The Sun.
London, England, 1842-07-21 00:00:00

few years, a steady industrious shoemaker could earn f-om two
to two pounds ten per week; and a woman employed at bind-
ing from twelve to fifteen shillings per week; but sin li
is the operation of these infernal Corn-laws, that Lon-
don has not only lost its export trade, which was, in ray
recollection, immense, but its country trade also, which
in a variety of ways was very considerable; and what is the con-
sequence ? the poor men now must work hard to earn from nine
to twelve !Innings per week, and the women from one shilling
and ninepence to three shillings ; with a drawback of one
shilling on the men for grindery, and on the women, sixpence
for silk and thread; and I speak carefully, for 1 have read
nearly all the accounts transmitted to you from the country.
I could lead you to as much distress amongst the shoemakers in
London as exists amongst the operatives in cotton in the country.
Now, Sir, let it be remembered this is a trade in which ma-
chinery has never yet been brought to bear, and yet its dis-
tresses are as great as any trade where machinery has had pre-
eminent power.
Mr. SIDNEY SMITH observed that under the new
tariff foreign boots and shoes would be largely im-
ported into this country, and yet the boot and shoe-
makers, whose trade would be thus injured, would still be
compelled to pay a high protective duty to the land-
owner, for whose benefit the Corn-laws were maintained.
There was an instance of the justice which emanated
from a landlord's Parliament.
Mr. LAURENCE HEYWORTH, of Liverpool, here pro-
ceeded to address the meeting. He had, he said, just
returned from Liverpool, where, on Monday
last, a most numerous and respectable meet-
ing was held to take into consideration the now
existing distress, and also to move resolutions expressive
of their opinions as to the best means of remedy-
ing the evil. The meeting also had in contem-
plation an adoption of a memorial to her Majesty,
stating the existence of the distress, and their
opinion as to the remedy requisite to be adopted for its
removal. He was happy to have to mention that the
greatest unanimity prevailed in that large assembly as
to the cause of the distress now prevalent through all
parts of the kingdom, which they were convinced
arose from the restrictive provision and commercial
laws which cramp the energies of the industrious. He
would, without any further observations, read to the
meeting a document in which were forcibly put forward
all the arguments that bore on the question.
Mr. Heyworth then read the following document :
" HOW DOES CHEAP BREAD PRODUCE HIGH
WAGES AND PROMOTE GENERAL PROSPERITY?
" When food is cheap, the industrious classes clothe
themselves, and the increased demand in the home mar-
ket produces great manufacturing and commercial pros-
perity : more hands are required, and, to obtain th:m,
higher wages are given. On the other hand, when corn
is dear, the whole of the wages of the working-classes
are expended in providing food for their families, and
their demand for manufactures ceases : our exports are
increased, and foreign markets are glutted with the very
goods which should have clothed the wives and families
of English workmen, and have made their homes com-
fortable. Ruinous forced sales of them abroad are
effected, at a loss, that our mill owners may obtain re-
mittances, and continue to pay the operatives their
weekly wages : bankruptcies follow, mills stop, opera-
tives are without employment, or work only half time;
and, consequently, wages fall, or, what comes to the
same thing, their weekly earnings are diminished. The
unemployed operatives, having pawned everything, are
driven, in destitution, from their cottages, which are left
without tenants. No additional buildings are wanted.
Masons, bricklayers, plasterers, plumbers, joiners, and
painters are, therefore, thrown out of work. No new
mills are erected, no machinery is required. Mechanics,
foundrymen, labourers at iron works, miners and their
tool makers, are also deprived of employment. Shoe-
makers, tailors, shopkeepers, and, lastly, bread-bakers
and dairy-farmers, lose their former customers, and be-
come themselves victims of the all-pervading evil. A
scarcity of bread and dear food sinks them, too, into the mi-
serable ranks of the non-producers, to augment the
swelling numbers of dependent, pauperised consumers.
This universal distress, experienced in every trade when
the supply of so necessary an article as bread (being
scarce) is monopolised by the law-making landoeracy, is
strikingly illustrated by the ill-favoured kine in Pharoali's
dream, which eat up all the fat and well-favoured.
" Indeed, it is an invariable rule, that, if the parties
producing any article of common consumption have po-
litical power to limit, by lay
la, the supply of that article,
they will raise its price in the market to the extent of
their wicked privilege, which will diminish the *con-
sumption of other things in proportion, and, therefore,
will contract and depress every other trade, as experi-
ence shows the Corn-laws have done. If to protect ma-
nufacturers in the maintenance of high prices for their
goods, misguided legislation should have interfered to
prevent the development of the mighty,mechanical in-
-1 ventions which, by the peculiar blessing of God on this
I country, commenced seventy years ago to pour forth
cheap manufactures to clothe the naked of every
land ; to provide an inexhaustible source of employ-
ment for labour, and to diffuse wealth amongst
all classes throughout the empire, with unheard-
of profusion ; and if to arrest this influx of
cheap clothing, Parliament should have prohibited by
law the use of machinery, the scarcity and dearness of
cotton, woollen and linen goods consequent thereon,
would not only have kept down the consumption of these
fabrics to the lowest point, but the costliness of the ne-
cessary garments made of them would have withdrawn
the means of consuming all other commodities and pro-
ductions, to an extent that would have kept in a state
of the deqest depression all other trades and employ-
ments, agricultural included ; labour would have be-
come a drug, wages would have been reduced almost to
nothing, and England, instead of being, as she is row,
the wealthiest nation on the earth, would have remained
sunk in poverty, the merited victim of her wicked and
foolish legislative policy. Hence it is that, yielding to
this infallible rule, a high price of food according to its
scarcity, devised and maintained by Act of Parliament,
has gradually produced a universal and constantly in-
creasing stagnation in every trade, during the last four
years. Whilst in 1835, for instance, when wheat was at
less than 40s. per quarter, we had a period of great
manufacturing and commercial prosperity, with good
wages, for the simple ream, that besides everybody
having plenty of food, upwards of 15,000,0001. were
saved to the labouring classes on wheat alone, which,
being spent in manufactures' increased the demand for
labour and raised wages. During the recent period of
high prices for food, great has been the distress of the
manufacturing districts, and all over the kingdom in all
those trades whose tens of thousands mainly depend
fur employment on the ability of the working classes to
be their customers ; in which the capitalists have also
largely shared by a considerable decline, nay almost a
destruction of profits, and even, in many instances, of
capital also, of which, alas ! the present universal low
wages, or diminished weekly earnings, want of employ-
ment, and destitution of the labourers throughout the
country are, necessarily,. the consequence. The repeal
of the Corn-laws would secure a steady supply of cheap
food in exchange for our manufactures, by which we
should perform a Christian duty in ministering to the
wants of foreign nations, and clothing their naked out of
our superabundance of manufactures, and we should
receive in return, out of their superabundance, cheap
food for the thousands who are slow famishing with
hunger ; and God's command, " to do unto others as we
would they should do unto us," would, through the pro-
cess of this beneficent interchange, be obeyed. His
blessing would follow, the national distress would be re-
moved, the'peesperity of trade would be restored, by the
people having it again in their power to become general
consumers of all other articles, and the competition of
employers for labourers would raise wages and give
constant employment to all classes of labourers, for the
effect of revived commerce would soon reach the agri-
cultural labourer, and the higher wages obtained in
trades and manufactories would, as a matter of course,
raise wages in the farming districts, as it always has done.
In conclusion, let the inquiry be made, what is the
element which substantially represents the wealth of the
moneyed interest in the kingdom. Is it the precious
metals, which in the currency amount to ab0ut22,000,000/.
which represents this enormous wealth ? Is:it the con-
gregated masses of buildings in the metropolis, or the
soil of these islands ? No ! it is the power of the
industrious masses, by the aid of machinery, to produce,
in almost miraculous abundance, all the useful commo-
dities of life, combined with the essential requisite that
they have the ability also to be the general consumers of
them. If these powers be paralyzed, the wealth of the
moneyed interest will dissolve away and depart from its
possessors, as surely as the shadow follows the substance.
Workmen of England, Merchants, Manufacturers,
Bankers, and Landowners ! meditate seriously on these
things. The deep-felt and wide-spread misery brought
upon all by the Corn and Provision-laws demonstrate
their selfish and sordid origin and denounce their iniquity.
As Christians, who ask Uod to give daily bread to all,
humanity calls upon you to express, on all occasions,
your utter abhorrence of these and all laws whose object
is designedly to create scarcity. As sincere, religions
men, who pray that " His will may be done on earth as
it is in heaven," consistency requires that you should put
forth unceasingly your combined efforts to obtain, by
every lawful means, the total and immediate abolition of
all laws which interdict men from ministering to each
other's wants and necessities, out of their relative super-
abundance. LAWRENCE HEYWORTH.
He had thus endeavoured to place before the meeting
the whole cycle of reasoning on this important subject,
and he hoped the arguments when placed before the
public would have the effect they wished for. If they
could be refuted he was open to conviction, if not, then
let the truth prevail; this was all he wished with regard to
the question. He might state that in his journey up
from Liverpool, he met a gentleman of large landed pro-
perty in Kent, who was a firm supporter of the present
Corn-laws, and, during a conversation on the subject, he
placed the present document in his hands, and lie allowed
that it had considerably ,changed his opinions ; that he
was convinced there must be some :lane, and that he
was ready to concede that that change must be an
abolition of the Corn-laws, or the wealth of the king-
dciu would (I:Tart Rani it. Tic was in hopes that a
:iiadiar cauvktiou w,ailLi eci-,Y.: home: both to the ',ilium-
facturing and landed interests, on the impolicy of all re-
strictions on the importation of any commodity, but more