The Sun.
London, England, 1842-07-23 00:00:00

tress. Why, he would ask the Right Hon. Baronet the repre-
sentative of North Devon, if the rate of wages in his county k
exceeded 7s. a week ?—(Cheers. ) He would put the same
question to the Members for Dorsetshire, Somersetshire, Glou-
kesterslaire, Wiltshire, and Hampshire, and yet they told them
that the Corn-law was for the benefit of the agricultural popula-
tion. If the inhabitants of Bolton and Stockport believed that
their sufferings conduced to the comfort of the peasantry of the
'agricultural districts, it might be some mitigation of their mis-
lortunes, but it only aggravated those misfortunes; tolnow that
the robbery that was committed on theist was of no :earthly
advantage to the labouring peasant, hitt was solely for the
benefit of the landlords.—(Cheers.) It was a.subterfuge to
say that these laws were maintained for the benefit of the la-
bouring population.—( Cheers.) The county representatives
did not come there with clean hands. It was gross hypocrisy
to pretend that these laws benefited the labouring popula-
tion. %% by, the lowest rate of wages, for unskilled
hands, in the manufacturing districts, was twelve shil-
lings a week ; and they would fain, by their land-
lords' legislation, bring-down the rate of wages for skilled
hands in those districts to 175. a week, and reduce them to the
same permanent state of distress to which they had already te-
dueed the agricultural districts. He hoped the distress
in the manufacturing districts was only temporary
—in the agricultural districts he knew it was
permanent, as far as the labourers were concerned.
Did they think that their sitting in silence there, as if their la-
bourers were well paid, would screen them from the indignation
of the people ? By no means. There was a class of men in Lan-
cashire, the unworthy successors of Watt, and Arkwright, and
Peel, who hung like parasitical weeds at the feet of the aristo-
cracy, and who, the more they were trampled on, the more they
flourished in their debased position. It was such men that told
the Right Honourable Baronet that the present distress was
but a passing cloud. Against the assertions of those
men he warned the Right Honourable Baronet. They
but deceived him. But there was a class of men whose
statements as to the real state of the country the Right
Honourable Baronet might and ought to believe—the Delegates
now in London, from various parts of the country, seeking to
devise a remedy for the existing distress. If they looked to
America they would see a means of alleviating the distress by
opening an outlet for the manufactures of this country. Presi-
dent Tyler had vetoed the high tariff which had been proposed
in Congress. He saw the Hon. and Gallant Member for Li-
verpool (Sir Howard Douglas) shake his head, but he could
tell the Gallant Officer that President Tyler had vetoed the
tariff.
Sir H. DOUGLAS—President Tyler has not vetoed the
tariff, he has only suspended it temporarily.
Mr. COBDEN continued—Had he not been interrupted be
was just going to say what the Gallant Member had stated.
President Tyler had vetoed for a time the high-tariff _upon
our manufactures, and thus an outlet for our productions was
created, which ought to be met in a similar spirit by our
Government with respect to laws regulating the import of corn.
It had been said that they were obstructing the public business.
That public business was the voting of the militia estimates, to
put down, he supposed, the starving people. He believed they
might be better employed in finding them food.—( Cheers.)
Their shopkeepers' acted more wisely than they did. The
shopkeeper who had a house at the corner of a street, opened
windows, to catch the tide of traffic.—( Hear.) Far otherwise,
and far less wisely, they acted with regard to America.—(Hear.)
They commenced the busiuess of the session with a Corn-
law, and they had that night posted the Poor-law. There was
something like poetic justice in the sequence. They had passed
the Poor.law, which. be believed never would be necessary if
they only allowed them to have recourse to the markets that
might be, but were not open to them. The Poor-law was
originally devised to find raw material for the people to work
with, but now they might have the raw material of the
new world, and they would not take it. If a person had the
malice of a fiend, he might rejoice at the mode in which they
were proceeding. The New Poor-law would not save their
estates. Their present policy would create an amount of po-
verty which would burst the workhouse walls.—( Hear, hear.)
The people were now lying by the sides of hedges and walls,
but when the winter came, where would they go to? If they
were driven from the ditch side by the terrors of the
hostiles, they would become banditti, or they must
be put into the workhouse.—(Hear, hear. ) Such were
the fruits they had in store for them. He would say
one word to the [light Hon. Baronet before he sat down. The
Right Hon. Baronet was all powerful in that House, but he
might become an in the country, and he might be able to cut off
that bigoted section who now acted as a drag chain on his career
if he altered his policy. It had been said that the Right
Honourable Baronet did what he could. That, he
runt say, was an equivocal compliment, for it was
at the expense of his honesty. He (Mr. C.) believed
that the Right Honourable Baronet was acting consci
entiously. He was in principle a free trader, but practically
he was opposed to it. But the time was now come when those
principles should be adopted, and he believed that the Right
tionouraNe Baronet was the only person who could carry
' them out wiihout incurring the risk of a revolution. The
Right Hon. Baronet might carry out the principles of a liberal
eommercial policy if he pleased to do so. A great respon-
sibility, therefore, devolved on the Right Bon. Baronet. It
was his (Mr. Cobden's) belief that it' the House separated
without adopting some measure calculated to alleviate the gene-
ral distress, a state of confusion would inevitably follow during
the coming winter. The Right Hon. Baronet had it
' in his power to remove that distress ; and if he took the course
• which would lead to such a result, however much be might be
' accused of deserting his party, let his answer be that he found
distress and relieved it, that he found trade depressed and re-
' vived it, that he found the people famishing and that he gave
them bread.—( Cheers.)
The House then divided, and the numbers were,- •

.. 156

For the motion .
Against it _...
Majority in favour of the motion --92
The House then went into Committee of Supply pro forma,
and immediately resumed.
The Committee of the Court of Exchequer (England) Bill
was postponed till Monday.
BONDED CORN.

The Bonded Corn Bill went through Committee, the Re-
port to be received on Monday.
The Fisheries (Ireland) Bill was read a third time, and
passed.
MANCHESTER, BIRMINGHAM, AND BOLTON PO-
LICE BILL.

The amended Report on this Bill was received, the amend,
ments agreed to, and the Bill was ordered to be engrossed.
STAMP DUTIES BILL.

The Report on ibegiamilsutie;BillZsbrought up.
ASSESSED TAXES BILL (No. 2).
The Report on this Bill was brought up, and certain amend-
ments in the Bill proposed and agreed to.
The other Orders of the Day were thee disposed of, and the
Ilouse adjourned at a Quarter to Three o'Clock.

ANTI-CORN. L A.WiiONFERENCE.

(Continued from our Afternoon Edition of yesterday.

The following letter w•as read :
Boszox, LINCOLNSIIIRE.—Trade here is unusually dull.
Parties who en our market days used to consider 5/. and 6/. a
bad day's work, do not absolutely take so many shillings The
grocers are glad to have their receipts for the day averaging
above the fourth of what they were formerly. Mechanics and
labourers are idle. The market-place is nearly full of labourers
on a Monday morning, and the only busy portion of our popu-
lation are those at the relieving-officer's door, the pawnbrokers,
or at that of the Magistrates' sitting-room, adjoining the police-
office. The families of respectable tradesmen are :iterally
starving. Take an individual ease. My next neighbour, a
Tory freeman by the way, whose rates being paid for him,
voted last week to saddle me with a Church-rate,—this man,
who has been in comparatively (with those in a similar trade)
wealthy circumstances, has a large family. He has not a shil-
ling in the world—overwhelmed in debt—he has only brought
home one sixpence during the last three weeks, and that ob-
tained by the sale of part of his tools. Trade, a carpenter.
He is two years in arrears of rent. This is a faithful history of
the " ways and means" of the respectable tradesmen in this
town.

The Rev. Mr. MASSIE (of Manchester) then addressed
the meeting. He had had the pleasure of being in the
gallery of the House of Commons during the debate of
last night, and had been struck, with several other
friends, with the marked silence which prevailed on the
Tory benches on the subject they advocated, and the
principles of free trade generally. He did not mean to
criticise the speeches of the few Members who spoke on
that occasion ; Sir R. Peel rose to speak of the disturb-
ances in the Potteries, which he said were not so serious
as had been represented ; he said it arose from colliers
striking fur 4s. a day rather than 3s. 6d., and that the
agitation was caused by evil and designing men, who were
sent down among them. He spoke like a man who seemed
to require something stronger than water to support
him ; never before had he seen him apply a tumbler to
his lips in the House of Commons, but this he did twice
during last night's debate. He appeared to want it to
sustain his tremulous voice, or to give him time to think,
co.. what he had to do was hard work. His speech, itself,
was weak and full of claptraps—his speech was like his
cause, weak and emasculated, and it appeared to him
that he had lost that strength of mind which became the
Premier of a great country to possess, in order to
to lead the nation forward in a new career of commercial
policy. He complained most bitterly of the gentlemen
of the deputation from the Conference who waited upon
him at Downing-street. He complained that they spoke
in a declamatory manner, and said he was certainly rather
disposed to turn a deaf ear to them in consequence.
But he arose to address them principally on one of the
most interesting statistic Reports that had ever been
mode relating to the county of Lancashire. It was pre-
pared for the meeting of the British Association at
ancilester. (The Rev. Gentleman then laid before the
said he should be very
briefr in
meeting a Report, entitled, " Statistical Illustrations of
Halifax,
gentleman had expressed
9e
the Past and Present State of Lancashire," by Henry
Ashworth, the substance of which Was given by Mr.
Ashworth at the meeting held at the City of London
Tavern, on Wednesday.)
some degree of hope. ; he wished he could instil the
same feeling into him, for it would save many sleep.
M.iThlAs observations.
less nights. He did not see any prospect of amend-
ment unless the Corn-laws were repealed.
rseNl:vaotfiointa.
In Halifax
the distress was not yet so extreme as in other places,
but it was fast increasing. By_ ai return of the amount
of pauperism in the Halifax tin on, in 1838 and 1842,
number ofpaupers had increased
from appeared that the.
from 3,704 to 8,531, and the rates from 1,8931. to 3,4891.
Several respectable shopkeepers of Halifax had told him
that their returns across the counter were not one-tenth
what they were two years ago.
The Rev. Mr. MORON, of Stourbridge, said the cry
of distress came from all parts of the country, and to
remove that distress it was necessary to remove that
most abominable of all abominations—the corn mono-
poly. In the mining districts the distress was intense ;
and in the Potteries the people had turned out in what,
on the other side the way, would be termed rebellion,
but it was a rebellion of the stomach. All were looking
to the Conference for aid.—(Cheers.) Their position
was more satisfactory than it was three weeks ago. It
was now admitted that something must be done. If
there were not a speedy remedy there would be a speedy
outbreak. The statistics of the poor-rate at Stockport
showed how the, poor-rates fell almost entirely
on the middle classes; they must unite with the working
classes, and the sooner they did it the better. Why should
an honest man be forced to leave his native land ? It
was an outrage upon propriety to propose such a thing.
Let the Corn-laws be repealed, and let food be brought
to him, instead of forcing him to go to the food.—
(Cheers.) The effcct of the Coru-laws on the moral
character of the people was also bad. The people were
unable to send their children to b
sc—ools, and the col-
lections for religious purposes were falling off. Their
cause against the Corn-laws was the-cause of truth
against error, and of justice against injustice and cruelty.
The Rev. Mr. SCOBELL wished to know whether, in
the pamphlet to which allusion had been made by Mr.
Massie, Mr. Ashworth had made any allowance for the
difference in the value of money between the year 1692
gie present tinet