The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1840-01-17 00:00:00

One paragraph in the Message we recommend, to
the notice of the anti-corn-law agitators, as pregnant
with instruction. It is the following :—" I cannot,.
indeed, view without peculiar satisfaction the evidences
rfforded, by the past season, of the benefits that spring
from the steady devotion of the husbandman to his
honourable pursuit. No means of individual comfort,
is more certain, and no source of national prosperity is
so sure. Nothing can compensate a people for a de-
pendence upon others for the bread they eat.; and that
cheerful abundance on which the happiness of every
one so much depends, is to be looked for nowhere with
such sure reliance as in the industry of the agriculturist,
and the bounties of the earth."

The great anti-corn-law demonstration at Manches-
ter came off on Monday and Tuesday last, and proved,
as far as the respectability of the audience was con-
cerned, a complete failure. As to the number present,
the affair, we allow, was rather imposing ; but it should
be borne in mind that any two or three of the leading
manufacturers of Manchester could muster between
them a sufficient number of their own clerks and ope-
ratives to fill a room twice as large as the gorgeous pa-
vilion in which the meetings of this week were held.
The Manchester Guardian states that there were 3820
present at the dinner of Monday. This number is
little greater than that which attended the Peel Ban-
quet at Glasgow : but if we take into consideration the
character and personal influence—the talent and re-
spectability of the Manchester and Glasgow " gather-
ings," the latter must be acknowledged as the more
splendid of the two. When we also consider that a
very large proportion of the gentlemen in attendance
at the banquet on Monday last consisted of deputations
from about fifty manufacturing towns in England and
Scotland, we need not feel so much surprise at the
large number who sat down to dinner. The deputa-
tions alone amounted to several hundreds ; and we do
not exaggerate when we state that the majority of those
present were specially invited, and had their expences
paid, by the Anti-Corn-Law League.
It is quite amusing to read the various excuses for
non-attendance • sent by different members of both
houses of the legislature. Nearly one hundred and
sixty letters were received from peers and commoners,
declining the invitation to the banquet. The commit-
tee of management were unable to secure the presence
of a solitary peer on the occasion. The Duke of Nor-
folk " regretted that circumstances would not allow
him to be present." The same excuse was made by
the Marquis of Westminster, the Earl of Suffolk, Lord
Howard of Effingham, Lord Radnor, Lord Kinnaird,
Lord Cloncurry, and the Bishcip of Durham. No
better success attended the applications to those " dis-
tinguished personages," the American, Bavarian, and
Portuguese ministers at the Court of St. James. The
general impression on the minds of the nobility and
ambassadors seems to have been that there was some-
thing inherently vulgar about this Manchester meeting.
When we look at the list of those members of Parlia
ment who did attend on the occasion we need not won-
der at the general indisposition of the peerSto attend.
At the head of the list we find Daniel O'Connell. The
presence of this pestilent demagogue at any .such meet-
ing is sufficient of itself to account for the absence of
the Duke of Norfolk and the other invited peers. We
are heartily glad that the hoary mendicant accepted the
invitation. His presence has contributed to bring the
Anti-Corn-Law League into still greater contempt.
The language in which O'Connell has recently indulged
towards the people of England has earned for him the.
unconquerable antipathy of every • honest and virtuous
mind. His truculent denunciations of almost every
man of any distinction in the country, and his foul and
virulent abuse of the English as a nation, have excited
a feeling of such general disgust among all who have
any regard for the conventional decencies of civilized
life, that we do not wonder at the contempt with which
the nobility of England have treated the dinner and
proceedings of the Anti-Corn-Law League. If there,
is any one thing more than another which will contri-
bute to the defeat of these enemies of British .proi
perity, it is the sanction, patronage, and presence of
the brutal monster who •fattens upon the miseries of
Ireland. - • . ••
The other members of parliament in attendance at
the Manchester dinner were Mr. Mark Phillips, Mr.
Edward Baines, Mr. Thomas Gishorne,.. Mr. William
Ewart, Mr. James Oswald, Mr. N. 41`Vigois, Mr.
Robert Hollond, the Hon. C. P. Villiers, the Right
Hon. E. J. Stanley, Mr. Henry Warburton, Mr. G.
W. Wood, Mr. H. A. Aglionby, Mr. Thos. Thornely,
Mr. Richard Walker, Mr. John Fenton, and Mr.
Charles Hindley. We defy any one to find among
this list the name of a single individual of any eminence
as a statesman. Most of them are certainly entitled
to the epithet " distinguished ;" but the distinction
which they have attained is far from enviable. 'Some
of them are, or have been, distinguished as members of
the Irish tail. Among these we inliSt.clasS Messrs.
Ewart, Gisborne, and Vigors. Others of them are
distinguished as frothy mouthers of ultra-radicalism.
But most of them have no other distinction :than that
of being considered superlative blockheads.
Such were the most "distinguished" of the speakers
.
at the Manchester " demonstration." The speeches
were of the usual character—vapid, declamatorY, and
replete with abuse and vituperation. To notiee,.sericr-
tim, all the wretched nonsense, the fallacies, the incon-
sequential reasonings, the absurdities, and the egregious
falsehoods uttered on Monday and Tuesday would oc-
cupy more space than we can at present afford. On
future occasions we shall select a few of the more pro-
minent arguments of the leading speakers, for the sake
of exposing their hollowness and their delusive ten-

dency.
The muster of the anti-corn-law forces at Manches-
ter will not be without its benefit. The " strong ex-
pression of public opinion" which it conveyed will
serve to warn the agricultural interest of the dangers
by which they are surrounded. It appears, from the
report which was read on Tuesday, that the Anti-
Corn-Law League have no intention to relax in their
efforts for the repeal of the corn-laws. The machinery
which they have hitherto so perseveringly.employed,
in furtherance of their object, is still to be kept in
motion. Itinerant lecturers are still to be sent to
spread discontent among the labouring classes. The
Anti-Corn-Law Circular is still to be distributed by
tens of thousands to vilify the landed.interest, and to
delude the public. It is time, therefore, that the agri-

cultural interest should employ means to counteract
the anti-corn-law agitators. It is not sufficient to rely
upon the strength of the landed interest in the House
Of Commons. Measures should be instantly resorted
to. for disabusing the minds of the people, through the

medium of the press and otherwise. Correct informa-
tion should be disseminated among the manufacturing
population respecting the operation of the restrictive
duties on the importation of foreign grain.
Before we conclude, we wish to impress one fact on

the minds of our readers. The anti-corn-law agitation
is essentially a radical and revolutionary movement.
Look at the list of names in the report of the Man-
chester dinner. Is there a single Conservative among

them ? Are they not exclusively Radicals and some-
thing more? When we reflect upon the political cha-
racter of this agitation, we are not surprised that the

London Times should shirk the question of the corn.

laws, as it has done of late. It must at length be evi-
dent to the conductors of that powerful organ of
Conservatism, that the anti-corn-law agitators have

objects in view ulterior to the mere abolition of the

corn-laws, and that those objects are of a political

character. We trust the Times will recognise the po•

hcy of advising every Conservative to keep aloof from
these pestilent agitators.

The audacity of some people is beyond all concep-
tion, and is only equalled by their 'consummate igno-
rance and practised deception. When the Anti-Corn-
Law League announced their grand demonstration at
Manchester on Monday last, our readers were doubt-
less prepared for a recapitulation of the oft-repeated,
but equally oft-refuted, fallacies of that superlatively
ridiculous body; and in this respect, we will venture
to say, they have not been disappointed ;—but proba-
bly they did not anticipate such a specimen of dupli-
city and hardihood of assertion as is displayed in the
following sketch. One of the great guns at the
meeting to which we have alluded was the self-styled
Member for all Ireland, who, as might have been ex-
pected, emitted his usual quantity of rabid calumny
against the landlords of this country, whom, he de-
nounced as " dishonest robbers and plunderers," and
of whom he spoke in the following strain of affected