The Sun.
London, England, 1844-04-25 00:00:00

done them good—that they were doing them harm now
—and that they never expected to derive any benefit
from them. It that were untrue, the facts they stated
could have been contradicted. Would they not, with
all their Protection Societies, have answered those
statements of Mr. Hunt and Mr. Latimore ?—(Cheers.)
It was, therefore, from seeing how little confidence
those people had in their cause—it was from
observing the universal admission now made that
something must be done to meet the exigencies of our
increasing population, and save from sinking the
working classes—that he did expect, sooner or later,
they must see the importance of the question which
they were associated to support. Though it was at
first contrary to his inclination to postpone his mo-
tion for the abolition of the corn-laws, yet he was dis-
posed to think that he was rightly advised, because
the public would have an opportunity of re-consider-
ing all those questions now before the country, and
the House would be more generally prepared with
information upon the condition of the people. Their
sole object was to improve the condition of the work-
ing classes. It was certainly his intention to make
his usual motion this session, and take the first con-
venient day in the ensuing month to propose it to the
House.—(Cheers.) It was now his duty to introduce
to their notice those Members of Parliament who
attended to aid in the discussion that evening. He
would introduce to them Mr. E wart.
Mr. EWART here came forward and was received
with general cheering. He said if he consulted his
own inclinations—perhaps he might say his own in-
terest—because he did not feel very adequate to the
task that evening—he should have declined the invi-
tation with which his friends Mr. Villiers and Mr.
Cobden had honoured him. But he did feel it an ho-
nour to be called onto stand before that meeting, and
in such a cause as that they advocated. The Chair-
man had, in the commencement of his speech, truly
said that they might be better employed than in cer-
tain scenic exhibitions, such as those that had been ce-
lebrated of late in a certain place. He believed that
his Honourable Friends, whom he saw around him,
in being absent from the House of Commons,
were more tranquilly, usefully, and benefi-
cially engaged for the interests of the country
in advocating the repeal of the corn• laws, which
had so long oppressed the people of this coun-
try, by obstructing the supply of food to the popula-
tion, and fettering commerce, than they might be in
listening to personal harangues, and witnessing exhi-
bitions of personal violence, which he could wish, for
the sake of the country and the House, had been
alike spared. Since he had last the honour of ad-
dressing them, a great change had come over the
spirit of the country. He had last addressed them in
the hour of severe adversity. The country was suffer-
ing under one of those tempests which sometimes shook
commerce to its centre, and drove it from its basis.
To the storm which had pervaded the commercial
and manufacturing districts had succeeded a calm.
They were at present in a state of apparent and of
temporary prosperity. How long was it to last ?
As one of the poets said—
" In painted pomp the gilded vessel goes,
Unmindful of the sweeping whirlwind's sway,
Which hush'd in grim repose expects its evening prey."
(Cheers.) There was a stillness, it was true. They
were now more prosperous than they were some time
ago. But who knew how soon a change might come,
and how soon the tranquillity which at present pre-
vailed might be changed into a violent storm ?
(Hear.) Depend on it, no prosperity could continue
unless they altered the laws which regulated the
price of the food of the people. As long as there
*ere laws which interfered with the commerce of the
country—as long as the corn-laws and the:sugar-laws
--e-as long as all those laws which prohibited a large
importation of articles of household use continued,
.there would be neither security for commerce nor for
a. supply of those articles on which the subsistence of
the people rested.—(Hear, hear.) Therefore he said
that the present calm was delusive; and though there
was a silence and stillness, it was such as preceded
the whielwind.—(Hear, hear.) His Hon. Friends,
Mr. Cobden and Mr. Bright, had been accused
with parading the country, and with exciting
agitation. His Hon. Friends had done the greatest
good by adopting such a course.—(Cheers.) They
thereby produced a wholesome agitation of the at-
mosphere, which rendered the air pure and good—it
was that agitation of the storm which, by its motion,
worked itself into purity; it was that agitation of
the tide which prevented the ocean from becoming
stagnant and noxious. Such were the results of the
public virtues and patriotic efforts of his Hon. Friends.
They had omitted nothing which could excite
curiosity and information upon the subject, even in
quarters where information and curiosity were never
excited before. They went into the agricultural dis-
tricts, and penetrated into those forbidden places, the
estates of squires. How dare they go amongst the
tenants and peasants of the equires, and disseminate
-
!_e eneteed from the
Anti-Corn-law League. The tenants and peasahoi..
distant parts of the country had no idea, not only
' of the importance of the question, but had scarcely
an idea even of their natural rights as men.—(Hear,
hear.) The tenants never thought, as the tenants did
in Scotland, to look fur long leases, till the Anti-Corn-
law League dispelled the settled darkness which
heretofore obscured their minds. The peasants then
began to think that they would be better if an altera-
tion was made in the laws which prohibited .a free
supply of food, than that a necessary supply should
be withheld from them. They were enlightened on
the subject by those undaunted leaders of the League,
Cobden and Mr. Bright.—(Cheers.) In times
of prosperity this agitation might not be so
powerful as in times of distress, but there were good
and valid reasons why :the agitation should continue,
and why they should assume even a firmer and
sterner tone than ever in demanding a repeal of the
corn-laws, and all laws which pressed on commerce
and impeded the unrestricted flow of manufactures.
But he looked beyond the bounds of his own country,
and he saw that the manufactures of America were
extending themselves with that energy which marked
the spirit of that enterprising and commercial
country. Nothing seemed too great for her exertions.
Whatever they might think of their own manufactur-
ing experience, they might depend upon it there
was one nation which was driven on by an urgent and
impetuous desire to overtake them in manufacturing
improvement. That country was the offspring of
their own soil. The people of that country luid not
on!y inherited the industry and enterprise which
characterised the people of England ; but they mani-
fested such a degree of energy, for which he might
almost call them ultra-Enseli,h, that they were likely
to become the greatest rivals of their manufacturing
supremacy and commercial greatness, and
seemed to become their most powerful com-
petitors in the arts of peace as they had been
their most successful opponents in the arts of war.
They were now working ccal-tracts and iron mines,
in order to the production of machinery; and' at the
moment while he was speaking, they were extending,
by treaty, the limits of their trade. It was only yes-
terday they had heard that America had concluded a
commercial treaty with theZollverein, or the great Ge-
rman Commercial Confederation. They were making
new advances, which would stimulate their exertions,
and they were marching with a rapidity which would
seem as if they would distance them in the race of
manufacturing prosperity, and remove them from
that easy supremacy which they had heretofore held.
America thus opened to herself a market of 27,000,000
of people for her tobacco and other produce. What
had the Government of England done for her com-
merce by the way of treaty ? Nothing—absolutely,
nothing ! They might, perhaps, be received on the
footing of the most favoured of nations, but that was
all. They had failed in their attempts to
unite their commerce with the trade of other
nations by treaty. The only course which
remained open was that which was whispered in
Downing-street, and sometimes uttered in the
House of Commons, that which was first promul-
gated by Franklin, and afterwards reiterated by
Pitt and Peel, that simple principle of buying
in the cheapest market and selling in the
dearest. The Ministers were sometimes, by their
friends and foes, charged with being free-traders,
He gave them full credit for what they did. He
could only wish they were more open in carrying
into practice their theory of free trade. One Minister
had just made the declaration he had now quoted;
and others said that the principles of free trade were
the principles of common sense. Another was sup-
posed to write in favour of the Government principles'
of free trade. If such were the principles
entertained by the Ministers, why did they
sot act on them? He could not conceive
a more ridiculous position than that of a
Ministerr who, whitrtvriting in his office in favour of
freewhoj wereade , might be visited by his political supporter's
opposed to the extension of commerce, and
on asking him what he was writing, must con-
cealwh
visitants:h e tenortofrhi ae
wntdingh.frona his too inquisitive
they must have "witnessed in
of a scene • which
Rivals, in which • a young lady,
the
when
of the
caught with a parcel of contrabandY'wvio works,
t concealed
them suddenly
them under the cover of a more pi wror..,
delicate embezzlement under the " Whole Duty tillydoa
Man."—(Laughter.) Such would be the position of
a Minister interrupted by the ingress of some mono-
polist. polist. He maintained not only that the Government
and Parliament ought to look to the abolition of the
corn-laws, the great and moat important remedy
Whichcould-be devised for the commercial and fiscal
evils of the country; but he maintained- thatthey ought
also to look to the removal of the oppressive duties on
sugar, coffee, and tea, and all articles which went to
maintain the people, and more esp:,‘cially of those
articles whieb, in consequence of the_ high duties on
them, held out an inducement to the smuggler end
were ruin to the fair trader.—(Cheers.) He main-
tained that it was the first duty of a Government and
of a Parliament to watch over the subsistence and
superintend by law the morals of the people.--

(Hear, hear.) He was the more persuaded
of the iniquity of those laws because they
pressed much more hardly on the means of
the poor than of the rich man. That was
his first reason ; and his second was, that while the
rich man had a tolerably pure article, that of the
poor man was a mixed, a manufactured, or an impure
and adulterated article.—(Cheers.) The sugar which
the poor man used was so mixed with adulterating
ingredients, that they almost entirely destroyed its
saccharine quality. He had seen specimens lately
which scarcely contained any of the produce of the
sugar cane. Could anything be more cruel or un-
just than the contrast between the rich man and the
poor man? One had his article unmixed, and the
purest that could be obtained, while the other had
only an impure article, mixed with adulterous and
poisonous ingredients, which he was compelled to
make use of by sad necessity and the law of
the country.—(Loud cheering.) It was the
same with regard to coffee. The rich man
bought it in the berry, and had it ground at his own
house ; but the poor man was obliged to buy it im-
pure in some small shop, or to take it at the corner of
a street. The same was the case with regard to tea.
The rich man obtained souchong, which he had as
pure as possible ; the poor man was compelled to use
congou, which was adulterated. This was an injus-
tice—a gross injustice; for, as was said by Mr.
Burke, " the first object of a:Legislature ought to be
the poor." With them it seemed to be the last. Let
them take another article, that of tobacco. It had
been called " a narcotian weed." It had been intro-
duced into this country by Raleigh, and it had now
descended to the lowest classes of society. It was
called a noxious weed, but still it was that from which
the poor man derived solace and comfort ; yet it was
taxed at 800 per cent. on the value of the
article. He formed one of a Committee which
was sitting at present upon the subject,
and they had a great deal of evidence upon it. It
showed, that while the tobacco of the rich man was
pure and unadulterated, the tobacco of the poor man
was greatly mixed, adulterated, and entirely changed,
and the only chance he had of getting a good article
was when it was smuggled. Could those be
,just or
good laws which created such a state of things ? But
there was another aspect to the question. These laws
were not only oppressive to the people on the ground
he had mentioned; they were also a temptation to
the people to become immoral. Instead of becoming
honest peasants they became dishonest smugglers.
The high duties tempted them, and offered them
such a prize as their virtue was not able to resist.
Therefore were their laws not only uncommercial
and anti- social, but they were oppressive to the peo-
ple, by taking the means of subsistence from them.
How much better and more conducive to the interests
of the country would it not be if, by removing those
laws which impeded commerce, they increased their
intercourse with Belgium, with America, and with
other foreign countries • receiving the productions of
those countries in exchange for their own, calling into
life numbers of their people in seamen, who knew not
how to exist at present, instead of tempting them by
high duties to become. smugglers ? First of
all they should get rid of colonial monopolies.
Some years ago this country paid twenty millions as
compensation to the owners of slaves, and received
nothilig.—(Hear, hear, and laughter.) They had,
indeed, received the greatest of all moral rewards—
the greatest which could be possessed by a benevolent
and enlightened mind—namely, the emancipation of
hundreds of thousands of their fellow-beings. He
did not for a moment mean to place in the balance
against such a consummation the paltry sum, for
such he might call it when given for such
a purpose, which had been given to re-
deem hundreds of thousands of their long-
suffering fellow-beings from slavery and oppression.
The country not only paid the price of their libera-
tion, but of its own ; it not only paid. 20,000,0001.
sterling as the price of their emancipation, but as the
price of its own. If they were to have the iron fet-
ters for ever shaken from the hands of the slaves, they
also said, let us have the commercial fetters shaken
off from our own hands also.—(Cheers.) The slaves
were freed, but the people of this country were conti-
nued bound, and unless they demanded the abolition
of these restrictions, they would continue to be so,
till nothing short of the compulsion of
necessity should drive the Legislature to redeem its
pledge. Ilow would they call into its fall
force the power of their colonial enterprise ? How
would they bring out the latent energies that were
hidden in their colonies ? By pronouncing one short
magic word, and that word was Competition.—
(Cheers.) The colonists were now asking for an im-
migration of labourers into the West Indies. They
asked also to be allowed to continue their monopoly.
Give them, if they liked, this immigration of la-
bourers ; let them get it, if they could get it honestly ;
but give them also competition. Nothing would call
into operation the active energies of the West Indies,
in relation with this country, except the crs,-1
of all trade, the animating principle of
all enterprise, competition. As long as they were
monopolists, so long would they remain sluggards.
Despotism might bind up the hands of men, but mo-
nopoly fettered, rusted, and corroded, and eat into the
very soul and spirit of commerce.—(Cheers.) But
were there no other persons to whom he would extend
this principle of competition ? Yes ; there was an-
other race of men, the landowners of this country, to
whom he would apply it. Let them enter upon the
field of competition courageously, fairly, and openly,
with the corn producers of other countries, for
until they did that, they could neither know
their own resources for the supply of food,
nor could they know the extent of their own
energies and enterprise. Call on them, and he
trusted it would be done successfully, to meet foreign
competition on the fair grounds of a rival trade, and
they would then summon into active existence ener-
gies and powers that had hitherto lain dormant, enly
because they had not been called out by competition
with other nations. Let them call out these powers,
and they would then see what this country could
produce. Why, the mere agitation only of the question
of competition, not the thing itself—not its substance
but merely its shadow, the agitation that had spread
through the land in favour of a repeal of the corn-
laws, involving the mere name and shadow of com-
petition, had called forth energies in the agricultural
interest quite unknown before. They were now be-
ginning to bestir themselves like men who had been
for a long time asleep, or, to borrow words=—words
which were far superior to any he could use of his
own, like
" Men wont to watch, on duty sleeping caught,
By those they dread, rouse and bestir themselves,
Ere well awake."
—(Cheers.) So had it been with the agricultural in-
terest of this country, they had roused and bestirred
themselves, and were now draining, and projecting
improvements, and devising mechanical adaptations,
which the agriculturists never dreamed of before.
How had they been roused into this sudden activity
and unwonted energy? Because they heard from
afar off the distant murmurs, yet remote, of the
name of competition. At a distance they dreaded it,
and if at this distance the word produced these won-
derful results, what effects would be produced by
its practical application ?—(Cheers.) It was the Anti-
Corn-law League that had raised this magic sound,
and had disturbed with it the almost perennial slum-
ber of the agricultural interest ; nor would it rest
till they were brought to fight with not only the
distant shadow, but with the formidable substance
and reality of competition.—(Cheers.) And when
they met in an open and English-like manner, they
would vanquish it; but as long as they looked on it
like children trembling at a shade, they would not
exert their energies or awaken their courage, but re-
main passive and dormant in the same state as they
were when the Anti-Corn-law League first
disturbed their slumbers. On these grounds
he called on them to support the cause of free trade;
nor did he restrict the term to the Anti-Corn-law
League ; the doctrines of free trade generally, ex-
clusive of the question of a free trade in corn, was
beginning to be a received axiom in this country ; it
was no longer a problem; it had become an axiom
which would be made the basis of future problems.
The doctrine of free trade was beginning to be re-
ceived as an admitted fact, and he trusted that, ere
long, they should see free-trade associations, having
for their object the spreading of the doCtrine of the
most extensive intercourse with foreign coun-
tries, the employment of their manufactures, and,
as a consequence, the most active development f their
agricultural industry, extended from one end of the
island to the other. Thus were things always begun
This great association began in Manchester, it had
extended to London, it was extending- all over Eng-
land, and its principles were spreading all over the
world.—(Cheers.) This principle of the freedom of
trade, which was the basis of its operations, he might
almost say lead arisen with the Anti-Corn-law
League. He, had himself seen transtated. into
Spanish the whole of -the evidence taken be-
fore the Committee of -the House of Commons
in favour of free trade ; he had seen the name of their
excellent Chairman, Mr. Villiers, and of the Hon.
Member near him, the name of Mr. Hume, and he
had been astonished, and perhaps puzzled, to see his
own name also, with all their questions and the
answers they obtained to them, circulated throughout
Spain, in a translation, for the. benefit of that illus-
trious, but unfortunate and benighted country. He
called on them, by extending the doctrines of free
trade abroad, to disseminate also the doctrines of
peace—of peace, the great consummation -and great
triumph of free,trade. Free trad,,rs were the' friends
of pace, and they rjo:lcnd in the title—(Cheers)—
they wished to
raensdtrti oe
bthuetmbytotgheether, not by the Tatars of
i° Binal the unsocial-nations into one,,'
tion,
golden chain of mutual de-
pendence.—(Cheers.) These doctrines will be our
triumph abroad. And what was their triumph at
home ? It was this, that they maintained the