The Sun.
London, England, 1842-07-15 00:00:00

ANTI-CORN•LAW CONFERENCE.

The Rev. J. S. BAILEY, of Sheffield (in continuation from
our Afternoon Edition of yesterday) said—This he knew
that, independent of the distress that prevailed, there was a
feeling among the people throughout the country that
they lived under a cruel and heartless Government.—
(Cheers.) Now, was he one of the Government, he
should not be willing to hear such testimony as this ; he
should be sorry to hear the people make such declara-
tion ; and he should think that common honesty would
dictate the necessity of washing away such an asper-
sion.—(Hear, hear.) He would appeal to gentlemen
present from other parts of the country whether such
was not the impression entertained by the people gene-
rally.—(Cheers.) He would say nothing of the justice
of the impression—he spoke to the fact of it. Such an
impression was not likely to be a cypher.—(Cheers.)
The people were discovering their feelings by deter-
mining not to petition • some of the Members of the
House of Commons thought this was a proof of the
people's patience. Such was not the case ;it was a
proof of the people's contempt, as they said they might
as well petition the wall as the aristocracy.—(Hear,
hear.) Were not such opinions as these calculated to
bring the aristocracy into contempt ?—(Cheers.) One
blast of the breath of the people would destroy the aris-
tocracy.—(Cheers.) Why, then, should they beard the
popular lion ?—(Cheers.) A stranger coming to this
country from the dominions of the Czar, or the king-
dom of Prussia, and going to Parliament first, and then
to different parts of the country, would suppose that
Parliament was a great device to starve and impoverish
the people.—(Hear, hear.) For his own part he thought
the country would be better under a state of despotism
than to be governed by such a Parliament as they had
at present.—(Cheers.) He was persuaded this was the
feeling of the great bulk of the people of the country.—
(Cheers.) He considered such a state of things the
highest censure on Parliament.—(Cheers.) If they
looked into other countries that had no Parliament they
would find no national debt—(Cheers)—they would find
the people better educated, the poorer classes happy, and
their cottages the scenes of contenL—(Cheers.) Ought
such a state of things as existed in this country to con-
tinue ? They had been told they must try Parliament,
and the course that had been adopted showed that as far
as the power of the aristocracy could go, they would
carry it to keep up such a state of things.—(Cheers.)
He was persuaded if they could put a stop to the spirit
of liberty that existed among their friends in Parlia-
ment, it would find time to cripple the people, and
make peace for the coming winter by abridging their
comforts, although it could not find time to look to the
interests of the millions.—(Cheers.) It would 'be the
fault of the people if they allowed Parliament to break
up without bringing forward some measures for the re-
lief of the country from its present dreadful condition.
He had not been in the House of Commons till Monday
last since the time when faction was baffled in 1828, be-

cause the public credit was run down by noble-minded
men, who were determined to destroy the public credit
or gain their measure of relief. He had not been there
since, he said, till Monday last, and then he was struck
with the heartless manner in which the Members seemed
to take into consieeration the measure introduced by
Mr. Villiers. Numbers were lounging about in a
room, playing with their whips, and expressing their
anxiety to get away, instead of being desirous
to sit all night in the discussion of a question
which concerned the bread of the people.—(Hear,
hear.) The people knew that this was a ques-
tion which bore with dreadful efficacy on the morals of
the country ; the Government might not know it, but the
people did. The first victims of the morals of revolu-
tion were those who brought it on—a bad Government.
He said that Sir R. Peel was an educator in the morals
of revolution—that he was doing more to bring on a vio-
lent revolution than any man had done since the
year 1798.—(Hear, hear.) In those parts of the country
with which he (Mr. Bailey) was familiar, the people
were being educated to an abandonment of self-respect,
and when that was gone, all was gone from the mind ;
and the great guardian power of aristocracy would soon
be trampled in the dust. If they looked over the crimi-
nal lists they would find that the increase in the number
of criminals was frightful. The reason of it was clear ;
they would remember the statements he hid read
to them last week, relative to wages in 1838,
and wages in 1842 ; the wages in 1838 being often more
than three times as much as in 1842, and the difference
in the amount of crime would be found to vary precisely
in the same ratio as wages differed.—(Hear, hear.) If
they looked at the poor-houses, they would see the same
thing. He could remember the time when the poor used
to steal into the poor-houses, to go there by night, when
they practised privacy, and thought it to be a great dis-
grace to be known to be on the parish. There was no such
delicacy now, for the other day when he put out a paper to
the poor in Sheffield, upwards of a thousand brought hi.n a
confession that t,:ey were on the parish. The effects of
the Corn-law upon education were obvious; education
was one of the first things to suffer deterioration. One
woad think that a wise man, like Sir R. Peel, would look
thirty years ahead of him. Here was the boyhood of the
population growing up without education; the boys, when
they should be forming correct habits, were thrown on
the streets, and had nothing to occupy their time; females
went to still worse occupations. They ought to look 30
years a head. What sort of men and women would these
youth become ? But what cared an aristocracy for the
morality of the next generation ? What cared they for
the morality of the universe ? Iris firm belief was, that
if the universe were threatened with destruction, and a
proposition was made to save it, the discussion of
such a proposition would not occupy above five
minutes in the House of Parliarnent.—(Hear.) Could
they doubt that religion was neglected when the people
were starving ? Was it likely that a man who found
himself on the verge of bankruptcy, with his last sove-
reign broken, could pay that attention to religion which
lie once found so congenial to his heart to cultivate ?
Men of the world, when maddened to desperation by des-
pair, could not be expected to turn to that source which
i would really afford balm and consolation to the broken
spirit.—(Cheers.) He need not speak to them of the
distress that did 'exist, he need not tell them that it re-
I quired a great stretch of the imagination to fancy a man on
the verge of bankruptcy; suffice it that my Lord Stanley,
Sir Robert Peel, and the apostate Graham had admitted
it.—(Cheers.) But they did not send to inquire where
the distress existed, they did not send to the Delegates to
explain it in detail; but if a rumour were to reach Down-
ing-street that the property of the aristocracy was
in danger, and that the funds would sink 2i per
Icent. to-night, Sir Robert Peel would not think it
beneath his dignity to hunt out the meanest man in
London who could tell him anything of the dreadful
rumour which .had reached his ears.—(Cheers.) But
they had a contemptible Government.—(Hear, hear.)
What was Sir Robert Peel ? An alumnus of Castle-
reagh, a mouth-piece for repeating the words of the
Earl of Liverpool, one who made the worst appear the
best reason, at the feet of the immediate successors of the
monster Pitt.—(Cheers.) As to Stanley, the Hotspur
of the Cabinet, he was known advantageously to them, he
had been formerly applauded throughout the land,
, as a wondrous debater ; aye, but he was known to the
people as a man who was- the active, instrument of
stamping the triumph of liberty with the golden bribe of
20,000,0001. sterling.—(Hear, hear.) Of Graham, little
need be said. He stood the self-confirmed apostate
every night.—(Cheers.) There were Members in the
House of Commons, who, on whatever subject lie spoke,
could pull from their pockets the proof of his base apos-
taey ; and he was now the nightly expounder of the
wickedness and folly of the opinions he expressed in
Parliament in 1826, 1827, and 1828—his own book was
his best condemnation and ‘•incur omuiuni ;" he need
not say anything more about it.—(Loud cheers.)
That was the class of men who composed the Govern-
ment—men, of whom, if it were said, " Let them have
a pension, and go to enjoy it in another land," there is
not a man in the country, except the extreme of their
own party, who would not vote for their expatriation.
—(Loud cheers.) It was necessary for them (the
meeting) to look to what they could, and what
they could not do, so that they should not
.waste
their strength on the air.—(Hear, hear.) SOme
recommended that they should resort to physical force.
But that was not their (the Delegates') judgment ; that
was not their religion ; that was not their policy.—
(Hear, hear.) But if they did not raise that power,
there were those who would do so.—(Hear, hear.) It
was not necessary to have leaders—it was not necessary
to have Anti-Corn-law lecturers to raise it. It would
arise out of the spontaneous upheavings of misery.
—(Cries of "Hear, hear.") Nor was it mere probability
that it might arise ; but he was sure that it would
arise, unless the Government, warned at last by the
symptoms of the times, have the wisdom of cowardice,
as it had not the wisdom of justice. They (the Dele-
gates) were not able to shake the public credit, as had
been proposed. It was true that Catholic Emancipation
would not have been carried but for the money question.
—(Hear, hear.) It was very well known that
many other questions would net have been carried but
for it. Oh ! he felt shame for his country that that
House opposite (pointing to the House of Commons),
which exists only for the purpose of securing liberty of
speech, and free course of truth ; that with all the Foxes,
the Sheridan, and the Broughams of that House, no
question was ever settled, be it right or wrong, of truth
or of justice, but it always came to the image and
superscription of the penny.—(Cheers.) Let not the
Government lay the flattering unction to its soul that
public credit would not be shaken.—(Hear, hear.)
Indeed, they (the Delegates) would not attempt to
encourage a run upon the Bank, in the appro-
priation of wages only to the friends of the
people. But this he thought was as certain to come as
that the sun would descend at night, and that the coun-
try was at this moment in a state of misery. There was
one little thing in operation. The man who was re-
ceiving, in 1838, wages of 20s. 6d. a week was now re-
ceiving ss. only.—(Hear, hear.) That vas the first tide
wave that would move the mighty waters of the nation,
and shake the public credit, until it fell in a ruined
House and a bankrupt Exchequer.—(Hear, hear.) They
could not recommend abstinence from excisable articles.
They could not themselves abstain from them, for they
had their wives and sisters to please, who would at all
events have their tea and luxuries of excise.--(Hear,
and a laugh.) They could not recommend passive re-
sistance to the Income-tax. But as to the Excise. hunger
will not use excisable articles—the pauper will not use
them—the unemployed in thousands and thousands
will not use them.—(Hear, hear.) As to the
Income-tax, the assignee at the Bankrupts' desk
will stop the payment of that—(Hear)—.when the
middle classes begin to swell with indignation, when
they. have the livid spectre standing at their elbow, and
turning over their books, and subjecting them' to inquisi-
torial interrogatories, and insinuating a charge of frau-
dulent. representation—(Hear)—then they would turn
on. the official, and put him out of doors.. The dissolu-
tion of the present Parliament was not to be effected.
The people forestalled themselves at the late elections.--
(Hear, hear.) They had been urged to attend to the
registration, and they had left that to their enemies ;
and now the remedy was perfectly hopeless, unless a
great revolution should take place in the state of the