The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-04-13 00:00:00

ANTI CORN LAW MEETING.

The corn-law repealers held au open air meeting yesterday
in Clayton-square, for the purpose of petitioning for a total
and immediate repealof those enactments. Asa demonstra-
tion of numbers the affair was perfectly miserable. All the
people present occupied scarcely more than one fourth of the
square.

Sir J. WALMSLEY took the chair. lie said this public
meeting of the inhabitants of Liverpool had been convened
for the purpose of considering the propriety of petitioning the
legislature for a total repeal of the corn laws. The various
speakers who would address the meeting would point out the
injurious effects of the corn laws, not only as regarded
the means and the comforts of the people, but also as re-
garded our commerce and manufactures. To many of them
those evils were so well known, they had been so frequently
dwelt upon both in public and in private, that it would seem
almost a ivork of supererogation to enter into anything like
detail, yet such was the force of habit and prejudice that even
with the most thorough conviction of the injurious tendenc
1
of those laws, no corresponding efforts had been made to
amend them. He trusted, however, that the time was not
far distant when we might. reasonably look for a more just
and equal mode of taxation. The evidence which had been
recently adduced before a committee of the House of Com-
mons would be thought tend greatly to facilitate that desirable
object. That evidence was of a most important character :
and if not altogether conclusive on the necessity of a thorough
reform in our tariff, it had at least made out a strong case for
deep and serious inquiry. For his own part he had been long
satisfied that unless the restrictions and prohibitions which.
bore so hard on the middle and productive classes of the coun-
try were removed, they would not only endanger the commerce
and manufactures of the country, but the very safety of the
empire. We must ever remember that monopoly and exclu-
sion were mere apologies for robbing one portion of the coin-
munity for the supposed benefit of the other ; and that no
article was worth protecting at home which, from climate or
other circumstances, could be imported cheaper from abroad.
England possessed great and overwhelming advantages over
most other countries ; but neither the superiority of her coal,
and her mineral productions, nor the skill, capital, and en-
terprise of her people could long avail against the present
• ruinous system of restrictions, and consequently retaliation.
How was it possible that we could look for foreign nations to
take our manufactured goods upon the same terms as those
of other countries, if we refused almost the only articlewhich
their soil could produce? Many of them had already reta-
liated ; others threatened to do so ; and the state of our ma-
nufacturing districts, with our rapidly increasing population,
was not such as to enable us to trifle with our best customers.
We should never lose sight of this fact, that it was to our
commerce and manufactures we owed our present position in
the scale of nations, and that if we ceased to be an exporting
country of manufactures, we should sink as rapidly as we
have risen. Bear in mind that our present exports amount
to between forty and fifty millions per annum ; that three-
fourths of the cotton imported into this country was ex-
ported again in the shape of twist and cotton goods.—
For what were we hazarding this great branch of national
wealth ; for what were we refusing to take the grain of
the United States, the coffee and sugar of the Brazils,
and the timber of the north of Europe ; for what were
we restricting the labour, and enhancing the price of the
food of the people ? The question was answered thus,
to the satisfaction of all who heard him :—it was in order that
the rent-roll of a comparatively small number of landlords,
and the revenue of a few colonial monopolists, might be in-
creased. It was urged that we should support our colonies;
but we might support them at too great a cost, and at the
sacrifice of the mother country. Give them free trade. and
they would support themselves. Some were afraid that, by
an alteration in our tariff, and in the corn laws, we might en-
danger the revenues of the country. Perhaps there was no
set of men in the world more tenacious of national faith and
honour than Englishmen, and especially the British mer-
chant. Now tifey were perfectly satisfied upon this subject,
and had openly expressed their sentiments again and again,
that by the removal of restrictions and prohibitions, commerce
would be increased, and with it the revenue of the country.
But whatever those subjects might be, that meeting had
higher and more sacred objects. They thought that the peo-
ple should enjoy some portion of those luxuries and of those
comforts which they so richly produced. This was their ob-
ject in the repeal of the corn laws ; and they could fairly call
upon all classes of the community—upon the rich and the
pour, who were the most particularly interested-7-upon the
working man, and upon those whom they had a right to re-
gard as the best men in the community—to assist them in
this labour of love, in this great work of justice to themselves
and their fellow men. He trusted they should have every
man's helping hand, that no man might be said to be sup-
porting the corn laws, lest haply he might be sinning and
tightin, against Him to whom he lifted up his prayer—" Give
us this day our daily bread."

Col. WILLIAMS moved the first resolution, in an address
of considerable length.

Mr. WILLIAM ItivrnaoNE rose to second the resolution,
and commenced by addressing the meeting as having assem-
bled upon one of the most important subjects on which they
could meet. He hoped they would show by their determina-
tion, that they were determined to be heard. On every
ground he was an advocate for the prompt and total repeal
of the corn laws, believing that those laws were at once in
contradiction to the decrees of the Almighty, and to the
benefit of the people of every class. In making that decla-
ration he would take different means to accomplish the proof
of it. Let all be considered as the friends of repeal, who
were opposed to restrictions of every kind whatever. He
was opposed to those laws because they generated in the
people a feeling of dissatisfaction, a feeling of injustice,
which was at once subversive of religion, at once subversive
of morality, at once subversive of anything like loyalty, and
subversive of principle of every kind. He must, however, re-
member that it was not one abuse only under which we
laboured, but that they were like the bundle of sticks of
the old man in the fable. He attempted to break them
when they were all bound together, and he could not; but if
they broke them up one by one, the bundleiwould become
smaller, and at last it would be broken altogether. Now,
why was it that the children of light did not so for their
own interests as well as the children of darkness? Why
was it that they did not follow the right course when they
had a right end iu view ? Yet they did not do it he was
sorry to' say-,=-they did not often look after their own
interests, and they often threw their friends from them,
who were really their friends. Look at twenty years
ago, when the timber duties were proposed to be al-
tered, which was one of our great abuses. The whole
country was in arms, and one adininist;thion was very
nearly put out, because the people rose in arms to pre-
vent the timber duties being altered and improved. If, 20
years ago, the people had petitioned for the repeal of the
timber duties, he believed we should at this moment have
been very much: nearer the repeal of the corn laws—nay,
in his conscience he believed that those corn laws would not
have existed at this moment if that administration had been
supported in the repeal of those timber duties. Next to the
corn laws the timber duties were the most important. Was
it to be believed that a few owners of rotten New Bruus-
wickers should throw dust into the eyes of the ship-carpen-
ters, and blind the people at large as they did? But be-
cause it was not corn, the people would not listen to them,
therefore, the people threw away to a distance the repeal of
the cora laws. There was a very important meeting in the
Sessions-house the other day, and it was thought very de-
sirable, if they could, to commit the tories to principles,
which if they were honest in their belief, would at once de-
stroy the corn laws. They were committed to those princi-
ples ; and if they did not, like Lord Castlereagh, turn
their backs upon themselves, they must support the people in
the abolition of the corn laws. He had now some hope.
The revenue was beginning to fall off ; these terrible restric-
tions upon commerce had lost any profit to capital, and they
were grinding the poor man down to the dust, so that as an
Irishman had once said from that place, " You will begin to
have a nation of ventriloquists—that speak from their
bellies." But it was wonderful, that curtailed as she had
been by laws laid down for what was called protection, but
which were in effect restrictive of every thing that was good,
England should have maintained her place in the way she had ;
but she would not maintain it much longerif she went on as she
was doing. We should havemanufacturers inGermany and m ,
Switzerland to contend with, and when it was too late we might
repent, and at last lay down in a ditch in the mud, which we
ourselves had created. Now, we should object to every thing
that is bad. Let the people petition for free corn to our
colonies ; let them support the present government in the
plan they were taking now to let our colonies have cheap
bread ; then let the people turn round upon them and say,
" What are you worse than the heathen ? Will you neglect
your own? Will you give to the West Indies cheap bread
and deny it to our suffering manufacturers at home ?" Did
not the meeting feel—and if they did feel they would be ready
to petition against everything that was an abuse—did they not
know, that the bundle of sticks, that was the bundle of
abuses, at every twig whichwas broken became less ? If they
felt this, they would come forward in a different way than
they hitherto had; they would feel that if they wished for
success in any pursuit they must give time and exertion to it
themselves ; that they must not be like the poor unfortunate
carter, who, when his cart was fast in the rut, lay down in
the ditch and began to pray to Jupiter. Jupiter said to him,
" Yot.i.lazy lout, put your shoulder to the wheel, and then I
will listen to your prayers." In like manner they must put
their shoulder so the wheel if they wished the corn laws to
be repealed.—The resolution was then put and carried.
Mr. CHARLES HOLLAND, in moving the next resolution,
said, they were again met to protest against the iniquitous
corn laws, against the most inhuman and unrighteous laws
ever enacted by any sect or class of men, to attempt for
their own selfish purposes, and to impose a badge of slav-
ery, misery, and degradation, upon their fellow men. Was
that meeting prepared to submit to that? If they were,
how long were they going to submit? Was It not an undis-
puted fact that the misery and destitution of the lower and
industrious classes, the losses which our manufacturers were
sustaining, the diminution of our manufacturing profits, and
the small returns which the capitalist was now receiving,
were attributable mainly to these laws ? The fact was un-
disputed. After a few more similar remarks, Mr. Holland
concluded by moving the resolution.

Mr. DUFFEY seconded it, and said, that if anything was
pleasing to him in the character of that meeting, it was the
fact that there were united in it the middle and working
classes, the two greatest and most influential classes of the
community. They had, he was glad to say, combined their
strength together for the express purpose of removing the
odious corn-laws from our statute book. They had been
told it was for the interest of the working classes to support
the corn-laws because dear bread made high wages, but
every working man knew as well as he did, from sad expe-
rience, that this was not true. Mr. Duffey then proceeded
to argue on this position, and to chew the absurdity of pro-
tective duties. The decrees of Milan and Berlin, he ob-
served, rendered it necessary for us to destroy Napoleon in
order to open continental Europe to our commerce, but when
that had been accomplished, the landed aristocracy re-
enacted those decrees by the infamous corn-laws. He called
on the meeting, with reference to the corn-laws, to assert the
great 'principle, that whatever was morally wrong could not
be politically right, and to hold that man disgraced who re-
fused to support the leaders who were contending for this
object.

Mr. T. THORNELY, M.P., then stepped forward. Before
he read the resolution which the committee had
placed in
his hands, he begged to say how great a gratification it was
to him to meet so large an assemblage of his fellow-towns-
men, met to assert, in the face of the public, their determi-
nation to procure, by fair, just, and constitutional means,
the repeal of those orn-laws which had entailed so much
misery upon the labouring classes, and which from year to
year were fettering so much of the industry and the com-
merce of the country. They were probably, not all aware of
the operation of the present corn-laws. The duty upon corn
was a fluctuating duty, which was fixed every week : it alight
be a shilling a quarter, or it might be much higher. Now
the operation of the corn-laws was this, that in proportion
as the price of corn falls the duty rises ; and it was only
when corn was of so high a price as to threaten famine, that
it was admitted at a nominal duty. This arrangement of
the duties might appear a very insidious one, but he thought
it a very barefaced one, because it had this effect—always to
prevent the people from having corn as cheap as they could
buy it from foreign countries if the law did not prevent them.
Did they know what the duty upon the importation of wheat
was this very day? It was 235. Bd. a quarter, or nearly
3s. a bushel. That was a prohibitory duty : it brought in no
revenue, and prevented the people from having corn at that
price, if there were not these restrictions. He was happy
that the attention of the House of Commons, and he believed
of the ministry too, was now being directed to the state of
the tariff of this country : by the tariff he meant the duties
upon the importation of goods. It was singular enough that
we, who were so great a commercial and manufacturing peo-

ple, had really the most anti-commercial tariff in the world!
Whenever the goods of any foreign country were cheap an
good, our tariff prevented their importation ; but whenever
they were dear and bad, then we were compelled to con-
sume them. He was a very old free-trader. He had had long
experience as a commercial man, and from his boyhood to
the present time he never had but one opinion, that all duties
upon imports should be for the sake of revenue, and not for
protection—that that meeting, and all the merchants and
manufacturers in the country should freely exchange with
every foreign market the produce of their industry—that it
should be for them to seek out in every foreign market the
cheapest and best articles those countries produced, and that
they were entitled to enjoy the cheapness and the abundance
of those commodities. It was perfectly clear to him that if
any article of foreign production was dearer in this country
than in a foreign country, besides the charge of conveyance
and of duty, they had a right of complaint ; therefore, whe-
ther it were corn, sugar, or coffee, or any other article, if
they should make out that it was dearer in this country than
elsewhere, they had a case to petition parliament for relief,
to which they were undoubtedly entitled. One of the last
speakers had alluded to a notion, circulated, he (Mr. T.)
thought, from no honest motive, that a free importation of
corn. would reduce the rate of wages. No man iu Liverpool,
of all the places in the world, ought to believe anything of
the sort. If they would walk round the docks, they would
see a great number of vessels advertised to take emigrants
from the labouring portion of the population, to labour in
the United States and in Canada. Would those labourers
go to the United States and to Canada if wages were lower
there than they were in this country? No, indeed they
would not. They were going there to get better wages, or
they had much better stay at home. But all those vessels
which took out emigrants to Canada were going to bring
back flour from Canada to this country ; and the meeting
might be sure that flour was brought from Canada, because
it would bring a greater price in this market. Therefore,
those very voyages across the Atlantic and back again, in
which labourers were going from this country to get bet-
ter wages than they could at home—those same vessels
bringing back cheap flour to a better market, shewed that all
the representations about the cheapness of corn bringing
down wages was a complete delusion. Upon this question
of free trade hung, in his opinion, a great deal more than the
mere cheapness or dearness of prices. The social condition
of the people, the independence of the labouring classes, their
desire to educate their children, their desire to keep out of
the workhouse, were all included in the great question of
free trade. An annual grant was made by the House of
Commons of £30,000 for educating the people; it was a mere
trifle and an insignificant sum ; they were now legislating
upon the poor-law amendment bill, and night after
when he had sat in that house, it often occurred to him if
they adopted the principle of free trade in corn, and in every
other article, the people, the honest labouring classes of this
country would be able to sustain themselves without
parish relief. Aye, and they would educate their children
too without grants from the House of Commons. In
fact it was lamentable that the time of parliament should
be taken up in reconciling what was absolutely irreconcilable.
They were adopting measures about the administration of the
poor law ; they were educating the people ; but the first thing
they did was to tie the hands of the people from maintaining
themselves ! However, lie was not without hope : on the
contrary, he never felt more strongly than lie did now that he
was right on the principle of free trade, whether with regard
to corn or anything else ; and he assured them, if the peo-
ple of this country would do their duty to themselves, that
he thought in the present session something would be done,
some great step taken, towards the improvement of our great
restrictive code. It was his happiness, in parliament, to be
associated with Mr. Villiers, who had taken the lead, and
was prepared to do so this session, in endeavouring to pro-
cure the repeal of the corn laws. He had, he assured them,
great confidence that if the people out of doors would exert
themselves by petitioning—for the cause was so good that it
was absolutely unanswerable—great good must arise to them
speedily. He was happy, he repeated, to be in Liverpool to
witness that great assembly. Success was certain if the peo-
ple exerted themselves as they ought; at least he could pro-
mise them the support of a great number in the House of
Commons, who felt the necessity of doing away with this
restrictive system. He would not himself give a straw to be
in the House of Commons if he did not think he should be
useful to some extent in supporting the great cause of free
trade. The hon. gentleman then moved the resolution, and
retired.

Mr. JONES, an operative, seconded the resolution, and
it was carried.

Mr. JOHN ROSSON, in moving the next resolution, quoted
a passage from Dr. Verity's work published last year, to
prove that nothing but a diminution in the supply of food
could prevent this country from attaining a degree of pros-
perity which no nation, ancient or modern, had ever arrived
at. He then commented briefly upon the resolution, and
concluded by declaring that free trade could alone save the
empire, and make her continue what she had hitherto been,
the envy of surrounding nations and the admiration of the
world.

Mr. AIOLYNEUX seconded the resolution, and said, that
at all times and in all places he was, and should be, ready
to raise his voice against the corn-laws, for he considered
them the most selfis and wicked monopoly ever inflicted
upon a country.

The resolution was then carried.
Mr. R. V. YATES then read adiaft of the petition, and
moved its adoption.

Mr. lI'fNTyRE seconded the motion, and it was carried.
A vote of thanks was then presented to Sir J. Walmsley
for his conduct in the chair, and the proceedings terminated
about half past two.

ROBBERY AT WINDSOR CASTLE.—Richard Lovegrove,
the person suspected of being implicated in the late exten.
sive robbery of many of the valuabha stores from the castle,
underwent a second examination on Saturday, in the Win-
chester Tower, the residence of Mr. Saunders, the general
inspector of palaces, by whom the prisoner was employed.
After a searching inquiry the prisoner was discharged.
ANOTHER CASE OF USING THE KNIFE.—At the Po-
lice-court, yesterday, a man named Joseph Diamond was
placed at the bar on a charge of assaulting his wife, and
threatening her life with a knife in his hand. The pri-
soner appeared without coat or jacket, in a check shirt,
and presented no very prepossessing appearance. The
complainant is a rather pretty looking young woman.
She stated that she hadvreat trouble to subdue him, and
to get the knife fialim him. She considered herself in
danger of her life, and was only desirous that he should
be kept from the house. Mr. Rushton, after the case
had been fully heard, strongly reprehended the unmanly
conduct of the prisoner, and fined him X. 5, or, in default
two months imprisonment; and required that he should
also find sureties for his peaceable behaviour, himself
in £2O, and two sureties in £lO each, or to be impri-
soned another month.

SERIOUS CASE OF STABl3lNG.—Yesterday, at the Po-
lice-court, Robt. Frazer, a young sailor, was placed at the
bar on a charge of having stabbed a young woman at a
boarding-house in Queen-street, on the afternoon of Sunday.
Several seamen who lodged a the house, as also a female
servant, appeared to give evidence of the violent conduct of
the prisoner, but the wounded party being in a state of im-
minent danger from the injuries she had received, was not
in attendance. The following heads of the evidence will
convey the particulars of the case. William Smith, a tall
powerful looking man said, he was-one of the crew of the
American ship Ohio, now lying in the Prince's Doak', and
boarded at Mr. John Starkie's, in Queen-street, where-the
act of stabbing took place. The prisoner also boarded
there, and was a sailor, but did not belong to the Ohio.
Witness was in the front kitchen, between five an six on
Sunday evening, and saw the prisoner run out of it into the
back kitchen, following Catherine English, who had gone
to fetch some water. The prisoner had previously said he
would take her life before night, if he had an opportunity.
Before be could overtake the prisoner he saw him strike the
female a blow, but did not know he had a knife in his hand,
and as she was about to fall, he caught her on his arm and
supported her. She turned her head round to him and said
John, lam stabbed." I then saw a knife sticking
lower part of her neck, just above the left breast. He drew
it out, and threw it into the back yard, and as soon as he
had .done so, the blood flowed all over his right hand. He
afterwards ran for a constable, and found one who had been
called by another servant girl on his way to the house. The
knife produced was the same. [lt was a common. clasp-
knife.] As the prisoner passed him, on going out of the
back kitchen, he said to him " Take me." Witness pushed
him on one side, he having then hold of the female. Police
officer Hollis (No. 343) said be was called in by Catharine
M'Quirk, a servant girl in the house, from his beat in Bath-
street, and took the prisoner into custody. His cheek was
bloody, as if it had been scratched, but he appeared to him
to be sober. The knife was, on his making inquiry, given
to him by one of the sailors, and the blade was bloody. He
also saw some clothes of the female who had been stabbed,
and they were bloody. Mr. Patrick Kelly, surgeon, said
he was called to the house about six o'clock to visit the fe-
male. He found her wounded on the lower part of the
neck, on the left side. It was a stab wound about an
inch and a half in circumference, and a quarter of an inch
in depth. He considered that the patient was now in dan-
ger. The knife shown • would make such a wound.
Mr. Rushton here gave directions that the declaration of
the wounded female should be immediately taken, and the
prisoner was in the meantime put doo n. Shortly afterwards
the deposition was produced, and was as follows .—I live
servant in this (Mr. Starkie's) house. The prisoner boarded
with him. He is a seaman. Yesterday afternoon two men
were fighting in the kitchen. I had two knives and a jug
in my hand. I was going to put down the jug to get the'
men away, and the prisoner gave me a push. He was not
one of the se lighting. I asked him what he pushed me for,
and called him an impudent fellow. He told me to go away
for I had nothing to do with it. I told him I would not go
away for him, as he was an impudent snot. With that he
struck me, and I struck him back. He went out of the
house with the two, and in about 20 minutes returned with
them. I was going up stairs with two dishes of meat. The
prisoner came up to me, and said, I will have your life before
to-night. I said, I'm not frightened of you. He took
hold of my dress and was. nearly pulling me down stairs.
I let the dishes fall. Then he struck me two or three times,
and I shrieked. The mistress's daughter then came up and
pushed him down stairs. I came down stairs in about five
minutes after, and went to the boiler to fill the kettle. He
was in the front kitchen, and lin the back. I heard him
say before all the men—l will be swung on the gallows for
you. He was then speaking to me. I said, you are going too soon to the gallows. Upon this he jumped out
of the'
kitchen, and struck me with a knife in the neck at the lower
part. I did not see the knife till he struck me. I did not
.hear anything more. A young man named Jack was cc:mi-
nig through the back kitchen and caught hold of him. The
prisoner was committed to take his trial at the next assizes.
We understand that the muscles of the neck of the wounded
female are much injured, and that there is danger of inflam-
mation. It is also stated, that had the wound been an inch
higher, death, in all probability, would soon have ensued.

CORONER'S INQUEST.—DREADFUL ACClDENT.—Yester-
day morning an inquest was held before Mr. Marlin, coroner
for the borough of Wiadsor, at the New Inn in that town,
upon the body of a child named Robert Vickars, three years
and a-half old, the son of a lady of fortune, who died on the
evening of Monday last, in consequence of falling down, while
playing in the drawing-room, on a drumstick, with which he
was amusing himself, penetrating hisheadoa
throughtvtihneg
beenright
eye. Mr. Henry Brown, surgeon, deposed
called in to attend the deceased immediately after the acci-
dent, whom he found with a stick projecting from the orbit
of the right eye, which bad passed completely through the
orbital bone into the head. The stick was extracted‘Nitilli
great difficulty, and the child, although having been also at-
tended by Sir Benjamin Brodie and Dr. Ferguson, died
consequence of the injury on Alonday. Mary Ann
3/411')Irttsin:,:in,,,
wseiriovanwtastoptih,oezgotwheitrhota* tdhoeltdaecnedasoetdh,esrtittoteyds,thfealtl the
drumstick. which she* found, upon entering the rofird(healrinigt
his screams), sticking in his head. The deceased who was
sensible,ro room
id to her ,d
u`
tnOsbti, I was run-
iclTrllweennitinnio my eye."
Witness found him lying on the carpet, and 'attempted to
plienrgfectly across thtt m and
the
drag out the stick, but could not. She then went out for
the surgeon. The jury returned a verdict of " Accidental
Death."—Times.