The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1844-03-05 00:00:00

THE LIVERPOOL STANbAtlit

NOTICES.

The Farmers cud the League. Speeeh of Mr. Georoo
Game Day, of St. Ines, at linatinlrli.n, January 27.
1844. London : John Officer, Pall Mall. •
Mr. Day has already done good service in the warfare
waged by the Anti-Corn-law League against the agricul-
turists of Great Britain ; and his second aprarince iii the
field is in every way worthy of his previous reputation. In
the pamphlet before us, which ought to be extensively
circulated, he has fastened upon the League the erossest
dishonesty, proving every statement which he brings for-
ward from their own accredited reports. To the manu-
facturing and town population he exhibits them engaged
in declaiming upon the blessings of cheap bread, declaring
that the corn-law has taken a third part of his food out of
the working man's mouth, and promising, in the event of
a repeal of the corn-law, bread at three farthings a pound ;
and again turping to the farmer and assuring him that
free trade would not have the effect of reducing prices a
shilling per quarter below existing prices.
As a specimen of Mr. Day's mode of treating his subject
we extract from his pamphlet the folloWine
LEAGUE INCONSISTENCIES.
In July last Mr. Bright, prior to his election, wrote to
the freemen of Durham, that "the corn-law had, for the
past five yew's, caused them to pay twenty shillings a sack
extra for their flour;" and he implored them, " on his
bended knees, for their sakes, NOT His, for the sake of
themselves and their families, to claim the right to have
cheap food." Yet this identical Mr. Bright had, in the
previous April only, stated, in the theatre at Plymouth,
that ":the price of food was then probably much lower
than it would be, if there were no corn-laws." Mr.
Bright says, " I am a manufacturer, and Mr. Cobden is a
manufacturer, and we have not the slightest love for low
prices for. the goods we manufacture." No, and I dare
say the farmer has no very great love for low prices for the
goods he manufactures ! Mr. Bright attended a meeting
amongst the farmers at Dorchester, when, he says, a con-
versation to this effect occurred :—One farmer stated, he
had an estate worth about £5OO a year: £4OO went in
interest on the mortgage, £5O in expenses, and the other
£so.wasittli behgot out of it. He asked Mr.. Bright what
his condition would-be with a repeal of the corn-laws ? I
am now telling you what the League itself reports. Mr.
Bright replied, " Well, it would be a sorrowful condition ;
but it is clear you would only lose about £5O a year 1"
.This is what we lawyers: would call a.quietus But,"
said the farmer, "if that should-be the state of things, will
not all the landed interest be reduced, and the result be a
national 'bankruptcy ?" "-You mistake," replied Mr.
Bright, -" perhaps there would be a few individual cases of
bankruptcy, but there would be no national bankruptcy."
Can you credit these things ? If I had read from any
other paper than the League, you might have supposed
the report to be inaccurate. But this League paper is, as
they term it, ." the accredited organ of their opinions,"
and a " correct "record of their proceedings." 1 rimy,
therefore, fairly quote it against the League with just the
same force as I might quote a paper signed " James
Rust," againiit Mr. James Rust, now in the chair. (Mr.
Rust smiled, and nodded assent.) This " correct record"
of the League's sayings and doings, then, informs us, that
this farmer, who bad only £5O a year, would, by a repeal
of the corn-lewti, -lose that £5O a year. He would ,not
lose any more !
COBDEN'S CONSOLATIONS FOR THE BRITISH FARMER.
This same Mr. Cobden, in a speech to the farmers of
North Cheshire, said, " Ignltrant men have told you, that
we want to throw open the.'„niarket to the foreigners ; 'and
that, by doing so, we shoffl ruin the agriculturist, and, as
a matter of course, destroy the home trade. Now, we
want to do just the opposite of this. Instead of wanting
to destroy it, we want to double the home trade, and
treble it. And now, farmers, hear what he said to the
people of Manchester, when be proposed to rid you of
part of your home-market, and transfer it to the foreigner :
If the Americans will only put down their monopolising
manufacturers, and we put down our monopolising land-
owners here, when our election time comes, we will lay
the Mississippi Valley alongside of Manchester, and we
will have a glorious trade then !" " The Mississippi
Valley has been styled, par excellence, the wheat-growing
region of America. League authority informs us, that
its soil is fertile beyond description, and abundantly wa-
tered by the finest springs and streams. Its climate is
clear and salubrious. It possesses unequalled facilities for
forei n intercourse and commerce, by means of its great
lakes and rivers. The most distant parts of it are now
reached in twenty days from Liverpool.' The land is
mostly sold-in fee-simple by the government to the first
purchaser, at ss, 6d. an acre. It is unencumbered by
tithes, high taxes, or poors rates, and its whole produce
belongs to the cultivator alone. The Mississippi Valley,
which Mr. Cobden proposes to lay alongside of Manches-
ter, could alone supply this country with every bushel of
corn it requires for consumption. Indeed, League autho-
rity says, ` A. few years would enable it to feed the world.'
And yet, British farmers! Mr. Cobden seeks to persuade
you that those men are ` ignorant' who tell you, that he
wants to throw open the market to the foreigner !" On
another occasion, he told the same people :—" Our doc-
trine is, let the working man ply his hammer, or his
spindle, or his shuttle, and let the Kentucky or the Illinois
farmer, by driving his plough on the richest land on the
s irface of the earth, feed this mechanic or this weaver,
and let him send home his produce in exchange for the
Products of our operatives and artizans." Is this the way:
farmers, that Mr. Cobden proposes to " double and tre-
We" your home market, by transferring the manufacturing
portion of it to the Kentuckian or the Illinois farmer ?
Is it not, rather, evidence of a desire to carry out the
plan, which another free trader, Mr. Joseph Hume,
seemed to contemplate, when, in the House of Commons,
he " maintained that England might exist and prosper as
a purely manufacturing and commercial country, if it did
not grow a single bushel o cprn —if- in egchanecio_its_
e mauractures and miners s, it imported from the cheap
corn-producing countries every quarter of wheat required
in this country !" Dear farmers, exclaims Mr. Bright,
" let distrust be banished ! hy should we not be
friends?" The League paper struggles to equal all that I
have cited from Messrs. Cobden and Bright, on the sub-
ject of cheap bread. It says, "The finest Georgiana
wheat can be laid down at the door of our factories at 30s.
a quarter, dwe are now (October, 1839) paying 70s. or
80s. for the worst." " Spain could land the very best
wheat in England at 405., for which we are now (October,
1839) paying 675." "In the American port of Cincinnati
alone, there are a million quarters of wheat, which we
could purchase at 165., or less than one-fourth the price
nowNo
Now, that
at
verycompelled to payea
gu
ef ourrin the
samehome grown
year,
pro-
ducesaps,
whenv e arew"
writing of the landlords, that they "may sately do
justice to others, without injuring themselves; for much
dt,o e
‘s,he
tot wh.t7haa
tt 0 trah
repeal
po,naei yof pricethe oefo
corn
-alianwws
aid
ill
Mr. William Witham Barrett. of Manchester, was offered
nAhlgstaibbneee:inoiTs s its readers, on the last day of 1840, " that
a large order for manufactured goods, from a Hamburgh
Merchant, if payment would be received in the best Baltic
w leer, to be delivered, free of all charges, at Hull, at the
rate of 30s. 61. per quarter." And yet, on the 20th of
January last, it is boldly said, that " the League do not
want to render corn cheap." And here is a little seal,
(holding it up,) bought only last Thursday, at the League
iace, Fleet-street,' for 4d., and on it is this sentiment,
" Cheap bread, and good trade."