The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1843-03-17 00:00:00

ILLEGALITY OF THE LEAGUE

(From the Speech of Mr. Bankes, M.P.)

The government were no doubt aware that the Anti-Corn-
Law League, if they had not absolutely set the law at de-
fiance, had gone so near, that it required a very nice discri-
mination to say whether or no they had already overstepped
(Hear.) The league were to try a large expe-
The hon. member for Stockport would

its bon

rirnent the neat d

rehearse his to-morrow's speech—he was announced for his
benefit—he was the great lion of the show, and the house
could only expect to be favoured with a small portion of his
oratory that night. (Laughter.) It was his duty to direct
the attention of the government to that body, which undoubt-
edly bad shown that it possessed considerable power—at least
in the way of raising money. He begged to ask the hon.
member for Stockport one question—where was all this mo-
ney lodged ? The league said they bad £50,000 this year, and
they expected £lOO.OOO next. The average would be £75,000,
and the Chancellor of the Exchequer ought to have his eye
on this a— If

umouut to add to the income tax. (Laughter.,
the league did not pay the tax oh this sum then the public
would be robbed to that extent. (Laughter.) As be found
some-observattous in reference to his amendment so much
better made in 1825 by the Chancellor of the Exchequer than
he could make them, he should prefer giving them to any
thing of his own. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, after
describing the peculiar features of the association to which
he alluded in 1825. concluded by saying that no man
who rightly understood the constitution of this country
could contemplate the power assumed by an association of
levying money to carry out their special objects with any
other feeling than that of unqualified disapprobation. The
right honourable baronet who followed condemned the prin-
ciple as subversive of government. "If that were so there
would be an end of all deliberations of that house; if that
doctrine were to prevail, it must follow that the subjects of
this country, if they should imagine themselves to be labour-
ing under any grievance of that or any other sort, might re-
sort to unconstitutional measures for their redress, and
which Parliament would not be authorized to check until
those grievances were redressed. He maintained that if for
a moment Parliament recognized such a doctrine it would
abdicate its legislative functions altogether. If they ad-
mitted the present measures, they must expect that they
would be used for the removal of other grievances ; and to
any remonstrance the answer would be, that the subjects of
the country, and not the legislature, were the proper judges
of what those remedies should be. That, however, was not
his reading of the law. He conceived Parliament to be the
role constitutional judge, and if Parliament thought these
'ught to be continued, those who found themselves ag-
rievea must not resort to unconstitutional measures to re-
The people might meet and petition Parlia-
. . . .

.ss them

nd the Parliament would take their petition into eon-
on, but it would abandon its duty if it allowed any
body of men to act independently of Parliament, and only
according to their own free will."
s' I An hon. MEMBER on the opposition benches inquired

speech that was?
BANICES.-Sir Robert Peel's

Hear, hear.)

noble lord the member for Sunderland had cheered his re-
ference to that association, and the cheer probably inferred
that although it bad been censured by parliament, it bad ul-
timately succeeded. (" Hear, hear," from Lord Howick.)
He was right, then ; but it would be his duty to refer to
another association, which bad not succeeded. In 1778 the
Protestant Association was formed, and when it was formed
it attracted as little attention or observation as any other of
the kind. That association chose for its head a person who
had obtained some notoriety in history, Lord George Gor-
don, who was selected, as was observed by Mr. (afterwards
Lord) Kenyon, for his blameless
.life, his not having mixed

re in his

111 LUG VIM."
moral and religious habits. That association met in large
halls in London, but when the body had outgrown its places
of meeting it did not hire theatres, but met in the open air,