CORN-LAWS.—ADJOURNED DEBATE, FIFTH NIGHT.

HC Deb 18 March 1839 vol 46 cc805-59

Mr. Fielden

said, he should vote for the Committee, but wished previously to state the grounds of his vote. The state of our manufactures was such as rendered it necessary that those engaged in carrying them on should have corn at as low a price as it would fall to, without any protecting law; and that the malt-tax, the hop-tax, and all other taxes and duties on the necessaries of life, consumed by the labouring people, should be repealed, and an equitable assessment on property substituted. He proposed this for the relief of the manufacturers, and to prevent the growers of corn from being placed in a worse position than they would be if the Corn-laws were repealed. He thought every encouragement should be given to agriculture, and that the growth of corn should be increased at home, so as to make us an exporting instead of an importing country, for he was opposed to making this country the workshop of the world, and to the people leaving the land to go into the factories, to an employment not so healthy, more uncertain, and where it is possible, by new inventions in machinery, they could not be long employed. Ten persons could now, in the manufacturing establishment with which he was connected, produce as much clothing as 100 persons could produce forty years ago. This was within his experience, and if he went to a little more remote period the difference would be much greater. He was decidedly opposed to those with whom he should vote who were for having us more dependent on foreigners than we were for a supply of corn. It would be a dangerous position to place ourselves, in, and he would illustrate this danger by a fact arising out of impediments now disturbing the supply of cotton to this country. The American bankers have, as it would seem to enhance its price, made advances to the cotton planters on their crops, and engaged to keep the cotton from the market, or at any rate, from being sold until their object is attained; for, by a Liverpool broker's circular, of the 15th instant, he found that the import of American cotton into the port of Liverpool up to that period this year is only 118,145 bales, whereas up to the same time last year it was 278,236 bales; that is more by 135 per cent., and the price has risen within a few months 25 per cent. Substitute corn for cotton, and imagine, with a deficient harvest at home, what an extremely dangerous state the people of this country would have been placed in. But if individuals can thus impede supplies, what might governments do to effect some great political object? Had not the stock of cotton in the kingdom on the 31st December last (321,000 bales) been larger than at the close of any year since 1828, the inconvenience would have been more severely felt than it has been; for instance, had it been only 185,000 bales, as it was in 1834, the cotton factories would have come to a stand; for he found that the estimated stock in Liverpool on the 15th instant is stated in the same circular to be only 219,000 bales, and the consumption is increased since that year about 50 per cent. As this bears upon the increase of steam power, which has been much disputed in this House, and also is one reason of the business of manufacturing cotton being carried on at a loss to those engaged in it, and also creates an undeniable necessity for shorter hours of work, he would state what the increase of steam power had been, according to a return given in to the Poor-law Committee by Dr. Kay in August last. From January or July, 1835, to the time the return was delivered into the Committee, this return states that within that period steam engines to the extent of 14,647-horse power had been erected, or were erecting, mostly the former, in Manchester and twenty-five towns in its vicinity, and their immediate neighbourhoods, all of them for spinning and manufacturing cotton. By a return made to the House by the factory inspectors, early in 1835, the number of horses' power of steam engines employed in the cotton manufacture in the United Kingdom is stated to be 27,317½; the addition, then, of steam power in this period of less than four years is shewn to be 53 per cent., and that, too, exclusive of the addition in Scotland and other parts of the kingdom, which would most likely make the increase of steam power in this period for the cotton manufacture only 60 per cent. This increased power of production, far surpassing any increase that has taken place in the means of consumption, as stated in the circular to bankers of the 8th instant, was an alarming fact, and indicates a state of difficulty and embarrassment among those engaged in manufactures, which had done much to create the agitation that has arisen for a total repeal of the Corn-laws, and which would probably be continued until that object was accomplished. This state of things had been produced by the pressure of the debt and the unbearable taxation the country groans under, which it was curious, too, was alleged as a reason for continuing entire the present law restricting the importation of corn. The manufacturers have strained every means to bear up and overcome the pressure of this taxation. The increase of consumption of cotton since 1815 had been enormous; in that year it was 80 millions of pounds weight; in 1838 it was 416 millions of pounds; and they received a less sum of money for working up the 400 millions than they did for manufacturing the 80 million pounds. He had proved before the Committee on manufactures, shipping, and commerce, in 1833, that up to that period a decline in price had been progressively going on in articles which constituted a fair criterion of the cotton manufacture, and that in 1832 those engaged in it had 70 per cent. less for manufacturing the same sort of yarn and goods than they had in 1815. He now found that this decline had increased to 75 per cent., and this accounted for the stoppage of the mills, some altogether, and others working only three or four days a week. For all this there was a csuse. The Bill of 1819, enacting a return to cash payments, without adjusting public and private contracts, the tamperings with the currency since that period, the legal tender clause enacted in the renewal of the Bank Charter in 1833, and the increase of joint stock banks, had all tended to produce the present alarming state of things. The number of joint stock banks established in England and Wales between 1826, when the Act of Incorporation was passed, and April, 1833, was only 30; whereas 76 additional joint stock banks had been opened between April, 1833, and the end of the year 1837; and although the legal tender clause enacted in the Bank Charter Act of 1833 did not go into effect until August, 1834, yet in 1836 a panic set in, by the Bank of England protecting itself and drawing in its issues, which had caused the downfall of many, and from which revulsion we had not yet begun to recover. To repeal the Corn-laws without accompanying the repeal with other measures would only add to the evil. If wheat, in consequence, fall from 56s. 3d., the average of the last nine years, to 45s., as assumed by the hon. Member for London, the 54 millions now raised by taxation, would, after this fall of price, buy as much wheat as 67½ millions would have purchased at the average price of the last nine years. This would not be fair; it would, to that extent, be another Peel's bill, which must undergo revision before we get into a healthy state. All the owners of fixed money incomes arising from mortgages, bonds, and other securities would derive similar advantages from the repeal of the Corn-laws, while those engaged in agriculture would be injured, and those engaged in manufactures would not be relieved to any extent, though many of them may think they would. To repeal the Corn-laws without concomitant measures, would, therefore, be class legislation of a most mischievous character, which the hon. Member for London condemned. With a repeal of the Corn-laws should go a repeal of the Excise and Custom-house duties on the necessaries of life, and an equitable assessment on property should be enacted for raising the taxation, that could not be dispensed with, This done, the repeal of the Corn-laws would not impede the advance of agriculture, and the poor and their employers would be placed in a better condition; and if this were not done no one could foresee what might happen. Mr. Heathfield, of this city, has just published a pamphlet, containing an argument for the general relief of the country from taxation, and eventually from the Corn-laws, by an assessment of property; it was sold for 2d., and is well worth the perusal and consideration of hon. Members. He did not agree with all put forth in that pamphlet, but it proposed the introduction of a change for the benefit of the humbler classes, which must be obtained in some way. This House had legislated for the rich, and against the poor, for seven Sessions he had sat in that House. It was always wise to attend to the petitions of the poor, and protect them against being oppressed by the wealthy; and if this were not done; if this House does not adopt the opposite course of legislation it has for a long time persevered in, a state of things is at hand which will make the stoutest hearts in this House tremble at the prospect. The signs of the times should not be disregarded. This Corn-law question will not be set at rest by the vote of this night; it will be again and again urged on the House; you cannot convince the people, they should have low wages, and a high price of corn, and he would, therefore, vote for going into Committee.

Mr. W. S. O'Brien,

did not see, that any advantage would result from the repeal of the Corn-laws, sufficient to counterbalance the sacrifice of the agricultural interest. Looking to the vast extent and fertility of the corn countries, he believed, that any quantity of wheat, that might be required could be imported into Great Britain, at a price ranging from 40s. to 45s. a quarter. The hon. Member for London had contended, that not more than 1,000,000 quarters would be imported under a free trade, but he (Mr. O'Brien) could not adopt that opinion. He recollected, that to supply the deficiency of the harvest of 1830, alone, not less than 4,000,000 quarters had been required. He expected, that at least 5,000,000 quarters would now be imported, and that a fall of prices to the extent of 25 per cent. would ensue. If the protecting duty on corn were abolished, the duties on the importation of cattle, butter, cheese, and other articles of agricultural produce must also be repealed. To the consumers, to the mortgagees, fundholders, and creditors, of every description, such a state of things would be very advantageous. Were the landlords an entirely encumbered class, then, he thought, they would have had, contrary to what hon. Gentlemen seemed generally to suppose, less interest in the settlement of this question than either the tenants or the labourers; but the landlords were an unencumbered class, and the effect of repealing those laws, would be, to give what you took from them to another, and a non-producing class. Also, as everybody admitted, a number of acres would be thrown out of cultivation, and the consequence of this would be the consolidation of farms, by the operation of which a large amount of capital would be drawn away from agriculture, and removed, perhaps, to the colonies. But this system of consolidation was already working many evils and much human suffering in Ireland, which he was certainly not prepared to increase. Of the crimes which appalled this country, nine out of ten arose from the ejectment of tenants for this purpose. There was another class whom he considered would be the most materially affected of any—viz., all those persons who held a beneficial interest in land. In Ireland great numbers lived upon a profit rent (after paying a heavy chief rent, to the first owner of the soil) which had been bequeathed to them; and if their income were reduced 20 or 25 per cent., they would be totally ruined. He was not prepared to inflict that ruin. If the labourer, again, were able to get other employment, after having been thrown out of agricultural employment, it might be different; but it was impossible to hold out a prospect of this. The hon. Member for Sheffield had drawn a picture of the destitute condition of a hand loom weaver. He could multiply that picture by thousands and ten thousands. From the state of the agricultural labourer, he was convinced, that 100,000 of his countrymen would be thrown out of employment if the Corn-laws were repealed. Now, it ought to be remembered, that with the present feelings of the Irish peasant, he had no Poor-law to resort to, no emigration was provided for him, no manufacturing towns were ready to receive him. He, for one, was not prepared to set on foot so great an amount of human misery. He admitted, that the repeal would reduce wages, and that so the manufacturers would be enabled to compete with foreigners in neutral markets, and that foreigners might take our manufactures in return for their grain; but he thought it not certain the manufacturers would not in the mean time lose the home market. But, however this might be, it seemed to be admitted, that the manufacturing workman would gain nothing. Setting, then, the advantages against the evils, he confessed he thought the balance preponderated in favour of the maintenance of the principle of protection; the question of the degree and manner of that protection ought, in his opinion, to be perfectly open; but he did think that some such modification of the present system was desirable as would prevent the recurrence of the present high prices. And first of all he thought that colonial grain ought to be admitted free of all duty; indeed, rather than not advance colonization by every means, he would agree to a bounty; and finally he would so alter the present system as to substitute a permanent and fixed protective duty. He held this to be a question of protection or no protection. If a fixed duty were to be agreed on he could not consent to less than a duty of 12s. He could not give his vote satisfactorily unless he had had an opportunity of stating what his views were, and having done that as briefly as he could, he should sit down by declaring that he should vote against the motion.

Sir J. T. Tyrrell

thought the hon. Member for Wolverhampton had shown his discretion in proposing that this question should be heard by counsel and witnesses at the bar, because he was quite sure much new light would have been introduced into the question by the professional advisers; whereas it was quite clear that, as it was, very little new light had been introduced into the subject. The hon. Member's proposal went to pass the deepest censure on the Members representing manufacturing districts, as if they had not shown themselves capable of discussing this question without counsel. He called the proposal for a fixed duty a miserable one, because after all that had been stated by the noble Lord, the Member for Stroud, who, so far as regarded a fixed duty, must be considered as representing the opinions of the government, that measure had only in the first instance been supported by a solitary petition, and since then by only four other petitions. It was quite clear, after the opinions which had been shown by the hundreds of petitions which had been presented, that no government would be able to maintain anything like a fixed duty in a time of scarcity; it would be a grievous oppression to the commerce of this country if they were to do so. Those Gentlemen who spoke in that House the sentiments of the manufacturers, had a great advantage in being represented by the President of the Board of Trade. He happened to have read a Manchester newspaper, which stated that, five or six years ago the right hon. Member hail gone to the Chamber of Commerce, in Manchester, and had made a speech there on the subject of the Corn-laws, five hours and a-half long, but ever since he had preserved a solemn silence on the question. He should have expected him to have stated what his opinions were. He should always respect the hon. Member for Kendal, for the honourable and handsome testimony he had borne to the prosperity of trade at present. He remembered very well stating, after he had heard the hon. Member make the speech, that next morning, after the account had been read, the hon. Member for Kendal would be tossed in a blanket in Palace Yard, and probably thrown over into the Thames. He was happy, however, to learn a less severe punishment had awaited him, After a four nights' debate, and thirty-four hours had been consumed in considering the question, the hon. Member who had last sat down was only the second Irish Member who had spoken on the subject. A question had been asked the other night, what would become of Ireland in this debate, and it was stated that there was little chance of Ireland being neglected any more than Scotland. Seeing the hon. Member for Dublin in his place, he hoped the hon. Member would state his views. The hon. Member for Dublin had stated elsewhere, that the peculiar charms of this question were, that though it would be a great blow to the people of Ireland, it would draw the eyeteeth of the aristocracy. He coincided in the opinion expressed in a pamphlet by Lord Western, that if the Corn-laws were repealed it would be the most cruel blow that was ever struck by a body of overwhelming capitalists against their poorer fellow subjects. The hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets stated, that he wished to see this country, with reference to the production of corn, in the worst possible state of dependance. He, on the other hand, maintained, that the object and the principle of the law was to have plenty, and security for that plenty. He would not weary the House by attempting to touch on other grounds. Gentlemen had read long extracts, and cast up figures usque ad nauseam. But when they recollected that there were about 150 articles protected by taxes which the farmer could not obtain without paying that protecting duty, it, surely was not too much to protect the farmer's produce from foreign competition. He contended that, if there were a moderate fixed duty, it would throw the trade open chiefly to large capitalists, and on that ground he objected to it. They were as much in the dark on the general question on the fifth night of the debate as on the first night.

Mr. G. W. Wood

would not detain the House with going into any details on the general question, exhausted as it was by the many nights of debate there had been upon it. But there were some statements in the speech of the right hon. Baronet, on Friday, to which he wished to call the attention of the House, and also respectfully to call the attention of the right hon. Baronet. He knew not to what cause he had to attribute it, but on the only two occasions on which he had ventured to address the House that session, he had been honoured on both occasions with the especial notice of the right hon. Baronet. The right hon. Baronet had been pleased to compliment him on the honesty of a former speech, which he (Mr. Wood) had made respecting the exports. The right hon. Baronet had stated that his statements were founded on truth; that the documents had been laid on the table, and that the House had substantiated the truth of those statements. He felt especially desirous of guarding himself from being supposed to go along with the right hon. Baronet in what he conceived to be the most unfounded statements. The right hon. Baronet had expressed a hope that Gentlemen on that (the Ministerial) side of the House, would take into their hands a printed document of the Board of Trade. That paper he had now in his hands: and one of the statements alluded to by the right hon. Baronet was the statement of the exports of British produce and manufactures of the united kingdom, being an account of the exports in the year ending the 5th of January, 1839, compared with the exports of the preceding years—they were in fact the exports for the years 1837 and 1838; and from a comparison of these two years the right hon. Baronet had deduced that this country was in a higher state of prosperity than it ever before experienced. The right hon. Baronet had told them with evident satisfaction and considerable emphasis that this table exhibited an increase of seven millions in the amount of the exports, the exports of 1837 being over thirty-six millions, while those of 1838 were over forty-three millions. He (Mr. Wood) did not quarrel with this statement, excepting that the right hon. Baronet had concealed the important circumstance that the year 1837 was one of great commercial embarrassment and extreme depression. There had been in that year an entire derangement of the industry of the country, a stoppage of a large part of its trade, and a diversion of a portion of its capital into new channels. It could not have escaped the right hon. Baronet's recollection that there were peculiar circumstances attending the state of commerce in 1837. The derangement of the money market in London, and of the exchanges with America, had spread its baneful influence to every commercial establishment throughout the world. It was in order to show, that there had been a comparative restoration of prosperity from that extraordinary depression that he had made his statements on a former occasion, and from them he was not disposed to shrink. But die right hon. Baronet, in using those statements in order to draw his own comparison, ought to have been candid enough to tell the House the peculiar circumstances of 1837. With the leave of the House he (Mr. Wood) would supply the deficiency. It was true, that the exports of the year 1838 exhibited an increase over those of the year 1837, of about seven millions sterling; but the exports of 1837 exhibited a decrease of no less than ten millions compared with those of the preceding year. The consequence was that the right hon. Baronet's boasted increase of seven millions in 1838, was, in fact, a diminution of upwards of three millions from 1836. After the conclusions which the right hon. Baronet had drawn from these circumstances, and by which he had given the House to understand that he had entirely demolished the first ground on which the commercial petitioners claimed the attention of the House, the right hon. Baronet proceeded to attack the second ground. It had been alleged by the manufacturers that the increase of exports which had taken place, was not an increase of manufactured products, but of raw material, or of commodities partially wrought up. The right hon. Baronet had attempted to meet this in the same way, by comparisons of the same years, and evidently supposed that he had demolished this argument also. In the statement which he (Mr. Wood) had taken the liberty of making on the first night of the Session, he had taken what appeared to him a fair view of this subject. He had compared the exports of 1838, not with a solitary year, but with the average of four preceding years, and told the House fairly what the condition of trade was in 1838. But not having made the distinction between manufactured and partially wrought fabrics and raw materials which was thought important by the petitioners, he was assailed on the ground that his statements were calculated to lead to a delusive opinion. On a subsequent night, therefore, he took the liberty of again addressing the House to supply the omission, and gave the statements which fully bore out the case of the petitioners, that there was a much larger increase in the exports of raw material, and of partially wrought material, than in those of perfectly wrought fabrics. To these statements the right hon. Baronet had made no allusion whatever. He hoped that the House would excuse him for refreshing their recollection on the subject. He found that comparing the average of the four years with the year 1838, the exports of woollen, cotton, linen, and silk cloth had increased from 25,757,000l. to 26,190,000l. showing an increase of 433,000l., or 1 7–10 per cent. on the perfectly wrought fabrics. Comparing the same average with the same year, he found that the exports of cotton yarn, woollen yarn, and linen yarn had increased from 6,599,000l. to 8,452,000l., showing an increase on the article of yarn, exported, to be wrought up, in foreign countries of 1,852,000l. or twenty-eight per cent. Thus while cloth had increased 1 7–-10ths per cent., yarn had increased twenty-eight per cent. The next articles were coal, hardware, earthenware, and glass, on which there was a deficiency of 334,000l., or eleven and a half per cent., while the metal—the raw material—had increased 956,000l., or twenty-four per cent. In refined sugar, a manufactured commodity though it did give very large employment, had fallen off. There had been a falling-off of 180,000l., amount to fifty-five per cent., whilst raw materials, sheeps' wool, and coal had increased 395,000l., or fifty-three per cent. He certainly thought these statements fully made out the case of the petitioners. He would leave hon. Gentlemen who chose to go into the question, to draw such conclusions from them as they might, but these were the facts, and he conceived them to be of importance. He had no wish to occupy the time of the House or to follow the right hon. Baronet through his long speech. As to the evidence given by Mr. Birley and others before the East-India Committee, to show how far we could undersell the native manufacturer, he did sot see how it bore on the question now before the House, and he would not go into it. Considerable details had been gone into with a view of establishing the comfortable condition of the working-classes, by a reference to savings' banks. But the comparison of the right hon. Baronet did not justify any satisfactory conclusion on this head, because they were open to the same objections which lay against his comparisons of exports. He had compared 1838 with a year of extreme distress—1837. The hon. Baronet had stated also, that in 1837, when the exports were only thirty-six millions sterling, corn was cheaper than in 1838, when the exports had increased to forty-three millions. But here, again, the comparison was vitiated by the same cause; for no fair conclusion could possibly be drawn from a year in which commerce was entirely deranged. He (Mr. Wood) had no intention of going into the general question; but he thought it highly desirable that it should be settled when they had no clamours, and when they were able to discuss it as calmly as they could ever expect. The right hon. Baronet, however, had not thought these sufficient motives for taking the subject into consideration. If the manufacturers were in a state of decay, it would be indeed, as he understood the right hon. Baronet, the strongest argument that could be urged upon him for taking it into consideration, and examining whether some change might not be made in the law. But, if he waited until some great injury were done to manufactures, the opportunity of recovering their prosperity would be gone by. It was the part of a wise statesman to see difficulties in prospect, and to endeavour to avoid them by preparation and precaution, rather than to wait until they overwhelmed him. He felt persuaded that this question could not be allowed to remain in its present state. He was himself prepared to alter the existing law and to face the much dreaded measure of entire repeal. He believed that this country would be perfectly safe under a free trade in corn, and that the agricultural had no more reason to dread evil consequences from it than the manufacturers. In all that the right hon. Baronet had said there was nothing which gave him the impression that the right hon. Baronet was so attached to the present system as to consider that no circumstances could justify a change. He therefore hoped that the time would come when, under more favourable circumstances, they might have the benefit of the right hon. Baronet's assistance in bringing the question to a settlement.

Mr. Benett

said, that, representing a great agricultural county, he considered it was his duty to express his sentiments on the present question. This attack on the Corn-laws had originated with the manufacturers, who, he would maintain, ought naturally to have expected that, under so long a period of peace in Europe, the manufactures of other countries would have increased. It was a hard case that they should now come forward and attack the Corn-laws, which were by no means the cause of any distress they might be suffering. They said nothing about the reduction of wages, which a repeal of these laws would lead to. They stated their object was to raise wages; but they very well knew, and so did the labourers by this time, that their real object was to reduce wages. In short, the whole question was one of wages; for the manufacturers could only compete with foreigners by cheapness, and they could not bring about cheapness without a reduction of wages. Why were we to bolster up an unnatural state of manufactures? The political economists would drive their chariot along, heedless of what they might crush under its wheels. Their sole object was wealth—a thing than which, in his view as a legislator, the comfort of the great mass of our population was of far greater consideration. The great duty of the Legislature was, he contended, to look to the interests of the great mass of the community, and he would not consent to any measure which was inimical to the interests of that mass, which he believed to be the agricultural class. Hon. Members who advocated the repeal of the Corn- laws were not aware of the large mass of capital which had been sunk in the cultivation of poor lands. Did they now wish that all those lands should now be thrown out of cultivation, in order that cheaper corn might be obtained elsewhere? If they did, let them recollect, that not only would large sums of capital be lost, and large tracts of land lie useless, but that a vast number of agricultural labourers would be thrown out of employment. The question was, whether we should be importers or growers of corn. If we neglected the home growth and became importers, we should injure trade and commerce, which grew out of agriculture. If agriculture was injured, it would be impossible that manufactures could thrive; for the strength of our manufactures grew out of the cultivation of the land. He wished prosperity to the manufacturers as heartily as any man, but it should be in conjunction with that of the agriculturists; and he would advise them not to monopolize the profits of foreign countries as well as of their own, by destroying those of the landed interest. He maintained that independence was our chief duty, although the President of the Board of Trade had said it was too late to be independent, and insisted that if agriculture thrived manufactures would flourish simultaneously with it. He was willing, by any reasonable means, to encourage manufactures; but would oppose all attempts at doing so at the expense of the agricultural interest. These were his opinions, and he thought it right to express them. He wished the manufacturing interests of the country to prosper; but he did not think it just that they should monopolize all the advantages to themselves, and attain their prosperity by the destruction of the landed interest. He could go into figures; but he would not, as the House must be tired of such statements. He, however, could not help saying, that figure statements had been unfairly used in the course of the debate, and more especially by the right hon. Gentleman, the President of the Board of Trade, when speaking of the prices of wool. Now, what did the right hon. Gentleman do? Why, he did not take the wool generally, but limited himself to the Leicestershire wool; and if he had taken the South Down wool, he must have arrived at a very different result. The noble Lord, the Secretary of State for the Home Department, too, had not em- ployed his figures fairly; but, without saying such statements were false, he did not hesitate to assert that they were fallacious. He certainly preferred a fluctuating to a fixed duty, and, looking at the matter dispassionately, he must say, that the fluctuating scale appeared to him to have worked admirably. If they had a fixed duty, say of ten shillings, or five shillings, or any other sum, he was convinced they would be pestered with petitions from Manchester and the Delegates sitting in Palace-yard to suspend it by an Order in Council; and, if he were called upon to decide between no protection and a fixed duty, he did not hesitate to say, that his vote should be in favour of no protection at all. He believed, that the present Corn-laws were nothing more than a just protection to the landed interest, and he should therefore vote against the present motion, because he thought it uncalled for, and that the farmers had a right to be secured in that fair return to which the expenditure of capital entitled them.

Mr. O'Connell.

It is quite clear that there is an almost irresistible temptation to make long speeches on the Corn-laws, and for each speaker to repeat a great deal of what has been said before; and now I promise to the House two things, first, that I shall make but a short speech, and next, that I shall repeat as little of what has been already said as I possibly can. I must, however, refer to one thing which has been said respecting me by the hon. Baronet, the Member for Essex. He said, that in a speech of mine which had been printed I declared, that "Ireland would receive a strong blow from a repeal of the Corn-laws, but that I was content to support it, as it would draw the eye-teeth of the landed aristocracy." I believe that was the statement of the hon. Baronet. It only shows me that the hon. Baronet never read the report; he only read the paragraph in a newspaper; and there is this difference between the paragraph and the report, that the report is accurate, and the paragraph writer has distorted the sentiment I expressed as much as he pleased. I did not at all say, that the repeal of the Corn-laws would be a great blow—I said distinctly the reverse. I said, that I felt something like regret that the repeal of the Corn-laws would not be a disadvantage to Ireland, because it would be a feeling of pleasure when I was seeking for justice for Ireland from England, I should be happy to make a sacrifice on the part of Ireland to obtain justice for England. And then as to "the eye-teeth"—as to these symbols of wisdom, I can only say that I have not the least intention, I have not the smallest desire, of seeing them extracted from the landed aristocracy. Whatever be the value of "the eye teeth," I most willingly make a present of them to the hon. Baronet. I am for a repeal of the Corn-laws upon principle—I seek for their repeal upon principle: while the Corn-laws are sought to be supported, in order to give to the proprietors of land—to give to those who call themselves the landed interest, a superiority and an advantage over the other classes of the community. No one of any candour can deny it. What is it that you want to do? To get rich at the expense of others. Yes, you want to get more for your corn, for your oats, for your barley, your rye, and other grain, than they can be purchased for elsewhere; you want people to pay more for their bread than otherwise they would be obliged to do; and then you, even you! affect to say that you do not wish to make the aristocracy live at the expense of others. If that were not your object, why is it that you have been here for so many nights together, so strongly arrayed and so perfectly prepared, and so resolved upon battling for your monopoly. It is a remnant of the feudal system. Yes, for of the power and the monopoly formerly enjoyed by the aristocratical classes, this monopoly you have been still able to retain. What you want still to retain is the power of extracting a higher price for grain than that which it ought naturally to have. It is idle to attempt to disguise it. You want to make the poor pay duty for their bread—you want to prevent them obtaining it cheap—you want to prevent the poor creature who can now have but one slice of bread for a penny from obtaining two slices for a penny. Yes; and here you, high, mighty, and dignified, as you are—here you are struggling, night after night, to extort from the wretched, the miserable, and the orphan, a portion of their small crust—[cheers.] And you, too, cheer that. Yes; for if this did not produce you money, why should you so struggle for the Corn-laws? If it did not make, in your opinion, your estates more valuable, why so expose yourselves to public odium, or why place yourselves before the country as public extortioners? Would you place yourselves in that situation without some gain or profit to yourselves? [No, no!] The principle of the Corn-laws is this—to get more money for the landed proprietors out of the working classes. It is a principle that I repudiate—it is a principle that at once decides me to vote for a repeal of the Corn-laws. But there is another principle involved in this matter. It is the principle of free trade. I know that it has been denied, that a class who are calling for a free trade in corn, are not ready to give up the protection they may have for articles of commerce. Now, the delegates have passed an unanimous resolution, calling upon this House not only to repeal the Corn-laws, but also to remove every protection from the articles of manufactures. I would not be their advocate upon any other principle; for I am the advocate of free trade in every thing. I would let every man buy as cheap as he could the productions of this and every other country. Am I to be told that this would destroy your manufactures? If this be said, I reply, point out to me any country in which there is free trade, and that is the worse for it. I deny the assertion; and fortunately for this discussion, I find a report, laid on the Table last week, which illustrates my position. I insist that the elements of prosperity are to be found in a perfect freedom of trade. The principle of monopolies has found defenders in every period of our history. "The wisdom of our ancestors," as it is called, supported monopolies—what was the principle?—to rob each other to make the nation rich. How many heavy folios of volumes—how many hundreds of folios have been put together, proving that you ought to maintain the West-India monopoly? And yet you have repealed that monopoly. How many a stupid and lengthened speech was made in support of the monopolies of the reign of James 1st. and Charles 1st.? There have been at all times vindicators of monopolies; but the good sense of the country got rid of them. We have now a monopoly in corn and other produce of the soil. That, however, will soon fail, and the time will come when this prejudice will be at an end, and regarded like the by-gone notions of witches. Do we want an instance of what has been the effect of monopolies, and of the happy consequences of getting rid of them? We find both in a book published last week. I mean to take two instances, and, if you will permit me, I shall take the Papal States first. I believe no man will accuse me of being influenced by prejudice in speaking of the temporalities of that State. There is no government that can be more anxiously disposed for the benefit of its subjects, consisting of three millions of persons. It is impossible for any reigning principle to take a greater interest in the welfare of the people at large. The proof of that benevolence is exhibited by this fact, that more money is given in charitable works, in hospitals, and in feeding the poor, than in any other three of the European States, even including the benevolence of this most benevolent country. What then has been the conduct pursued in the protection of manufactures? They pay public money to aid their manufacturers, they give protecting duties, and they have prohibitory laws; and what is the result of all? It is thus stated:— On the whole it will be thought, that the above report, furnished by the Roman government, presents a melancholy picture of the manufacturing industry of that part of Italy. Many a town in Great Britain, consisting of only 30,000 souls, produces a greater quantity of manufactured articles than the three million inhabitants of the Pontifical States, notwithstanding the enormous sacrifices made by the Papal government, the protections, the prohibitions, the premiums given for the encouragement of what is called native industry. In Rome, as elsewhere, the measures taken to increase and improve manufacturing produce, have been the main causes of decline and decay. Premiums and protections have only served to reward and to render permanent the most rude and ignorant processes of manufacture; and prohibition, as far as it has succeeded, (and it has succeeded of course in the coarser and cheaper articles, which cannot pay the smugglers' profits)—prohibition has kept away those superior foreign manufactures whose presence would have compelled improvement in the home production. I visited some of the woollen manufactures, being the most important. Scarcely a valuable discovery had been introduced; the spinning in some cases by hand, in others by machinery—far behind the universal progress in England, Belgium, Prussia, or France; the looms, such as were generally employed in the fourteenth century, little better than those used by the Indians of the Deccan; the rowing and card- ing, all done by solitary workmen, and with the ancient teazels and handcards; the shearing with the antique hand-shears, such as have been employed from immemorial time; and in some places I saw the fulling performed by men half naked, employed to trample upon the cloth; a process, probably, not now to be found in any other part of the civilized world. How, then, can it be an object of wonder, if manufactures, instead of making progress, remain stationary, or fall into decay, while rival productions move forward in the career of constantly improving change? There then is the result of the working of a government of protection and of prohibition. There is the benefit derived from an extension of the principle of protection for the home manufacture, and prohibition to the foreign. But does any other State in Italy present a different picture? There is Tuscany; for there the principle of free trade has been acted upon for twenty-five years, and what is the result? Twenty years of free trade have led to a vast extension of cultivation, a great increase of buildings and inhabitants both in town and country; to the establishment of new manufactories, to an enormous development of the growth of silk (a branch whose total destruction was foretold by the enemies of free trade), a very considerable augmentation in the consumption of both the necessaries and the luxuries of life, with all the enjoyments attached to them—a general rise of wages, and a universal sentiment of growing prosperity. The final and the most triumphant result in contrasting our present illimited liberty of commerce with the restrictive policy which preceded it, may be seen in undeniable facts. Our population is augmented in twenty-five years to the extent of 113,868 souls more than we had in 1766 (it was then 945,063). Our annual produce in corn is increased 3½ millions of staja (=337,600 quarters), the average production being, previously to the changes, 9,827,074, staja; the increase, therefore, is about thirty-four per cent.; our export trade in agricultural produce has increased to the amount of 3½ millions of Tuscan lire=116,670l. (about). Our ancient ruined cottages have been repaired, and a surprising number of new ones built. Epidemics have diminished by the consumption of better corn than that formerly issued from the public magazines. We have suffered little from rise of prices, which have soon regulated themselves, and have never undergone the enormous fluctuations to which they were formerly subjected. Property has been respected; monopoly overthrown; and the innumerable litigations which necessarily grow out of interference completely terminated. Now then, contrast the One with the other. Sir, in effect of free trade behold the consequence of prohibition. If then, your proposition be good, you must go the full length with it. If you are for prohibition, you also declare yourself the supporter of that which tends to destruction. If you are for free trade, behold the consequences: "our ancient ruined cottages have been repaired," "epidemics have diminished;" and when I come to the later passage, I cannot but think of Ireland. During these debates we have had many proofs from Gentlemen on the other side, of their regard for Ireland. Even the hon. Baronet the Member for Essex, I think, said he was a friend to Ireland. If, indeed, he be a friend to Ireland, he has the oddest way possible of showing his affection upon other occasions. Ireland has in these debates many friends that will not condescend to aid her with their votes, when they could be of use to her; but now their kind wishes are like the story of the blessing, "they give them because they cost them nothing." I wish they would give to Ireland her political rights—I wish they would place us on the same footing with themselves. No, they will not do that; but when you want us to support your monopoly, you then wish, with your kind regards for Ireland, to drag us along with you. Does there live a man who ought to be more alive to the interest of the Irish people than I am. I am the hired servant of the people of Ireland, I am the only man in existence who is paid by a nation. Oh! governments pay; but I do not mean that. If, then, there be a man anxious for the prosperity of Ireland, ought not Ito be the man? And remember, that if I desired to court the prejudices of the Irish people against my judgment and my conscience, ought I not to become in pretence, that which the hon. Member for Limerick is conscientiously, although not very consistently, the advocate of some kind of Corn-laws. You know too, that on a former occasion, when I found combinations amongst the working classes to exist in my native city, I stood forward and risked all my popularity in opposing the wrong, and exposing its iniquity. It is said, that the Corn-laws are a protection to Ireland. But what has Ireland to lose? It is said, that the Corn-laws keep up the wages of the Irish labourer but can any wages be less than theirs? Their labour is purchased at the splendid price of 6d. a day, or ½d. an hour. It is pretended, that the repeal of the Corn-laws will throw some thousands of labourers out of employ in Ireland; but are there not already, according to the Irish Poor Report, two millions of souls in a state of utter destitution in that unhappy country, and 600,000 able bodied men out of employ? This report shows farther, that by the extraordinary experiment tried upon the currency, by the right hon. Baronet, the Member for Tamworth, in the measure of the year 1819, the Irish labourer received a blow from which he has not yet recovered; but that, on the contrary, he has been receding in wretchedness, whilst the English labourer has been improving. The whole report goes to show, that Ireland is now in an unparalleled state of misery and destitution. Why, we are so poor, that we are not able to raise even 2,300,000l. for railroads, and you refuse us even your credit to assist us in raising it. The present miserable state of Ireland has been so ably and so beautifully described by the noble Lord, the Secretary for Ireland, in his recent speech on this subject, that I cannot avoid quoting a short passage from it:— Look at the surface of England, and then contrast it with the surface of Ireland; in the one country the soil is improved by all the natural processes of agriculture in its produce, and its wealth distributed through countless channels. Its mills and workshops are clustered in every direction; its factories are gathered on the banks of every river, and forests of masts are thickening every port, In the other, the country is scantily cultivated; its plains are yet more fertile, and yet more level; but the hand of industry is not heard on every side, and on the yet more spacious and still more rapid rivers, the easily counted sails drop down to the comparatively deserted harbours. "Look on this picture, and on this," and then pretend still, that your Corn-laws are an advantage to Ireland. The fact is, they are an advantage only to her aristocracy, to her landed aristocracy, whilst to her industrious but starving population they do but confirm and render hopeless their miserable condition. Do but give an increased stimulus to the manufacturing industry of this country, and the beneficial effect of it will soon be felt in Ireland also. A petition has recently been presented to this House, from which I beg to read one passage, as it is my expression on this point. "That our manufactures and commerce have been destroyed; and remittances of great portions of our produce to absentees increase the capital of England and diminish the resources of Ireland, leaving agriculture the only source of national prosperity." The only resources which the Irish people had now to look to, is English manufactures. Why, as it is, there is not a manufacturing town in England in which there are not 40,000 or 60,000, aye, as many as 80,000 of my fellow countrymen employed. What I want, therefore, is to give a stimulant to the manufacturing industry of this country, as the only hope for Ireland. Repeal the Corn-laws, and our manufactures will increase and spread in all directions; continue them, and you make their increase impossible. Persist in maintaining these laws, and you will drive Ireland to despair, and England, I think, to a movement for which you are not prepared. You will have a shout raised in your ears which I think you will be obliged to listen to, when you find the Chartists telling you, in their insolence, that you only represent 700,000, whilst they represent 25,000,000 of people, and that to their superior authority you must succumb. Sir, I promised the House a short speech, and I have kept my word.

Viscount Sandon

said, that although the hon. and learned Member for Dublin, had kept his promise with respect to making a short speech, he had not failed to raise the old cry of justice to Ireland. He had also attempted to raise within the walls of that House a cry which had, up to that time, been only heard, with one or two exceptions, outside. The hon. and learned Member had endeavoured to create a feeling that upon this question the aristocracy were united in opposition to the poor for their own sordid and private interests, and to represent them as oppressors of the people, who interposed between them and the possession of abundance. He had represented the Corn-law as an unjust protection to agriculture, and had described it as one of the evils resulting from the old feudal system. Was the hon. Member for Dublin aware that in countries where no feudal system had ever existed, as well as in those countries in which that system had been abolished, there were protections for the agricultural interest? In the principal States of Europe there were Corn-laws; even in the United States there was a Corn-law; in France there was a Corn-law, where the charge could not be laid, that it was enacted in obedience to the will of the aristocracy; in Holland there was a Corn-law; in Belgium there was a Corn-law; in fact, there was scarcely any country without a similar law of some kind and with this fact staring him in the face, would the hon. Member for Dublin dare to assert, that the Corn-law in England was merely a remnant of the feudal system? The hon. and learned Member had talked very largely of freedom of trade, and so had many other Gentlemen previously, but it often happened that when Gentlemen connected with any peculiar manufacturing or commercial interest advocated free trade without protection, they stated, that the interest with which they were most intimately connected was the very one which formed the exception as not calculated to experience benefit from the removal of protection. One Gentleman from Manchester, who was an advocate for the removal of all protection from the trade in corn, said, he admitted, that he should be equally solicitous for the removal of legislative protection from the manufacturers, if they could bear up against competition without it, thus admitting, that they required its continuance. The hon. Member for Dublin had instanced the case of Tuscany, as evidence of the good which would arise from removing the protection on agriculture. Nothing could be more different than the position with respect to the trade in corn of Tuscany and this country. Tuscany was a country front which corn had been exported, and the effect which it was feared would follow was an increased price, produced by the increase of exportation consequent to a free trade in that article. That surely afforded no argument to bear upon the question then before them. There was another part of the hon. Member's speech to which he should call the attention of the House, namely, the-assertion of the hon. and learned Member, that he had never said the change in the Corn-laws would have an injurious effect upon Ireland. Now, that assertion did not very well agree with the statement in a subsequent portion of his speech, that he would sacrifice Irish interests upon that occasion to the interests of England. Now, if the repeal of the Corn-laws, would not have an injurious effect upon Ireland, there would be no sacrifice of the Irish interests in the hon. and learned Member's support of such a measure. But it was quite clear, that such an alteration in the law, would injure the interests of Ireland. They had been told by hon. Members opposite, that the repeal of the Corn-laws would have the effect of increasing the demand for our manufactures in Poland and Prussia, as they would then export their corn to us. The noble Lord, the Secretary at War had admitted, that the repeal of the Corn-laws would by this means, benefit the Polish farmers. If that were true, how could the repeal be beneficial to the Irish farmers? Passing from what he must call these vulgar appeals to the country, he could not help thinking that it sufficiently appeared, that there was no reason to doubt that the Corn-laws did not operate injuriously upon the commerce of the country. The noble Lord then referred to statements made by a Gentleman who was an advocate for the Corn-laws, and at the same time interested in commercial pursuits, who declared, that throughout the greater part of the last year, a large and profitable business was transacted. The noble Lord also referred to other letters, showing, but amid much noise and confusion, that the cotton manufacture, had, during the past year, been prosperous, and he contended, that the commerce of the country being admitted to be generally in a prosperous state, and particularly that branch of it from which the agitation on the subject of the Corn-laws had originally proceeded, he could not discover, that ruin, decay, and distress, by which the country had been frightened out of its propriety. His right hon. Friend, the President of the Board of Trade, had, on a former occasion, maintained, that the best test of the prosperity of a country, was the fact, whether the internal consumption of commodities was larger or smaller, and he had been referred, in a tone of triumph and satisfaction, to the increase in the home consumption as an infallible indication of the prosperity which the country at that time enjoyed. But if his right hon. Friend's satisfaction was great at that time, it ought to be much greater now, as our consumption for domestic purposes, had greatly increased since the period to which he had referred. He was aware the House was exhausted, but he had felt himself bound to state some of the reasons upon which looking at this question in a commercial point of view, he had satitfied himself, that no ground had been shown for abandoning that protection to agriculture which it had ever been the policy of this country to afford. Finding, moreover, that her Majesty's Ministers had not even shadowed out a scheme of policy to be pursued in reference to the subject, he should be deserting his duty if he gave his consent to the House going into Committee, as it would have the effect of leaving the whole question open.

Mr. Harvey

said, it was in no disparagement of the many able speeches which had been made during this protracted debate: it was in no disparagement of the many able treatises and criticisms on political economy which had been delivered: it was in no disparagement of those powers of memory by which some hon. Members had been able to commit to their recollection entire pamphlets of statistics, that might be purchased at Ridgway's shop for the trifling sum of eighteenpence: it was in no disparagement of all these circumstances, that he was led to say, that at the close of a five nights' discussion, he found and felt this subject to be more confused than it was at its very commencement. There were so many statements which had been assumed as facts, and which were advanced with all the boldness of facts; and there were so many true inferences drawn from them, if the statements were not false, that there was scarcely any position in favour or against those laws—of their being relaxed or made more stringent, which he would venture to say the Gentlemen who spoke in that House had not amply and ably demonstrated. With this impression, therefore, strongly on his mind, and feeling the force of that truth which had been so frequently uttered (and, as they approached the termination of the discussion, more properly urged), that "nothing new could be said on this subject," he should at once shrink from making an appeal to the kindness of the House, if he did not feel, that there was an interest in this country—that there was a great class whose welfare, so far as it depended on this question, had been very slightly and inadequately noticed. It was, however, to him most gratifying, to find that at length the industrious community (the great sources of national power, and the origin of all wealth, whether their hands were directed to the cultivation of the soil, or supplied the moving power in our manufactories) had assumed an appro- priate position. Not, indeed, that they were present in their own persons, or by direct representation in that House, but from a new course of policy—either by the influence of feelings honestly entertained or hypocritically assumed, the labouring community had become essential parties in their consideration. He would venture to say, that—notwithstanding the partial and glimmering allusions to their condition made in varied terms throughout the debate—if any one of them were present, and the discussion were suffered to close where it now stood, he might justly impute it as neglect in that portion of the House who are the representatives of the people (too few in number), that they had suffered the prominent interest of the working classes to be passed over without being duly considered. He did not rise, then, for the purpose of reviewing this great subject in all its bearings, which had been so ably and so dexterously done by the right hon. Baronet (Sir Robert Peel); but he humbly solicited the attention of the House while he made a very few remarks, having an exclusive connection with that branch of the subject to which he had referred. Identified as he was with the people—sprung from them, and being of their number, as he acknowledged himself to be, and glorying as he did in this distinction, he wished to treat this subject as one not unmindful of the working classes, and for the first time presenting their views on this subject in an uneducated form. He had not only listened to the speech of the right hon. Baronet (Sir Robert Peel) with the attention which his station and high pretensions justified, but he had done that which, he ventured to say, his most ardent admirers could not boast of, he had read the whole of his reported speech word for word; and he could say with great truth, that it would have been extremely unjust to those Gentlemen who originated the debate, had it closed on Friday; because, he must say, that that speech recalled to his mind that of another hon. and distinguished Member, on the Slave Trade, whose speech produced such an astounding effect, that even hon. Gentlemen, who were prepared to reply to him, were staggered and deterred, and vet subsequent reflection made them surprised at their own hesitation. He could easily believe that many hon. Gentlemen who were adverse to any change in the present system, particularly those who belonged to the powerful party by whom the right hon. Baronet was sur- rounded, went away with the impression, that it was one of the most unanswerable and overwhelming speeches that ever had been made, even by himself. In one particular they were right. The right hon. Gentleman did certainly shiver to pieces the case of his opponents. He raked the "economists" without mercy, and he bombarded the Government with great success. He hurled at them the whole weight of the fifty pounders, and the agricultural interest were, no doubt, delighted, and almost reeled with intoxication at the effect which he produced. But, though it was a powerful speech, the right hon. Baronet would pardon him for saying it was not the speech of a statesman. All the right hon. Gentleman said might be perfectly true, and yet beside the question. What though it might be true (and it certainly did appear to be so) that the hon. Member for the city of London admitted that the difference between the annual average importation of corn under the restriction and that which would flow into this country in the absence of all restriction, was about 250,000 quarters, he did not apprehend that the hon. Member for London was the corn-meter of the country. The hon. Member for London might have his calculation, and he might have his speculation, but that did not alter the real merits of the question. Then the right hon. Gentleman thought he demolished the case of the petitioners; the master manufacturers, who made statements, from which it was to be inferred, that the commerce of the country was rapidly decaying, and that our circumstances were of a most alarming description. For, said the right hon. Gentleman, "there is no truth in their statements, because, when I come to compare the amount of exports in 1838 with those in 1837, I find the excess in the former-mentioned year to be no less than 7,000,000l." Now, if this were true, and that the exports of 1838 were not only greater than the preceding year, but progressively greater than each of the preceding years, he owned, as far as the manufacturers were concerned, he had, to no inconsiderable degree, shaken their claims, and the grounds on which they contended for the repeal of the existing Corn-laws. But though he did not appear there, and did not wish to be understood, as the advocate of the master-manufacturers—though he had no communication whatever with them—though he felt no partiality in their favour, having a strong preference aris- ing, from the recollections of early life for those connected with land, he wished the few statements with which he should trouble the House to be taken as proceeding from one anxiously desirous of coming to a sound and deliberate judgment, free from all considerations of a personal kind. It was right, however, to say, that the statements of the right hon. Gentleman were challenged. He had heard, from the late President of the Chamber of Commerce at Manchester, that the right hon. Gentleman's figures were not incorrect as regarded the years 1837 and 1838, but that, if he had condescended, in his eagerness to balance impartially the facts, without any party bias, and disdaining every attempt which might yield a momentary triumph, intent only on the truth and its elucidation, he had heard it said, that if the right hon. Gentleman had compared the year 1838 with 1836, the difference would be a very substantial one on the other side. The commerce of this country was not to be determined on a comparison of two years. There might be many circumstances which abundantly accounted for the decline in one year, and there might be other circumstances which would explain the superfluous exportation in another, but it was in reference to a series of years, and to all the circumstances connected with commerce, that the actual state of our commercial transactions was to be established. Leaving this part of the subject to the hon. Member who introduced this motion, who would, no doubt, avail himself of the privilege of a reply, and who was in immediate communication with the petitioners, and furnished with ample details, he should proceed to another point. The right hon. Gentleman, with many of those who took part in this debate, was anxious, for very obvious and intelligible reasons, to sympathise with the interest and condition of the working classes. The right hon. Baronet went into a series of figures to prove that they were improving in their condition by reference to the savings' banks. Now, he would at once admit, that if it could be shown that the deposits at the various savings' banks (an institution, the utility of which it was impossible to exaggerate) might be considered as those of the labouring classes, whether agricultural or manufacturing, and if, still more, it could be shown that the numbers were increasing, as well as the amount of capital, he would acknowledge that the right hon. Gentleman had gone a great way to shake the cause of the petitioners. The right hon. Gentleman instanced the returns of many places; that of Liverpool, a great commercial town, and those of Leicester, Nottingham, Manchester, and Glasgow, manufacturing towns. But the numbers of the depositors were comparatively so few, when contrasted with the millions who came under the denomination of labouring classes, and the amount so deposited was so trifling, when it came to be divided amongst so large a mass, that these returns furnished very little evidence of the fact which the right hon. Baronet was desirous to establish. All that the right hon. Gentleman established, he wished the House to observe, was, that the improved amount of those depositors, during the period of two years, over which his calculations extended, was 2s. 7d. to each individual. He took down the words of the right hon. Gentleman, which he found confirmed by the report of his speech, where he stated the average deposit of each individual to be 5l. 15s. 4d. in 1837, and 5l. 17s. 11d. in 1838, giving just 2s. 7d. to represent the highly improved condition of the working classes. [Sir R. Peel: That was as to Glasgow, and Glasgow only.] Yes, but that was the only instance in which the right hon. Baronet had gone into demonstrative detail; and as he gave the right hon. Gentleman credit for using all his details with consummate skill, he, no doubt, put forward Glasgow as the advanced guard of his argument, in order to cover the weaker parts of it. There were many important considerations connected with these returns. It was delightful to find the progress made by the working men in imitating their superiors. These returns showed how fast they were approximating to the character of capitalists. But how frequently had he heard in that House, when hon. Members were enforcing the necessity of economy; and showing the pressure of taxation upon industry, "if you repeal this tax, or the other tax, what difference would it make—not 2s. 7d. to each individual;" but when it served their purpose to show that the condition of the labouring community was improving, then every penny was thankfully received, until, at last, 2s. 7d. was made to be a sum of no slight financial importance. But then the right hon. Gentleman discovered another improvement in the article of coals, and he stated, that as the number of tons of coals carried into Glasgow was something more than double what it had been in the year previous to that to which he referred, he concluded that the people of the town of Glasgow were in a very warm and improving condition. But the right hon. Gentleman also made this admission—that the population had increased greatly and had risen from 102,000 to 247,000. Now, surely, it was not very remarkable, that the demand for coals should have kept pace with the increase in the population. There was one other observation contained in the speech of the right hon. Baronet, which he thought could not fail to strike the House, as he was sure it would do the country, as being of fearful import. He understood the right hon. Baronet to advance this proposition, that a great revolution was going on in the manufacturing interest. It had been stated, and not denied, that the manufactories—the many and prodigious manufactories of the country—were everywhere increasing; that they were presenting their hideous forms (for in his opinion nothing could be more hideous than one of our great modern manufactories) in all the manufacturing towns and districts, and that at Preston, at least (this statement the right hon. Baronet advanced upon information he had received from his noble Friend, Lord Stanley), a vast quantity of capital had of late been employed in the erection of these edifices. Having made that statement, the right hon. Baronet proceeded to observe, that the little manufacturers must be prepared to be swallowed up by the great and more powerful manufactories which the capitalists were in every direction rearing about them, and that they must learn a lesson from the melancholy fate of the handloom-weavers. Did not this fearful statement suggest inquiry? And did it not arouse the fears and apprehensions of that class of persons whose capital was small and machinery defective, and who were thus little able to combat with the great leviathans of capital, who were erecting their establishments in every town? It was one of the mighty evils of the present times—an evil bearing down the general interests of the country—that the small means of the lesser and more industrious class of manufacturers were, day after day, tending to annihilation beneath the force and influence of the powerful efforts of the capitalists. It was the same thing with the farmers. The race of little farmers, who were formerly the pride of the country, and who inherited their property for many centuries from their forefathers—what had become of them? They were swallowed up by the great landed capitalists and loan-mongers, who conspired to divide the soil into larger farms, and thus, satisfied with inferior profits, were rapidly turning the ancient yeomanry of the country into labourers and paupers. And the comfort now held out to the men of small capital in the manufacturing interest was, that they must be prepared to meet the doom and destiny of the hand-loom weaver. Yet when such was their condition, the House was to be told, gravely and seriously, that this was another proof of the growing prosperity of the manufacturing community. The right hon. Baronet, the Member for Pembroke (Sir James Graham) had also declared his sentiments upon this subject, and had sought with great skill to enlist the sympathies and feelings of the agricultural community by contrasting the happy lot of him who was engaged in tilling the soil, with the wretched and melancholy condition of those who were immured in crowded cities, subject to the ills of noxious vapours, and breathing the pestilential atmosphere around them. It was really delightful to listen to the poetical description in which the right hon. Baronet called the attention of the House to the lowly home of the cottager, cast on the hill side, and gladdened by the golden waves of harvest around it. The right hon. Baronet would fain have led the House to believe, that all the agricultural labourers in the country were in a state of enviable prosperity, that they were to be seen musing at evening at the cottage door, chatting over their little inconveniences, putting aside their little deprivations, that they might the better take their children upon their knees, those little treasures, happy as innocent, who in cheerful groups had been waiting "to lisp" their sire's return. If the right hon. Baronet had been allowed to read Gray's Elegy he could not have been more touching. But was his story true? The right hon. Baronet having sat incessantly upon the Poor-law Committee, had the means of ascertaining the actual condition of the agricultural labouring classes, and yet he completely shut out from his mind the whole of the evidence he had heart: and in that House endeavoured by the witchery of his fancy—by the display of poetical and fascinating language—to beguile the House from the contemplation of the actual fact, and to seduce it into the adoption of a conclusion which he knew pet to be true. It was strange the right hon. Baronet, the Member for Pembroke—for he, before all men, had advocated the doctrine, that the labouring man must be thrown upon his own resources; that the standard by which he was to be fed in the workhouse must be the sum it might be in his power to earn outside of the workhouse; and that if this were not sufficient for his sustenance, the lowly cottage must be forsaken, and he must be compelled with his smiling children to become the wretched tenants of the union workhouses. Was it to be said gravely—was it to go forth throughout the country (an insult to the working community, and more especially the agricultural classes) that their condition was at the present moment improved? When they contrasted that statement with the hypocrisy of the motive in which it originated, it was impossible not to feel deeply disgusted. Because to say, that the agricultural labourer was now in the receipt of wages commensurate with the rise in the price of his food, was a statement that could be denied by every workman in every county in England. But there was an object as well as fallacy in that statement. The right hon. Baronet knew full well, and so did the formidable party by whom he was surrounded, that they could not sustain the Corn-laws for another hour unless they could strengthen themselves by causing it to be believed that the question was only, in a subordinate sense, a landlord's question; that it was, in a paramount and direct sense, a tenant's question; but that, above all things, and before all things, it was a labourers' question. Now, he was prepared to contend, that it was primarily a landlord's question; secondarily, in a considerable degree (at least so far as affected a particular class), a tenant's question; and, further, that it was, indeed, a deep question as affecting the working community; but just in the converse sense to that in which the argument had been advanced by the supporters of the Corn-laws. He did not at all agree with his hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton either in the statement or the inference he drew from it, that the farmers and cultivators of the soil were men of little education, unacquainted with business, and strongly attached to localities. Quite the reverse—they were a very able and dexterous class—they bad lived too long, too closely connected with the landlords not to know their own interests. Therefore, al- though he understood the motive which led the right hon. Baronet (Sir Robert Peel) to enforce his observations upon that point so earnestly, that he might enlist on his side the powerful class of tenants throughout the land, and induce them to look with gratitude to the indignant and eloquent vindication which their assumed interests had received at his hands in that House; although he understood the motive which led the right hon. Baronet to take that course, he was prepared to admit that the vindication was complete—that the farmers were not ignorant, were men of business, were fond of their homes (though they never failed to leave them when there was any thing to be got by it). Yes, he quite agreed with the right hon. Baronet that the farmers were not men indifferent to or ignorant of their own interests. But, although the right hon. Baronet and his adherents insisted that the question was not a landlord's question, they had evinced an exceeding anxiety to call the attention of the House to the pressure of what they called taxation, as it bore upon the landlords, and to that extent, at least said they, "it is a landlord's question." Now he was prepared to contend that, so far from the landlords being taxed more than any other class of the community, they were not only exempted from all taxation, but were positively benefited by our system of taxation. He should like very much to have a committee of account, the object of whose labours should be to show, in separate columns of debit and credit, what it was that the great aristocracy of the land—an essential part of our constitution—forming not only its boast but its strength, being not only its most beautiful part, but the part which at any cost must be maintained—he should like to see an account prepared showing what it was that the aristocracy or the great landlords actually paid in direct taxation, and what they actually received. He had never heard it mentioned in the course of the debate,—and considering the length to which their discussions had extended, it was certainly remarkable that anything should have eluded them—he had never heard mentioned the amount of taxation to which the country was subjected, nor the proportions which each class of the community was called upon to pay. The gross amount of the country's taxation might be stated in round numbers at 50,000,000l. a-year. If they were to go into committee with the view of ascertaining the fact, he would venture to say it would be found that upwards of 30,000,000l. of that sum fell directly upon the labouring community, while of the remaining 20,000,000l., he would challenge the right hon. Baronet (Sir Robert Peel) to show that anything approaching to 5,000,000l., even conceding to him the items he had enumerated as bearing exclusively upon the landlords, were borne by that particular interest. There was a return made to that House not very remotely, in which the places held by every Gentleman in the House were set forth, together with the salary and advantages which attached to each. Now, when they came to consider how many Members of that House were in the navy, how many in the army, how many in the possession of civil appointments, and when they travelled from the individual circumstances of these Gentlemen, to the contemplation of their immediate dependents, in short, when they took a walk through all our great establishments, when they looked at the list of clerks in the financial departments—in the Custom-house, in the Excise, in the Stamp-office—[An hon. Member: In the hackney-coach-office; Aye, or as the right hon. Gentleman with excellent taste said, in the hackney-coach-office; when they looked at the number of clerks employed in all these offices, it would be found that those immediately connected with the land, and who it was pretended were entitled to exception from taxation on account of the heavy burdens imposed upon their property, were receiving back again a great deal more than they actually paid to the general finances of the country. Well, indeed, might these Gentlemen say, that they had a direct interest in supporting the establishments of the country; because whilst they contributed towards their support with one hand, they were abundantly remunerated by what they drew from them with the other. Without enumerating, or still less analysing the claim of these Gentlemen to exemption as regarded the various items which they maintained were exclusively imposed upon the soil, such as the malt-tax, the land-tax, church-rates, and payments of that description—without fortifying the House with arguments to combat their claim to exemption upon those grounds—believing, as he did, however, that the only item which in any way came fairly under the head of an exclusive payment, was that of the land-tax, yet he did wish just to call the attention of the House for one moment to the manner in which upon a former occasion these Gentlemen had dealt with the claims which they now put forward as entitling them to exemption. The hon. Gentleman the Member for North Yorkshire (Mr. Cayley), who moved, or rather placed upon the notice-paper of the House, an amendment which he did not move, amongst other things enumerated the church-rates as one of the burdens upon the soil. Did the hon. Gentleman forget, or could other Gentlemen forget, when, not long since, an effort was made in that House to rescue the Protestant Dissenters from the payment of church-rates, that all the Gentlemen on the opposite side were up in arms, not merely to resist the claim upon general grounds, but to impute motives, to impute selfish considerations, to those who made it. "Oh," said the hon. Gentleman, on that occasion, "the conduct of these men is the more odious, because they come here under the pretence of relieving their consciences, when they are in point of fact, asking for nothing else than the relief of their estates." He had not heard that language repeated in the present debate. But if that charge were well founded, what was the argument advanced in support of it? It was this:—"Did you not buy your estates subject to church-rates, and are you not odious hypocrites when you come to this House, and ask upon the ground of conscientiousness to be relieved from the payment of them? Why did not every man of you, at the time you purchased your property, receive an equivalent for the church-rates you would afterwards have to pay, in the diminished price which you gave, as compared with what you would have been required to pay if the property were not liable to this impost?" Why that argument applied with equal or greater force to the land-tax, because, let it be recollected, that the land-tax was not a modern tax; it was as old at least as a century and a half; and where was the man amongst the hon. Gentlemen opposite who inherited an estate, or who had purchased an estate, who had not taken it subject to the land-tax? If it were not so—if the land-tax were redeemed—was not that circumstance carefully and prominently put forth in the particulars of the sale, and was not the amount of the purchase money greater if the tax were redeemed, and less if it were unredeemed? Then, upon what principle was it that the landlords could claim any protection in the shape of a Corn-law, because that, after all, was the real question. And it was a very remarkable circumstance, that throughout the whole of this debate no one person had endeavoured to vindicate the Corn-law upon any other ground (or at least prominently so) than that protection was called for having reference to the high taxation and artificial condition of the landed interest. It was very true, that there had been two arguments pressed into the discussion which were of modern growth, and which had been forced into the debate by the landlords, because they felt, that their other arguments were failing them. If there were any foundation for these two arguments ail the rest might as well be thrown overboard, because whether the land were lightly taxed, or heavily taxed, the two positions he was about to notice would equally apply. The first argument was this—that no country, and least of all, this country, ought to be dependant for the supply of its food upon foreign states. The second proposition was this—that a Corn-law—(an hon. Gentleman near him said, that this was not a new proposition, but if it were not new, it had, at all events, been pressed far more prominently into this debate than upon any former occasion)—that a Corn-law was necessary to give protection against the influence of climate. Now, if either or both of those grounds were as irresistible as those who urged them contended they were, would they not, under all possible circumstances, be available? But these points had been so successfully answered by many succeeding speakers, that it would only be going over ground already traversed if he were to enter into a train of reasoning to refute them again. He would, therefore, only express his surprise that Gentlemen should contend, that the best way of securing a supply of food or of corn was by the sources from which it was to be obtained. He, for one, was weak enough to suppose, that the wider the field of supply, the more would the chances of failure be diminished. Although it might be said, as indeed it was said by the hon. Member for the North Riding of Yorkshire (Mr. Cayley), and afterwards, he believed, reverted to by the right hon. Baronet in a quotation which he made from Adam Smith, that the corn-producing countries of Europe laid pretty much in the same latitude, and were subject to the same vicissitudes and, same seasons as those which affected us in England, although that might be true, and if it were so, it was evident, that England would be no worse off than other countries; still the larger the extent of ground from which the supply was to be obtained, the less would be the chance of failure. Applying that argument, for instance, only to England itself, look at the returns from the corn districts, and it would be found, that though there had been a failure of crop in Essex, it had fortunately been made up by a more than usual average in some other distant county; and, indeed, if the whole circuit of the counties of England were run over, it would turn out, that the deficiency of crop in one county was more than made up in another county. Take, for instance, the case of hops last season. No person could have gone through the county of Hereford without being struck by the failure of the hop crops—there was last season scarcely a hop-bine to be seen in an healthy state, and yet those connected with the trade were met by the assurance, that though there would be a failure in Hereford, there would be more than an usually large supply in Essex, and that the hop-bines looked well in Kent. If this remark applied to England, would it not apply with still greater force to the more extended surface of the Continent, or to the world at large, to which we might look for a supply, if, indeed, by any unfortunate circumstance, the crop should wholly fail at home. Then as to the other argument, that it was desirable to give protection, because in this country we were exposed to vicissitudes of climate and of seasons, why, of all the mad contrivances, that human legislation ever resorted to, surely none could be so visionary or so vicious, as to attempt to control the seasons, or meet the exigencies of them by any provisions of law. The seasons moved on in harmonious regularity, under the guidance of the wisdom which it would be well for us to imitate; but it did not belong to human beings to control them—the seasons moved on in their course, showering upon the nations of the earth blessings which they did not always appreciate. It was, therefore, incumbent upon them to go back to the inquiry whether this was not in truth a landlord's question. He would very briefly state what he considered it to be; because he was one of those who were at all times anxious to legislate for practical purposes, and he should be well pleased to concur in any plan that would meet the claims of the various conflicting interests which abounded in the country. While, therefore, abstractedly, he owned himself friendly to what was called unrestrained free-trade, he was not so infatuated in his judgement as to believe, that the only mode in which the conflicting interests of the country were to be appeased was by resorting to extreme measures; for he would not conceal his decided impression, that to resort to what was called free-trade precipitately and at once, would shower great mischief upon a large portion of the community. Even as concerned the tenants, whose fortunes it was contended were so closely identified with that of the landlords, there was a class of them to which the solicitude of the House ought to be directed—the tenants under covenants. What would be their condition if a system of free trade were instantaneously resorted to? Was the House prepared coincident with the adoption of free trade to pass a law by which this class of tenants should be emancipated from the stipulations of their covenants? He would not attempt as some hon. Gentlemen had done to soothe the landed interest with an assurance that free trade would not affect them. It would affect them deeply; and so it ought. They had had a long run of advantages, and the time was at hand when they must be prepared to forego a considerable portion of them. On every occasion that farms become vacant the number of applicants outrun the number of farms, and from the competition for land thus existing among the tenantry, high rents are always given, and the landlord reaps the benefit. Therefore he did not hesitate to say, that under these circumstances, and taking into consideration the covenants under which many tenants held their farms, to bring about a system of free trade all at once, and without providing for such cases was a system to which he was not prepared to be a party. Nor was it the tenants under the covenants that would be the only sufferers by such a sudden change; the effects would also prove most injurious to the tenants-at-will, for this class of tenants had embarked their all in the soil. They had invested their capital in agriculture, in farm houses, implements of husbandry, in stock, and the various necessaries for carrying on their business, and what would be the value of all that they had thus embarked in the soil if the Legislature were to destroy altogether and at once the system under which they had thus laid out their capital, and adopt what is called the system of free trade? He considered it would be dealing unfairly to adopt that system at once, and therefore he would not be a party to its introduction. Nor did he think, that the right hon. Baronet opposite had dealt with this question in his speech as a great statesman, although he may have discussed it in a well-considered and skilful manner as the leader of a powerful party. The right hon. Baronet and other hon. Members who followed him on the opposite side, had laid great force upon the circumstance, and had endeavoured to found a strong argument upon the fact, that the Government had not been pleased to communicate what they might be disposed to do when in Committee. It was all very well for the right hon. Baronet to pursue that line of argument; it no doubt suited his position remarkably well, who found it at times somewhat difficult to keep his people in order. But he should have liked to have seen the countenance of hon. Members opposite; he should have been anxious to have witnessed their chuckle if Government had come forward on this occasion, and stated that they were prepared to say what they would do, and had in fact, as they in that case must have done, communicated to the House what plan of alteration, and what extent of change they, as a Cabinet, were prepared to advocate. Certain he was they would not have liked it. Whatever plan Government might have proposed, it would have been objected to. If a fixed duty, it would have been said, that it was too high to answer in years of scarcity, and recourse would be had to an order in council, to set it aside; while in seasons of abundance it would afford no reasonable protection to the home grower. Had the Government, then, announced their plan as had been argued they ought to have done, what chance, he asked, would it have had, under any circumstances, of success? Look at the manner in which this question had been treated in another place, and then let them say, whether the development of the intentions of the Government would have led to any useful result. Well, but the hon. Members opposite will say, why did not the present Cabinet act as other Cabinets have done? Why not state on their responsibility as a Government what course they thought it was for the best interests of this country to follow—abandoning the shelter of an open question—then if they were unsuccessful in persuading this House to consent to their policy, let the Government change hands and allow them (the hon. Members opposite) to step forward and take their places. It was one thing however for a Government to come boldly forward, and to act in that manner for the purpose of proposing measures to carry out the obvious desires and the wishes of the people, but it was another thing when the Government were in advance of the hope to endeavour to control and to coerce public opinion. He had never hesitated, as a Member of that House, to express his sentiments and to lament the backward policy of the Government—he had always felt and declared that their hesitating, vacillating policy, had greatly impeded the march of useful reform. But their backwardness had reference to subjects upon which all sincere Reformers were agreed, and not upon questions like the present, upon which they were so seriously divided. He did not hesitate to say, that the great constituent body of the people of this country were directly and firmly opposed to any great or sudden alteration in the Corn-laws. But he was anxious to advert to two other topics that had been dwelt on by the hon. Members opposite. He was desirous to do so as the poor man's friend, and the poor man's organ in that House. He was anxious to put the question in a new shape, and to advert to one or two points that had not been previously alluded to, and he trusted he would be listened to, because he considered that all arguments bearing upon the truth and tendency of this great subject should be brought forward even if they sat another week. He would allude to them very briefly. It was contended, that when the price of corn was low, the rate of wages was proportionally low; and that when an advance took place in the price of corn, there was a corresponding increase in the price of the wages of labour. He would not repeat the answers that had been already given to this argument; but would observe, that if this were really true, there would be no advantage in the restrictive system. But Ito prove such was not the fact, he would refer them on this point to the evidence taken before the Poor-law Committee; and he would say farther, that he believed that never before in the history of parliamentary inquiry was the poor man asked for his opinion. Though on former occasions they had landlords and their agents, and farmers, before committees on agricultural distress, it was reserved for the committee on the Poor-law of last Session to examine the labouring man; and he thought it but right also to state that when these poor men were examined before the committee, no one who heard them could have overlooked, or could have for-gotten, their straight-forward conduct and plain common-sense answers. So much satisfaction did their conduct afford the committee, that the Chairman was requested to express the pleasure which the committee had experienced from their whole behaviour. The line of examination which was pursued towards these labouring men referred, of course, to the question of wages, and it was shown, that whether the weekly amount of wages was 8s. or 11s., the labouring man, after paying for his bread, had only 1s. 2d. left wherewith to pay for the maintenance of his wife and family and his other domestic expenses. He trusted, that he should be pardoned in requesting the attention of the House for a few moments to allude more particularly to some of the evidence given before that committee, and he wished it to be known to the world, that the Members of the Senate of England, who sat on that committee, listened to the sentiments of these poor men, with exemplary patience and kindness. There was one poor man examined—a venerable man named James Kershaw, who told them, that if he lived to the next 6th of June he would be ninety-one years of age. He had survived all his family, but his faculties were quite entire, and he could tell the story of nearly a century. This man had no interest to give a gloss to his statement, and he would read a portion of his evidence. The hon. Member read as follows, "What age are you?—If I live to the 6th of June I shall be ninety-one." He had survived his family, and could tell the history of nearly a century; his evidence was important, because the few months of life left him had nothing to induce him to gloss over his story. He was asked "Do you remember the condition of the labourer during your life?—Yes; when I was first married I could have a bushel of malt for half-a-crown, and every poor person had a barrel of beer to drink instead of water, but it soon rose to 3s. 6d." That question had been put by the hon. Member for Kent (Mr. Hodges); who also asked him, "Did the labouring man informer times use to brew as a general thing?—Yes." How long have they left it off?—Ever since malt got to such a price that they could not buy it." Do you know any poor man who brews his own beer now?—Not one." Do you remember the rate of wages at the time of the American war?—Yes; 1s. 4d. a-day, or 8s. a-week." It might be said, that going so far back was referring to a period that had nothing to do with the question. In answer to that he would say, that he had heard many statistical details introduced in the debate that had much less connexion with the question. The witness was further asked, would the labourers be able to do more work if they had better food? The answer was, "To be sure, they cannot do more than half a-day's work." some of them dropped down when they had a little hard work." If it were said, that this man was too old, and that his faculties were impaired so as to affect the weight of his opinion, he would take another labourer of the name of Thomas Preston, whose age was only thirty-eight. This man was asked by a Member of the committee, with whom, although hon. Members may differ in political sentiments, they will not dispute his competency to take a part in such an enquiry—he meant Mr. Wakley. "Do you feel in performing your work, that you have the strength a man ought to have?" He replied, "No, nor yet half the strength; I am not so strong as I was." He asked then, what was the character of that evidence? How did it agree with the descriptions which they had heard of the condition of the labouring classes, and of the rate of wages? How was it these labouring men, for whom hon. Members opposite had of late taken such an extraordinary predilection, that they had received them into their confidence, formed Conservative clubs for their benefit, and joined them at their dinners, with noble Peers for their presidents, and paupers for their stewards, whose opinions were now venerated in high, places, whose sentiments were become hereditary canons with the landlords, whom even dukes quote, and perhaps, it was wise in them to do so, rather than to risk anything original, for these quotations did them great credit. But what did the evidence he had read imply, but that the greatest misery prevailed among these agricultural labourers. What a fellacious picture had the hon. Gentleman opposite drawn of the situation of the agricultural labourer? How different from the simple, unadorned statement of the poor men whose evidence he had just read! It was true, that the labouring men of the present day did not act as their fathers had done in the year 1815. They did not crowd our doors, nor menace Members, nor endeavour to extort promises. Hon. Members did not now live in terror, nor in times when, as seems by the narrative of Mr. Wilberforce, he was obliged to garrison his House and keep a military force within it for self-preservation. But the change for the better was not owing to any improvement in the situation of the labouring classes, but because these classes now thought and judged more wisely and understood far better what was their real interest. He rejoiced that it was so, and he trusted when they appealed to this House, and to the hon. Members opposite for an admission to share in political rights, that their appeal would be graciously received, and that they would be allowed to vote, and thus peradventure give the hon. Members opposite more counties than they represented at present. He trusted, that they would not turn round upon them, and say that they were not fit for high political duties. It surely would be ungrateful in hon. Members opposite to act in that way to their new friends, whose sayings had become proverbs in high places, subjects of eulogy among the great. He trusted, that they would not refuse to admit these men into the pale of the constitution, and that they would find no difficulty in acting hereafter on their present opinions, or betray any difference between what they now said and what they would then do. There was still one subject he wished to touch. It had been said, that wages rise with the price of corn, and that they fall as corn decreases in price. He asked if that was borne out by statistical facts? He would read some calculations on that point from a series of letters that had been published by one of the most extensive landholders in the kingdom (Earl Fitzwilliam). No man could deny to that nobleman the credit of disinterestedness, and he only wished it had been consistent with the rules of that House to allow the production of that noble Lord to have been read from the Chair. He would have wished to have heard the three letters of Earl Fitzwilliam in favour of an alteration in the Corn-laws, and the addresses of Lord Western against alteration, and then that the votes of Members should have been taken on the merits. According to the table of wages given by Earl Fitzwilliam in 1801, when the wages were 10s. a week; after paying for two-thirds of a bushel, the cost of the family was 9s. 10d., leaving a surplus of 2d. In 1810, wages at 10s., flour 8s., surplus 2s.; in 1814, wages 14s., flour 6s., surplus 7s. 11d.; 1820, wages 12s., flour 5s. 6d., surplus 6s. 6d.; 1822, wages 10s., flour 3s. 8d., surplus 6s. 4d.; 1829, wages 11s., flour 5s. 6d., surplus 5s. 6d. The main fact elicited by these tables is, that when corn was cheap the labourer received higher wages than when the price was dear, and thus left a larger surplus applicable to the purchase of the necessaries and comforts of life. It was a fallacy to suppose, that the value of the labourer's wages depended on the specific amount in money. The real test was what he could purchase for the wages which were paid to him in exchange for his labour. A labouring man might be just as well off with wages of 9s. as of 18s. It was what his labour could bring him in exchange with other commodities—that was the value of his wages. He had received a letter that morning from an intelligent person, a friend of his in the county of Essex, which he would read to the House. The letter was to the effect, that all classes had received their full share in the debate except the agricultural labourers. From landowners on one side, and high price of bread on the other, the labourers had been jammed into a most unfair predicament. The poor labourer was left alone, and the public laboured under a delusion. Notwithstanding the high price of food, wages had undergone no change. Wages were no more than 9s. a week, and this they had been for several years. In some places perhaps wages had risen as much as twenty per cent., but bread had risen from fifty to seventy per cent. He knew that these details were dry and uninteresting, but as stress had been laid upon the argument, that high prices produced high wages he wished to show the fallacy of that opinion. As it was contended, that the maintenance of the present Corn-laws was not so much a landlord's question, or a tenant's question, as it was a labourer's question, he was anxious to lay before the House the facts of the case, as they actually bore on the real interests and condition of the labourer. One word more, and he had done. He regretted much the terms of this motion; it was much too narrow for its object. They ought not to have been engaged now, and especially for the length of time which this debate had occupied, in considering the condition of a mere class interest—for such it was. It was pressed on their attention by a powerful party, in this House and out of it—by the master manufacturers. The motion should have been much wider and larger, and he should have been pleased, that the motion had been, that the House should resolve itself into a committee to consider the financial state of the nation; and although that had not been pressed upon them, it was the question; and say what they would, the Repeal of the Corn-laws would not tend to advance the condition of the labourer, unless they directed their attention to what appeared to him the landlords anxious desire to conceal—the state of our taxation; for if free trade in corn were granted to-morrow, he believed, that it would afford little if any advantage to the labourer either in manufactures or agriculture. He hoped, that he candour of this declaration would not be unpleasant, but he was stating what he believed to be true, and he was indifferent whether it pleased or not. He said, that it was a delusion, and it was supporting a dangerous and pernicious idea to suppose, that England could compete with all the countries with which she was competing, and with whom she was anxious to run a still stronger and longer race of competition so long as there was the present enormous and frightful inequality in their financial relations. An hon. Member, in the course of this discussion, had stated the amount of the debt and annual expenditure in different countries of Europe, and contrasted their respective amounts with the annual taxation of our own: whence it appeared that the amount of taxation of this, as compared with that of other countries, was as fifty millions were to eight millions. He begged to ask hon. Gentlemen in what way they fancied that this country could bear up successfully against the violent efforts now making by the young life and the young blood of foreign trade, which were hourly brought to bear against our manufacturing efforts? If we had free trade in corn, and an unchanged system of taxation, he believed, that the manufacturers would be even worse off, because they would find, that the only resource they had to fall back upon would be the wages of labour, and thus, instead of improving the condition of the working classes, greater discontent, because greater misery, would ensue. The time was gone by, when national benefit was to be attained by consulting exclusive interests; larger and purer motives must animate our deliberations. The only sure and lasting method of upholding our national greatness, whether we regarded our agricultural or commercial interests, was by well-considered measures far advancing the social comfort, the moral improvement, and thus permanently to increase the happiness of the industrious population.

Sir Robert Peel

desired to say a few words in explanation, upon a matter of fact alone, upon which he was sure the hon. Member had unintentionally misrepresented what he had said. The first point was, as to the amount of coal consumed in Glasgow. The hon. Member had stated, that he had said, that the increase in the population of that city, from the year 1812 to 1833, was from 103,000 to 262,000, and that the increase in the quantity of coal consumed, was from 500,000 tons to 1,200,000. The hon. Member had, however, mistaken the statement which he had made to the House. He had said, that the population had increased from the year 1812 to 1838 by more than double, but that from 1831 to 1838, being the period in which the Corn-laws were in operation, the quantity of coals consumed had increased from 500,000 to 1,200,000. That was the first point. The hon. Gentleman had also made a curious error in respect to the savings' bank at Glasgow. The hon. Gentleman had stated, that he had said, that the total increase of the profit to contributors in one year, between 1837 and 1838, was 2s. 7d. a-head. Now, in 1837, supposing there were 1,000 contributors, and 1l. each the average amount of contributions, and then, supposing that in 1838 there were 2,000 contributors of 2l. each, and 2,000 of 10s. each, the average amount of contributions would be only 15s., and the hon. Member would infer that the condition of the labouring classes would be worse by 5s.

Mr. Hindley

rose amidst loud cries of "question!" and "divide!" After some time he obtained a partial hearing, and was understood to say, he only rose to repel the imputations cast upon the manufacturing classes by the hon. Member for Lincolnshire, and the right hon. Baronet, the Member for Tamworth, and he was sure, that if those hon. Members were as well acquainted with the manufacturing districts as he was, they would be aware, that there were no grounds for them. As to the House going into committee, he thought that they should at once accede to the proposition which was made, in order that a fixed duty might be deter- mined upon. All his constituents were urging him to support a measure for the total repeal of the existing laws, but if he were asked that night to give such a vote, he had no hesitation in saying, that he would rather lose his seat than give such a vote. He desired that the question should be considered, not with a view of destroying the agricultural interests, but to secure justice to the people, and he was confident, that no time could arrive which would be more favourable to the discussion of the subject than the present.

Mr. Dennistoun,

as the representative of one of the largest commercial and manufacturing towns in the empire, craved for a few minutes the indulgence of the House. He had listened with great attention to the speeches which had been delivered on both sides of the question, and especially to the speech of the right hon. Baronet (Sir Robert Peel), and one more elaborately full of fallacies he had never heard either in or out of that House. He would pass over the part relating to the noble Lord and his colleagues, which they were quite able to answer—he would not notice the references to the political economists, and would touch only upon that which occupied a material portion of the address—the statement that our exports were increasing. Certainly they had increased, and they were increasing, but admitting that this were the fact—admitting that the ocean was covered with our ships, and that there was no nation which our merchants did not reach—yet these were no reasons why the people of this country should be limited to the food produced within our borders. Hon. Members might mystify as much as they would, they might speechify till downs-day, but they could never get over the fact, that they resisted the repeal of these laws for the purpose of raising the rent of the land, and of stinting the people of this country in the quantity of their food when plenty was offered them. One argument had been used which seemed to him to be an extraordinary one, it was said, that if they injured the agriculturists, they would take away the manufacturers best customers, but he would ask, what kind of customers they must be, who first taxed the manufacturers for means to buy of them? If the advocates of the Corn-laws blinded themselves so, that they could not sec this, at least they must admit, that so far from being independent of foreign nations, we were at the present moment materially dependent upon them. Let them take, for instance, the cotton trade. Did hon. Gentlemen not know that the annual quantity of cotton required in England was 1,200,000 bags, and that 200,000 bags were alone grown in our own colonies, leaving a million bags to be supplied by foreigners? Was the House aware that there was not above three months' consumption in the country? And he would ask, what state our manufacturers would be in if for six long months they were deprived of the supply they depended on from abroad? Yet there had been no danger, and there was no fear of danger in the cotton trade—why then should they fear for a supply of corn? If the majority of that House would not entertain the question, and if the people should find that they had nothing to expect at their hands, they would look with a scrutinizing eye upon the constitution of that House. He therefore, for one, went to a division with little fear and with much hope. If, on the one hand, the House should agree to the motion, they would achieve a great present good; but if, on the other hand, they should refuse the committee, the time would not be far distant when there would be such a thorough searching and perfect reform of the House, that its Members would become the real representatives of the people, and the day would soon arrive when the laws would be passed for the benefit of every order of the State, and to secure the happiness and prosperity of all classes.

Mr. A. Sanford,

after the conclusion of the speech of the hon. Member for Southwark, in which be entirely concurred, would not make one observation more upon that part of the subject; there was, however, another portion of the debate to which he must allude, on which he felt deeply, and on which he was extremely reluctant to address the House. Much observation had been made on both sides as to the declaration of the noble Lord the Secretary of State for the Home Department; and when the noble Lord talked of a fixed duty, he wished to ask him. what that duty was intended; not that the noble Lord's answer would have any effect upon his (Mr. Sanford's) vote, as he had fully made up his mind to give a decided negative to the motion; but he was induced to ask the question, because he had given a firm and, he trusted, independent sup- port to her Majesty's Government, and in consequence of the opinion expressed in another place by the noble Lord at the head of the Government. If he thought that the opinion of the noble Lord entirely coincided with a majority of the Cabinet, he would not have put the question; but he was inclined to think that a different opinion was entertained by a majority of the Cabinet, he had thought it a duty which he owed to his constituents, though a painful one to himself, to ask what the noble Lord intended by a fixed duty, and he entreated the noble Lord to answer the question.

Lord John Russell,

had stated in his former speech that he was in favour of a moderate fixed duty, and he believed that he was right; but having reference to the specific motion of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, which was one for the House resolving itself into a Committee of the whole House, for the purpose of considering the Act of 9 George 4th, regulating the importation of corn, it was clear that the motion bound neither himself, nor any one who voted for it, to concur in a total repeal. In stating, then, that he was in favour of a moderate fixed duty, he had not felt that under the terms of the present motion it was competent for him to go further; he could do so, but it would take some time, and require the detail of many calculations; and if he had stated any reasons for the amount of duty he would recommend, he should have entered upon a question differing from the proposition which had been made, and would merely have caused a debate relative to any alteration by a total repeal, and to the substitution of a fixed duty. He conceived that the proper place for a discussion of that kind was in a Committee of the House; and if he had now urged it, he would only have interposed a new question between those who were in favour of the present law as it stood, and those who wished to alter it.

Mr. W. James,

was anxious to state his views upon this important question, that there might not be any misconstruction put on the course he should take by the large and independent agricultural constituency which he had the honour to represent. He would preface the few remarks he meant to make by saying, that the value of landed property in this country, of which settlements had been made, on which mortgages had been granted, and on which annuities had grown up, ought not to be materially altered, except on strong grounds, or from overwhelming necessity. If persons got 3 per cent. from land they thought themselves very fortunate, as the greater portion only paid 2½ per cent. Still he did not think that a free admission of foreign corn, at a moderate fixed duty, would make that alteration in the value of land which hon. Gentlemen dreaded. He had never thought that an alteration of the Corn-laws, for the purpose of imposing such a fixed duty, would be injurious to the agriculturists. He believed, that such an alteration would lead to an improved and better system: for it would procure steady prices which were far preferable to a law which caused almost a famine and enormously high prices at one time, and made them ruinously low at another. He was not prepared to say, that the Corn-laws should be got rid of at one fell swoop, but they ought to have such a constant importation of corn at a moderate duty as would cause a fair and steady price, whilst it did not interfere with the culture of our own soil. We were not, and could not be, independent of foreign countries, nor was it our interests to be entirely independent; for if we were independent, we should have no trade and no commerce, and where would the greatness and glory of England be, if she had no trade and no commerce? The truth was, that we were no more independent of foreign countries than they were of us. Experience further proved that an uniform steady custom and demand regulated the supply, whilst a system of fluctuating duties greatly injured us; for it was absurd to suppose that foreigners would keep a large stock of wheat constantly on hand on the chance of our having a scanty harvest. The great mischief of the labourers and to the country at the present time, and what caused the famine prices—for wheat 70s. or 80s. now, was equal to wheat 100s. or 120s, a few years ago—was not so much a deficiency in the late harvest as that there was not abroad a sufficient supply for our demands, owing to our bad Corn-laws. They were told, indeed, that with a low price of bread wages would come down; bet he did not want to see a low price of corn; he wished to see all danger of famine dismissed; by opening the trade they would, moreover, raise the price of corn on the continent, and the value of labour would rise. Did any one believe that, with a flourishing state of trade, agricultural wages would not rise? He maintained distinctly that a flourishing state of trade and a depressed state of agriculture could not co-exist. He knew that these arguments were not new—he had used them himself ten years ago, when he seconded a motion for a total repeal of the Corn-laws, but he had become wiser since that time. If the workmen were better paid they would be stronger and would do more work, and the natural consequence would be that there would be more farming produce of all kinds produced and consumed; whereas, if the manufactures failed, a large number of persons would be thrown out of employ and would come upon the land for support. It was therefore dearly the interest of the farmers to have steady prices and a fixed duty. He would conclude by moving an amendment, or rather an addition, to the motion of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton. At the end of the motion he proposed to add the following words:—"With the view not to a total repeal of that law, but of ascertaining whether any and what improvement of it can be effected for the benefit of the agricultural as well as all other classes of the community." The amendment was not seconded.

Mr. Villiers

then rose to reply. It was his purpose, in bringing forward the motion, to keep as far as possible from dividing those who were of opinion that the Corn-laws were not fitted for the present state of the country. He had received very little encouragement for foregoing his own opinion—he had not introduced his own opinions into the motion, because he wished that all those who wished for a change of the Corn-laws should be enabled to vote with him. He wished that other Members had followed the same course, but throughout he had been met with various propositions, which were only fitted for the committee, and at the very last he was met with an amendment which, if carried, would at once defeat his motion; but as that amendment had not met with a seconder, of course his motion would be that which would be put from the Chair. It was now some years since the question had been fairly discussed; he, therefore, wished to know the grounds upon which the present laws were to be supported; his purpose had, therefore, been in a great measure answered, by the discussion which had taken place. He had not been met fairly on this occasion—the question had not been discussed; it had been made with personalities, and with dry references to statistical details; if they had gone into committee, he would have suggested his reasons for thinking that the system might be changed both wisely and safely. It was objected, that they on his side of the House were not agreed as to the proposition which was to be made in committee. Had they been agreed, where would have been the use of going into committee? The hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets had made a proposal for going into committee, with a view of putting on a fixed duty; that was objected to, because it was said, that many agriculturists would prefer a total repeal of the law. He then brought forward a proposition for the total repeal of the Corn-laws, and he was then told, that this proposition was too strong a one. He had then brought forward the present motion, and now objections were found to it in the same spirit. He would consider that the division of that night would show those who were opposed to all change; and on the other side it would show those who were not pleased with the present state of things. The noble Lord, the Member for Shropshire, had declared it as his opinion, that the agitation against the Corn-laws was produced by a set of desperate men—that it had originated in the vanity and conceit of a set of political economists. The noble Lord was, no doubt, sincere in this declaration, but it was much to be lamented that the most influential class in the kingdom, and those who were called upon to decide the question, should be, by their very station, so far removed from the actual business of the country, and have so little means of forming an accurate judgment on public opinion, as to suppose that the feeling upon this question was the mere result of a set of political economists. The right hon. Baronet opposite (Sir Robert Peel) also had astonished him by the course of his arguments on the present question. The right hon. Baronet's opposition to his (Mr. Villiers's) motion on a former occasion, was, if he rightly remembered, based on his having brought it forward on too narrow a ground. On the present occasion, however, when the larger field was opened to him, the right hon. Baronet confined himself to that narrow ground which he had formerly deprecated. He had solely applied himself to the consideration of the effect of these laws on the manufacturing interest. He could not help thinking that it was a pretext for not going into committee, and that those who voted with the right hon. Baronet would have done better to have candidly avowed that, under any circumstances, they were determined to vote in favour of the law as it was. He would have advised the right hon. Member for Kent (Sir E. Knatchbull) to have said so at once, rather than seeking to impute things to him that he had never said. The right hon. Baronet had charged him, in seeking for a repeal of the Corn-laws, with the ulterior objects of getting rid of the national debt, of sweep-away the aristocracy, and of destroying the Church establishment. Now he denied altogether having any such views, or that he had said anything which furnished the slightest or remotest ground to the right hon. Baronet for making such a charge against him. The hon. Gentleman opposite complained of the proposition for repeal, on the ground that the repeal of the Corn-laws would throw so many farmers and labourers out of occupation. If the whole argument for these laws was, that they kept a large number of farmers in occupation, and of labourers in employment, in what did this differ from any other law affording public employment in which change was proposed? If the stoppage of improvement was not a consequence of superseding occupation in other cases, why should it be so in this? The argument would be equally strong in opposition to all propositions for changes in things as they exist, yet the Legislature was not in the habit of fettering itself in its course of improvement by such considerations. He would not now repeat what had been well done by the Member for Kendal, in showing:, in what way the right hon. Baronet, the Member for Tamworth, had made a fallacious use of the official documents on which he had laid such stress, and in which it had been shown that the hon. Baronet had compared the years 1837 and 1838, in order to show that the manufacturers were in a flourishing state; and to prove that manufacturers had grossly exaggerated their case. He had shown that the hon. Baronet had only compared the year 1837 and 1838—a year of depression with a year of re-action—whereas, the year 1836, had it been referred to, would have shown that the exports were greater than in 1838. Moreover, the hon. Baronet had not correctly represented the case of the manufacturers, nor had he offered any answer to their case. They alleged that it was the effect of the Corn-laws to prevent them from effecting exchanges with certain countries in Europe which had nothing but their raw products to offer, and that they had in consequence lost the markets of those countries, that food had been rendered artificially low in those countries, and had been rendered artificially high in this country, and thus they had been tempted to manufacture for themselves, and also had in many cases become our rivals in other countries. To this the hon. Baronet had not offered any answer, and the case against the Corn-law in preventing us from exchanging our manufactures with those countries remains as it was stated. The hon. Baronet had also assured the House that there was little occasion to alter these laws, since the people in the manufacturing districts were well off, and he inferred this from the deposits in the savings' banks. Why, he might have quoted the returns which the hon. Baronet had used for his purpose with better effect, to show that the people were better able to save in cheap years than in dear years. The hon. Baronet had compared the years 1828, 1829, 1830, 1831, with 1835, 1836, 1837, and 1838, and he showed there was more farming during the last years than the former ones. Now, the last had been cheaper years than the former ones, but he had forborne to use such facts, knowing them to be extremely fallacious. But he asked what answer had been given to the simple question, why the community were to have a heavy tax laid on its food, which tax yielded nothing to the State, and was for the advantage of a particular class? No public ground had been stated for this, and until the defence of these laws was rested on such ground, or until some national good could be shown to be had in view, he was satisfied the question would never be settled. There was not even any great authority which could be pointed to in support of these laws. Was there any great, or learned, or distinguished person who had ever written in their support?—and, on the contrary, how many could be referred to who had denounced them as bad and unjust? For instance, the most eminent public man of his day was the first to deprecate the law when it was first passed—he alluded to Lord Grenville, a landlord, statesman, Christian, and patriot. He denounced these laws as an offence to God, as an injury to the country, and not a benefit to those who passed it. In what did he farther predict of its consequences that has not occurred? Again, there was one at this day who was devoting his whole mind and talents to the Conservative cause, and desired to maintain the institutions of the country—Dr. Chalmers had said, that the Corn-laws tainted the moral air of this country, that there was no such topic of burning discontent, and that nothing would sweeten the air of British society more than to abolish them. Lastly, let him refer to that great and influential journal that was now the mainstay of the Conservative party, and who desired to restore them to power. Why, that journal said that there was nothing in the East so despotic and cruel as these laws. He wanted to know what the people of England had done that they should be subjected to this frightful burthen. It was out of this Egyptian bondage that he wished to lead the people, and unless their hearts were harder than Pharaoh's they would vote for the motion.

The House divided: —Ayes 195; Noes 342: Majority 147.

List of the AYES.
Abercromby, hn. G. R.	Bulwer, Sir L.
Adam, Admiral	Busfield, W.
Aglionby, H. A.	Byng, rt. hon. G. S.
Ainsworth, P.	Callaghan, D.
Anson, hon. Colonel	Campbell, Sir J.
Anson, Sir G.	Clay, W.
Attwood, T.	Clive, E. B.
Bainbridge, E. T.	Codrington, Admiral
Baines, E.	Collier, J.
Bannerman, A.	Collins, W.
Baring, F. T.	Cowper, hon. W. F.
Barnard, E. G.	Craig, W. G.
Beamish, F. B.	Crawford, W.
Bellew, R. M.	Crawley, S.
Berkeley, hon. H.	Currie, R.
Berkeley, hon. C.	Curry, W.
Bernal, R.	Dalmeny, Lord
Bewes, T.	Dashwood, G. H.
Blackett, C.	Dennistoun, J,
Blake, W. J.	D'Eyncourt, rt. hon. C. T.
Blunt, Sir C.
Briscoe, J. J.	Divett, E.
Brocklehurst, J.	Donkin, Sir R. S.
Brotherton, J.	Duke, Sir J.
Brown, R. D.	Duncan, Lord
Buller, C.	Duncombe, T.
Buller, E.	Dundas, C. W. D.

Dundas, F.	Muskett, G. A.
Easthope, J.	Nagle, Sir R.
Elliot, hon. J. E.	O'Connell, D.
Ellice, Capt. A.	O'Connell, M. J.
Ellice, rt. hon. E.	O'Connell, M.
Ellice, E.	O'Ferrall, R. M.
Etwall, R.	Ord, W.
Evans, Sir De L.	Paget, Lord A.
Evans, W.	Palmerston, Viscount
Feilden, W.	Parker, J.
Fielden, J.	Parker, R. T.
Fenton, J.	Parnell, rt. hn. Sir H.
Ferguson, Sir R.	Parrott, J.
Ferguson, R.	Pattison, J.
Finch, F.	Pechell, Captain
Fitzroy, Lord C.	Philips, M.
Fleetwood, Sir P. H.	Philips, G. R.
Fort, J.	Phillipotts, J.
Gibson, T. M.	Pigot, D. R.
Gillon, W. D.	Protheroe, E.
Grey, rt. hon. Sir C.	Pryme, G.
Grey, Sir G.	Ramsbottom, J.
Grote, G.	Rice, E. R.
Guest, Sir J.	Rice, rt. hon. T. S.
Hall, Sir B.	Rich, H.
Harvey, D. W.	Rippon, C.
Hastie, A.	Roche, E. B.
Hawes, B.	Roche, W.
Hawkins, J. H.	Rolfe, Sir R. M.
Hayter, W. G.	Rundle, J.
Heathcoat, J.	Russell, Lord J.
Hector, C. J.	Russell, Lord
Hill, Lord A. M. C.	Salwey, Colonel
Hindley, C.	Scholefield, J.
Hobhouse, rt. hon. Sir J.	Scrope, G. P.
Hobhouse, T. B.	Seale, Sir J. H.
Hollond, R.	Seymour, Lord
Horsman, E.	Sharpe, General
Howard, F. J.	Shelburne, Earl
Howard, P. H.	Slaney, R. A.
Howick, Visct.	Smith, J. A
Humphery, J.	Smith, B.
Hutt, W.	Smith, R. V.
Hutton, R.	Standish, C.
Jervis, S.	Stanley, E. J.
Johnson, General	Stansfield, W. R. C.
Kinnaird, hon. A. F.	Staunton, Sir G. T.
Labouchere, rt. hn. H.	Steuart, R.
Lambton, H.	Stewart, J.
Langdale, hon. C.	Stuart, Lord J.
Langton, W. G.	Stuart, V.
Leader, J. T.	Stock, Dr.
Loch, J.	Strickland, Sir G.
Lushington, C.	Strutt, E.
Lushington, rt. hn. S.	Style, Sir C.
Lynch, A. H.	Tancred, H. W.
Macleod, R.	Thorneley, T.
M'Taggart, J.	Troubridge, Sir E. T.
Marshall, W.	Turner, E.
Marsland, H.	Vigors, N. A.
Martin, J.	Vivian, J. H.
Maule, hon. F.	Wakley, T.
Melgund, Lord	Walker, R.
Milton, Viscount	Wallace, R.
Morpeth Viscount	Warburton, H.
Murray, A.	Ward, H. G.
Murray, rt. hn. J. A.	Wemyss, J. E.

White, A.	Wood, G. W.
Wild, Sergeant	Yates, J. A.
Williams, W.
Wilshere, W.	TELLERS.
Wood, C.	Villiers, C. P.
Wood, Sir M.	Hume, J.

List of the NOES.
Acheson, Viscount	Cavendish, hon. C.
Acland, Sir T. D.	Cavendish, hon. G. H.
Acland, T. D.	Cayley, E. S.
A'Court, Captain	Chapman, A.
Adare, Viscount	Chetwynd, Major
Aglionby, Major	Chichester, J. P. B.
Alexander, Viscount	Christopher, R. A.
Alford, Lord	Chute, W. L. W.
Alsager, Captain	Clayton, Sir W. R.
Alston, R.	Clerk, Sir G.
Arbuthnott, hon. H.	Clive, Lord Viscount
Archbold, R.	Clive, hon. R. H.
Archdall, M.	Cole, hon. A. H.
Ashley, Lord	Cole, Viscount
Attwood, W.	Compton, H. C.
Attwood, M.	Copeland, Alderman
Bagge, W.	Corry, hon. H.
Bagot, hon. W.	Courtenay, P.
Bailey, J.	Cripps, J.
Bailey, J. jun.	Crompton, Sir S.
Baillie, Colonel	Darby, G.
Baker, E.	Darlington, Earl
Bating, hon. W. B.	Denison, W. J.
Barrington, Viscount	De Horsey, S. H.
Barry, G. S.	Dick, Q.
Bell, M.	D'Israeli, B.
Benett, J.	Dottin, A. R.
Bentinck, Lord G.	Douglas, Sir C. E.
Berkeley, hon. G.	Douro, Marquis
Bethell, R.	Duff, James
Blackburne, I.	Duff, J.
Blackstone, W. S.	Duffield, T.
Blair, J.	Dugdale, W. S.
Blake, M. J.	Dunbar, G.
Blakemore, R.	Duncombe, hon. W.
Blandford, Mar. of	Duncombe, hon. A.
Blennerhassett, A.	Du Pre, G.
Bodkin, J. J.	East, J. B.
Boldero, H. G.	Eastnor, Lord
Bowes, J.	Eaton, R. J.
Bradshaw, J.	Egerton, W. T.
Bramston, T. W.	Egerton, Sir P.
Broadley, H.	Eliot, Lord
Broadwood, H.	Ellis, J.
Brodie, W. B.	Estcourt, T.
Brownrigg, S.	Estcourt, T.
Bruce, Lord E.	Evans, G.
Bruen, F.	Farnham, E. B.
Bruges, W. H. L.	Farrand, R.
Buller, Sir J. Y.	Fector, J. M.
Burr, H.	Fellows, E.
Burrell, Sir C.	Filmer, Sir E.
Burroughes, H. N.	Fitzalan, Lord
Byng, G.	Fitzgibbon, hon. Col.
Calcraft, J. H.	Fitzroy, hon. H.
Campbell, Sir H.	Fitzsimon, N.
Canning, rt. hon. Sir S.	Fleming, J.
Cantilupe, Lord	Foley, E. T.
Castlereagh, Viscount	Forester, hon. G.

Fox, G. L.	Kemble, H.
French, F.	Ker, D.
Freshfield, J. W.	Kirk, P.
Gaskell, J. M.	Knatchbull, hon. Sir E.
Gladstone, W. E.	Knight, H. G.
Glynne, Sir S. R.	Knightley, Sir C.
Goddard, A.	Knox, hon. T.
Gordon, R.	Lascelles, hon. W. S.
Gordon, Captain	Law, hon. C. E.
Gore, O. W.	Lefevre, C. S.
Gore, J. R.	Lefroy, rt. hon. T.
Goring, H. D.	Lemon, Sir C.
Goulburn, rt. hon. H.	Lennox, Lord G.
Graham, rt. hn. Sir J.	Lennox, Lord A.
Granby, Marquess	Liddell, hon. H. T.
Grant, hon. Colonel	Lincoln, Earl of
Grant, F. W.	Lockhart, A. M.
Grattan, J.	Long, W.
Greene, T.	Lowther, hon. Colonel
Greenaway, C.	Lowther, J. H.
Grimsditch, T.	Lucas, E.
Grimston, Viscount	Lygon, hon. General
Grimston, hon. E. H.	Mackenzie, T.
Halford, H.	Mackenzie, W. F.
Handley, H.	Mackinnon, W. A.
Harcourt, G. S.	Macnamara, Major
Hardinge, right hon. Sir H.	Maher, J.
	Mahon, Viscount
Harland, W. C.	Maidstone, Viscount
Hawkes, T.	Manners, Lord C.
Heathcote, Sir G.	Marsland, T.
Heathcote, Sir W.	Marton, G.
Heathcote, J.	Master, T. W. C.
Heneage, G. W.	Maunsell, T. P.
Heneage, E.	Maxwell, hon. S. R.
Henniker, Lord	Meynell, Captain
Hepburn, Sir T. B.	Miles, W.
Herbert, hon. S.	Miles, P. W. S.
Herries, rt. hon. J. C.	Miller, W. H.
Hill, Sir R.	Milnes, R. M.
Hillsborough, Earl	Monypenny, T. G.
Hinde, J. H.	Mordaunt, Sir J.
Hodges, T. L.	Moreton, hon. A. H.
Hodgson, F.	Morgan, C. M. R.
Hodgson, R.	Neeld, J.
Hogg, J. W.	Neeld, J.
Holmes, hn. W. A.	Nicholl, J.
Holmes, W.	Noel, W. M.
Hope, hon. C.	Norreys, Lord
Hope, H. T.	O'Brien, C.
Hope, G. W.	O'Brien, W. S.
Hoskins, K.	O'Conor, Don
Hotham, Lord	O'Neil, hon. J. B. R.
Houldsworth, T.	Ossulston, Lord
Houstoun, G.	Owen, Sir J.
Howard, Sir R.	Packe, C. W.
Howard, hon. W.	Paget, F.
Hurst, R. H.	Pakington, J. S.
Hurt, F.	Palmer, C. F.
Ingestrie, Visct.	Palmer, R.
Irton, S.	Palmer, G.
Irving, J.	Parker, M.
James, Sir W. C.	Parker, T. A. W.
Jenkins, Sir R.	Patten, J. W.
Johnstone, H.	Pease, J.
Jones, J.	Peel, rt. hon. Sir R.
Jones, Captain	Peel, J.

Pemberton, T.	Stanley, Lord
Pendarves, E. W. W.	Stanley, M.
Perceval, Colonel	Stanley, W. O.
Perceval, hon. G. J.	Stormont, Visct.
Philipps, Sir R.	Strangways, hon. J.
Pigot, R.	Sturt, H. C.
Pinney, W.	Surrey, Earl of
Planta, rt. hon. J.	Teignmouth, Lord
Plumptre, J. P.	Tennent, J. E.
Polhill, F.	Thomas, Colonel H.
Pollen, Sir J. W.	Thompson, Alderman
Pollock, Sir F.	Thornhill, G.
Powell, Colonel	Tollemache, F. J.
Power, J.	Townley, R. G.
Power, J.	Trench, Sir F.
Powerscourt, Visct.	Tyrrell, Sir J. T.
Praed, W. M.	Vere, Sir C. B.
Praed, W. T.	Verner, Colonel
Price, Sir R.	Vernon, G. H.
Price, R.	Villiers, Lord
Pringle, A.	Vivian, J. E.
Pryse, P.	Waddington, H. S.
Pusey, P.	Wall, C. B.
Rae, rt. hon. Sir W.	Walsh, Sir J.
Reid, Sir J. R.	Welby, G. E.
Richards, R.	Westenra, hon. H. R.
Rickford, W.	Westenra, hon. J. C.
Rolleston, L.	Whitmore, T. C.
Round, C. G.	Wilbraham, G.
Round, J.	Wilkins, W.
Rushbrooke, Colonel	Williams, R.
Russell, Lord C.	Williams, T. P.
St. Paul, H.	Williams, W. A.
Sanderson, R.	Wilmot, Sir J. E.
Sandon, Visct.	Winnington, T. E.
Sanford, E. A.	Winnington, H. J.
Scarlett, hon. J. Y.	Wodehouse, E.
Shaw, rt. hon. F.	Wood, Colonel T.
Sheil, R. L.	Wood, T.
Sheppard, T.	Worsley, Lord
Shirley, E. J.	Wyndham, W.
Sibthorp, Colonel	Yorke, hon. E. T.
Sinclair, Sir G.	Young, J.
Smith, A.	Young, Sir W.
Smyth, Sir G. H.	TELLERS.
Somerset, Lord G.	Baring, H.
Spry, Sir S. T.	Fremantle, Sir T.
Stanley, E.

Paired off.
Ashley, hon. H.	Childers, J. W.
Barneby, J.	Blewitt, R. J.
Bateson, Sir R.	Roche, Sir D.
Cartwright, W. R.	Colquhoun, J. C.
Codrington, C. W.	Conyngham, Lord A.
Cooper, J. E.	White, L.
Coote, Sir C.	Brabazon, Lord
Cresswell, C.	Erle, W.
Crewe, Sir G.	Edwards, Sir J.
Dalrymple, Sir A.	Vivian, rt. hon. Sir H.
Damer, hon. G. D.	Grosvenor, Lord R.
Davenport, J.	Molesworth, Sir W.
Dungannon, Viscount	Wyse, T.
Hale, R. B.	O'Callaghan, hon. C.
Hayes, Sir E.	O'Connell, M.
Inglis, Sir R. H.	Lister, E. C.
Jackson, Sergeant	Jervis, J.

Jermyn, Lord	Chester, H.
Jones, W.	Walker, C. A.
Lowther, Lord	Bentinck, Lord W.
Maclean, D.	Talfourd, Serjeant
Mathew, Captain	Verney, Sir H.
Rose, rt. hon. Sir G.	Talbot, J. H.
Stewart, J.	Hallyburton, Lord D.
Trevor, hon. G. R.	Colquhoun, Sir J.
Wilbraham, hon. B.	Bridgeman, H.
Wynn, rt. hon. C. W.	Buller, hon. P.
Wynn, Sir W.	Thomson, rt. hn. C.P.
Ferguson, Sir R.	Somerville, Sir W.
Grattan, H.	Norreys, Sir D.
Mildway, P. St. John	Ponsonby, hon. J.
Smith, G.	Rumbold, C. E.

Absent.
Andover, Lord	Speirs, A.
Barron, W.	Spencer, hon. Captain
Brabazon, Sir W.	Talbot, C. R. M.
Bryan, Captain	Turner, W. (ill)
Campbell, W. F.	Vivian, Major
Cave, R. O.	White, S.
Chalmers, P.	White, H.
Chapman, Sir M. L.	Wrightson, W. B.
Clements, Lord	Baring, hon. F.
Davies, Colonel	Bolling, W.
Dundas, hon. J.	Burdett, Sir F. (ill)
Dunlop, Sir J. (ill)	Dowdeswell, W.
Euston, Lord	Conolly, Colonel
Ewart, W.	Egerton, Lord F. (ill)
Fazakerly, N.	Follett, Sir W. (ill)
Fitzpatrick, J. W.	Godson, R. (circuit)
Heron, Sir R.	Harcourt, G. G. V.
James, W.	(abroad)
Leveson, Lord	Hughes, B.
Martin, J. B.	Ingham, R. (circuit)
Morris, D.	Kelly, F. (circuit)
O'Connell, J.	Kerrison, Sir E. (ill)
Ponsonby, hon. C.	Litton, E.
Redington, T. N.	Rushout, G. (ill)
Somers, J. P.	Sugden, Sir E. (ill)

Analysis of the Division.
For the motion (tellers included)	197
Against (tellers included)	344
Pairs (32)	64
Ministerialists absent	33
Conservatives absent	16
Vacant—Richmond, Devonshire, Leicester	3
Speaker	1
	658