to be present. It might be thought that the
Anti-Corn-law League excited the people. He (Mr. Bright)
never denied that they did so. They did excite the people,
and they should continue to excite the people. The pamphlet,
which had been written by the Rev. Mr. Osborne, which had
been often spoken of that night, gave a little insight into
what amounted to the charge of exciting the people.
The writer said that agricultural labourers were discouraged in
every possible manner from attempting to set forth the griev-
ances of their condition. Did the labourers find any gentleman
who might seek to bring to light any injustice towards him—
that friend met with nothing but remonstrance, and he was
told that he was endeavouring to set man against master, and
endeavouring to drive the people to acts of violence. No man
(continued the Hon. Gentleman) could go to the manufacturing
or agricultural districts, and address large meetings of the
people on the subject of their distress, and tell them what was
the fact, that that distress was attributable to certain arts of
misgovernment, without incurring the censure of exciting the
people to insurrection. The Hon. Gentleman opposite had
charged the League with exaggeration, and the League charged
them with exaggeration and with wrong-doing, and wrong-
doing with a full knowledge of the circumstances.—(Hear. )
The Members of the Government were not able to settle the
public mind. At one of these meetings held in Yorkshire for
the protection of agriculture, a speaker expressed very serious
misgivings of the fatal bias of the Right lion. Gentleman the
President of the Board of Trade, and the agricultural gentle-
man would not be surprised at any change in the Right Ho-
nourable Gentleman at the head of the Queen's Govern.
ment. How could this question be settled if not before a
tribunal of the House of Commons. Why, his Honourable
found the Member for Stockport had given them the option of
appointing a majority of protectionists on the Committee, and
that their witnesses should be agricultural labourers, indepen-
dent landowners, and tenant-farmers. The case of the corn-
law repeaters was based upon facts and upon experience ;
the case of the corn-law maintainers upon anticipations of
future evil if the corn-laws were abolished. The corn-laws of
1815 were a continued fraud upon the finances of the country.
He could show, from irrefutable documents—from reports of
Agricultural Societies—that, in 1815, the landowners had
legislated upon the anticipation that corn would be 80s. a
quarter, and gave leases on that foundation ; but the average
prices of corn, from 1815 to 1841 or 1842, had not been more
than 60s. a quarter. The Hen. Member for Wiltshire declared
that no rent could be paid unless prices were higher than they
had been from 1815 ; but yet high rents were maintained.
Nay, the rent of lands in many parts of the country had in-
creased—greatly increased. They prophesied that low prices
would throw land out of cultivaiian—they prophesied that
agricultural labourers would be thrown out of employ-
' ment— but the fact that additional land had been
engaged in culture sufficiently disproved this part of the pro-
' phesy. Those agricultural law-makers were very poor sooth-
sayers indeed.—(Laughter.) The Han. Member then read
an extract from the Report of the Barnstaple Agricultural So-
ciety, which stated that the Act, passed in the 55th year of the
reign of George 111., had not answered its object, inasmuch as
it did not secure the grower 80s. for wheat, 40s. for barley,
and 275. for oats, as was promised ; and further, that the prices
for corn were not one half as high as the agriculturists had a
right to expect. It was stated that seven-ninths of the
people of this country were engaged in agriculture ; but he
thought it would be found, by the census, that the tenant-
farmers did not comprise more than I per cent. of the whole
population of those agricultural labourers employed in the cul-
ture of wheat, or I per cent. more. The Hon. Member for
Itladdingtonshire hat, at a meeting of that county, told his
constituents that if the corn-laws were repealed foreign corn
would be sold at 20s. a quarter, Now, that was absolutely
untrue ; but if it were, did it never strike that Hon. Member
what a gross injustice he was ioflicting i n the great bulk of
s 'chow-countrymen by countenancing so vile a la s ?—( Hear. )
What was that but asserting that, when the farmer had the
law in his favour he overtaxed the manufacturer for the food
which he sold him. If he bought a larger quantity of the goods
of the trader and the manufacturer, be did so with their own
money, and not with any extraordinary exertion of his own
industry. The Noble Lord, the Memln-r for East Suffolk,
stated, on a recent occasion, that " the object ef the fi ea traders
was to bring down the price of labour in this country to a level
with the amount paid to the labourer on the Continent.—( Loud
cries o " Hear, hear," from the Ministerial benches.) They
had, however, he believed, already gone in that respect farther
than the three clever gentlemen who sat in Somerset House,
and who, it was generally admitted. did not overflow with the
milk of human kindness. But with all their anxiety on the
subject, and with all the aid of the pror-law guardians through-
out the country, they were unable to keep the paupers in a
state of hearth without incurring a greater amount of expense
than the labourers could afford in their own homes. Was there,
he asked anything on the Continent worse than that, or ex-
hiLiting a greater degree of human misery than they had that
night heard described as existing in Dorsetshire ?—( Hear,
hear.) Could there be anything discovered on the Continent
more appalling than what he himself had been told while tra-
veling in Scotland two months ago? An extensive farmer in
Kirk udbright told him that he was able to pro ture drains to be
cut in his land 19 feet in length, 30 inches in dafith, and 18
inches in width through a hard and stony soil, the labourer pro-
viding himself with spade, shovel, pick-axe, and crow-bar, at no
more than 3d. each drain.—(" Oh oh.") He would givegentle-
men further information of a like kind, if they required it, in
addition to that of the farmer, who, he might add, did not
agree wlth him on the subject of the corn-laws. That farmer
had told him that he had one workman who was able to cut
five such drains as he had described in a day, and thus earn
15d , but it was considered good work for a man to cut four of
them in a day. The Hon. Gentleman then read an extract
from an Oxford newspaper, as quoted in the Times of the 14th
of February, in which some outrages committed on the property
of three farmers in that county were described, and it was stated
that a fragment of paper had been left on a plough that had been
broken on the occasion, containing the words, " A full belly
does not know what an empty one feels." He wished gentle-
men on both sick s of the House, accustomed as they were to
good and comfortable living, would bear those words in their
recollection. He also read severs' passages from a letter of
Dr. Marsham, containing the result of various visits which lie
had paid among the poor of Leicester, and describing the
abject poverty which he had everywhere met with, and also a
passage from a newspaper with which, he stated, it was generally
believed the Hon. Member for Berkshite was connected, de-
scribing the poverty existing among the agricultural labourers
of Wiltshire, and likewise an account of a case at petty ses-
sions, where a poor man, earning but 6s. a week, was com-
mitted for a month to prison in default of paying 275.
penalty and costs for taking a branch of an ash tree for
tiring, at a time when his wife was in her confinement.
On that occasion the magistrates, including a clergyman, in
passing sentence, said, " If such offences as this were allowed
to go unpunished, there would soon be an end to the rights of
property." What could you expect that man to be when he
come out of gaol? He would now state to the House a series
of facts which his Hon. Friend had omitted to lay before them.
There were gentlemen in the House connected with Hampshire
who could correct any error into which he might fall. The
statement was, out of fifty tenants who were thriving before
the protecting duty was put on, the majority were ruined, or
nearly so, during the eighteen years of protection. Ten of the
tenants had died, and their children were now labourers.
Twelve of the tenants had been sold up, and were paupers.
One was a bailiff, and one other had committed suicide. Thus
twenty-four out of the fifty were provided for.—( Hear, hear,
and a laugh.) But ten only of the whole number continued to
be tenants, and these were badly off.--( Hear, hear.) He
would ask, was it not a fit subject of inquiry whether the corn-
law was not at the root of all the evil which these people had
suffered ?—( Hear, hear.) The Hon. Member for Dorsetshire
had expressed his satisfaction at the altered tone of his Hon.
Friend (Mr. Cobden), but he had not attempted to
contradict his statements respecting the condition of the
people in that county,—( Hear, hear.) It was proved
that the protection had not benefited Dorsetshire.
He could not see how it had benefited Lincolnshire. He attri-
buted the superior condition of the people of Lincolnshire to
their superior intelligence.—( Hear, and a laugh.) In the last
sixty years the population of Dorsetshire had doubled, and slow
as was the increase that increase was still going on. Would
there be more farms in ten years more? This was a matter
which the Government ought to consider more than con-
ciliating those who asserted at public meetings that they
would keep them up to the point.—( Hear, hear.) It was
said that the treatment of the manufacturing labourers was
worse than that • experienced by the Poles from the Emperor
of Russia, and the -Secretary for the Home Department had
dwelt with rapture upon the enjoyments of the agricultural
labourers.—( Cheers and a laugh.) But if there were not those
long dull lines of towns at which the Right Hon. Gentleman
sneered, what would become of the increasing population of the
agricultural districts?—( Hear.) This was ,a question which
the Government ought to consider more seriously. But every-
thing else was attended to, and that was neglected. The
object of the motion was to prove that those tenants and la-
bourers had been injured more than any other class by the
system of protection.—( Hear, hear.) He asked the House if
they believed, whether the Committee were granted or not, the
corn-law would be maintained? Did they believe that the
Right Hon. Gentleman, the President of the Board of Trade,
with all his tendency in favour of free trade, would continue to
support those laws ; that the Right Hon. Baronet, who they
knew sprung from trade, would be so devoid of gratitude as to
continue to support those laws which were laughed
at abroad—(Loud laughter)—but were anything but
a subject of laughter at home—rather a subject
of intense hatred to the greater portion of the community ? He
and the Hon. Member for Stockport would again go through
the country and explain to the farmers how a motion for a
Committee of Inquiry had been refused to them. The land-
lords told their tenants that they had peculiar burdens to bear,
yet when the Hon. Member for Sheffield moved for a Com-
mittee of Inquiry into those alleged peculiar burdens of the
landlords, it was refused. And why ? Because they were
conscious that they had no case to make out. Passing from
town to town, and from county to county, he and his Hon.
Friend should explain to the constituencies of the empire that
their representatives, who had been sent to that House to le-
gislate for the general interests of the country, did not hesitate
to vote as though they were a corporation for the sole purpose
of supporting their own interest in the rental of land.
NEWDEGATE said the Hon. Member for Durham
had accused him of making assertions in packed and exclusive
meetings, which he would not make in a general and miscel-
laneous assembly. To show that what he asserted was
true, with respect to the League, he would state that shortly
before the disturbances which took place in his neighbourhood
occurred, three persons who were connected with the Anti-
Corn-law League were down there, and took part in the pro-
ceedings which occurred before the outbreak. He had been
unable to obtain their names, however, as he was not allowed
Terteiebsietchta.towf esroe
to inspect the list of the Council of the Anti-Corn-law League.
Dr. BOWRING said that when the Hors. Member made
the charge against the League, he called upon him to name the
by the Hon. Gentleman. georaneeat connected
chargeii
sththasteht
Heh a
t brought League,
Gentleman
against
nh
satd
them
able to do. The Hon.
and said he could not get at the nameosno.f th
Gentleman_ now
e parties
repeated the charge,
inspecting the books a the wvtaisthuonu-t
League. Now the lion Gentle-
man eould do this by subse e
.ri ing nO/. to the League Fund.
Allusion had been made to a meeting
" Question," " Order.") A meeting held to express the sym-
pathy of the English people in favour of an injured
man.
(Renewed and vehement cries of "Question.") Ile repeated
that there was a demonstration in another place that even-
ins, which might have proved a most instructive lessen to her '
Majesty's Ministers.—( Laughter, and cries of .` Question.")
The Hon. Member had connected the Anti-Corn law League I
with that meeting, and he (Dr. Bowring) had a right to reply'
to those ohservations.—(" Question, question.") It might he I
very • tll for Hon. Members to disregard such demonstrations I
of public feeling.—( Great uproar.) He was aware that some
lion. Members opposite had not their
perfect control, but they should at least consider that it was '
hot very becoming in them to refuse a Member the opportunity
of speaking on a topic which had been already mooted before
the House.--( Renewed crier; of " Question, queston.") Ho