The Sun.
London, England, 1845-02-20 00:00:00

a million and a half, or two millions, or three millions. This
is exceedingly generous—but I say again that we do not find
fault with what he has done. His sin as a statesman lies in
not having done that which he ought to have done. He has
abated minor evils, but left the monster evil undisturbed.
Small benefits he has conferred, but large in-
juries have gone unredressed, and in the matter of
sugar have been augmented. Sir Robert Peel has aimed at
popularity by giving the people a part of that which he took
from them in the first instance, and he has made the mono-
polists disgorge absolutely nothing. He has shifted the bur-
dens, buthe has not modified them; as Mr. Cobden prophesied,
he has shuffled the cards and nothing more. The incubus of
protection still remains ; but, happily, the League remains too.
—( Cheers.) I have been met by one or two parties in the
street, since Friday night, and they have said to me, " I sup-
pose you are not going to carry on your League operations any
more. are you? " My simple reply to that has been given in
the shape of another question—" Are the corn-laws repealed?
Are the supr duties repealed ? May the corn, the coffee, the
rice, and the sugar, and the tobacco of other countries come in
upon equal terms with the productions of our own plantation.?
If not, the League has yet its work to do. and is de-
termined to do it."—(Loud Cheers.) What does Sir
Robert Peel say ? He says " British industry must
be protected ; our trade with colonies is important, and our
merchant-ships must be guarded on their way over the great
ocean, that they may arrive safely at their destination, and
return safely back again." All this is for the sake of British in-
dustry. Very well, we thank him for allowing us to have ten
line of battle ships, and we thank him for promising that he
Rill equip some more steamers, so that we may indulge in the
prospect of a safe sail to Jamaica or New South Walee, un-.
affrighted by any roving buccaneer, or any Prince de Joined!"
—(Laughter.)—But we did not ask for ships; we did not
seek so much to profit by means of war steamers as by means
of fellowship in the way of trade, reciprocity in the form of
benefits, copartnership upon a universal scale, all contributing
alike to one another's happiness, and rendering a quarrel al-
most impossible, as unlikely as that two partners in Fleet-stree
should quarrel, break their windows, and tumble their own
goods into the street.—( Laughter and cheers.) If there be
one part of Sir Robert Peel's financial statement which I re.
gard with greater dislike than any other, it is that ridiculous
affectation of humanity to the negro slaves across the
Atlantic.—( Hear, hear.) This has been most ably exposed by
the gentleman who has gone before me ; and I shall, there-
fore, say no more than this, that I unite with him in denonne-
ing so barefaced an inconsistency as that into which Sir Ro-
bert Peel has fallen, fallen intentionally, fallen designedly.
( Hear, hear.) He has made the humanity of the people of
this country a means of saddling them with an annual tax—
'dr. Wilson will tell you how much, but I think I shall not be
far wrong in saying that the extra price which we shall have
to pay for our sugar will much exceed two millions sterling ;
and this at the same time that he allows the cotton of America
to come in free of duty.—( Hear, hear.) If it is good for us
to have cotton, why should it not be good for us to
have corn also? (Hear, hear.) If he had got
over his scruples as to cotton, and if it is new
to be allowed to come in, not by paying a small duty.
but absolutely free of duty, why will he not allow us to have.
corn ?—( Hear, hear.) This is excluded.—( Hear, hear.)
I know that there is a way of circumventing even this prohibi-
tion—namely, by carrying the corn of the Western States
down the rivers, and across the frontiers into our British Cana-
dian possessions, where, on paying a small duty, it is permitted
to be shipped into this country, where it is received on paying
a nominal duty. But the Americans do not like this mode of
doing the business.—( Hear, hear.) They want a direct, unin-
terrupted, immediate access to our ports, and they are fully
able to supply us, out of the superabundance of their
produce, with those necessaries and comforts of life of which
we stand so greatly in need.—( Cheers.) Now, if Sir Robert
Peel be that eiend to peace which he professes to be---if he be
that sympathetic man which he desires us to believe that he is,
for he tells us that he was deeply touched by the statements
made by one of the deputations, though the House was so un-
civil as to receive that announcement with something like a
giggle and a laugh ; and Sir Robert Peel was obliged to repeat
his assertion, and to assure Hon. Gentlemen on the opposite
side that he could feel, and had felt.—( Laughter.) If, I say,
Sir Robert Peel have a heart, and is the friend of peace, how is
it that his heart does not beat high, in the anticipation of securing
peace by obtaining from America that which our country is so
much in need of T—( Hear, hear,) If there is one thing to Fe
deprecated more than another, to be deplored above all other
things, save and except a civil war, it is a conflict with our
kinsmen on the opposite side of the Atlantic.—( Hear, hear.)
No disruption could be so calamitous, no spectacle more re-
volting, no conflict more unnatural than a war between the
people of this country and the inhabitants of the United States.
Well, our friend- on the other side of the Atlantic suggest a
mode of rendering this disruption impossible. They tell us what
they can do—they tell us what they have—they tell us how
much of what they have they can spare—they tell us what
they are willing to take in exchange. They have, in fact, just
that which we require, and we are able to produce that which
they most need ; and Sir Robert Peel has it in his power, if'
he pleases, to put their raw cotton into the shape of fabricated
prints, and to send it out again to array the forms of those who
are so able to return corn, cheese, and beef, for the support
of those who wove and span the cotton in this country.—
( Cheers.) But no;—with admirable consistency and equal
humanity, what does he do? He says, " You may have as
much as you please of slave- grown cotton, "—the duty
was before but the five-sixteenths of a penny,
but that is now removed—" buy, and work, and
spin, and rejoice, and be merry." "But," he adds,
" if, when you have worked up this cotton in the mill—if, when
you have spun it in the loom—if, when fair fingers have tam-
boured it at Paisley—if any one of you, or your workpeople,
should desire to purchase a pound of Brazilian sugar, you muse
not do it, for Brazilian sugar is polluted—it is the produce
of slave labour. It is true that you have gained all you have
by working up slave labour, but you must not have even half a
pound of Brazilian sugar, because it is the produce of slavery."
—( Hear, hear.) But, worse than that, they may not taste
American corn. The cotton, which is slave-grown, may come
in ; the corn, which is free-grown, is excluded. Now, Sir, I be-
lieve you will bear testimony to the truth of what I say, when I
affirm that there are thousands and tens of thousands who.
bold our principles in America. Although Henry Clay
hoisted the standard of protection, it must not be supposed that
all who voted for him were the friends of protection. There
were other reasons which induced many to vote for Henry
Clay besides a love of protection; while, on the other hand,
we know that at least a large proportion of those who car-
ried Mr. Polk into the chair of the Presidency were avowedly
free-traders. I have read, since I came upon this platform.
one of the most eloquent speeches that I ever met with
against protection in my life, by the present Secretary of
Sate, the Honourable Air. Calhoun —( Hear, hear. )
Though I differ from Mr. Calhoun on some points, I do say
that on Ow question of free trade his language is straightfor-
ward amid statesman-like, not only consistent with the best in-
terests of his own, but also with the best interests of our
country.—( Hear, hear.) I heartily wish that he may carry
out this at least of his plans, however I may desire that he
may fail in some others. I say that the party who thus syrn-
pathi-e with us in the United states is a strong party; and no
wonder that it should be a strong party. I will not trouble you
with figures. I will merely state that when the census of the
United States was made in 1540, the total population
amounted to 17,069,453. In the middle States, that is to
say New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, &c. &c., the
population was 5,11e,076 ; in the north-western States,
Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan, it was 4,131,370;
making in the middle and north-western States, as eontradis-
tinguisled from the New Zealand and the south-western
States, 9,249,446, leaving only 7,820,007 amongst all the
other States. Now for the argument derived from this in
favour of free trade. Out of a population of 17,069,000 we find
that there were engaged in commerce 117,007, in manufactures
791,749, and in agriculture 3,719,951. Now these agricul-
turists are the men whom we want for our customers.—( Hear,
hear.) The longer we delay, the greater are our straits and
embarrassments, and the further off is the prospect of reaping,
when the change shall come, the advantages now within our
reach. We have lost many already. Every year hundreds and
thousands of young men in the New England States have to
choose what they shall be for their future lives. Their hearts
yearn for the prairies of the west, and when I was in that
country, five hundred a day have I seen leaving for the borders
of that vast country, where they expected to find a
home and an inheritance for their children. But they
have been stopped in their career; they have been kept and
fixed where they are, and have turned, or rather been made
manufacturers, which they did not desire to be, because you
would not give them encouragement to become agriculturists,
which they did desire to be. And this has done what Sir R.
Peel professes to deplore; it has added to the number of
planters who have laid out their capital in the purchase of
gangs of slaves, and who are found now the growers of cotton,
because you will not allow them to be growers of corn. That
is the effect of the course which has been pursued. The
Government cannot be more pro-slavery in anything
than they are in their conduct with reeard to
the agricultural produce of the United States; nor can they
be more pro-slavery than they are in the extension of all de-
scriptions of sugar on the payment of an equal amount of duty.
--(Hear, hear.) And, having examined this question since
we met here last year, I am only more deeply confirmed in the
opinion which I then expressed, that the Anti-slavery party in
this kingdom, with the purest and noblest intentions, are in-
juring the cause which tkey would fain serve, and procrasti-
nating the day when competition and free labour shall destroy,
not only slavery, but that traffic which grows out of it—the de-
testable commerce in the species between America and Africa.
—(Loud cheers.) I have only one other remark to make
with regard to America, and that is that whereas our supply
of provisions in this country is known to be tolerably short,
and we have it on the authority of a clerical gentleman himself,
that five millions of our population.rejoice in potatoes, a very large
number in oatmeal, and while a great proportion of the popu-
lation, though they taste wheaten bread, have much less of it
than they desire; while such are the facts with regard to our
own country, it appears, from some tables inserted in an ad-
mirable pamphlet, entitled " American Corn and British
elanufacturee. ' that every man, woman, and child in the
United States has forty-two bushels of grain a year—that is to
say, they have this to divide amongst them.—( Hear, hear.)
Only the other day I received a letter from a gentleman who .
has recently gone out to the United States. He
co
says,
" If I were required to come back to this
try, I don't think I could makear:pallinsytaryminin,d.
to it, knowing, as I do, that yot!, We have,".
while we are rolling in plenty." "
day, roast turkey
he adds, " on this, which
iser t`Lo(Laughter.) Now I say
loci nt heel: de
and plum pudding for dinner."
things,that if
we should
Robert
giveP eel
him we were
more
the people than he can expect
otOra tcurrendithisfoarttecnotmiopnasst
sympathy with the sufferings
conduct to receive at our hands. j
in his present course
ohroeweaviepr,aortehaatt inbythewphraetsenptarsteisessionin itthheas
State
rendered
distinguished man is bound and shackled in pursuing his
The fact is, my friends, that he has a
this e red thankful,
more
one ankle, and a hogshead of
,and whoa a man is manacled •v.
sugar at the . with a sack
of corn at one ankle, and a hogshead of sugar at the other, it
t.Tctzortloify cocuornrse.
at
is not to be expected that he would make very great progress.
Such seems to be the unfortunate predicament of Sir Robert
Peel. Still we do not deem him to be in a hopeless condition.
—( Hear, hear.) We know that he is not unable to learn.
We know that he is not blind—that he can read the signs of
the times. We do not think that he is so completely disinte-
rested that he would throw up office, and patronage and
friends anti connexions, and all that surrounds him in kis pre-
sent condition, rather than touch the corn-laws, or the sugar
monopoly.—( Hear, hear.) No ; he wants a motive.
The people out of doors must generate the momentum.
He showed a glass balance in the House of Commons. There
is another sort of balance that regulates his chronometer most.
exactly ; it, never escapes from him ; it governs all his move-
nients. Whether he is at Downing-street, at Windsor Castle,
at the Pavilion at Briehton, at Whitehall, or in St. Stephen's,
this balance regulates all he says. lam not sure that it does
not regulate his very looks. This balance is public opinion.__
( Hear, hear, and cheers.) He will do what is right, when he
cannot help doing it.—( Hear, hear.) My friends, I remember
who has to come after me, and I will not encroach upon the
time which properly belongs to him. But I will conclude by
putting this question—ls there anything in Sir Robert
Peel's financial statement to justify us in relaxing in our
efforts? You answer for me " No. ' On the contrary, we
should be ungrateful were we to recede from the vantage ground
which we have obtained, seeing that a short
gland
n time ago
were seven hundred excuses for not repealing the co a
powerful
laws, and if we have
oven e now
body must we be
dare not attempt to excuse himself for ne
gand when he is
what we
the got Primerid of
Minister whato
.
think he ought to do on less than
get
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