The Sun.
London, England, 1842-02-11 00:00:00

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and would not acknowledge the efficacy of works.—(llalus )
Ile contended that it would be found without a single
exception, that the rule of Providence was never to do
for man, that which man could do for himself, but to assist
1 man where his own efforts were unavailing.--( Hear.) Man
could plough and sow and reap, and therefore the Almighty
would not do those things for him, but man could not cause
the winds to blow, or the sun to shine, or the rain to fall,
and, therefore, Providence took those things into its own
hands. It would be vain to pray to the Almighty that he
might change the hearts of our rulers, if the people did not
themselves take the proper steps to enable them to obtain the
redress which was due to them. Unless those steps were taken
the people would not be true to themselves. Some persons
had said to him, that he ought not as a minister of religion,
and a preacher of the Gospel join the present movement. His
answer was this—" It is true, and you say that the Lord
has said to his ministers, go unto all the world and preach
the Gospel in every quarter, but he also said, as you
go along cure the sick, cleanse the leper, cast out devils ; freely
you have received, freely give."—(Cheers.) Now, if it was
true that there were thousands suffering from sickness and
poverty in this country, in consequence of the present Corn-
laws, and if a spirit of anarchy and jealousy had been spread
throughout the land, the ministers of the Gospel were obeying
the Divine command when they advocated the cause of repeal.
( Hear' hear.) They were told that the preachers of the
Gospel ought not to unite with the manufacturing :set.
They were told that the manufacturers were worshippers of
irammon, the authors of the factory-system, and that no man
of Christian feeling should sanction the proceedings of such a
class. —( Hear.) Now he had been in agricultural districts,
and he knew what was the condition of the labour-
ing classes there.—( Hear, hear.) He had also been
in commercial districts and he ought to know something
of the condition of manufacturing labourers. He declared,
then, that the working men of Manchester and such places
were far more kindly treated than the working men engaged
by farmers.—( Hear, hear.) He had frequently questioned
children in the agricultural districts as to their condition ;
and he found that inylaces where they were employed in herd-
ing cattle, some received one shilling and others eighteenpence,
and very few two shillings a-week. That was the constant
practice in agricultural districts ; and in many places, such as
Salisbury Plain, these boys were removed, at a distance, per-
haps of miles, from any shelter, except such as that trees might
afford. He would take another class—the labourers in coal-
pits ; and he could tell them of sufferings there such as Lord
Ashley had never discovered elsewhere. Lord Ashley was a
man who only saw with one eye.—( Hear, hear.) The men
who worked in .the coal-pits were exposed to very dangerous
accidents. But when the coal was got, how was it brought to
the surface ? It was dragged for miles, perhaps, under ground
in waggons by children and women—( Hear, hear)—and they
frequently drew it on their hands and knees.—(Hear, hear. )
Talk of manufacturers—be had never known anything like this
among manufacturers. He 'called upon Lord Ashley to look
not merely at what was going on in the manufacturing districts,
but to look to the condition of the women and children in the
coal-pits. He had lately heard from a number of brick• makers,
working near the line of the Bath Railway, at a distance of
only 15 miles from the metropolis, which were well deserving
the notice of Lord Ashley. He had been told that these men
worked 17 or 18 hours a day during the summer ; every
brick-maker was attended by two boys, one of whom filled a
barrow, while the other wheeled it. Now these boys had but
three rests during the day— each of no more than 20 minutes
or one hour out of seventeen or eighteen. The master of these
workmen, a gentleman of large property, had told him that a
good brick-man would make 60,000 bricks in a week, or 10,000
a day, while each of these bricks required that 91b-of clay
should be thrown into a mould. Thus, one man had to throw
into a mould 90,0001bs weight of clay, or nearly 45 tons, each
day. These were things to which Lord Ashley should look,
when he talked of the sufferings of the labouring classes.
( A gentleman here asked what was the age of the boys em-
ployed). They were generally boys between the age of 12 arid
14. He was sorry to find that Sir R. Peel, who might have
been a greater man, seemed to join in the outcry against the
manufacturers. He did not believe that Sir R. Peel shared
in the sentiments of those who denounced manufactures ; but
his words were capable of that construction. He seemed to
join in the outcry against machinery, while every reflecting
man must know well that machinery was the best friend of
man ; that machinery found work for ten men for one it dis-
lilac, d ; and if machinery had not conferred all the benefit
which it might confer, it wa. because the present Corn-laws
did not allow it to be fully put in operation.—(Cheers.) Sir
R. Peel had also spoken of over-production, and lie might be
ashamed in joining in that outcry. Now, how could there be
over-production, when he could tell them that he
had been informed, at a public meeting at Leicester,
by hosiers of the town, that foreigners were actually underselling
them in their own market ?—( Hear, hear.) 'Was that over-
production ? It did not look like i-. Surely if there %yrs
over-production these foreigners were very foolish men to take
coals to Newcastle. He had yesterday conversed with an
honest and intelligent American, of whom he had asked his
opinion of the prospects of trade with Sir IL Peel's proposi-
tion. He replied that it would effectually stop any exchange
of American corn for our manufactured articles; and that the
trade between the two countries could not be continued under
such a system. The gentleman told him that if the trade in
corn was opened in this country, America would clear the
whole stock in Manchester in one year. —( Hear, hear.) They
had immense districts in Aineri, a where it would be much
more advantageous to sow corn than to establish manufactures ;
and if the Corn-laws were repealed, a vast portion of the
capital which was daily being vested in manufactures would
be devoted to agriculture.— (Cries of " Hear, hear.")
A word had been said about class legislation ; he should not now
enter into the question of how it was that Sir Robert Peel
dared to do as he now does, but he traced the evils they were
now complaining of to a period of several years back. He con- '
sidered that Sir R. Peel and his party in Parliament dared to
do what they now do, and will dare to do much more, that they
cared very little for them, because they had succeeded in dis-
couraging, dispiriting, and dividing the people of England, till
they had little or nothing to fear from them. The people were
in a paralyzed and divided condition, and though they
might have all strength arid power, if united, yet
they had very little union as they now were.--( Hear,
hear.) An American gentleman had stated to him a circum-
stance that had given him an exact idea of the cause of the
strength of the aristocratical party, and those who maintained
the Corn-laws. They were conversing of the probability of the
continuance,of the American Union, and he was informed that
the men of the Southern., or slave-holding States, had among
themselves one common bond of union in the maintenance of
the slave system. But it appeared that the Northern, or in-
dependent States, had no such bond of union ; they were all
divided ; and therefore the slave-holding States ruled over
them. Now, there was a slave-owning state in this country, and
they have a common bond of union in the continuance of the
Corn-laws. The Corn-law talc( s more from the labouring man
than he bad a right. to give, and whenever labour was taken and
no wages given, that he considered amounted to slavery.
( Hear, hear.) If, as Mr. Connell had said, the landowners
demanded 2d. out of every loaf, and exacted, as it had been
calculated they did do, on an average, 3(1. from every shilling
the labourer earned ; if, when a man earned 95., 2s. or 3s. of
that amount was taken by others who never worked for it, just'
so far as that it was slavery.—(Cheers.) He said that they
were an Anti-Slavery Society; if therefore there was a bond
of union among the slave-owners of this kingdom, and we have
no such bond, then they were divided, and it was not to be won-
dered at that the slave-owners were as powerful as in
America. He was travelling by railway last week,
and conversed with a gentleman, who made this remark re-
specting what Sir Robert Peel was about to do, " That lie did
not think he would give way this Session—that there was no
reason why he should do so ;" adding, " that it was a lucky
thing the Corn-law League had quarrelled with the Chartists,
for if they had united they would have upset the Government."
—( Hear, hear.) He thought to himself, you should not have
told me that, for as sure as ever he met a body of Anti-Corn-
law men he resolved to tell it them.—(Cheers.) He con-
sidered that the evils they were suffering dated not from the
Reform Bill, or before the Reform Bill, but the period a short
time after it. Before the passing of the Reform Bill the
people exerted themselves to the utmost to net their House of
Commons, but in an evil hour the Liberal Ministry was dis-
missed, and Sir R. Peel took office, and shortly sent that House
of Commons about its business. He thought that was a slap
in the face given to the nation, and which the nation had never
recovered. It felt that it was no use to try to get a good
House of Commons, for it felt that it would be sent back if

t did not happen to suit the Minister. The consequence was,
hat men cared less for their votes. He had known men of the
most respectable class, medical men, surgeons, and clergymen,
men of a most respectable rank in life,who, rather than be intimi-
dated and harrassed, would not put their names on theregis-
try. A discouragement had been given to the people of Eng-
land, they had been disappointed and sent back, after having
done a great work ; and they had never done any other great
work, from that time till now.—(Loud cheers ) What, then,
was to be done? They were here to consider yractical mea-
sures, and he would take the liberty of giving them a
word or two of advice :—First, to the ministers of re-
ligion, and the clergy of the Established Church, of
whom those who held the same opinions he did,
would no longer hide their light tinier a bushel ; there would
be a goodly number of them if they would only speak out ;
let their names be known. With respect to the Dissenting
ministers who had acted an honourable part, and had taken
a part in this discussion, he hoped every one of them would
instruct his people in all righteousness in ttis matter, fer un-
less the people were thoroughly furnished with all good works,
and the minister who had not declared to his people the
whole counsel of God, if he had not thoroughly furnished
them on this point, he had never done his duty yet. If those
gentlemen who would really be the friends of the people, and who
would go about doing good, they must not take a lesson from
Peel as to the way of doing it. On the distress in Bolton,
says Sit' Robert in Parliament, how very badly the Poor-law
must be administered in that place ? Their ambition, he
thought, would be of a nobler
.kind than this—that if the poor
man was distressed he should have parish pay to keep him
quiet. Alen, year after year, went on relieving the distress,
and wondering, there was such saffering, but never taking the
trouVe to examine into the causes of it. Had they done this
they would not say that the Poor-laws were workin. badly, let
that the Corn-laws were operating inju-iously. "The people
would not want relief if justice were done them.—( Hear,
hear.) He wished that every man was above parish pay,
and he would be se if the door were opered to labour,
Let every Minister, then, advocate the cause of justice ; they
must show them that they must not depend on others, but on
themselves ; they must show them that they had to earn their
bread by the sweat of their brow, and if obstacles were placed
in their way, not to lie down and die, or depend on parish pay,
but to cry out against the Legislature which places those ob-
stacles in their way.—(Cheers.) Peel well knew that it was
the police that keep the people quiet. Now, if it were not for
this law the country could not be in the orderly condition in
which it was ; and his aim was to encourage the people to be
satisfied with the present state of things, in order to de-
prive you of the assistance of the thousands and millions of
England. Mr. Massey had stated on the first day of the
Conference that he (Mr. Spencer) had said they should send a
thousand men from Manchester to the metropolis, but he had
not told them all the story, and he would explain it to them,
with an addition. He was for moral force, not for physical.
He found in Scripture two cases of moral force, one in which
Gideon fell before a small number of men, who broke their
pitchers and displayed their lamps. In the other there was a
town which God had determined should fall without a single
stroke, in the same wanner as he hoped the vitas el of monopoly
would be carried, without a single stroke or shedding a single
drop of bl rod.—(Cheers.) He said to his people, " March
round the via% of the town, march round the walls
of Jericho, every man wMI a trumpet, and as you march blow
the trumpets. And they did as they were told, and they
walked round tl.e walls, and blew their trumpets, and as they.
walked the walls fell flat."—( Cheers.) He would not have the
people of London selected fur such a march—people who were
given to admire sights and shows, and the next moment are to
be found in the girishops, were not the men ; he had no con-
fidence in such people as could be picked up in the streets of
London. But take a thousand men from the streets of
Manchester ; let a portion of the 10,0001. acquired by the
Bazaar be appropria.ed to this purpose; make an agree-
ment with the Railway Proprietors, engage a special train,
land them in the streets of London, marshal them well,
put banners of " Free Trade," and " No Corn-laws,"
in their hands.—( Cheers.) Let them be maintained in Lon-
don for a fortnight or a month, if their funds allowed it; let
them march every day past the fronts of the houses of those
who uphold the Corn-laws, and blowing their Anti-Corn-law
trumpets, let there-march seven times roond the walls of the
House of Commons—(Cheers)— and as they march through the
streets of London, as the people are caught by sights, let them
show their ragged clothes and pale faces, and let the beat man