The Sun.
London, England, 1844-04-18 00:00:00

MEETING

AT COVENT-GARDEN THEATRE.

The first great Weekly Metropolitan Meeting of
the members of the National Anti-Corn-law League
since the Easter recess, was held last evening at
the Theatre Royal Covent-garden. The doors were
opened at half-past six o'clock, and the house was
soon filled. The number of ladies in the boxes was
watch larger than we have observed on many previous
occasions. At seven o'clock Richard Cobden, Esq.,
M.P., the Hon. Charles Pelham Villiers, M.P., John
Bright, Esq., M.P., H. G. Ward, Esq., M.P., George
Thompson, Esq., R. R. R. Moore, Esq., and Colonel
Peyronnet Thompson, accompanied by several other
active members of the League, entered the theatre,
and were received with loud cheers.
Among those present we observed :—Thomas
Milner Gibson, Esq., M.P.; Colonel Tucker ; Dr.
Cooke Taylor ; W. A. Wilkinson, Esq. ; P. A. Tay-
lor, Esq.; the Rev. Mr. Clare; Dr. Girdwood ;
Norman Wilkinson, Esq. ; S. Kennedy, Esq.; W.
Harvey, Esq. ' • H. L. Keiling, Esq. ; John Moir
Ware, Esq.; J. B. Kingdon, Esq.; Peter Martineau,
Esq.; R. Ireland, Esq.; R. Southall, Esq.; John
Lilor, Esq.; Major Reid Revell ; W. Lockett, Esq.,
Wrichester ; Charles A. Amber, Esq. ; Charles Clif-
ford, Esq.; R. W. Cole, Esq.; Henry Lloyd Mor-
gan, Esq. ; General Wyatt ; Robert Bagshaw, Esq. ;
C. Jones, Esq. ; J. D. Dunkin, Esq. ; B. D. Dunkin,
Esq; John Macartney, Esq., Manchester ; John
Semple, Esq., Glasgow; John Raining, Esq., Strat-
ford-on-Avon ; George Peile, Esq., Whitehaven ;
C. Dixon, Esq., Wellington, Salop ; W. Thornbor-
row, Esq.; L. Wiltshire, Esq.; James Bailey, Esq. ;
W. Edith, Esq.; Rev. H. Richards ; George Ridout,
Esq.: J. Towne, Esq. ; Hugh Shield, Esq. ' • W.
llepple,
.Esq., Bishop Auckland, Durham ; James
Anderson, Eici.; Dr. Icing; and W. Geesin, Esq.
Rommel) C.onnux, Esq., 1.P.1 for Stockport, took
the Chair, amidst the most enthusiastic cheering.
The SECRETARY read the minutes of the last meet-
ing, which, on the motion of J. BRIGHT, Esq., M.P.,
seconded by the Hon. C. P. VILLIERS, M.P., were
confirmed.
The CHAIRMAN then came forward, and was re-
ceived with loud cheers, which lasted some minutes.
All present rose and waved their hats and handker-
chiefs ; when the cheering was subsiding, there was a
call for one cheer more, which was most enthusiasti-
cally responded to. Silence having been restored,
the Hon. Gentleman proceeded to address the meeting,
as follows :—Ladies and Gentlemen, during the short 1
cessation which has taken place in the holding of our '
meetings in this theatre, I have been attending a few
meetings in the country—(Cheers)—and it may per-
haps be interesting to you to learn something of the
spisie and enthusiasm which prevail in the cause of
free trade elsewhere. I have had the honour of attend-
ing a meeting of free traders in Bristol, and I never
saw a more influential meeting, or a meeting of a
higher moral tone, or one more calculated to forward
the great objects which we have in view. At that
meeting 6001. was subscribed in the room to the
League fund.— (Cheers.) I subsequently had
the honour of attending a meeting with my Hon.
Friend Mr. Villiers, in the borough of Wolverhamp-
ton. I need not speak to you of the excellent spirit
which actuates the people of Wolvorhasnpton. when
I tell you that they send Mr. Villiers and Mr.
Thornely to Parliament as their representatives.—
(Cheers.) There was no room in the place large
enough to hold all the free-traders who were desirous
of being present at that meeting, and a pavilion was
consequently erected for the purpose of affording ac-
commodation to them. Upwards of 3,000 persons
met together in Wolverhampton, and the meeting did
not separate until they had subscribed 6501. to the
League Fund. I also had the honour of attending
a meeting in the amphitheatre of Liverpool, where I
had the good fortune to meet a distinguished friend
of free trade from the North—Mr. Fox Manic—
(Cheers)e:-one who, unless common fame has misre-
ported, is heir to something like 60,000 acres under
the plough ; and he came there to bear his testimony
that a free trade in corn was as desirable for the
agricultural as it was for the manufacturing or trad-
ing irikest.—(Cheers.) Since we last met here,
Ladies and Gentlemen, certain changes have taken
place in political life, owing to a certain death which
will involve elections in sundry boroughs. I must
say, however, that if we could have chosen the places
in which we wish to meet the monopolists in
election contests, we should not have chosen as
our battle-field with these monopolists such places
as Horsham, Huntingdon, or Woodstock. I be-
lieve, that in every instance in which a -vacancy oc-
- curs a contest will be fought, if a local
man can be found to put up for the representation,
even if we poll only '2O votes.—(Cheers.) We hare
been charged with attempting to dictate to consti•
tuencies. We attempt no such thing; we only pro-
fess to co-operate with constituencies. We go and
offer our co-operation to the local members of the
League in every borough to which we go, and if you
should hear of any contest passing over without a
League candidate starting, you may believe that it
has been because the League Council do not wish to
dictate to the local traders, but, in deference to their
wishes, have thought it right that such boroughs
should be left for future organisation.—(Cheers.)
Exeter will be centested.—(Loud cheers.) lam
happy to say that General Briggs—an officer in the
service of the East India Company, and a gentleman
distinguished for his 'philanthropy, public spirit, and
love of freedom in every form,—General Briggs
I am happy to say is a candidate for Exeter.—
(Cheers.) What may be the result of that contest I
know not, but I know that if in a borough of 30,000
inhabitants a free trader fights one battle en League
principles, and loses, he is certain to fight the next
great battle, and to win.—(Cheers.) I am anxious
that our friends here and elsewhere should feel that
we never waste the League funds in any large and
unconstitutional expenditure in election contests, be-
cause I have seen statements to that effect made even
in some of the papers which give us their support.
IVe merely transfer our lecturers and our tracts into
a borough at the time when the inhabitants are alive to
politics, and simply avail ourselves of the excitement
which an election always creates, and the desire to be
informed on political subjects arising from that excite-
ment, to instruct the inhabitants in the doctrines of free
trade, and we do as much for the education of a bo-
rough in one week at the time of an election, as we
could do in a month under ordinary circumstances.
It is like a recruiting party going into a town with
drums besting and colours flying—like a recruiting
party going into a town at fair-time.—(Cheers and
laughter.) I state this that the public may not sup-
pose that the League are spending their money in
boroughmongerieg and electioneering. We go to
prevent other people from bribing. You have, no
doubt, heard it said, and I know that many persons
think, that it cost from 14001. or 1,0001. at least, to
contest a borough. Now, in such boroughs as Hors-
ham, Woodstock, and Huntingdon, if any candidate
spends more than 100/. in an election contest,
• is not spent honestly and truly ; and.
, • we do nothing else, we are doing good
4
pre venting parties from pursuing a sys-
tem of denioralisation which has made contests in
boroughs little better than a trial of the length of the
purse of the respective candidates.—(Cheers.) I have
an announcement to make to you before I resume my
seat. Applications have been made to the Council of
the League to hold a bazaar in this theatre before the.
• close of the season.—(cheers.) Many ladies have
stated to the League Council that they are at present
at work in preparing materials for that bazaar, as
they are anxious to assist the cause of the League,
and to contribute in that pleasant manner to its funds.
—(Cheers.) The Council have determined to adopt
pis suggestion of our female friends, and all, there-
ore, who feel disposed to aid in furnishing the stalls
are invited to use their diligent attention for the at-
tainment of that object.have one suggestion to
make-from myself as to plardt ofotthe exhibition at
eat bazaar.—(Laughter.)a
myself there—(Renewedlaughteorli_bmtean to ibit
u. I am-anxiousf
that we should have a collection ofgsrocmsmencsho every
srecies of manufacture in the kin a
foeoers)-.---
tt at they should be brought, as it were, to
tl-is,bazaar.—(Cheers.) Everything that is osaudse in
metal should be there, from a steam-engine to a
r.eedle. Everything that is manufactured from silk,
from the finest embroidered garment to the humblest
and narrowest ribbon. Everything of cotton manu-
facture—everything of woollen manufacture—every-
thing that we make : all that the manufacturers of 1
Englit-nd produce should be brought together in the.
exhibition in this theatre.—(Cheers.) And when we
,have brought these materials together, we will
invite the monopolists—we will invite the
restrictionists, to see the collection ; and we
gill point to this as a proof of what the
ingenuity and the unaided and unprotected
skill of the manufacturer can do—(Loud cheers)—
without prizes—without protection, and without.
Dukes of Richmond or Bu.ckingham.—(Cheers and
laughter.) And when we have brought them to view
We exhibition we will put to them this question, and
this question only : "Do you think that the hands
that made these ingenious articles ought to be hang-
Irg idle at the sides of men, who are pining for want
of 13•ead."—(Loud cheese `• Now Ladies and Gentle •
men, I have to introduce ''
to you in the first place a
distinguished friend fre;a•vn-deeof our cause, who has often ren-
keer ~..: .
.-x.. ••,1 dimi in another arena where there
yelicrpt.,,i lindebate, although this -is the
~,, , t, ,ei, e , 7_ "I.!itaa appeared upon these boards.—
,( ,
~. ''beg to introduce to you my Hon,
ser:Tirci,l7ewWkr4acitpthewMhember for
.Sheffield.
":11 ' •-lp :contra _ cheers, said - . 1 ''--- tie '.4aD, ~
swaiads
that r received e ihs -eedcoisieldithasyseurry.
~..t ;6'siC,ol7l" reif447.truth that he appeared before
-
\ ~;....j.L...Y., .
4 -.N...4....7,............

'_ j -,

them that night, as their Honourable Chairman had
said, for the first time upon these boards, with some
little reluctance and a great many doubts; and he
told them honestly that this feeling was increased
instead of lessened—however ungrateful the ex-
pression might appear—by the manner in which
they had been pleased to receive the announce-
ment of his name by the Chairman—(Cheers)—be-
cause their kind reception bespoke an impression
which the next ten minutes would destroy. He
should have come to their meetings, even if he had any
doubts of the justice of the principle for which they
contended; but on the contrary, to the fullest ex-
tent in which words could express it, he concurred unre-
reservedly and unhesitatingly in the principle of free
trade—free trade in everything.—(Loud cheers )
But if they would allow him to finish the sentence—
but above all and before all, as the keystone of the
whole position of their opponents, for a free trade in
corn. If, therefore, he had any fear, or reluctance, or
doubts in preseating himself before them, it was because
he knew that the men who had so well conducted this
great national cause—for a national cause it was—up
to the present point, whose perseverance had overcome
all obstacles, and whose ability was the presage of
future success, had not left those who came after
them, the labourers of the eleventh hour, any shadow
of new argument or new facts. He had always re-
garded the meetings giving such attention to a subject
which the House of Commons esteemed so dry and
exhausted that they could hardly get 60 members to
sit out an Anti- corn-law debate—he regarded them
as some of the remarkable phenomena of the
present times. He knew the benefit they derived
when his Hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhamp-
ton put an idea into the cruicible of his mind, and
turned it out purified from all alloy, and just what it
was worth.—(Cheers.) Although the subject was
the same, they could still appreciate the endless variety
into which their Chrirman cast the details of a subject
on which he employed his powerful mind ; and yet the
constant recurrence of those meetings, the way in which
that house was filled, and the extreme attention
paid, was a proof of no common interest taken in no
common cause.—(Cheers.) They were right, and
perfectly right, to encourage by their generous sym-
pathies those who fought their battles. He recol-
lected the time when the three hundred delegates
crowded the lobby and Downing-street from Man-
chester, and Paisley, and Glasgow, and Sheffield; and
it was said, " Mark how London stands aloof." They
were told " It is inevitable that London should separate
itself from the country; free trade may be a very pod
thing for Lancaster, but a very bad thing for West-
minster or for Marylebone—they know better, and
they act against free trade ;" and, as it was said the
other night by Sir Robert reel, that a regard to self-
interest was the vivifying principle of this world,
so it was said, " All that the friends of free trade
can say, all their eloquence will not alter the
opinion of the people of London." Then it was
said not only was this the feeling in the West-
end, but " look at the City—there they have
practical men ; it is not likely that the merchants -of
the City will entertain such a foolish notion ; they
know that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
Out of the four seats in the City the free traders had
only one, and that was a modified edition of free trade ;
for if Lord John Russell held the principles of Mr.
Cobden, he would be thrown out." This was the talk
three years ago ; he did not think they talked so glibly
of City elections now.—(Cheers.) Somehow or other
they had made an alteration in the feeling. On the last
occasion of a City election, the corn-law men put
forward, as they admitted, their best candidate—so
good a candidate that they had sent him to Hunting-
don—(Great laughter)—a gentleman of the highest
commercial respectability, as fluent as Mr. Gladstone,
and almost as plausible as Sir Robert Peel— (Cheers)
—and yet things did not turn ont as they expected.
Mr. Baring was not the Member for the
City; between Mr. Baring and Mr. Pattison the
difference was an enormous one—(Laughter and
cheers)—and he he did not mean any personal
allusion to Mr. Pattison in using that word.
Coupled with such a contest, their attendance there
did show a change of feeling, from w hich he
anticipated the most gratifying results. He
knew that this change must come. He was aware
that a fallacy was the most obstinate thing to
overcome if it were ingeniously put. There
were very few men who thought se. Most
men liked to follow like sheep at a gap. If the
words were put well together, there was nothing of
a fallacy which Englishmen would not swallow. He
had happened lately to be reading the work of an
intelligent observer, an American, whom they knew
under the name of Sam Slick. There could be
nothing wrong in quoting Sam Slick, and he
said, " A considerable large print that Bull
family is ; you may read them by moonlight ;
they will swallow a fallacy just as a turkey
swallows a grasshopper ; they take it right
down whole without winking, and then ask for more."
—(Much laughter.) Still there are some fallacies
which cannot be gulped down. He held in his hand
a pamphlet which had great influence in 1841. When
he last bought one he had been told that 42,000 had
been sold, and now he was told that there had
been 50,000. That day he had bought the
50,000 th. It was an appeal to the tradesmen of
London by one of themselves, and in that
appeal the whole question was put upon the
argument of the writer that the interest of London
on the corn-laws was distinct from that of the coun-
try at large; it was said that " they all shared in the
taxes placed on corn ; that the landowners fleeced
others to enrich them"—(Cries of " Query.")
When that respectable individual, Sir Edward
Knatchbull, therefore, told them from the Treasury
benches that he could not live without the corn-
laws, and that he would be glad to part with them
if he could find a fund out of which to pay the join-
ture of his daughters and the settlement of his wife—
it was made clear that the tradesmen of London had
an equal interest in these laws, for they enabled
Sir Edward Kr.atchbull to pay the London trades-
men for his liveries and for painting his coach.
Many then believed this ; and many, perhaps, be-
lieved still, that high rents in Kent meant
high rents in St. James's ; that the whole existence
of London depended upon the maintenance of those
laws ; that the whole which a tradesman would gain
by cheap bread would be 201. a year, whilst he
would lose 1,0001. worth of trade in one year ;
or more than the repeal of the corn-laws would
do them good in forty years. That, however, was
one of the falsehoods which could not be swallowed long.
It was ridiculous to suppose that the greatness of
London was owing to the landed aristocracy who
resided in it.—(Hear, hear.) Its greatness con-
sisted of the aggregate savings of every body else,
for money saved was money spent.—(Hear, hear.)
The less a man paid for his bread the more he was
able to spend on other articles.—(Heaf, heai.) Lon-
don had no great manufactures of her own_; her
business was to dispense every thing which the in-
dustry of others created. To say, therefore, that it
had a separate interest in the corn-laws, and that it
could thrive amidst the universal decay of the coun-
try, was reversing the old homely fable of the belly
and the members.—(Hear, hear, and laughter.) It
was to suppose that the belly conspired against the
hands and feet which supplied its wants.—(Hear,
hear.) To what did London owe its real greatness
and prosperity ? Not to the residence of a few
thousands who lived there for one portion of the year
and left it for the remainder. If every Duke was as
rich as Crsits, if every squire was a millionaire, and
every younger brother had a Fortunatus' purse,
instead of the capacity of emptying the purses of
other persons—(clear, hear, and laughter)—even
then he would defy their united efforts to produce
such a community as this.—(Hear, hear.). London
was the greatest commercial city in the world—it
was the capital of an empire which, for the first
time In the history of the world, realised the Spanish
boast, that, on the Queen's dominions the sun never
set.—(Cheers.) It was the point of intercommuni-
cation between their widely-extended colonies, which
stretched from Canada to the Cape of Good Hope.
The indigo of India and the wool of Australia were
brought to enrich the people of Leeds. It realised a
height of greatness which would seem fabulous to
the people of Venice, of Carthage, and of Tyre.—
(Cheers.) The landed aristocracy had nothing to do
with the greatness of such a city. They did not do
justice to themselves in imagining it.—(Cheers.)
He did not wish to weary them with details, hut he
begged to remind them of what London was. Its
population had doubled since 1801.
In 1801 it was 888,198
In 1831 it was .. 1,508,469
In 1841 it was
Two millions in round numhers.
Length from east to west 54 miles (if from Chelsea
to Blackwall 71). Breadth from north to south, 34.
A Principality of Bricks. A river which has marked
;DBocouktshwcoarpvit,i7
it out for the scat of commerce from the earliest times
crossed2o by six bridges, cost 5,000,0001; London-bridge,
London athteerlvoao,ullt,slscoo,notoaoint
cellarage for 63,000
West India Docks, 295 acres 500 •
te3700;00:4r:,
, vessels.
Commercial -Docks 49 , acres (40 water) used prin-
cipally for the Baltic trade.
St. Katherine's Docks, 24 acres (114 water)
Port of London, 1840.-2,950 ships of
manned by 32,000 men.

Tons.
Tonnage of colliers in the river 2,625,323 (same year.)

Colonies, 1,683 ships of 417,139
Ireland, 907 ships of 142,000
Coasting trade, 20,205 ships of
(colliers included) 2,686,621
3,166 British, 2,335 Foreign
vessels

Total tons 4,167,164
From Russia, Sweden, G,..rmany, Holland, France, the
Mediterranean, China, and United States.
London has paid, upon an average, for the last ten
years, eleven millions in custom duties, out of the