The Sun.
London, England, 1842-11-19 00:00:00

•
is derived from the Saxon, originally meaning " bread
divider"--" bread distributor."—(Hear.) The word
drrived, as I have said, from the Saxon, has taken its
origin from the custom of the Danes, in ancient times,
among our Saxon ancestry, who assisted their brethren.
That was the origin of the name " Lady." Surely
you would not be so untrue to the name as to forget
your poorer brethren, now when the question is agi-
tated—whether the poor shall have a cheap or a dear
loaf?—(Hear, hear.) But the effects of these mono-
polies in sugar and corn are brought home, not only
to the rich, but, in diminishingthe demand for labour,
they affect the poor sempstresses just as much as the
weaver at his loom, or the spinner at his jenny.
Looking at the London papers we see that a meeting
was called to make known the injustice practised on a
deserving body of females in the metropolis, who are
engaged all day for the sum of sixpence. Five hundred
of them in Shoreditch are engaged in making shirts for
the sailors, for which they get Id. each. You may
have noticed that the case drew from the Magistrate and
the bench a severe censure on the parties who paid this
monstrous and miserable reward for labour. Well! but
those who answer us when we agitate for free trade in
food, let them answer us now, how is it that those poor
females are getting only sixpence a day for 12 hours'
labour in toiling at their needle? There is no machi-
nery there.—(Hear.) We have not yet managed to
spin or weave shirts.—(Hear, and a laugh.) How do
they answer that ? Why to hear the advocates of the
Corn-laws in reference to the wages of labour, you would
fancy there was something inherent in the Corn-laws
that while they were maintained wages would bemain-
tained ; but when these sempstresses make their case
known, what is the redress we have from the whining phi-
lanthropists ? Why, the very parties who are up-
holding monopoly denounce the people that employ
them, and call them " Jew slop-dealers," and say
they ought to give better wages ; and so ie only re-
medy those poor people have from the upholders of
the present system is not an Act of Parliament, nor
to go to the Duke of Buckingham—they are handed
over to the tender :mercies of their employers, who,
we are told at the same time, are " hard-hearted Jew
slop-dealers."—(Great laughter.) Well, now, six-
pence a day for making shirts !—three shillings a
week ! I. Ladies and Gentlemen, you are here in sup-
! pert of the Anti-Monopoly Association. You deal
in bread. How much do you think these poor
people pay to the Duke of Buckingham, the Glad-
stones, and others.—(Dear, hear.) Let us calculate,
ifyou please. How much do these lordly bread-taxers
condescend to take from the hard earnings of these
sempstresses? They have 3s. a-week. They must eat
fourteen-pence worth of bread, for they get little else.
You, gentlemen of monopoly, will give us three-
pence for the Duke of Bukingham on that article.
—(kar) They must have half-a-pound of sugar, on
which there is a penny for the monopolists. Well,
there is coffee, meat, and all these things they tax.
Everything iey eat and drink is taxed. Why, it is
not less than sixpence out of the three shillings for
the benefit of the lordly bread-taxer.—(llear, hear.)
When I get up in the House of Commons and ask them
to pass a law, which I do in mere irony, remind you—
(Hear, hear) —to expose the iniquity of their system
—(Cheers)—when I get up and ask them to pass a law
to regulate the wages of labour for those people before
they regulate the price of their food, they tell me they
have not the power to do it, and point me to the re-
cords of the House to show that they have not the
power to regulate wages. And. yet the House hands
over to the Duke of Buckingham-1 said Mr. Glad-
stone also; I did not allude to him personally, but I
say any man who benefits by the corn and sugar laws.
—(Hear)—the House of Com Mons, composed of
such men, pass a law to give to them an artificial and
enhanced price for their merchandise, at the same time
that they acknowledge that they have not the power
to regulate wages.—(Hear and cheers.) 'Well ! I say, is
not this the case with your suffering fellow-country-
women ? They come singly out, without any modifica-
tion of machinery or anything else, with an appeal that
ought to be irresistable • and does not what I have
men-
tioned above justify the ladies of Liverpool—ladies
either of fashion or rank, for I despise that fashion that
would frown on such patriotism as theirs—(llear)--
does it not justify and call on you to come forward and
use that influence you possess, which you are always
using on one side or the other, and which 1 wish to be
greater and greater still in a cause such as I have
been describing ?—(Cheers.) Besides the ladies who
are here, I see there is a portion of another section
of the commnnity—l mean the working clssses. I see
them in the distance. I have been looking at your
Papers the other day, and I saw some account of a
meeting here which was held by the ship-carpenters,
complaining of distress in trade, and one of their resolu-
tions say that they will not allow any more of humbug
in religion or politics in their trade.—(Great cheers.)
Now, I do not understand how religion can interfere
with ship-building, at all. But this I can understand,
that there may be parties who have come to the ship-
builders, and in the name of religion—like wolves in
sheeps' clothing—have dared to use the ship-builders,
not for purposes of religion, but for secular aggrand-
isement, and for the obtainment of temporal power
and ascendancy.—(Hear.) I cannot perceive what
party politics can have to do with ship-building,
But 'l. can understand how a certain political party
may set up to be the exclusive benefactors of a cer-
tain class of men, whether they wield the mallet, or
the shuttle, and claim them as their confederates,
with a promise that they shall attain beneficial
ends by the partnership. Well ! they had that
partnership; and now, in the month of Novem-
ber, we see the stock taking on the part of the
ship-builders, and a very dismal kind of balance-
sheet it seemsgto be.—(Great laughter.) They have
declared. that they dissolve partnership from this hear.
I am not surprised at that. My only astonishment is
that men who have raised enough to wield a mallet
and chisel should not have more brains than to have
entered into such an unholly alliance.--(Loud
cheers.) Did they ever read the fable of the
giant and the dwarf that went a fighting together—
how the dwarf lost a leg, an arm, and an eye, and
afterwards found out that he had been carrying on a
losing game, and declared a dissolution of partner,
ship with the giant ?—(Laughter.) Well, but I
perceive that some of your ship builders here have
gone to work, to mend their trade, a little after the
fashion of their betters. I find they have been de-
claring that other men should not work, and threat-
ening them to confine themselves to their own
localities. Now, that is just the design of the
Duke of Buckingham. They want to send away
all who were not born here. But the ship-builders
at Whitby, Portsmouth, and other places are just
as bad as they are. We will suppose they all sent
away their men, and what the better will they be
after that ?—(Hear, hear.) But it seems the most ac-
tive of the monopolists—the leaders, Buckingham and
Richmond—have been brought up before Mr. Rushton ;
and I certainly read the speech of Mr. Rushton, which
surprised me, and I think he will be fortunate if he es-
capes the notice of the Attorney-General for sedition.
—(Great laughter.) Why, he declared it is rank
tyranny and despotism to turn away a man from his
labour in the market where he can dispose of it ! He has
declared that the Magistrates of Liverpool will send to
gaol for three months any body they detect prevent-
ing the people from selling their labour to advan-
tage. Now, I think they will have a goodly set of
culprits at their bar before long, if they carry out
their threat.—(Laughter.) From what I have seen of
the vigorous manner of your worthy Magistrate, I
should like; nothing better than to see the monopo-
lists—Buckingham at their head—placed before him
to answer before the Magistrates of Liverpool for an
offence against the Act of George the Fourth, chapter
the second or the fourth. I think it is, but, at
all events, the Magistrates would tell all about it, and
I would desire nothing better than to hear Bucking-
ham and the rest enter into their defence, not for hav-
ing gone and thrown men out of their work in the
docks, but when he was told by your Borough Ma-
gistrate that he had to answer for having thrown
out of work some thousands of riggers and ropers,
for having oppressed the whole of the manufacturing
districts, and for breaking down the sempstresses—
I should like to see your sugar and cern mono-
polists answer for having done this, for which the
ship-carpenters were made liable to three months'
imprisonment.—(Hear, hear.)- Well, now, I must
say the ship-carpenters are on the wrong
scent. I hope some of them are here who will hear
me. They want better trade. They want employ-
ment. They want good wages. How is that to be
got ? I will tell them. By bringing more ships to
Liverpool, and giving more trade for them when they
come. You have ships here, it is true. I under-
stand there are 70,000 tons of shipping in the
docks, worm-eaten and rotting, looking for
freight. There may, to be sure, be work
for the shipwrights when the bottoms are eaten
away by the worms—(Great laughter)—but what are
they to do in the mean time ? They want more trade
and how are they to get it ? By not sending men to
Parliament to vote for the timber and sugar duties, and
for other timings of which they want most.—(llear.)
Now suppose the monopolists, your own Members
included, were to carry out their principles a little fur-
ther. Suppose they pass a law to cut off Liverpool from
the Cheshire coast. 'We will suppose they pass a law
for that, and it would be just as natural as to cut you
off from intercourse with Canada. Does not the
-humblest ship-carpenter see that if you cut off the
trade with Cheshire you would put a stop to the trade
in steam- boats, and those people must be thrown out of
work ; whereas, beMeen the passing of a law to cut
you oft' from ie other side of the Mersey, and the
passing, of a law to cut you off from America, there is
this difference, that you are doing ten thousand times
more prospective injury than by -shutting yourselves
out from the coast of Cheshire.—(llear.) I ant very
glad to find that the ship-carpenters have come to the
resolution of looking at the
question,
of party polities, and not be used )y any plausible
politicians who want to carry their ends by the cry of
There
monopoly. independent
Will be little chance for good go-
vernment or good trade unless the people who have