§ Mr. Goochpresented a Petition from several owners and occupiers of lands resident in the county of Suffolk; setting forth, "That the petitioners are many of them owners, but the greater part of them occupiers of lands in a county where barley is the chief article of cultivation; and that it is with concern they learn that a Committee of the house has in its Report recommended the substitution of Sugar and Molasses, instead of barley and other grain, in the distilleries, which must be highly injurious to the agricultural interest of the country; and that the petitioners had trusted that the satisfactory and unanswerable reasons assigned by a committee of the house last year against the adoption of such an expedient would have set at rest its further agitation, and quieted the alarm it is fully calculated to produce; should the farmer be deprived of the certain market the distilleries afford, even for a time to be limited, it must tend to lower the price of grain, and damp the increasing spirit of agriculture; and that the petitioners, however strongly they may feel the distresses and the difficulties under which the West India trade at present labours, however anxious they may be for the adoption of any measure for its relief, still they cannot perceive that either justice, policy, or necessity requires that such relief should be administered to them at the sole and exclusive expence of the land, being a sacrifice of the more important interests of agriculture; and therefore praying the house not to allow such a bill to pass into a law."
Mr. Campbellpresented a Petition from the lord provost, magistrates, and common council of the city of Glasgow; setting forth, "That the petitioners feel themselves called upon, at this interesting crisis, to express to the house their unqualified approbation of the proposal lately made in parliament for the temporary suspension of Distillation from Grain; the present relations of these kingdoms with the other nations of the world, the large quantities of grain which it is well known this coun- 393 try has been obliged, for many years, to import beyond the extent of its own produce, and the necessity of our providing at home for the probable deficiency in these importations, evidently dictate such a prudent measure: and, although there is just now plenty of grain in the country, it would betray a great want of foresight, in times like these, not to be prepared for every event, or to run the smallest risk of a scarcity amongst the people of these happy lands; and that the petitioners are too well aware of its universal importance ever to make any request in the smallest degree inconsistent with the agricultural prosperity of the country; on the contrary, they feel it is at all times their duty, as it is their interest, to promote, as far as lies in their power, the improvement and extension of agriculture; but they must confess they are not able to perceive how the stoppage of Distillation from Grain at this time can possibly interfere with that improvement; they cannot see why any alarm should be excited in well-informed and unbiassed minds by such a proposal; they cannot allow themselves to believe that calculation has been resorted to by those who have taken such alarm; for surely it is manifest that our farmers will have to provide not only for the expected short importations into this country but also for the consumption of the West India colonies, which have now to look to Britain for the supply of a large proportion of their wants; the additional quantity of grain required for those two purposes will, beyond doubt, greatly exceed all that is at any time consumed in the distilleries; and it is a well-ascertained fact, that the prices of the different kinds of grain mutually operate on each other, so that the grower of barley need be under no apprehension; nor should it be forgotten, that the proposed suspension of distillation from grain is not to be of a permanent, but merely of a temporary nature, and that the king in council is to be empowered again to permit the use of barley in the distilleries as soon as it falls below a fair and reasonable price; farther the petitioners cannot avoid expressing their satisfaction, that this well-timed measure will also tend to the relief of a very numerous and respectable part of the community, whose interests as British subjects ought not to be overlooked, the West India planters and merchants, who, possessing a considerable quantity of sugar beyond what is required for the consumption of 394 these kingdoms, will, by the use of that article as a temporary substitute for grain in the distilleries, be enabled to find a market for the surplus produce of their lands, and the country will thus be enabled to defeat the malicious purposes of our enemy, who equally withholds from us those markets where we could sell our surplus Sugar, and supply ourselves with what grain we stand in need of; and therefore praying, that the house may adopt measures for suspending the use of grain by the distillers of Great Britain, and for restricting them to the use of sugar for a limited period."
§ General Tarletonpresented a Petition of the mayor, bailiffs, and burgesses of the town of Liverpool, in council assembled, setting forth, "That the petitioners have seen, with feelings of considerable regret, advertisements for meetings in several parts of the kingdom, for the purpose of agreeing to petitions against the measure recommended by a committee of the house for a temporary suspension of the use of grain in the Distilleries, as calculated to prove injurious to the agricultural interest of the country; and that, in the present state of our foreign relations, whilst so many of the ports of Europe are closed against us, rendering it impossible to procure a supply of corn from the continent of Europe, whilst in addition to this, the embargo which has taken place in the united states of America precludes us from obtaining any importations from thence, and whilst it remains an undisputed fact that this country has for many years past been dependant upon foreign supply for a considerable part of the subsistence of her inhabitants, more particularly in the populous town of Liverpool and county of Lancaster, the petitioners cannot but think it a measure of wise and prudent precaution to prevent the unnecessary consumption of the produce of our own soil, and, by a well-timed restriction, to guard against an evil of so great magnitude as must result from the failure of the usual means of supply; and therefore praying, that the house may proceed in the proposed measure to suspend the use of grain in the distilleries of the united kingdom, for such period, and under such restrictions, as to the house shall seem most proper and expedient"—The said Petitions were severally read and ordered to lie upon the table.