Lord Stanleypresented a Petition from the inhabitants of Hastingden, in the county of Lincoln, the purport of which he was sorry to say was to represent to the House the great and general Distress which prevailed in that part of the country. Many persons the petitioners represented, had been reduced, by no fault of their own, from comparative wealth and happiness to poverty and destitution. They prayed for a reduction of taxation; but they stated that there was no way of relieving the Distress except the wages of labour were raised, or the price of the necessaries of life much reduced. The petitioners did not look for any rise in wages, owing to the continued increase of machinery; and therefore they thought that the Government was imperiously called on to make a large reduction of taxation so as to reduce the price of the necessaries of life. The clergyman who had forwarded the Petition to him had assured him that the distress of the petitioners was not exaggerated, and that although they had always borne their misfortunes with patience, they had been in a better humour with Government than before, since it had shewn a disposition to diminish taxation. When his Majesty's Government was thus informed that reduction of taxation, both relieved distress, and strengthened loyalty, he trusted that it would go on in the same wise course, and follow up the reductions of this year by still greater reductions hereafter.
§ Petition to lie on the Table.