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

order that he may delay for a little longer the
sentence, condemnation, and execntion of the corn-
laws. There is, I contend, every motive to urge us to pro-
ceed. The triumphs which we have obtained in the recogni-
tion of our principles, the abandonment of the fallacies with
which we had to grapple, the giving up of all those excuses
which were once pleaded for the corn-laws—these triumphs,
I say, of the justice and reason of oar cause, are so many,
motives to increased exertions.—(Hear, hear.) While pro-
tection exists, the Anti-Corn-law League must proceed,
adding strength to strength, numbers to numbers, force to
force. We have made thus far amazing progress. greater
progress than any similar Association ever made, I
believe, in the history of the world. And when men
reafter shall inquire in what way they may overthrow some
oary abuse protected by power, surrounded and defended by
wealth and rank and corruption—when, I say, they inquire
whether they may venture to hope that by exertion and toil
and sacrifice they may bring such an abuse to the ground,
they shall tern to the pages which record the history of the
Anti-Corn-law League ; they will therein learn that voluntary
association will work greater miracles than the hands of those
who reared the pyramids; that bloodless revolutions are only to
be brought about by the agitation of men's minds ; that there
are walls which must be struck down in the warfare; that our
sower is one which, though impalpable and invisible, is yet
universal and irresistible, and shall outlive Ministers and Go-
sernments and States, and rule the world when man is man
indeed.
Mr. BRIGHT, M.P., then came forward, and was received
with loud cheers. He said—l may be excused if 1 feel some
anxiety in being called upon to address this meeting after the
two speeches to which we have listened—one delivered by a
gentleman who is well known as a perfect master of the
science of political economy—the other by a gentleman cele-
brated, not only in this kingdom, but in distant parts of the
glebe, as a perfect master of the art of oratory. My confi-
deace, however, arises from the fact, that the question which
we are met tosnight to discuss is one of vast importance, and
of almost limitless extent. I know, indeed, that the pro-
foundest thinker or the most powerful speaker, however winch
he may exert himself, can get no further than the very
borders of this question—for day by day, as we are con-
nected with it and investigate it, we find continually
more and more beauties, and become more and more
enamoured of the great work in which we are engaged. Its
course is like that of every great question : its beginning was
feeble enough. At its commencement it was wrapped up in
much sophistry and mystification. Fallacies the most ludi-
crous, pretensions the most absurd, were brought forward to
oppose those principles of which we have been the humble
exponents to the public of this country. But now this so-
phistry—this mystification—these fallacies, and these preten-
sions have vanished, and the question of ree trade—the ques-
tion for the promotion of which the Anti-Corn-law League
is organised, stands before the people of this country in this
simple form—we have justiceconfronting wrong and oppression,
and we ask the people of this empire to side with justice
against oppression.—(Cheers.) Two principles are offered fur
your adoption—the one goes by the name of Protection—the
other is known by the title of Free Trade. At the Mansion-
bonier, and at an office not far off this place, men sometimes
give false names. If they have committed any act which is dis-
graceful and criminal, not being entirely lost to shame, they give
a name by which they were not commonly known. The men
who support this system—the men who for thirty years at least
have laid hold with a re'en less hand of the subsistence of the
toiling millions of this country—these men dare not call their
system by the name which only it can justly claim, but they
have assumed that of protection—an amiable and harmless
thing.—(Laughter.) On the other hand, the free-trade
principle is offered to you ; and I believe that so many meet-
ings have not been held in this building and elsewhere, with-
out the effect being that from one end of this country to the
other there is now almost a universal assent to the beauty and
honesty of the principles which the League is established to
promote. This great principle— or rather these principles are
faithfully represented by the two societies—the Great Central
Society for the Protection of Agriculture, and the National
Anti-Corn-law League. He had learnt that protection is not
only a robbery of those upon whom it acts, but that it is ener-
vating and injurious even to those who profit by it. It is sup-
ported, for the most part, in this country by landowners, great
and small, not by facts, reason, argument, and proof, but by
force and fraud, and calumny, and delusion, practised upon
any class which comes within the range of their influence—
The Protection Society, formed twelve months ago, sought
the means of obtaining this odious system. From them was
formed the Great Central Association, which has opened an
office in this metropolis. To be particular, lam informed at
No, 17, Bond-street.—( Laughter.) In the north of England
have occasionally seen circulars sent down from certain, not
very respectable firms in the city of London, offering to any
party in the manufacturing districts, whom they supposed to be
short of capital, certain accommodation bills, to be drawn and
accepted, and endorsed and d shonoured. and renewed to be
dishonoured again.—( Cheers and laughter.) These firms may
be called 'swindling concerns. Now, I have endeavoured to
discover whether that estabishment at No. 17, Bond-street,
is not of this character.—(Laughter.) I told them in the
House of Commons, the other night, that they ought to put a
sign over their door, with this inscription upon it—" British
Farmers regularly taken in and done for"--(Great laughter)—
and a brass plate, with the words " Richmond and Co." en-
graved on it.—( Renewed laughter.) They offer to the far-
mers, in order to help them out of their distress, fraudulent
bills of every description—promises which can never be rea-
Reed—Acts of Parliament of no more value for the purpsses
for which they are passed than the parchment upon
which they are engrossed alluring thousands of
farmers to place reliance upon a support which must lead
them to ruin, and from which there is no escape.—( Hear,
hear.) This society is curiously framed—Political land-
lords, Dukes, Earls, Lords, Baronets, and so forth, and a
sprinkling of a certain sort of amphihious animal, known by
the name of land-valuer—(Laughterl—a person who was a
half-farmer, and half-squire. —( Cheers.) There is a little, also,
of steward and auctioneer in his composition. Now, the
leaders of this firm are the Duke of Richmond, the Duke of
Buckingham, and time was when Sir Edward Knatchbull
might have been considered a leader. It reminds me of a
society which we hear of in" Martin Chuzzlewit"—the Anglo-
Bengalee Disinterested Loan Society.—(Laughter.) I be-
lieve the chairman of the board of directors and the one indi-
vidual who formed the board were enriched, and all those
who trusted to their professions duped and ruined.—( Hear,
hear.) Now first, as to the Duke of Buckingham : When the
Government came into office, that great man—Plantagenet
his name, I believe—was a member of the Cabinet. He was
then called the " Farmers' Friend." It became necessary to
alter the corn-law, and greatly modify the tariff; and it was
desirable for the purposes to be hereafter accomplished, that the
confidence of the farmers in the Duke of Buckingham should not
be entirely destroyed; and therefore he left the Cabinet, and
did not interfere with the carrying out of this free-trade mea-
sure. Did the Duke get nothing? lam not able to estimate
the compensation which he received, but it was stated in the
public newspapers that he received what is called a Garter.—
( A laugh.) Let no one imagine that this Garter is that
homely article by which stockings are kept up. —( Great laugh-
ter.) I don't know exactly what it is, because 1 never saw
one, but I have learned from the ordinary sources of informa-
tion that it is a decoration—a sort of toy, which you in the
pit of the theatre would laugh at, or be insulted if any one
told yen sou coveted, but yet a decoration far which great
men, with a long line of ancestors, will do any dirty work for.
—( Hear, hear.) I know not its use, unless it be to give one
precedence above another. I have heard of magnetic or
metallic rings—some contrivance by which either very wise or
very superstitious people fancy they can cure the tic-doloreux,
or such complaints.—(Laughter.) It may be, that this
Collar or Garter may have some effect on the body ; but of this
I am perfectly certain, that it comes like a shock of paralysis
upon anything like independence and honourable feeling.--
( Great cheering,) I next came to the Duke of Richmond.
NOw it is hard to tell whether he is not a bigger man than the
Duke of Buckingham. He talks as though he had made the
Cabinet, and that if the Cabinet did not do his bidding he
would unmake it. Well, one would suppose that a free-trade
measure of Government would make the Duke of Richmond
exceedingly hostile—he talks to the farmers of ancestors of his
having led soldiers to battle costae generations ago, and that so
long as there is a drop of hosd in his veins he will stand by
the British farmer. What does all this mean The Duke of
Richmond is believed to be a rich map, but he has brothers
who are thought to be very roor—he allows his brothers a small
ineeme from the family prole) ty until he can get them settled
under the Government. —( Hear, hear.) One of his brothers,
Lord Arthur Lennox, who is, I am told, colonel of a regiment,
was lately placed in office under the Government as a Lord of
the Treasury. I believe he still retains command of a resiment.
The salary of a Lord of the Trea-ury is reported to be 1,2001.
a-year, a thing having much the same effect now as when
Butler wrote ‘. H udib r aa"—
What makes all doctrines plain and clear?
About twelve hundred pounds a year ;
And that which was prove,) true before,
Proved false again ?—Twelve hundred more.

—(eheerc.) But the Duke of Richmond has a son, known
by the title of Earl of Nlarch. He represents a district in
the west of Sussei, and has had special favours from the Go-
vernment. lam told that he explained to some farmers in
Sussex last year, that he left the army, and shaved his
moustachir.s.—(Great laughter.) I had often suspected that
there was a vast deal of the gallant bearing and cou-
rage of these men in their moustaches.—(Laughter.) I am
told that he left the Blues, where he was a lieutenant, and
is now unattached on half-pay, and fully paid as well for
.Aide-de-Camp to the Commander-in-Chief the Duke of
Wellington, a Cabinet Itinister. It appears to me that this
trade of " Farmers' Friend" is not a bad one.—(Hear,
hear, and great cheering.) The Duke of Richmond, you
roust know, is said to be in the habit of withdrawing his
family allowance when his brothers, &c., have been settled in
life, that is, settled upon you.—(Hear, and great cheering.)
By his brother becoming a Lord of the Treasury, he will be able
to dispense with the allowance of 3M/. a-year, which will be
some compensation to the Duke of Richmond for the losses he
has sustained owing to the free trade in salmon.—( Hear, hear,
and laughter.) We come now to Sir Edward Knatchbull.—
( Laughter. )You will remember that he comes from the county
of Kent ; that he made a speech on the question of the corn-
laws, in the House of Commons, and a country gentleman, a
Member of the House, told me the other day, that it certainly
was a most imprudent speech. He spoke of the marriage set-
tlements of the daughters of the nobility and gentry, but he
never thotight a moment upon the settlements of tho daughters
ef.firmers anti labourers.—( Hear, hear, and cheers.) He was
about to be called to the other House of Parliament, or, as
some people phra'ed it, translated —( Laughter.) It was un-
dersto id that Sir Robert Peel declined to give a peerage,
since his accession to office, unless on the ground of special ser-
vices—for good and weighty reasons.—( Hear, hear.) If not,
he would have had a list of applicants for the pee. age, so long,
that it would have reached from Charing-cress to
the House of Commons.—( Hear, hear. ) But he would not
ratarnk,i o'ei any one except for special reasons.—( Hear. )
for granted that there have been special services in
the cas:
rrng
of Sir Edward Knatchbuil ( Hear, hear.) He is to
be created, a.co
to the ICA;p.a—pers, Viscount Penenden.
I say again I believe there are special services. He was taken
to the Cabinet in 1341 along with the Duke of Buckingham, as
saus,:h)rtatn)f
udnetcl'eqmdisuhed
duck—' f
Lajghter) —he was supposed to have
re,ih)u,ttation, to stand .with a character so
entirely una,mailable,
remaining there was consideredbig coming
into the Cabinet and
undeniable guarantee to
the farmers that protecti, had aso m
an i not been interfered with. And
with his lards in his pocket and his
yet there Sir Edward sits,
enjoying the most comfortable slumbers
chin on his breast,
through Parliament,
imaginable, whilst laws were '
which if the principles he and hislipa"rtingceontei.dedfor were true,
be inevitably
the aloe. paramount interests of the country
,t,
thatnty must
sacrificed. However Ido not rear
Com-
mons is to be released front thethe House of
of his presence. ( Hear, hear.) tryorifle influence
House which has been not inaptly term'. edi4oesh to that
of Incurables, and I declare, without any re-ervatiotn e h House
that I never beheld a man w ho, from nature and habit, Meyer'
T
likely to occupy in a bench in that Howe as Viscount P'enase'''. '°
den. Now you wil see from all this the cases of Buckingham,
Richmond, and Knatebhull, that this trade of farmer's friend i;
a very thriving affair.—( Hear, hear, and cheers.) It is like
the trade in guano from Ichaboe, only it cannot be considered
nearly so clean.—
( Roars Of laegliter. ) Now. I will ask you
to go that class who really are agriculturists, for these men are
not agricu
Iturisfs, and ask the farmers how they got on under
this system. I have heard of some of them obtaining rich
church livings—no garters—some labourers have no stockings
_(Hear, h•ar, and cheers)—no naval, military, or civil pro-
Ingtjon, for the man who invests his capital in the soil of Eng-
14fIrtt . oiteese corn-laws. And if the labourers
t heat :• .OPit is hard to speak jocosely of them,
4ab
~.1.,, 4:4.i c1i7j,,,:i,,,..
.wfluldlowboenjotisotneda it h ), biudt if it wereuid not
At ;; '':4l-11"= '7..7 i..,,-, ..i., they9°u .' w 9
.04644
4- • . ... ---.:;-: 4'14
. --- • zi VAZIT 44
•.,
si