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

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-
dence, however, arises from the fact, that the question which
we are met to-night to discus is one of vast importance, and
of almost limitless extent. I know, indeed, that the pro-
foundest thinker or the most powerful speaker, however much
he may exert himself, can get no further than the very
borders of this question—for day by day, as we are co--
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
ranch sophistry and mystification. Fallacies the most ludi-
crous, pretensions the most absurd, were brought forward to
oppose th ise 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 free 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 justicecenfronting wrong and oppression,
and we ask the people of this empire to side with justice
against oppression.—( Cheers.) Two principles are offered for
your adoption—the one goes by the name of Protection—the
other is known by the title of Free Trade. At the Mansion-
house, 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 Lea zue 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
I 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 establishment 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 labghter)—
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-
lised—Acts of Parliament of no more value for the purposes
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 lard.
lords, Dukes, Earls, Lords, ftaronets, and so forth, and a
sprinkling of a certain sort of amphibious animal, known by
the name of land-valuer—( Laughter I—a person who was a
half-farmer, and half-squire. —( Cheers.) There is a little, al'o,
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 Chuzzlevvit"—the Anglo-
Bengalee Disintere-ted 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 I 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 you )ou coveted, but yet a decoration for which great
men, with a long line of ancestors, will do any dirty work for.
—( Hear, hear.) 1 know net 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 come 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 some generations ago, and that so
long as there is a drop of blood 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 man, but he has brothers
who are thought to he very root—lie allows his brothers a small
ineeme from the family prooto ty until he can get them settled
under this 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 reeiment.
The salary of a Lord of the Tres ury is reported to be 1,2(n.
a-year, a thing having much the same effect now as when
Butler wrote " Hudibras"—
What makes all doctrines plain and clear ?
About twelve hundred pounds a year ;
And that which was proved true before,
Proved false again ?—Twelve hundred more.
_-(Cheats.) But the Duke of Richmond has a son, known
by the title of Earl of March. He represents a district in
the west of Sussex, 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
moustachios.—(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 likes, where he was a lieutenant, and
is now unattached on ball-pay, and fully paid as well for
Aide-de-Camp to the Commander-in- hief the Duke of
Wellington, a Cabinet Minister. 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
must 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 31)0/. 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 male 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 iaughters of the nobility and gentry, hut he
never thought a moment upon the settlements of the daughters
of farmers and labourers.—( Hear, hear, and cheers.) He was
about to be called to the other House of Parliament, or, as
some people phrased it, translated —( Laughter.) It was un-
derstood 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 peerage, so long,
that it would have reached from Charing-cross to
the House of Commons.—( Hear, hear.) But he would not
promote any one except for special reasons.—( Hear. )
I take it for granted that there have been special services in
the case of Sir Edward Knatchbull.—( Hear, hear.) He is to
cbe eated,.aceordinw to the newspapers, Viscount Penenden.
I say again I believe there are special services. He was taken
to the Cabinet in 1841, along with the Duke of Buckingham, as
a sort of decoy duck—(l..suoht, r) —he was supposed to have
sneh an unblemished reputation, to stand with a character so
entirely unassailable, 'hat into the Cabinet and
remaining there was consideredthhai iica:stmainngundeniable guarantee to
the farmers that protection beend interfered with. And
yet there Sir Edward sit., with his Lands in his pocket and his
chin on his breast, enjoying thesrriaons eamfortable slumbers
imaginable, whilst laws were passing through Parliament,
which if the principles he and his partygconteded;for were true,
the most paramount interests of the ereantryn
sacrificed. However Ido not regr.tt thattheuHost
use of Colit-
is to be released from the soporific influen c
7.' his presence. ( Hear, hear.) He goes to that
House which has been not inaptly termed the House
of Incurables, and I declare, without any reservation whatever,asso
se
that I never beheld a man who, from nature and habit, was
likely to occupy in a bench in that House as Viscount Penen-
den. Now you will see from all this the cases of Buckingham,
Richmond, and Knatchb ull, that this trade of farmer's friend is
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 laughter.) Now, I will ask you
to go that class who really are agriculturists, for these men are
not agriculturists, and ask the farmers how they got on under
this system. I have heard of some of them obtaining rich
church livings—ne garters—some labourers have no stockings
--(Hear. hear, and cheers)—no naval, military, or civil pro-
motion, for the man who invests his capital in the soil of Eng-
land under the faith of these corn-laws. And if the labourers
were heard to speak (and it is hard to speak jocosely of them,
I t is a subject too sorrowful to be jested with), but if it were not
amid way, that the only decoration they could ask would be