21 DECEMBER 1839, Page 5

The Sheffield Independent contains a long address from the "

work- Ingmen of Sheffield to the working mechanics, artisans, and agricultu- ral labourers of Great Britain and Ireland." The object of the address is to establish a general combination for the repeal of the Corn-laws ; and it will be seen from the subjoined extracts, that much of it is writ- ten with truth as well as force. The injurious operation of the Corn- laws on the foreign commerce of the country and upon the condition of the poorer classes in England, is pointed out-

" These laws have greatly impeded our commercial interests with the United States, and have forced the Americans to become manuffieturers to their own injury. Their capital has been diverted from agricultural and commercial pur- suits. To encourage this misapplication of capital, in retaliation for these laws, their government has raised the duties on the importation of British Manufactures, compelling the landowners and agricultural population to pay a deal 'higher price for all the articles of our manuffi industry, ndustry, thus checking their consumption. While thousands of our fellow-countrymen are living upon potatoes, and scarcely ever taste bread, the Americans have great quantities of corn to spare, which if allowed to he imported into this country, to feed our starving population, would soon enable them to remove their present commercial embarrassments, and furnish abundant employment for thousands of our workmen who are wandering about in wretchedness and rags, and would also strengthen the ties arising from our consanguinity as brethren, and speaking the same language."

Gold was gone out of the country to pay for wheat, and the conse- quences were ruinous to the home trade.

mm All local trades—shopkeepers, drapers, grocers, butchers—all feel its effects ; yet their suffering is but trifling in comparison with that of the matins who depend for subsistence on labour. From the low state wages, thousands are

compelled to do double the work they' ought to do, to enable them to earn the MMUS to obtain the most common articles of food ; and it is scarcely possible

for them, cheap as clothing is, to obtain sufficient to cover them from the in- clemency of the seasons. It is an assertion of the landlords that it is beneficial to the working classes that the high price of bread. should be kept up, to enable the rich to spend a great deal more than they could. if rents and produce were low. They say that trade is always good when corn is high iu price. Even supposing that thirty thousand landlords are enabled to spend twice as much from this cause as they otherwise would, yet this extra expenditure must first be token from the labour of the poorer and the middle classes. And how will it bear comparison with what would be the expenditure, if the labouring classes of this kingdom, containing five millions of families, were enabled, by the repeal of these laws, to spend two shillings per week extra in cottons, woolleus, hard-

ware, ? -Why, they would consume to the value of fourteen millions yearly, in addition to what they now do ; and this money freely circulatines would enable the middle classes to spend a great deal more. This, with the impulse to our foreign trade, would amply repay us for that portion of profit gained on the extra sums spent by the great landowners."

It had been truly said by Mr. Ward, that the Poor-law and the Corn- law could not exist togethe-

" What is the situation of the honest, industrious artisan, after working for thirty or forty years, paying, durins, that period, forty per cent, of his wages in taxation, and. who has also paid" all kinds of localrates ? Yet how isles treated when driven by fatal necessity, and by circumstances over which he has no control, to seek relief from that source to which he has contributed through a long life of incessant labour? He and the partner of his cares and toils are allowed for their maintenance the small pittance of three shillings per week, to provide them with food, raiment, fuel, and shelter, or they are forcedinto an union bastile. Nor is this all : he is forced to break stones on the turnpike- road, or sweep the streets in the most inclement season—he who all his life has been used to the warm rooms of a factory. And can he fail to contrast the difference in the reward of his labour with the treatment the patrician re- ceives—a man possessing his fifty or one hundred thousand pounds a year, who, when called to fill any of the great offices of the state, receives thousands for his labours, and when he retires, after a few years' service, obtains a pen- sion that would pay all the casual poor of a town like Sheffield, where hundreds are denied the opportunity of labour by the operation of the Corn- laws ? Can he fail to contrast his situation with that of other classes in the state ? He sees that sixty-four thousand a year is paid to a set of Commissioners tocarrv these infamous laws into effect. Ile sees that the cost of a British army of 00,0011 men is as ,,reat as that of France for 440,000 men, 157,000 horses, and a nett- effective five of a million of men, and three times the expense of the Russian army, whose numerous flows keep the rest of Europe in continual dread of her colossal power. And while the British artisan has remained at home support- isr, a numerous family by his toil, adding to the reputation of his couutrses ma- nitflictures by his genius, and to her revenues, riches, and resources, by the taxes lie has paid, he sees a brother or relative, who has been the sole trouble of his family, and has become a soldier, return home in the prime of life, with- out ever firing a shot at an enemy, with a pension equal to three, four, or five times the weekly allowance of the parish to himself and his wife—is it possible that he can think of these things and he contented ? And as our Representa- tive observed, is it possible these two laws can exist together ? "

There was a prospect of obtaining the repeal of the Corn-laws by combination for that purpose of all the classes injured by them. Besides, many landowners were becoming sensible of the necessity of relinquish- ing the present system- " Hundreds of our landowners, and some of them of the highest order, know that if our manufficturing and commercial interest is sacrificed, their lands will not long retain their present value. They also know that if our commercial superiority be once lost, it is probable that it will never be regained, and that sonic future Gibbon will date the decline of this once mighty and flourishing state from the determination on the part of the landowners to support these unjust laws. Do we not see daily, men of all parties joining the ranks of the Anti-Corn-law Association ? Does not the present state of the monetary sys- tem press the necessity of some great alteration upon the attention of all classes ? Have we not the acknowledgment of Lord John ',amen, the most efficieut Minister in her Majesty's Cabinet, that these laws are injurious, in their present form, to all paties ? Did not the late Chancellor of the Exche- quer declare, that it was to these laws we owe our embarrassments, and the drain of gold ?"

The agitation should be peaceable, though firm-

" To those who are Chartists, and who are anxious for a great extension of the suffrage, to redress the many evils we labour under, we would say—why oppose the agitation for the repeal of these laws, which all acknowledge as a great evil ? Your opposition has already canoed great numbers to desert your ranks, and no doubt will cause numbers more to do so. Is it a proof of your liberal sentiments that you will suffer no question to be agitated but that of the Charter ? But as our townsman Mr. Elliot observed, I was a Chartist before many of you were born ; and because you are coins over to my opinion ousane great subject, am Ito have no opinion but yours on any other? '- This:ism subject which is imperiously forcing itself on the attention of all ranks and classes of men in these kingdoms ; and if the House of Commons reject their petitions, and refuse to listen to their just complaints, it will show the necessity of an essential alteration in the constitution of that House and of a great ex- tension of the suffrage, and no doubt but it will cause thousands and tens of thousands to join the ranks of those who are labouring for the extension of the political rights of the people. We therefore hope that all will join in peti- tioning for this great object ; and that your petitions may no longer subject you to the scoffs of the ignorant and proud, and that they may be considered the bond fide petitions of a suffering, and injured people, we recommend that each person giving his signature should add also his trade and residence."