KENT PETITION—CORN LAWS.

HC Deb 29 March 1830 vol 23 cc987-90

Sir E. Knatchbull

had a Petition to present j from the Gentry and Freeholders of the county of Kent, the result of the late important meeting which had been held at Penenden-heath. He could not present it without observing, that it afforded one more proof of the continued existence of the distress which unfortunately afflicted the country. One of his strongest apprehensions was that which a right hon. Gentleman opposite had so lately expressed —namely, that the effect of the present depressed state of the landed interest would be to diminish the number of that class of most useful and influential country gentlemen who had from 1,200l.. to 1,500l. a-year. The hon. Baronet then read passages from the Petition, declaratory of the prevailing distress in the county of Kent, which he could verify from his observation: for instance, he knew that the tillage of a great quantity of land in that county was at present in a very deteriorated state. The petitioners complained of the continued increase of Poor-rates; they also complained of the system of what was called Free Trade, which they thought, in the condition of the people of this country, was very injurious at this moment, when wool was at so low a price, as well as hides, tallow, &c. Such, too, was the pressure of taxation upon the productive sources of public industry, that the people universally complained of it. This amount of taxation he knew could not be helped if it were actually necessary to maintain the essential establishments of the State, He was ready, as he had told his constituents, to press for the utmost remission of taxes; but that alone would not do—the country wanted other measures as well. The Currency was also mentioned as an ingredient in the distresses of the people; and the petitioners further called for Parliamentary Reform. He had told them at the meeting that he would be ready to assist in the exposure and redress of any specific abuse which was proved to have occurred in the representation, but he would not assent to speculative and indefinite propositions of reform. His constituents likewise called for inquiry into the distresses of the country,—a call, he feared, not likely to be obeyed, after the experience which the House had of the late four nights' debate. He highly approved of the recent abolition of the Leather and Cider duties; but he did not think that the abolition of the duty on Beer was likely to be as useful as some hon. Members anticipated. Indeed, his firm opinion was, that if the Chancellor of the Exchequer had gone further in the remission of those taxes which pressed peculiarly upon the middling classes, he would have done more to giant immediate relief to the working classes generally, than could be expected from his late arrangements. He moved that the Petition be brought up.

Mr. Wells

said, that he was present at the meeting in Kent, and it gave him great pain to see how great and how universal was the distress of the people. When they found themselves in this condition, it was not to be wondered at, that they should call for a reform in Parliament, and declare that had they obtained reform in time, many of their present evils would have been averted. Indeed, before this petition had been agreed to by the meeting, an address to the King, for Parliamentary Reform, was adopted, on the ground that the people were tired of seeking it from the House of Commons. His hon. friend's efforts to impede this vigour beyond the law, for so he must call the fact of the people addressing the King because they were tired of addressing the House of Commons, were as unavailing on Penenden-heath as similar efforts made by him in the previous year, in that House, were in averting the great inroad upon the Constitution which was then perpetrated. He believed that many measures had at various times passed through the House of Commons which would not have been so successful had the people had a little more influence over their representatives. This was the complaint made by Mr. Pitt in 1782, who said, that without reform it was impossible to save this nation from being plunged into new wars; that with- out it the people could not be protected from a bad Minister, nor have the benefit of the measures of a good one. The hon. Member again adverted to the great pressure of distress in Kent, and conjured the House to give the prayer of the petition its serious attention.

Mr. Honywood

said, that the object of his constituents was—first, to obtain relief from the present weight of taxation, under which they were fast sinking; and next, to obtain Parliamentary Reform, with the view of preventing similar evils in! future. The distress of the country was great, and he believed in too many cases rents were paid out of capital, and not from profits of cultivation. That was not the first nor the fourth petition which had been sent from the county of Kent, in favour of a reform of Parliament; but the present great distress of the petitioners now made them more solicitous than ever to obtain reform. For himself he would say, that he had for twenty years been an advocate for reform, and the experience of each successive year had only given greater strength to his first impressions upon that question.

Sir Francis Burdett

said, that the question of reform having been agitated and agreed to at that meeting of the county of Kent, showed that the principles of reform were making way all over the country. He therefore was quite satisfied that hon. Members would at length become convinced of the absolute necessity of giving the people a greater weight in their representative system; and that the old apprehensions by which well-intentioned persons were deluded and prevented from supporting this principle could no longer be attempted with any chance of success. He was sorry, however, to see in this petition, in the greater part of which he cordially concurred, certain observations respecting the principles of what was called Free Trade, for it was not those principles, which had never been fully acted on, which caused their distress. They had, indeed, been called into practice so far as to derange the old system, without giving the country all the advantages of that new system of which they were nominally the basis. He was satisfied that when the principles of Free Trade were fully understood, and fairly applied, the people would see that they could not be injured by them, or that they had any reason for opposing them. The sooner misapprehensions upon this point were removed, the better for the country, for as matters stood, no Government, especially while that House was constituted as at present, could safely embark in any large application of the principles. Free Trade, indeed, could never be said to be fairly dealt by, or all its advantages given to the public, until the Corn-laws, which were the great obstacle to Free Trade, were removed. They stood broad in the way of the Government in adopting this enlightened principle of action. Indeed, he was so satisfied that the country gentlemen were themselves exceedingly in error on the subject of these Corn-laws, that he meant, soon after Easter, to bring forward a motion, the object of which would be, to have them repealed. When he did so, he hoped it would be unnecessary for him to press upon them that the proposition did not coma from one who was hostile to their interests, but from one who was identified with them, and who thought that not only for the general prosperity of the country, but for the particular advantage of its landowners, these laws ought to cease. It was a fallacy to suppose that the country gentlemen had any separately beneficial interest in this respect from the other classes of the community; on the contrary, their interest must always go on pari passu with that of the people at large. So impressed was he that these laws were most injurious, and to the landed interests as well as other interests, that he had very little doubt if; the gentlemen of the country would only, keep their minds open, that he need not i despair of convincing them that they ought to be the first to get rid of this stumbling- block to the fair trial of the principle of Free Trade in all their commodities. Of this he was quite satisfied, that the Cornlaws were a real bar to the prosperity of the country. It had been said, with reference to the question of Parliamentary Re- form, that the time was when no loyal i person would advocate it. For himself he could fairly say, that he had never thought it disloyal to urge this topic, be- cause he had always contended that to give the people their fair weight in the re-I presentation was not more essential to their happiness than to the stability of the i throne itself.

The Petition ordered to be printed.