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

square

.Sir J. WALMSLEY took the chair. He said this public
meeting of the inhabitants of Liverpool had been convened
for the purpose of consideringthe 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 work 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 tendeucj
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 he thought tend greatly to facilitate that desirablf
object. That evidence was of a most important character
and if not altogether conclusive on the necessity
reform in our tariff, it had at least made out a strong cu._
deep and serious inquiry. Fur his own part he had beenloni,
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 com-
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 article which
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 they 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
poor, who were the most particularly interested—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 wotk 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
fighting 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 RATIIBONE 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. 11 e 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 hot 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 in 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,
f who were really their friends. Look at twenty years
ago, when the timber duties were proposed to he al.
tered. which was one of our great abuses. The whole

of a thorough

itry was in arms, and one administ: a,lon was very
ly put out, because the people rose in arms to pre-
y, the timber duties being altered and improved. If, 20
yew, ',go, 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 Bruns-
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 corn 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 it 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 longer if she went on as she
was doing. We should have manufacturers in Germany and in
Switzerland to contend with, and when itwas 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,
" You lazy lout, put your shoulder to the wheel, and then 1
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. CHAULES 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, i%lr. 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 expres*-- 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 shew the absurdity of pro-
tective duties. The decrees of Milan and Berlin, lie 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 corn-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 might
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 lie 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-

Years • a