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

was considered as adespicable measure, both by the

country and the llouse of Commons; one a;ainst
which every body protested, both those who thought
it too little, and those who thought it too much.
—(Hear, hear.) It was a measure pre-emi-
nently founded on false pretences, as he believed
he (Mr. Ward) had contributed to prove.—(Cheers.)
They would recollect that the ground on which the
corn-laws were said to rest were stated by Sir It.

Peel, in his Tamworth speech, to be the peculiar bur-
dens to which the land was subjected. He said that
land was over-taxed in this country, that the land-
owner was a sort of milch cow, to be drawn when it
could milk nothing else—(Laughter)—that other in-
terests bore nothing like their proper share of the
burdens of the country, but that they were all heaped
on the unfortunate landowner, who therefore had a

right to ask for protection on everything he produced.
He (Mr. Ward) doubted all this, and he ventured
very humbly to challenge Sir Robert Peel to prove
what he urged. He said give us a Committee on this
question of peculiar burdens ; we do not care how the
Committee is composed; you may have the majority
on it if you will, and may put Col. Sibthorp in the
chair if you like. It is all the same to us whether
you try to prove your own case, or allow us to dis-
prove it, only give us the Hon. Member for Wolver-
hampton and the Hon. Member for Stockport and we
shall be perfectly content to take that Committee, and
work out our position, and abide by the result. But
Sir Robert Peel would not abide by the result.
He recollected the old line from Shakspeare, "A
rotten case al ill not bear handling."—(Cheers.)
He much preferred the comfort and security of a vote
on the question, and on the vote he beat him (Mr.
Ward) of course. But what was the inference from
this ? Why, that the corn-laws were brought in by
a class, for the benefit of a class, supported against
the principles of the very Government by whom those
laws were maintained, and defended on grounds that
would not bear the light of day.—(Cheers.) And
now what would be the effect of a repeal of those
laws ? The first effect, and the one in which they
were the most interested, would be that it would
make the Thames the granary of the world.—(Cheers.)
And this, they would admit, would give a great
stimulus to trade. More ships would be required,
more sailors to man them, more wharves to be built,
which again would give employmont to carpenters,
bricklayers, and other trades ; there would be more
business for merchants, and more demand for mer-
chants' clerks and others. Everything would be set
in motion ; the mere 3d. saved in the price of every
quartern ice consumed in London would give more
than a million per annum to be spent among other
trades.—(Cheers.) Then a repeal of the corn-laws
would not come alone. They attacked the corn-laws
first, because they were the keystone of the arch of
monopoly; if they broke down that, the whole fabric
would fall in. The men who called on the Govern-
ment for protection in everything—he knew them
well, and they would be the very first to
call out for cheap tea, cheap sugar, cheap
wine, cheap coffee, cheap ships to bring them
over in, and good commercial treaties with any coun-
try in the world, that could contribute anything to
supply their wants. That was just what they wanted
to bring them to. 'Who could tell what the effect of
such a change would be in such a city as London,
which by its vast and enormous possession of capital,
already defied competition? Who could estimate the
effects of such a change on the operative classes of the
kingdom ? and he cared for that infinitely more than
he did for its effects on the merchants and capitalists—
(Cheers)—because it involved the fate of those who
lived by their labour alone. Every one must feel
that the condition of the working population
could only be permanently improved by relaxing
the pressure on the springs of industry, and making
the condition of life in this country less hard than
it was. God knew that it was hard enough ; hard
enongh for all !—(Hear, hear)—for it was not alone
the artisan, the man who worked with his hands, who
felt it; the mind also was taxed, in order to meet
others in the struggle for bread.—(Hear, hear.)
They might teke any trade, he cared not which—
they might take all the trades whose productions
their chairman hoped would be united in that theatre
in he free-trade bazaar ; let them take the workmen
in their skilful manufactures, down to the ruder
labourer who raised the fuel which put in motion the
vast machinery by which their manufacturing mar-
vels were wrought ; in all these trades and occupations
the same complaints prevailed throughout the kingdom;
they found that the labourers were called to toil too
early, and were obliged to labour too long. In the
manufacturing districits they found that childhood
was blighted by premature exertion, that youth Frew
up in ignoranoe, that manhood was but halt in-
formed, and often debauched, in consequence of the
want of information. They had no time for the
social duties— no time for the enjoyment of any
relaxation—while their old age was toa often con-
demned to wretchedness and want. And that desti-
tution arose from no want of prudence—it was often
such a destitution as no exertion could avert. He himself
had seen in Sheffield the savings of twenty years swept
away during the last five, and that not from any fault of
the individuals so much as from the wonting of a
system of legislation, which the Government persisted
in supporting. The whole country was under-paid
and there was less food every year to divide among
more people, and there was less employment, because
they refused to take the very food they wanted from
other nations on such terms as would form a regular
trade. What was the remedy for all this ? Why,
not that of short-sighted philanthropists, who would
prohibit by law that excess of labour to which nothing
could drive a whole people except the direst necessity.
The real remedy was to remove the causes that
created that necessity, if possible—(Loud cheers)—
and they could do it. It was his firm conviction that
they could do it, not by following the course of ig-
norant and short-sighted men, who indulged in a
cheap and spurious humanity, for nothing could be
cheaper than that humanity which indulged itself
at other ear, and cheers.) It
was
beTt(Hheir calling on the people
not to
obe people'sreince xdpieedns
to avert the evils which their own class legislation
created. They must go to the rout of the matter—
they must grapple with the disease itself, and not with
the symptoms. They must assert the right—the natural
right—the inalienable right of the English working
man to exchange the produce of' his labour for the
necessaries and comforts of life wherever he could get
them cheapest. IN'hy,the corn-laws made the work-
ing man a serf without the privileges of one, for it
was at least the poor privilege of the wretched serf to
be clothed and fed, and no one could say that was the
lot of many of our labourers and peasantry. Let
them unshackle trade, and they might safely leave
prices to find their own level, and labour to seek its
own reward. His conviction was, that they could
serve the working classes in no other way. Let them
not mind the jargon of those new philosophers who
talked of a new social condition arising out of ne w
social changes---who told them that the world ought
to be put in leading-strings, because it did not know
how to govern itself.---(Laughter.) He believed they
would find Parliament a bad substitute for their own
discretion in these matters. With respect to these
new lights he must say he bad a foolish preference
for Adam Smith. He told us that the only way of
increasing the wages of labour was to increase the
demand for it, and the only way of increasing the
demand for labour was to increase the fund out of
which wages were paid; and that fund in this country
especially, on account of the peculiar constitution of
its social state, depended on the expansion of its fo-
reign trade. He was not frightened by the tales
they had heard of the cruelty of the manufacturing
system. They were told that the manufacturers were
men who almost ground up infants in their mills ; for
his Hen. Friend the
_Member for Durham was told
that he was one of a class who came into the House
of Commons with their teeth actually dripping with
infants' blood. It was a galimatias he did not under-
stand. He knew that corn was cheap in 1835, that
wages were high,- and the whole population of the
country employed. He knew that bread was dear in
1842, and then Lancashire was in a state of suffering
and depression such as had hitherto been believed
a great war or famine, or
could only be produced by.
some national calamity. IVith respect to that suffer-
ing he would read an extract from Dr. Cooke Tay-
lor's work on the manufacturing districts :—" I have
seen misery in many forms. I have been in the
hovels and huts of Ireland when visited lay the
scourge of cholera—l have been in the cellars
of Liverpool, where human existence almost
ceases to be human—l have been in the wynds
and closes of Glasgow, where the scenes would try
the hardest heart and the stoutest stomach ; hut no-
where have I seen misery that so agonised the very
soul, as in the manufacturing districts of Lanca-
shire ; and why ? Because the extreme of wretched-
ness there, and there only, was found combined
with a moral dignity, and a sense of propriety,
decency, cleanliness, and order, which are
the elements which' have produced the wealth
I have described, anti which do not merit
She intense suffering I have witnessed."
How came that anomaly of high prices and great
destitution in the most prolific and wealthy country
in the world!? It was explained by a writer whose
work he preferred to those of all the modern
philosophers. lie said that, " when there was every
year an increased demand for labour, and a scarcity
of hands, competition would exist, and masters would
bid against one another—high wages would be the
consequence ; but, when there was a scarcity of em-
ployment, the lebourers competed with one another
I —members of the superior classes sought employ-
ment in the lowest classes, whilst the lowest
class overflowed, in consequence of the flux
of superabundant labour in the higher classes; thus
the competition for employment became so great as
to reduce wages to the most miserable pittance that
life could exist upon." Such were the opinions of
Adam Smith ; and he never saw an attempt to inter-
-1 fere with the principles embodied in this quotation
which had succeeded—(Hear, hear.) A great.deal of