CORN LAWS.—ADJOURNED DEBATE.

HC Deb 02 April 1840 vol 53 cc432-78

On the order of the day for resuming the debate on the Corn-laws,

Mr. Wodehouse

was understood to say, that he had seldom troubled the House with his sentiments on the subject, but he felt it to be his duty now distinctly to declare that his opinions were in favour of the existing laws, and to state the reasons why he held such opinions. He had never defended the Corn-laws, nor would he ever advocate them on any other ground than that stated by Mr. Huskisson. That the Corn-laws involved such immense interests in this country, and were closely connected with the well-being and comfort of all classes, and moreover, surrounded with peculiar difficulties, that they must be primarily governed by considerations connected with this country, and only secondarily by our relations with foreign countries. The present Corn-law had existed twelve years, and during that time wheat had been on an average 57s. a quarter, while nine millions of quarters had been imported from foreign countries, and during the whole period the average duty had not been over 5s. Surely then the Corn-law could not have been productive of so much evil. If reference were made to the years 1799 and 1800, that, he said, was a great part of the case against the repeal of these laws,—because, in 1799, the King of Prussia availed himself of the circumstances of the period, and declared openly and unequivocally that he would impose a high rate of duties on the importation of our goods when the prices of corn were high in England, but that if those prices fell his duties should be lowered. He (Mr. Wodehouse) put it to the people of this country whether, if the opportunity offered, the same course might not be resorted to again by the King of Prussia or by some other sovereign following his example; or whether that was not an important consideration, not merely for the landed interest but for every interest in the country. The situation of the country with respect to agriculture was materially changed within the last twenty-five years. Then the average produce per acre, did not exceed twenty bushels. The principle now in operation was one of great exhaustion. He was connected with a numerous body of men who were now dispersed throughout every part of the empire, under circumstances of peculiar distress—he meant the hand-loom weavers. In a publication lately put forth he saw it asserted that the laws, based in injustice and partiality as the Corn-laws were, could never be of long continuance. Now the question which he understood the House to be discussing was whether these laws were based on injustice and partiality. These opinions had been from year to year put forward by Lord Fitzwilliam, but had been most successfully met. In the third report upon the condition of the hand-loom weavers Mr. Mitchell stated the effect of the introduction of foreign corn, and he thought prices must fall; and with respect to a free trade in corn, he observed that no government could be justified in inflicting so much misery on the speculation of producing a certain degree of food. The difficulties of carrying into effect the Poor-law Amendment Act had been very great; but if, by the introduction of foreign corn a large body of labourers were thrown out of employment, they would never be overcome. Mr. Tooke, who had been already referred to, had recommended, twenty years ago, a fixed duty of 7s. or 8s. He said he had fair reasons for urging that amount of duty, but what those reasons were could not, by any inquiries, be extracted from him. It was singular that, after twenty years, the same proposition had been brought forward by the President of the Board of Trade; but if that right hon, Gentleman had intended by his arguments to enforce and explain the reasons of Mr. Tooke, he (Mr. Wode-house) could only say, that the interpreter was the more difficult to understand of the two. In the report of Mr. Vivian, it was stated that the maintenance of the poor under the present Poor-law was attended with great difficulties, but that if a number of labourers were thrown out of employment (which must be the case if the Corn-laws were repealed), those difficulties would be very greatly increased. He was connected by representation with a very distressed class of the community, the hand-loom weavers; and he thanked Heaven, notwithstanding all the distress, they were proof against the remonstrances of all the itinerant orators who had been sent amongst them, to urge them to petition against the continuance of these laws. In the report of Mr. Chapman one of the assistant commissioners for inquiry into the condition of the hand-loom weavers, it was stated that there had been a decline of one-third in the rate of wages since 1814, supposing the certainty of employment to be now equal to what it was then; that was the consequence, he maintained, not of the Corn-laws, but of the substitution of power-looms for hand weaving; it was also said, that the Corn-laws had the effect of driving manufacturers out of this country, and making them spring up in other countries, but he believed, that it was the capital and skill of English manufacturers, and not the Corn-laws, which had produced that effect. He had been accosted the other day by a person who said, "We hope for better things, now that you gentlemen begin to read;" it was not reading, however, in which the country gentlemen were deficient, but they would not read with the eyes of the manufacturers. He said, that the insinuation that the gentry and the aristocracy of the country, because they were connected with land, were indifferent to the interests of the other classes of the community, was a gross and stupid libel. The protective duty was a principle which was acted upon by the Governments of Lord Liverpool, Mr. Canning, and the Duke of Wellington, and he trusted the House would pause before they embarked on the wide, wide sea of progressive reform, and commit to the mercy of the winds and the waves the ark of our hallowed constitution.

Mr. Rich

contended, that the duties on the importation of corn should be no higher than on other articles that came from abroad. If they existed at all they should be imposed for the sake of revenue, not for the sake of protection; and he thought the present the most fit time for the application of this principle. When the Chancellor of the Exchequer was coming down with fresh taxes, it might be a consideration whether by making a moderate and fixed duty on corn fresh taxes might not be avoided. He was of opinion that such a duty would serve the State and satisfy the people. He would not enter into the question how it bore on agriculture or manufactures; it was sufficient for the argument against the corn-laws that the manufacturing interests were seriously depressed. That such was the case could not be denied, nor that there was a great mass of population depending upon manufactures, no matter what proportion the number might bear to the numbers of those depending upon the agricultural interest. What were the objects proposed by the original founders of the corn-laws? What were the ends they had in view? What were the benefits they were to confer, and what were the evils they were to avert? If these objects had been brought about, they would be obliged to admit to those who supported the Corn-laws that they had the advantage of experience; but if, on the other hand, they found that every one of these objects had failed, then those hon. Members themselves should in all candour hesitate before they pronounced so very positively what would be the consequence of a change of system. With a view to ascertain this, he would not go further back than 1815. In that year Mr. Robinson introduced those noted resolutions on which the present system was founded. Mr. Robinson promised a full and plentiful supply, so plentiful as to make this country independent of foreign markets. He further promised, that that plentiful supply should produce those prices which should render permanent the relationships between landlord and tenant; and promised that those prices should be moderate. It was by these promises that Mr. Robinson gained the consent of the country. And how had these promises been fulfilled. In order to ascertain this they must find some test to guage them: that test was given between the years 1773 and 1790, when the trade in corn was free, or might be called so, foreign corn being admitted at 48s. a quarter, and 6d. duty. Was the country able to meet the sudden reaction of a peace after a war which had doubled the national debt? It so happened that that period was precisely the time when this country made most marvellous strides. That was the very period selected by the right hon. Baronet (Sir R. Peel) last year, when he said this country enjoyed comparative ease and great prosperity. And what was the special effect which it had on agriculture and on prices? There never was a time where there was such little fluctuation. The lowest price was 34s., and the highest 53s. a quarter. The average of the first five years was 41s. a quarter; of the second five years, 45s.; of the third 43s.; and of the fourth, 47s.; making on an average 44s. During that period at least, prices were stable and moderate. Hon. Gentlemen might say this might be all very true, but under this moderation the agricultural interest pined away. They might tell them that this low price threw all the poor lands out of cultivation, and threw all the labourers out of employ. The answer to that was contained in the plain fact that there were 500,000 acres of waste land enclosed during that period. This was the state of the country during the free trade in corn. Let them apply this test to the state of the agriculture of the country under the protective system. First, with regard to the "full and plentiful supply." There were imported into this country between 1815 and 1822, the period when the Corn-laws were again under restrictions, on an average 700,000 quarters of wheat per annum. The fluctuations between the years 1815 and 1822 exceeded 200 per cent. In January, 1817, the price of wheat was 113s. a quarter. In June, 1817, it was 120s. In three short months under this felicitous protection it fell from 120s. to 74s. In three months it was up again to 90s.; then again it was down through the whole of the year 1818 to 75s. Continuing to fall to 1820 and 1821 it tumbled down to 55s., and in October, 1822, they found it at 38s. Why did not hon. Members draw from memory and not from imagination, and tell them what was the state of the farmer—what was the real palpable misery which the first seven years of the introduction of the Corn-law inflicted on the agriculturists. The tenants were in arrear for rent, and the table of the House groaned with petitions from the ruined agriculturists—the men who now stupidly and insanely cry out, "the Corn-law for ever." What was the state of the labourers when farms were given up, when stock was sold and distrained upon for rent? In one quarter he was tempted with bread extravagantly cheap, and in another thrown into the poor-house by bread extravagantly dear. Why whould not Gentlemen who advocate the Corn-law draw rather upon their memory than their imagination, and tell us what was then the state of the farmer and the labourer? Such were the effects—the first fruits of the system of which Squire Western, now Lord Western, was one of the most able advocates—such was the system which was to render food cheap. Why, a state lottery for bread could not have been more ruinous in its effects than this mockery of a law. They might be told that those were the errors of a first legislation, and that experience enabled legislators to correct those errors of 1815 by the law of 1822. But the law of 1822 was utterly and entirely inoperative. For five long years it drew its slow length along—useless and inoperative. If further evidence were wanted of the mischievous effects of the law, it was to be found in the opinion of one of the most able men who ever sat in that House, and who from his talents and official situation was well calculated to form an opinion—he meant Mr. Huskisson, who declared in his place that he "lamented from the bottom of his soul the national evil, and misery, and destruction of capital, which that law in the course of twelve years had produced." But, uninstructed by the past, the landed interest still bore the sway, and accordingly they had the law of 1828. But it was no change of system, though a modification and a relaxation. This law was encumbered by a graduated scale of duties. They were told that this graduated scale was to do every thing, but such was its effect that all stable merchants were driven from speculating in corn. The consequence had been, that when we most wanted corn, it had not been found in our bonded warehouses. This had rendered necessary a rapid application to the nearer ports of the Baltic, which had caused a rapid rise in the price of corn, so that we had had to pay much more bullion for it than we otherwise might have got it for. The paying of this bullion had brought distress on the commercial world. Thus the graduated scale had added only to the mischiefs which existed, and made bad worse. Thus, as to the agricultural working of the system, it was an utter failure. Then, as to the "full and plentiful supply." Why, from 1828 till now there had been imported on an average 1,000,000 quarters of wheat alone a year. These importations had gone on for years, therefore proving, after the experience of a quarter of a century, the utter unfulfilling of Mr. Robinson's promises. Then, with regard to the fluctuations—since 1828 they had exceeded 113 per cent., accompanied with the stimulus of a famine. He blamed hon. Gentlemen who supported the corn laws for pertinaciously adhering to a system the fallacy of which had been fully proved and established. Returns had been much dwelt upon last night by the noble Earl the Member for Shropshire, as showing, that though there had been fluctuations in prices in England, still there had been also fluctuations in prices abroad; but the returns upon which that statement had been made had been proved by the right hon. the President of the Board of Trade to be incorrect. He (Mr. Rich) repeated, that the only time when prices in this country were stable was the period at which the trade in corn was free—a period when, instead of labourers being out of employ—when, instead of land being out of cultivation, it was capable of proof that upwards of 500,000 acres of waste land were enclosed. Looking at the results which experience exhibited, there had been greater distress amongst the agriculturists under the present system, than had ever before existed. From 1815 to 1822 the distress of the agriculturists was general and uninterrupted. From 1822 to 1828 there was a gleam, or rather a glare, of sunshine; but from 1828 to the present time the agricultural interest has undergone more of distress than prosperity. Since 1822 the distresses of the agriculturists had no less than five times been alluded to in speeches from the throne. In 1836 a committee had been appointed by the House of Lords to inquire into the subject. That was after two or three years of successive abundant harvests, after taxes on agriculture had been reduced considerably, and when the country enjoyed tranquillity within and peace without. But what, even then, was the state of the agriculturists, as shown by the report of the committee communicated to the House in the year 1837? The evidence contained in that report, comprising the testimony of land-owners, farmers, land-surveyors, and country bankers, in agricultural districts—all individuals connected with agriculture— —"They best can paint them Who have felt them most: all these Gentlemen concurred in proving that the state of agricultural distress was extreme. The hon. Member at considerable length, read extracts from the evidence of Mr. Cayley, Mr. Spooner, Mr. Thurlow, Mr. Benett, Mr. Blamire, and several other witnesses from farming districts who had been examined before the Lords' committee in 1836. Then turning to the hon. Gentlemen on the Opposition benches, he said, Now, Gentlemen of the landed interest, these are your own witnesses—this is the picture which they draw of agriculture in 1836—this is the work—this is the glorious, the satisfactory, the patriotic result of your system of restriction. What has it produced? Insolvent farmers—desperate rick-burners—turbulent labourers; and this, too, at a period when the commercial and manufacturing interests were prosperous—when the seasons for agriculture were good, and the harvest abundant. He would ask them, the hon. Gentleman proceeded, whether there must not be something radically bad in a system which was framed professedly for the benefit of one class of the community, yet had the invariable effect of depressing that class when the rest of the community rose, and of raising it when the other classes of society sunk. He maintained, that the system had signally and palpably failed—that it had not fulfilled one of the promises that it held out—that it had produced distress, not advantage, to the farmer. Driven from the higher ground upon which they originally founded their arguments, the agriculturists now shifted their position and assumed an humbler tone: they said, "The land is burthened with tithes, with poor-rates, with county-rates, and with the land-tax; and, in compensation for these burthens, which press exclusively and most injuriously upon us, we claim the protection of the Corn-laws." But he should like to know whether the liability to tithes, to poor-rates, to county-rates, and to the land-tax, was considered by the Legislature in 1815, as an equivalent on the part of the landed interest for the burthen imposed upon the rest of the community by the Corn-laws. Did not these liabilities exist long prior to that period? And did not the agriculturists contrive, in 1815, to slip the property-tax off their own shoulders at the very time that they placed the yoke of the Corn-laws upon the neck of the rest of the community. In point of fact, the agriculturists, in 1815, obtained the Corn-laws, not as a protection against any new burthen then for the first time imposed upon them, but as a compensation for liabilities to which they had been subject from time immemorial. But if the landed interest persisted in arguing that they had a right to special protection, in consideration of special burthens imposed upon them, he would ask whether, since the last adjustment of the Corn-laws, in 1828, those special burthens had not been much diminished; whether a considerable portion of the county rates had not been transferred to the consolidated fund; whether the tithes had not been commuted upon a scale of prices much below the present averages; and whether the poor-rates had not been reduced by something like 3,000,000l. sterling? If special protection were to be given for special burthens, did not this diminution of the burthens upon the land entitle the rest of the community to look for an equivalent relaxation of the Corn-laws? It had been argued, that, in order to enable the country to meet its burthens, and to keep faith with its creditors, it was necessary to protect agriculture. To support that argument, it must be proved, that an acre of land could be so cultivated as to be productive of more wealth than the busy loom and smoking factory. Then it was said, that the country, to be independent, must grow its own corn. Then why did we not try our hand at tea, coffee, and cotton? Twelve years ago the right hon. Baronet declared that this country could not grow corn enough for its own supply. What, then, were we to do now that the population had increased by three or four millions? How were we to go on? Were we to persevere in arraying one half of the population against the other, for the sake of keeping up a system that was bad in principle, and had completely broken down in practice. Surely it would be wiser to abandon such a system at once. For these reasons he implored the House to consider the position in which the country at present stood. Whilst everything was apparently prosperous in the higher ranks, no one who looked to the subject at all could conceal from himself that all below the middle classes were pinched with want? Who would say, that the labouring classes, those who gained a livelihood by the sweat of their brow—those who constituted the great bulk of the nation, and for whom they (the House of Commons) were bound to legislate with all tenderness, and with a total absence of selfishness—who would deny, that these large and useful classes were at the present moment over-worked and under-paid? Necessity pressed so hard upon them that neither old age, nor extreme youth, nay, even not infancy itself, was exempt from hard labour. When these things were known, would the House refuse to consider whether the dearth of food might not have tended in a great degree to produce these sad results? It was this dearth, pressing upon all around, that was driving the people down to a lower and a baser food—to a lower scale of existence. This it was that led them, from sheer necessity, to substitute potatoes for wheaten bread. A population increasing at the rate of a thousand souls a day, could not be fed from their native soil, the produce of which increased only in a very inferior ratio. He would not trespass further upon the patience of the House than to remind them that this was the proper time to consider the subject. Now, whilst there was patience and comparative prosperity in the country, was the most fitting time to enter upon a moderate compromise. Would not the landed interest accept of a moderate fixed duty? He would warn them that this was their East Retford, and that it would be well for them to be wise in time, and not to abide the crash that a dogged resistance to moderate demands must inevitably bring before many years elapsed.

Mr. Hamilton

said, that it was not his intention to trespass long upon the attention of the House by entering upon that detailed discussion which had taken place for several successive years on the subject of the Corn-laws, or to follow those hon. Members who advocated their repeal, as he was aware that there were many hon. Gentlemen in that House far better qualified than he was to refute the elaborate statements of hon. Gentlemen opposite; but he was desirous of being permitted very briefly to state that he gave his vote against the proposed resolutions, not because he represented those who might be supposed to be interested in agricultural prosperity, or to uphold that interest, but from a particular conviction he had ever been impressed with, that any change in the existing Corn-laws would have a most injurious effect upon the whole community. He was quite ready to admit, that some of the hon. Members who contended for this repeal made out a case—a good one, too, as far as their own side of the ledger was concerned. The account looked square, and was, no doubt, correctly cast up, but little notice had been taken of various items to be carried up from the debit side," such as one-third of the land now under tillage to be thrown out of cultivation, ruined farmers, unemployed labourers, non-payment of taxes, road-rates, poor-rates, and the latter, as a matter of course, enormously increased. All this, he said, was kept out of view, or slightly touched upon, and yet what he stated would, in the opinion of almost every practical person, inevitably be the result of the proposed change in the duties now paid on foreign corn. He knew that it was once stated in that House what was the supposed amount of mortgages on land in this country. Now, he was not contending for the present duties on foreign corn to enable bankrupt landlords to keep their heads above water; though he believed, that many insolvents looked forward to getting rid of the Corn-laws and their debts at the same time. But he did contend and maintain that this was a question that affected the mortgagee as deeply as the mortgagor, the fundholder as the landowner; for, how could they expect the interest on landed securities to be paid the mortgagee, or taxes raised for the purpose of keeping their engagements to the fund holder, if they deprived the owners and occupiers of land of the means of doing either? He did not advocate either high rents or high prices. He wished for neither, and was free to confess that he regretted the present high prices of corn. But were hon. Members prepared to show that cheap bread would necessarily follow free trade in corn? That the cultivators of all poor soils, now yielding a moderate competency to the occupier, and labour to thousands, would be completely thrown upon their backs, and ultimately driven to the union workhouse, he was perfectly ready to admit; and who could gainsay it? But he was by no means prepared to allow that cheap food and low prices must follow. If that were a matter of course, how came it that the four pound loaf in Paris was a penny dearer than one of the same size in London—and that five times more troops of the line were marched to the south of France to put down Corn-law riots there, than were required to capture the Whig-Radical magistrate and his followers in South Wales? They professed a wish to get rid of the monopoly which they said was now enjoyed by the British farmer, and what, might he ask, were they going to substitute? Why that of the Jew—or, perhaps, what was worse, the Christian contractor, who would contrive to regulate and keep up their prices of corn as they now did the money market. He totally denied (and the most intelligent of the working classes bore him out in opinion) that an alteration in the corn duties would benefit the condition of the mechanic and labourer. An immediate advantage would be taken, notwithstanding all the assertions that might be made by interested parties to the contrary, by great master manufacturers and farmers, to lower the scale of wages—and, as "man could not live by bread alone," and, as their families required other articles as well as cheap bread, the comforts, and, by them considered, luxuries of life, would be totally denied the operative classes. If this was not the case, half their argument in favour of free trade went for nothing. But he would ask hon. Members whether they had really made up their minds to place this country at the mercy of Prussia and Russia, not only for a great proportion of our supply of grain, but of straw also? Would hon. Members be so good as to state how they proposed to supply us with the last-named most essential article of agriculture and domestic use? For, by the proposed change, they not only would uproot our corn, but the stubbles also. He had always understood it was an axiom that no country could maintain a high position in the scale of nations, and at the same time be dependent on any of them for a great supply of food, and yet this must be the effect of forcing, as they inevitably would, our poorer soils out of cultivation. He would further venture to ask, whether our relations, with these exporting grain coun- tries were such as to warrant the dangerous experiment we were now so urgently called upon to try? The hon. Member for Kilkenny had frequently, and in very melancholy strains, expressed his regrets that the result of the Reform Bill, as regarded financial economy among the representatives of the people, and more particularly that portion of them from whom very different conduct was expected, had most grievously disappointed him; and he doubted whether a similar mortification did not await the hon. Member if ever this, one of his great care-alls, was to be made the law of the land. Did hon. Members maintain that a reduction in the price of corn, even to the fullest extent anticipated, would enable the manufacturer so far to reduce his wages that he could afford to undersell the foreigner? He contended, that it was not the price of corn so much as the amount of taxation that crippled the manufacturer; but even admitting that to a certain extent this would be the case, would that make amends for the enormous defalcation and falling off that would infallibly ensue by the altered condition of his home customers—the owners and occupiers of land, and those dependent on their prosperity? It was stated that the manufactures consumed in this country amount to little short of 250,000,000l. annually, and would the loss of a considerable portion of this ready market be made up by the increased demand from abroad, or was it certain after all that our manufactures, instead of our gold, would be taken in exchange for their foreign corn? When hon. Members talked of laying down poor soils in grass, and maintained that this change would be attended with advantage to the country, they must be totally ignorant of all agricultural affairs, or wilfully blind to the real state of the case. It was well known, that for many years cold lands and poor soils, let let them be ever so carefully and expensively laid down, were worth little comparatively to the occupier, to say nothing of the vast evil of throwing so many hands out of employment. A gentleman, who he believed was well known to the right hon. Gentleman in the chair, informed him a few days since, that should there be any alteration in the present corn-laws, and which, undoubtedly, would compel him to convert a considerable portion of his arable to pasture land, whereas he now employed forty labourers upon his farm, which, it was not necessary to add, was an extensive one according to his calculation, fifteen men would be sufficient to carry on the labour that would then be required. What, then, he begged to ask, was to become of the remainder of the surplus labourers and their families, dependent on them for cheap bread? When he asked this question he could give the oft-repeated answer—they must seek employment elsewhere. This was easy enough to say, but not quite so easily reduced to practice. Were they to migrate to the manufacturing districts, to be returned upon their parishes upon the first stagnation that might occur in any particular branch of trade? Were they to be sent, at a great expense, to the Canadas or colonies? Or would any political economist recommend their taking the place, and becoming substitutes for the Hill Coolies? No; all this might sound well in theory, but hon. Members who, like himself, had been for several years chairman of a poor law union—and he had had the honour of being re-elected yesterday—well knew that it was difficult to reduce these statements to practice—at all events with any certain beneficial results, or on any extended scale. On the contrary, they would arrive at the same conclusion with him, that ultimately the union workhouse would be the refuge for the destitute labourer, and where in al! probability he would have the satisfaction of being associated with his former master, the farmer; at all events in those cases where the occupier was not possessed of sufficient capital to enable him to meet the change that a new system would render necessary. He was convinced the statement he had made was not overdrawn; the proposed change was admitted on all sides to be a great experiment, and unfortunately it was one that could not in the first instance be referred to a committee of those patriotic Members of that House, who were its able advocates, and who, after making the trial on their own estates, might report to the House the result, not only as affecting their own interests, which of course they did not now consider, but as regarded their tenants, their labourers, and the community generally among whom they resided; but as this could not be brought about, and as the experiment must be tried on the whole body of British farmers, and that, too, against their will and recorded judgment; and as it was an experiment very doubtful and hazardous as regarded all retail dealers, and those engaged in the home trade, he for one, and without any hesitation, would oppose both the original motion, and the amendment of the hon. Member for Cambridge, as most injurious to all the best interests of the country. The proposed change, in his humble opinion, would ruin many and benefit but few. Like the operation of the penny postage, he admitted it might increase the resources, or rather, diminish the outgoings of the great manufacturer and capitalist. But he denied that the result would be equally advantageous to those who were termed the productive classes, and whose interests should most undoubtedly be one of their first considerations. On the other hand, the owners and occupiers of all poor soils would be ruined, or brought to the greatest distress. They would soon cease to be consumers of manufactures to any extent, and the peasantry (badly enough off at present) would be driven from their homes to another market for their labour. The demand for their labour would be greatly decreased, and the market contracted. The scale of wages would be necessarily lowered, and this must lead to ruin and moral degradation. Discontent and disaffection would follow, and thus the measure they pro posed—though specious in itself, and apparently justified on a first view by the common law of nature—would, in the present state of society, and of this kingdom in particular, when brought into operation—and when, in all probability, it would be too late to retract—prove a source of ruin and misery to those whom they professed it was their wish and intention more particularly to benefit.

Viscount Morpeth

said, that through, out the lengthened discussion which this question underwent last year, he abstained from expressing any opinion upon it, and he certainly should on the present occasion refrain from making anything like a formal or protracted speech, not assuredly because he did not feel the very great and surpassing importance of the question itself, and its close and intimate bearing upon the dearest relations of the whole community, but because he did feel, that upon a subject which had been so long before the public, and of which all the relations and bearings had been so amply canvassed, and deliberately weighed, it did seem to him superfluous and almost impertinent for any one to obtrude upon the time of the House, who was not prepared to state any new grounds on which this great question rested, and who had not sufficient leisure and opportunity for, and whose peculiar avocations did not lead him to the examination of, those statistical details and collateral sources of information which was necessary at this time of day to throw any additional or new light on the great subject at issue. Neither was he one of those who thought that it would be most desirable if the view he entertained himself as an individual could have been brought forward as a substantive measure even by an united government. But he did not believe that an united administration—prepared to carry out the views he himself entertained upon this question—could, in the present state of parties, in any way be formed; and he certainly preferred a divided and undecided ministry to an united cabinet prepared to act upon the basis of opposing any alteration of the Corn-laws. Feeling, therefore, that he was not able himself to furnish any collateral sources of information on the subject, and not being prepared to state the fact of his being a member of an united government on the question, he should have been contented to have given a silent vote on this occasion, had he not felt that the expression of a short and decided opinion on his part was due to a constituency who, in the variety of interests affected, or in the deep, intense, and almost passionate interest felt, yielded to no other constituency in the united empire. He had presented a great number of petitions from different parts of the district which he represented, where the inhabitants were wholly taken up in agricultural pursuits, and who now, for the first time, entered upon the consideration of this question. No later than yesterday he presented a petition from one of those bodies, whom he should regret to see mixing themselves up in merely political questions, unless under the sense of some very strong and overwhelming duty, or necessity—he meant from the poor-law guardians of one of the most densely peopled unions, and which embraced, for the most part, a district that had hitherto been a perfect hive of manufacturing industry—the union of Dewsbury. In their petition they stated that the stagnation of trade had brought the people of that district to a state of starvation. After being called upon by such varied bodies of men, and in so urgent a manner, he owned he should have felt it difficult to have resisted a motion for a committee of inquiry, even if his views upon the subject had been the very reverse of what they really were; and he should have hesitated to have refused undertaking the solemn consideration of the question with which they had to deal. At the same time it was always his wish, that to no cry or clamour, however loud, general, or urgent, if not also founded upon justice and substantial policy, that House should ever yield. The question which he had to consider before voting in support of this motion, or against it, was this, were the complaints and demands of these and other countless petitioners really founded upon justice and sound policy? "Now, my belief is, (said the noble Lord,) if ever there was a cry which either rose to man or heaven that was essentially just, and exclusively politic, it is that which now calls upon the supreme Legislature to take measures to facilitate the access to, and increase the quantity of, food in this country, for the sake of its vast, and hard-worked, and, I fear, most inadequately fed population." He had no misgiving as to the force of those arguments which had already been adduced, and which no doubt would be further adduced, to prove that the present Corn-laws were not only unwise, impolitic, and unfair to all the other branches of labour; but that they were even ill-calculated to effect the object which they professed to have in view. He owned, however, that his own objection to these laws struck more deeply. He did not wish to introduce any thing like cant or bigotry into this debate, and it was far from his desire to cast any imputation on any other person or party, or class or interest in this country. On the contrary, he knew that there were numbers belonging to what might be termed the agricultural party who would feel quite as kindly for the privations of their fellow-creatures, and quite as ready to make any sacrifice for their real good, as any body on that side of the question which he espoused. Still he must estimate the real tendency of any law or system by his own view of it. And the result he had arrived at was this, that if they were not prepared to consent to some alteration of the present Corn-laws, with the views he now entertained, they could not, even for a day after, without inconsistency, put up that petition to heaven which they were instructed to use, for their "daily bread." He did really think that the whole scope and tendency of the present system was at variance with the apparent spirit and obvious design, as far as they might without presumption attempt to scan and determine them, of the ordinary dispensations of providence—those dispensations which had varied the growth of every clime, and the staple of every soil, and thus appeared to invite every kingdom of the earth to the fullest and freest interchange of their respective produce; and which made it as much a duty to exclude monopoly from the family of nations, as it was to exclude selfishness and ill-will from the families of individuals—in one word, which made patriotism and philanthrophy the same things. He was told, that from the arguments used, and the language held, by those who espoused the same views as he himself did, they showed that they were not disposed to stop short of a total repeal of any protecting duty. This was no doubt true. But he was himself aware that no great change could be made in any settled system without much being done in the way of compromise and concession on each side; and if it were desirable—into which, however, as he considered it a perfectly abstract question, he did not wish to enter—but, if it were desirable, he conceived it would be obviously chimerical, in the present state and feeling of parties, to entertain the notion of repealing the present Corn-laws without leaving a verge for some remaining fiscal duty—call it for the purpose of revenue, or of protection, or whatever they would. If the House should consent to resolve itself into committee, and bravely face the question, and determine to deal with the existing Corn-laws, then the amount of duty to be retained would form an essential subject of consideration, and one which he would not shrink from discussing and deciding upon; and so with repect to the question of preference between a fixed and sliding scale. He did not think that the question would be affected by the House agreeing to the motion for going into committee; though he was ready to admit, as far as he was able to weigh the force of the respective arguments addued on either side, that it did appear to him, with a view to protect trade from excessive fluctuation, and from continually recurring speculations, and with a view also to encourage not a capricious but a more uniform growth and supply of foreign corn, and to lighten the pressure on the country, occasioned by a sudden drain of specie and consequent disturbance of the currency, that a fixed duty of moderate amount was preferable to a sliding scale. There was one complaint which had been brought forward by Gentlemen on the other side of the question, which did seem to him at once the most preposterous and the most hopeless of remedy that could enter into the mind of man. He alluded to the complaint of "the continual recurrence and agitation of this question." Why, if that were an argument on either side, it was certainly an argument on his side of the question; because, as long as the law respecting the importation of corn remained in its present state, it was quite chimerical to expect that the question would cease to be agitated. It was with this question the same as it was with the catholic question, and the questions of slavery and of the slave-trade; there was no other way of putting an end to agitation except by removing the grievance. If the people of this country were suffering—or, what upon this point was the same thing, if they thought they were suffering—from any particular cause, did hon. Gentlemen think that they could stop their complaining? If the people felt that they were starving, how could that House prevent their cry for food? They were told that The flesh will quiver where the pincers tear, And blood will follow where the knife is driven. This complaint of the constant recurrence of the agitation of the question put him in mind of nothing so much as what they read of the indignation of the parish authorities, in one of the tales of one of the most consummate describers of every-day life, where they were told that "the whole board-room was in a state of consternation, because Oliver Twist has asked for move." This demand for more on the part of the people, he believed, was one which could not be stayed or circumscribed. It was a demand that was coming from almost every quarter where industry resided. It came from the factories and from the workshops, and, in his belief, the evil that gave birth to that demand was fast travelling to the remotest villages and hamlets of the land, and that it would ere long visit every cottage. He had now sufficiently stated the reasons which would govern his vote upon this debate, and it required, he thought, little sagacity to augur that that vote would not on this night be given on the winning side. This demand, however, had still obstacles too formidable to surmount, and prejudices too strong to overcome. But looking at the increasing power and prevalence of this demand, and considering the justice and policy, and even the religious obligation upon which he conceived it to rest, there was nothing of which he felt more confident than of its ultimate success. Having lived to see the freedom of religious opinion established, the personal freedom of every British subject vindicated, and even the freedom of trade day by day more, and more allowed to various articles of foreign commerce, he did entertain a most sanguine hope and expectation that at no very distant period a freer and more unrestricted access of foreign corn to these shores would more amply repay the efforts of our domestic industry, and secure and extend the harmony of nations.

Mr. H Gaily Knight

spoke to the following effect:—The noble Lord who has just sat down offers us the consolatory prospect of a fixed duty; but, before the House consents to go into committee on this subject, I think we must look a little to the wishes and declarations of those, for whose satisfaction the proposition i s brought forward. We must look to the speeches which have been made out of this House, as well as in this House—to the petitions on that table—to the delegates who have been sent to watch our proceedings; and if we do so, we shall find that nothing would give satisfaction to those persons short of a total abolition of the Corn-laws—that any reasonable alteration any slight modification, would be treated by them with contempt. It appears to me, therefore, that to go into committee would only excite hopes that would not be realized, would be an idle waste of time, and end in nothing but disappointment. We must also look to the spirit in which the abolitionists have acted—to the expedients to which they have resorted in order to collect their forces for what they pleasantly call their sessional campaign against the agricultural interest—and, to do them justice, it must be allowed that nothing has been neglected—nothing, from the splendours of the Manchester banquet, down to the hedge-side calumnies of the itinerant delegate. The noble Lord says, that abolition of the Corn-laws is the genuine voice of the people; but in this opinion I do not concur. No, it is a partial cry, got up by that odious resource, which I was sorry to hear the noble Lord defend—the resource of agitation, agitation, agitation. By newspapers devoted to that sole object, petitions cut and dried, circulars, tracts, addresses, hired lecturers, apostles of discord sent about to set the towns against the country, the labourers against the farmer, and to denounce the landed proprietors as the curse and bane of society. In the course of last autumn, in the town nearest to which I live, appeared one of these hired lecturers, and, because he did not meet with the reception he expected, on leaving the town he shook the dust from his shoes, and published a letter in the newspapers, in which he held up all the aristocracy of the neighbourhood to the hatred of the people, and pointed out one nobleman as the author of his discomfiture, who happened to be some hundreds of miles distant from the spot, and knew nothing about the transaction. And it is by such means and such instruments, that it has been attempted to induce the people to rally round the standard of abolition ! Not always with success. I regret to say, that a great political economist, the habitual agent of the Government, was hooted out of a public meeting at Nottingham—a meeting which had been convened for the consideration of the Corn-laws; and though the hon. Member for Sheffield presented, the other day, a petition against the Corn-laws, very numerously signed, what sort of reception did he meet with in the town which he represents? The people have not been deluded so successfully as might be wished. The people are beginning to see, that, as usual, they are made the stalking horse. The people are beginning to see, that it is not for their sakes that all these efforts are made—that it is not they who would profit by the change—but that the effort is made by those who are intent upon nothing but their own advantage. The people are beginning to know that they cannot have cheap bread and high wages at the same time. That the market for labour would only be reduced, if a famishing crowd of agricultural labourers were to flock in and compete with the operatives of the towns; that the only result would be—the only result which is really meant—namely, that the master manufacturers would be enabled to grind their workmen down even lower than they do at present. This is their real object. The abolition of the Corn-laws is not the cause of the community—not the cause of the people, but the cause of a class, the class of master manufacturers, who seek to increase their gains, by depreciating the price of labour—who seek to increase their gains at the expense of the operatives and the landed proprietors. There are bounds to human patience. A man can endure being vilified to a certain amount; but at last, he feels an honest indignation, especially when those who attack him are little entitled to throw the first stone. For how do the master manufacturers act towards the people? Is it they who are the friends of the working classes? I know there are exceptions—but, generally speaking, do not the master manufacturers grind the bodies of their operatives, and neglect their souls? take advantage of their necessities, whenever there is a moment of pressure, and make them work for miserable wages? turn them off by hundreds of a morning, if profit falls off in the least? Is there a kindly feeling in any manufacturing town between masters and men? No, there is not, and the reason is what I have stated, and because the operatives see that their masters regard them as nothing but money-making machines—that their masters take no concern about them the moment they are out of the factory—that they treat them as the beasts that perish—make fortunes out of their bones and sinews, and have no regard for their moral or spiritual welfare. They provide them with no schools; they provide them with no churches; and thus it is that masses of Chartism and Socialism, and Heathenism grow up in the large manufacturing towns. And now, I ask, whether the master manufacturers, or their delegates, are justified in denouncing the landed proprietors? and whether it is for the sake of the master manufacturers the landed proprietors deserve to be sacrificed? No, let us not regard this question as it would affect a class, but as it affects a whole community. Let us enquire whether any thing has happened which should make it the duty of this House to affirm this year what it negatived last year by a large majority? What new event has taken place to justify the change of opinion? To be sure, the old arguments which were knock- ed down last year have been set up again this year, as if they had never been refuted. Mischief, it seems, has more lives than a cat. But what new event has taken place? and what is there now to be said? There is one novelty which I behold with the greatest regret. This year almost the whole of her Majesty's Ministers are arrayed against the agricultural interest; and because they are not altogether unanimous, they have recourse to the high-minded expedient of the open question! This is a novelty indeed, and one which the country beholds not with indifference, and not without alarm. There has been, also, since this question was last discussed, such a season as the oldest man scarcely remembers; and, at this moment, trade is depressed. No man can regret it more than I do. But, with reference to the motion now before the House, the fair question to ask is, whether the Corn-laws are to blame? They will not, I suppose, be charged with having brought the bad weather; but they were able to mitigate its effects; for the graduated scale, yielding, as it always does, to the pressure of the moment, permitted, as it always will in the hour of need, a very great quantity of foreign, corn to flow into the country, sufficient for the occasion, but not overwhelmingly destructive to the progress and prospects of domestic agriculture. The last season appears to me to have afforded a proof of the efficiency of the graduated scale, when exposed to the rudest test. The only wonder was, that corn never was dearer, and that high prices were not of longer duration. No doubt there was a moment of pressure, during which the home market may have been affected, and gold may have gone out of the country; but this arose from such a season as is seldom likely to occur. Laws must not be made or changed with reference to a single year, but with reference to the ordinary course of things; and looking back upon a series of ordinary years, and taking into consideration the constant improvements which agriculture is making—improvements which have kept pace in a remarkable manner with the rapid increase of population—we have reason to believe, that under the present system, inconvenience will be the exception, and corn, at a reasonable price, the rule. But trade is depressed; admitted—but not by the Corn-laws, but from the state of the money market in the United States—in part from the improvement of foreign manufactures, and the jealousy of foreign powers. And, I must say, that perceiving these to be the causes of the present depression, I am disposed to place a still higher value than I did on the home market. For when I see how little dependence can be placed on the regular demand of those countries over which we have no control, I think it must occur to common minds, at least, that it would be prudent to hold fast by that upon which we can rely. But free trade is the true principle; and if we let other countries sell us their corn, they would take our manufactures in return. Free trade may be the true principle; but in the words which were used the other day by a person of some consideration, other countries will not adopt it. If they will not adopt it, neither can we; and if we think that by anything we can do, we can check the improvement of manufactures abroad, we must believe that peace and prosperity do not produce the same effect in France and Germany, as in other places, and that the Germans and the Swiss are made o; different materials from ourselves. Foreign countries will make what they can, and take what they want—neither more nor less; and if the Corn-laws were abolished, neither should we obtain so much more extended a sale for British manufactures as we expect, nor much cheaper bread. Because foreign governments, once in possession of the market, would impose duties on all the corn that might be exported, and would only keep it just low enough to ruin the British farmer. In considering this subject, we should do well to recollect that we are more admired than beloved. Observe the Prussian commercial league—look at the conduct of Portugal—observe the policy which is but too apparent in France—proofs of jealousy—signs of aversion, which show us, if we will not shut our eyes, that it would not be wisdom to make this country dependent upon others for bread. Is it to be believed, that with such dispositions, foreign countries would let us go on ruining their manufactures, and would themselves go on regularly supplying us with as much corn as we wanted at a moderate price? It appears to me that a milder notion never entered the brain of even a political economist. And granting that I under-rate the probable increase of foreign demand; granting that the assertions of the abolitionists are founded on truth, and that the destruction of the agriculturists would really be followed by a rapid and unlimited extension of foreign trade, allow me to ask whether the consequent immense increase of the manufacturing population of this country would make this country a happier land? Is it not quite difficult enough to govern the manufacturing masses already? What would it be if the numbers were indefinitely increased, and the quiet agriculturists swallowed up in the new system? Upon the whole, therefore, I consider it for the interest of the community at large, that the land of this country should remain in a state of cultivation, and the agricultural labourers of this country should remain in employment. I was much struck by what the hon. Member for Maidstone told us last night, about the situation in which the Dutch found themselves when there was a short crop in those countries upon which they depended for a supply of corn. Famine was at their doors. The same calamity might happen to us were we to suffer our domestic agriculture to decline. In that case, should there be such a season abroad as there was last year at home, to what privations might not the people be exposed? Looking, then, to a distant quarter of the globe for support—depending on the winds for life, and the winds, perhaps, obstinately fixed in an adverse direction. Does not any prudent tradesman insure his premises against fire? He may grudge the annual outlays, but, on the whole, he prefers it to the chance of absolute ruin. Protection and domestic agriculture may be considered in the light of a national insurance against the terrible chance of a famine. And I would have that protection in the shape of a graduated scale—by no means in that of a fixed duty—for in times of pressure it could not be maintained, and once taken off' would never be re-placed. Rather than have a fixed duty I would have no protection at all. Hon. Gentlemen have said, that the present system has not fulfilled its promise; but I confess it does not appear to me that what they pointed out afforded any substantial reason for making alterations, for all they shewed us was that the consumer had had a much better bargain than he had any right to expect; which, on their side, appeared to me a singular complaint—and, if nothing is to be satisfactory which does not prevent fluctuations, her Majesty's Ministers must begin with bringing in a bill to regulate the seasons, uncharter that libertine, the air, and contract for a just proportion of sunshine and rain, for until the seasons are regular, with Corn-laws or without Corn-laws, fluctuations cannot be avoided. But when I say I am for a graduated scale, I do not mean to say that the scale as at present constituted, is absolute perfection—that the system is incapable of improvement—that there might not be a better method of taking the averages—but this I do say, that, when the enemy is knocking at our gates with the cry of no compromise, it does not appear to me the proper moment for going into committee, to consider alterations which would only be treated with contempt. If I cannot understand how disinterested Englishmen can vote for a repeal of the Corn-laws, I can much less understand such a course in any patriotic Irishman. For, under the present system, Ireland is, I am happy to think, the granary of England. Abolish the Corn-laws, and Ireland would lose her advantage. Can it be necessary for me, or for any one, to say, Irishmen, remember Ireland? I have stated how the Anti Corn-law agitation has been raised, and what is its real object, and I think I have shown that the working classes, and the community at large would not derive any commensurate advantage from a change; but I observe in many of the petitions that our opponents say they should not so much regret the present state of things if the Corn-laws really answered the purpose of protecting the agriculturist. With every sense of obligation for so much kindness and goodwill, I must be allowed to remark that, on this point, I think the agriculturists may be permitted to judge for themselves. They declare that they are satisfied with the present state of things. They desire no change—much less such change as that which is proposed—and I trust this House will continue to them the protection which it has bestowed, and confirm it to them by at least as large a majority as we had last year.

Mr. Pryme

said, that as the Member for Wolverhampton had brought forward his motion, if not at the instance, at any rate with the concurrence of those who wished for a total and immediate repeal of the Corn-laws, and as he did not agree in any such opinion, he had thought it his duty to move, by way of amendment, the direct converse of such a proposition, and he did so wishing to retain the principle of a graduated scale. The hon. Member for Wolverhampton had called his motion "insidious;" by insidious was meant something more than met the eye, and he would, therefore, put it to the candour of the hon. Member himself, whether those who could not go the length to which he was supposed to go, ought not to propose a more moderate step. He contended, that the agricultural interest was entitled to protection, and it was so entitled, on the ground that there were taxes which pressed on what he might call the manufacture of corn, greater than those which pressed on the manufacture of other commodities; and in thus contending for protection to agriculture, he was not contending against the doctrines of free trade. The father of the doctrine of free trade, Adam Smith himself, said that there were two cases in which encouragement should be given to domestic industry—the one was by the navigation laws, and the other was when any particular home product was taxed, and then a tax of equal amount might be imposed on foreign produce. Adam Smith, after demolishing the system of prohibiting duties, and establishing by arguments which have never been shaken, nor, as far as I know, attempted to be grappled with, the general doctrine of free trade, proceeded to say:— There seems, however, to be two cases in which it will generally be advantageous to lay some burden upon foreign for the encouragement of domestic industry. The second case is, when some tax is imposed at home, upon the produce of domestic industry. In this case it seems reasonable, that an equal tax should be imposed upon the like produce of foreign industry. This would not give the monopoly of the home market to domestic industry, nor turn towards a particular employment a greater share of the stock and labour of the country than what would naturally go to it. It would only hinder any part of what would naturally go to it from being turned away by the tax into a less natural direction, and would leave the competition between foreign and domestic industry, after the tax, as nearly as possible upon the same footing as before it, One of the taxes which pressed peculiarly upon agriculture was tithes, and it mattered not to whom they were paid. They were a tax, too, upon improvements, for if particular land could give 100 quarters of corn, and if for a particular outlay, that same land could be made to produce 120 quarters, the farmer would only get eighteeen out of the twenty additional quarters to remunerate him for his extra outlay, the other two would be payable in the shape of tithes, and be to that extent an additional tax on the land. Suppose, then, that in any other manufacture an increase of outlay would raise 120 instead of 100 yards of yarn or woollen cloth, or whatever it might be, and that two out of the twenty additional yards were taken in the shape of a tax, would any one say, that it was consistent with the principles of free trade, that foreign yarns or cloth should be imported without a duty? That such would not be consistent with those principles was clearly laid down by one of the deepest thinkers in the country—one whose prejudices certainly were not with the landed interest, and who had spent the greater part of his life in the money market or in commerce—Mr. Ricardo: Mr. Ricardo said:— Tithes are a tax on the gross produce of land, and, like taxes on the raw produce, fall wholly on the consumer. They differ from a tax on rent, inasmuch as they affect land which such a tax would not reach, and raise the price of raw produce, which that tax would, not alter. If land of the best quality, or that which pays no rent, and which regulates the price of corn, yield a sufficient quantity to give the farmer the usual profits of stock, when the price of wheat is 4l. per quarter, the price must rise to 4l. 8s., before the same profits can be obtained after the tithes are imposed for every quarter of wheat the cultivator must pay 8s. to the Church; and if be does not obtain the same profits, there is no, reason why he should not quit his employ, when he can get them in other trades. Tithes, however, may be considered injurious to landlords, inasmuch as they act as a bounty on importation, by taxing the growth of home coin, while the importation of foreign corn remains unfettered; and if, in order to relieve the landlords from the effects of the diminished demand for land, which such a bounty must encourage, imported corn were also taxed in an. equal degree with corn grown at home, and the produce paid to the state, no measure could be more fair and equitable. Another species of taxes, which pressed most strongly upon land, was the poor-rates, the county-rates, the highway-rates, and the church-rates. These taxes were placed upon land where there was little property except land, where the funds had no existence, where mortgages were, rare, and where there was little personal property except the furniture, and the splendid jewellery and dresses of the Lords or of the gentry. In those times the land seemed the only property on which these taxes could be placed; on land accordingly they were imposed, and on land they still continued, although the aspect of the times had completely changed. It might be said, that property in mills and other manufacturing buildings paid parochial taxes; and so it did, but what was the proportion paid, by the different parties? The land paid to those four taxes at least one-fifth of the whole amount of profit; but how much was paid on a manufacturing establishment? This was difficult to be obtained with accuracy; but he was told, that he could not err very far if he said, that the renter of a manufacturing establishment did not pay towards these four taxes more than a fiftieth part of the gross amount of profit. If so, the the land paid about ten times as great a proportion as the manufacturing establishments; and if this were correct, there ought to be, according to the principles of free trade, some countervailing duty on the agricultural products that came from foreign countries, which were not subject to such duties. There was a third tax to which the farmers were subject, and which did not apply to factories—the window-tax; for their dwelling-houses the manufacturers and the farmers both paid, but whereas the farmers had, in consequence of doors communicating between their houses and the dairies and cheese-rooms, to pay window-tax for the latter; the manufacturers were not in the habit of having doors communicating with their factories, and therefore the factories were altogether exempt from the duty. And, lastly, there was the ad valorem duty upon all transfers of land, whilst there was none on the sale of goods; and the amount on bills, and other securities that do not affect lands, was very small. Having stated the grounds on which, as he conceived, the land was entitled to protection, they came to another question, what that protection ought to be. The present and former systems had for many years produced successive fluctuations, which had proved most injurious to the farmers. They had first experienced ruinously high prices, and then ruinously low prices; and what could be more injurious to the landowners, the farmers, and the manufacturers, than this state of perpetual oscillation? He believed that this oscillation would be less, that the fluctuations would be less, and that the interests of the landowner, of the farmer, and of the manufacturer, as well as of the consumer, would be benefitted by a graduated scale of duty of lesser amount. There were many reasons for such a change. Some of the charges on land had been lately diminished, the poor-rates had been much lessened, and the tithe, when it came into the shape of a corn-rent, would have many pf its most objectionable points taken away. Besides the price at present, which gave a free trade in corn, was 73s., and he could quote the evidence of persons examined before the committees in 1833 and 1836, which showed that the average price was less than the 73s.; same estimated it at 56s., and others at 64s. Mr. Robert Hughes, a land-agent of Salop, was asked in 1833, You have stated that the scale you now value at is 56s. for wheat, and 30s. for barley, and upon that basis you think the present rents could be maintained? Answer: I think so, where they are not strained to a very high value. All my answers must be taken in a general point of view. Mr. Adam Murray, land agent and surveyor, said on the same committee, What do you consider the present price of grain?—Answer: I saw some very fine wheat from Somersetshire, that weighed 61lbs., sold for 43s. 11d. a quarter. Instead of 43s. 11d., it ought to bring, to remunerate the farmer, fully 64s. And, before the committee of 1836, Mr. Thomas Bennet, the steward to the Duke of Bedford, stated, The produce of lay land, eighteen bushels an acre; light land, 25 bushels. And then being asked, Do you think that either of those descriptions of land can continue to grow wheat at the present rent, receiving 5s. a bushel?" replied, "Looking at the prices of the ordinary productions of the farm, I think they can. The wheat is the larger proportion of what they sell; they have other things. Various witnesses make it 56s. to 64s. Therefore it was that he proposed a gradual reduction from the average price of 73s., and he thought that such a reduction as he proposed would have the effect of keeping prices steadier, and of prevent- ing that over-cultivation which high prices produced, for he found, by the return of wheat sold at Mark-lane, that as the prices declined the quantity sold became considerably less. The present scale had succeeded after a short interval a scale proposed by Mr. Canning. That scale went on the principle, that when the price was 60s. the duty should be 20s., and that the duty should decrease 2s. for every rise of 1s.; so that they would come to a nominal duty of 1s. when the wheat was at a price of 70s. The alteration which he would propose, therefore, was, that the duty which was now paid when the price was 73s. should be paid when the price should be at 70s., and that the duty which was now paid when the price was 72s. should be paid when the price should be 69s. He proposed, therefore, a graduated scale, because a fixed duty was objected to, and the ground of that objection he took to be, that it was impracticable to continue it when corn was high, and that when corn was very low it would be nugatory. During a certain interval of time it might be maintained; but why should they adopt a plan which, in the two extreme cases, would be entirely useless? There were evils also, and great fluctuations under the old system. In the years 1794 and 1795, or 1796, there was practically a free trade, that is, the restrictive price was below the ordinary market price, and the corn came in without restriction; but soon afterwards, in 1799 and 1800, the price was so high that Government, on their own responsibility, did away with the duty; and he would ask how, in periods of such difficulty, they would be able to deal with a fixed duty? But some said that there might be a fixed duty, which should cease if corn should rise above a certain price. If this were the proposal, what manœuvring would there not be to get the price just above the fixed amount? There were those also who said, that by a complete system of exclusion, we could best procure a permanent supply. But there had been almost an exclusion, and they had recently seen that corn had accumulated in warehouses which was let loose by the owners, rather than keep their money longer locked up or the corn injured, but there was no such thing as a permanent supply. The best way to obtain such a supply was, in his opinion, by an open trade, protected only by such a. duty as should cause the producers of corn to be fairly remunerated. The greater the extent of the district from which they looked for a supply, the greater the probability was that they would have an average crop or a regular supply. The produce of a single field was different in parts of it, the produce of a single farm was not uniform, there was less difference in the average produce of a whole parish, still less in the average produce of a country, and there was yet more certainty of equality in the produce if they took as their field any number of countries accessible to each other by commerce. In this larger field they would have a more uniform production. The years in which a crop failed in one country were generally those in which the produce of others was greater than usual. The climates and the same yearly seasons in Poland, in America, in the Mediterranean, and even in England and Scotland, differed materially, and it was scarcely possible to find either a redundant or a deficient harvest throughout the whole world. We had come also to that state of manufacturing progress in which it had become desirable to have a regular import trade in corn, which we might get in exchange for our manufactures. It had been said by the noble Earl (the Earl of Darlington) who spoke last night, that the agricultural and the manufacturing interests were not opposed; it was not in the nature of things that they could be opposed. The prosperity of the agriculturists must necessarily in a great degree depend upon that of the manufacturing and working classes, and if the House wished to have something more than a theoretical argument on which to ground their belief of this fact, he begged to refer them to the result of an inquiry which had taken place in Birmingham upon the subject. That town had suffered much between the years 1818 and 1820, in consequence of the cessation of employment, which was the effect of the establishment of peace, and an inquiry was instituted, the result of which was stated by Mr. Spooner to a Committee of this House. The first four months of each of those years had been selected, when a much greater degree of distress had existed than in the corresponding months of the two proceeding years. The town was divided into districts, and the weekly return and the result which was given was ascertained from every butcher and baker. In 1818 the number of cattle slaughtered was 5,100, and in 1820 it was 2,700; so that it had diminished nearly one-half. In 1818 the sheep slaughtered were 11,400 in number, and in 1820 the number was 8,200. He asked then, whether this did not distinctly support his argument? The quantity of bread stated by Mr. Spooner to have been consumed was about the same which had been before disposed of, and for this reason—the operatives were prevented from consuming so much meat, and the extra quantity of bread which they took only compensated for the decreased consumption by those who were of a class even inferior to themselves. He had heard doubts expressed whether, in the event of an alteration being made in the Corn-laws, favourable to the introduction of foreign grain, there was any probability that the governments of the continental states would make any new regulations as regarded their relations with Great Britain in this respect; but he apprehended that whether any such new regulations were made or not, this country would still be placed in a better position. Because, if corn was produced in other countries at a lower rate than in England, it was obvious that when the door was thrown open to its introduction, the producers would have no hesitation in availing themselves of the opportunity afforded them. This country had completely changed its character in the course of some centuries. In the reign of Elizabeth we were producers of the raw material and exported it to other countries. It was to be collected from the contemporary writers that we sent out wool and skins, and brought them back in the shape of cloth, gloves and other manufactures; and that this was done, although there was a small duty imposed each way, on their going out and coming back. So lucrative was this trade in the raw material, that even rags were exported, and the paper brought back. Russia, Poland, America, were in that state now, and we were in a condition to take a portion of their raw material, and to give them a portion of our manufactures. During the war with France, no difficulty had been experienced in obtaining supplies of corn from foreign countries. During the whole of the continuance of that war a regular importation had taken place. The price was occasionally high, it was true, but still there was a continued and regular supply. If, then, the corn-growing countries of the continent had, under such circumstances, and in such a state of things, brought their corn to this country, he should say that in ordinary times, and under ordinary circumstances, they would do so to a still greater extent. But even supposing there were any difficulty with respect to the grain countries of Europe, still there were other corn-growing countries in the world, and while a proper and well regulated system of protection was afforded to commerce, they need be under no apprehension that there would be any falling off in the supply. He would warn hon. Members who were connected with the agricultural interest, of the danger of refusing to make some concession to the wishes of the people. It was not likely that the present agitation, as it was called upon this question, would subside unless something were done. While the people were suffering under the pressure of high prices and consequent scarcity of food, that agitation would continue. He called upon them to recollect "Nescit plebes jejuna timere," and trusted that they would adopt the prudent course which he had pointed out. The hon. Member concluded by moving as an amendment to the motion of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. Villiers), that these words be added, "with a view to the reduction of the average prices specified in the table to that Act annexed, according to which the respective duties are imposed."

Mr. W. Duncombe

said, that he should not have felt it to be his duty to arise to address the House on this occasion, but for the fact of the absence of his hon. colleague, who was more accustomed to take part in the debates of the House than he was, and of his having had the honour to present a great number of petitions praying that no alteration of the existing Corn-laws should take place—a prayer in which he most cordially concurred. It had been suggested that the sentiments of the people of this country had changed with regard to this question, but he begged to say, that the opinions which had been expressed by his constituents were strongly confirmed in the view which they had expressed, in opposition to the repeal of the Corn-laws. He imagined that it was impossible to overrate the mischief which would be likely to arise throughout the country in the event of the motion of the hon. Member being acceded to; and he for one should give his most cordial opposition to it. It was true that many petitions had been presented, the effect of which was to favour this motion; but he begged to ask, how those petitions had been got up? In some instances, he was credibly informed that signatures had been obtained by labourers, both men and boys being compelled to affix their names, by their masters, on their going to, or returning from work; and however numerous the signatures might be to these documents, he conceived that they ought not to be considered to counterbalance those which had been presented on the other side, and which came from the more respectable classes of the community. With respect to this motion of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, he thought that it involved two propositions—first, the total and unqualified repeal of the Corn-laws, which was the view taken by the hon. Member himself, and the great proportion of those gentlemen who surrounded him, besides a large body of petitioners; and secondly, the adoption of a fixed duty—a proposition in which the hon. Member was joined by a Member of her Majesty's Cabinet. With respect to the adoption of fixed duties, he confessed that if he were in the position of the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade, he would much rather support a total repeal, than a fixed duty of 7s. or 8s., for he was certain that such a duty would be inoperative as affording any protection to the agricultural classes. He found that Mr. Canning, in the year 1827, had expressed himself decidedly opposed to such a duty, and in the year 1828, Mr. Huskisson, too, had declared that it was impossible to adopt such a project. It was obvious that the hon. Member thought that the great advantage which would arise from a fixed duty, would be the prevention of fluctuations in the price of corn, but he must beg leave to remind him that in instances where fixed duties had existed, more fluctuations had taken place than under the present system. As to the first proposition which he considered to be involved in this motion, he thought that the working classes would not be satisfied with the repeal of the Corn-laws; but that to adopt such a course would be to embark in a sea of troubles and difficulties of the most dangerous character. He said if there was to be a free trade in corn, let there be a free trade in every thing else—let there not be protecting duties upon anything. Upon silk there was a protecting duty of from 30 to 100 per cent.; on soap there was a protecting duty of from 3l. 10s. to 4l. 10s. per cwt.; upon linen, upon iron bars, upon hides, upon glass, upon cotton (when made up, and when not made up), and upon a great variety of articles, there were protecting duties. He asked the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade did he mean to give up all those protecting duties? If not, why did he say to the agricultural interest that he would no longer give them that protection which hitherto they had the advantage of? He said that a protecting duty on corn was not a protection for the few, but the many; it was not for a class, but for the entire population. The question was, whether they would have the land cultivated and the people paid, or give up these advantages because certain gentlemen had thought proper to spread agitation throughout the country by means of hired lecturers? Did these agitating gentlemen imagine that the landed proprietors would foe so soft as to give up their protection because of their agitation? For himself he would say, if it was the wish of Parliament and of the Government to extend the repeal of protecting duties to all those other articles he had referred to, and to give a free trade in every thing, he would willingly agree. [Cheers.] If they were willing to go that length, as from that cheer be understood they were, why had they not Specified it by their motion? Instead of confining the motion to the Corn-laws, why not say what they mean? Why seek to get a vote under one pretence when they really meant another? Why not take Off all taxation upon those imports? He believed the reason was to be found in the object they had in view, and that object he believed to be to get rid of the Corn-laws for the purpose of their own aggrandisement at the expense and injury of Others. If such a principle were once suffered to. creep in, they might rely upon it that it would recoil upon every other class of the community. Hon. Gentlemen opposite were mistaken if they imagined that their course of policy would not teem with the most disastrous effects to the country. He was anxious to support all measures which he believed to have a tendency to improvement and to the amelioration of the condition of all, but more especially the lower classes, throughout the kingdom; but he could not believe that any such effect would be produced by compelling- them to rely upon foreign countries for food. He should upon that occasion give his vote in accordance with the petitions which he had recently had the honour of presenting to the House. Before sitting down he would observe, that if there was any one question which should not have been made an open question by the Ministers of the Crown, it was that of the repeal of the Corn-laws. He would advert to a passage contained in a letter from the noble Lord the Secretary to the Colonies to the electors of Huntingdon, which was to the effect that there were in that House a set of political economists who were anxious to have cheap bread at any sacrifice, but in seeking for this consummation they were endeavouring to obtain a fallacious panacea for the evils of the country. He wished the Government had adopted the sentiments of the noble Lord, instead of making an open question of a subject of such vital importance to the country.

Mr. Clay.

—The motion of his hon. Friend was for a Committee to consider of the present Corn-laws. The reply is, there is no consideration necessary—the Corn-laws work well, and there are no grounds for any alteration. If this be so, then he must say he could not conceive by what urgency of circumstances or cogency of proof the House ever could be induced to view any portion of our code as susceptible of amendment. What is the nature of the proof? What are the circumstances which ought to induce the legislature to consider of the amendment of any law? That it had not answered its intended objects? That it affected injuriously some great national interest? That it failed to give contentment to the people? Which class of these desiderated proofs was wanting to the evil working of the Corn-laws? Did any laws ever more completely fail to fulfil the avowed intention of the framers? Two main objects, were announced as the justification for the enactment of these laws. They were to keep the price of corn steady, and thus to protect the farmer from the ruinous effect of great fluctuations., and they were to render us independent of foreign sup ply. These were to have been their effects. What have been their effects? Fluctuations the most violent, variations almost from year to year of 100 per cent. —prices so low as at one time to threaten the farmer with ruin—at another so high as to drive the humbler classes of consumers to despair. On this point he had not intended to say one single word—he had thought it impossible that the tendency of the Corn-laws to produce such fluctuations could, after the experience of the last few years, be disputed; it was Otherwise, it was denied that those laws have such tendency, and it was said that the variations in the price of corn elsewhere were greater than here. It was with great reluctance he troubled the House with a repetition of arguments formerly used—the subject was exhausted. No ingenuity can find a new argument; and if, therefore, old fallacies were repeated, they must be met by the old refutation. If by prohibition or prohibitory duties they prevented the importation of corn below a price that would in ordinary years permit enough corn for our consumption to be grown at home—they rendered absolutely certain enormous fluctuations above and below that price. The breadth of corn, enough in ordinary years, is too much in years of abundance. What is to be done with the surplus? It cannot be exported, for we have taken pains to raise our prices above the level of all other countries; it hangs upon the market, and, according to a well known effect of the principle of supply and demand, beats down the price in a far greater ratio than it bears to the whole year's consumption. What is the consequence? Ruin or discouragement to the farmer—less breadth of wheat is sown the smaller growth is coincident with a bad season—the price rises as much above as it fell below its ordinary level; again, the growth is stimulated, and they recommence their miserable cycle. This argument he had stated to the House four years since; and, prices being then at their very lowest level, had predicted what had occurred. He would now venture on another prophecy. Previously to the harvest of 1839 a very greatly increased breadth of wheat was sown. There was no reason to think it was diminished last autumn. If, again, they should have one or two favourable seasons in succession, they would again see wheat at a price at which it would be used as food for cattle. But it was now discovered that the fluctuations of price were greater elsewhere than in this country. On this assertion he would observe, first, that at all the ports whence our sup- plies of corn were drawn, the price must of necessity vary from a rate below our lowest prices, when there was no import to this country, to a rate only Jess than our highest price by the cost of transit; and, secondly, that by the document on which the inference was grounded, it appeared that the least fluctuation was where there was perpetual importation, viz. Holland. Again we were to be independent of foreign supply. Why, within two years, to avert the famine which stared us in the face, we have imported somewhere about 4,000,000 quarters of wheat. Do they interfere with the development of the national energies—do they cramp the enter-prize of the merchant—narrow the market of the manufacturer—and enhance the course of the subsistence—while they diminish the employment of the artizan? To this point they had the testimony of every class—of almost every man in the kingdom, capable of forming an opinion on the subject—they had the calm, deliberate opinions of the greatest merchants and the most extensive manufacturers—they had the unanimous voice of all the great commercial towns of the kingdom—they had, above all, the unanswerable argument of facts—almost the whole of northern and central Europe have combined to exclude our manufactures on the express ground of the Corn-laws. With the countries lying nearest to our own shores, and with which our commercial relations should be naturally the most intimate, we have the least trade; among people disposed by identity of origin, and similarity of interests, to be the most friendly to us, our selfish and capricious legislation is fast generating hostile feelings. We are fast converting those who should be our best customers into jealous and angry rivals. An attempt was certainly made last night by the hon. Member for Maidstone, if he (Mr. Clay) rightly understood him, to show that our duties on corn and timber had no influence on the commercial code of the corn and timber-growing countries; but, as he could not avoid supposing that the hon. Gentleman made his speech rather with a view of showing how ingeniously he could support a bold paradox, than in the expectation that the House could agree in his views, he would not occupy the time of the House in refuting a proposition, which was as obviously opposed to all probability, as to the mass of evidence that was at hand as to the fact. There is, again, the derangement of our monetary system. With respect to that system there are many different opinions; very opposite doctrines are entertained both as to its defects, and the remedies for those defects; but there is no theory on the currency, as far as he was aware, which did not allot to the recent large importations of corn the chief share in its late alarming derangements. The House might be assured, that no monetary system, not even a system wholly metallic—certainly not one consisting partly of paper money—could be otherwise than most injuriously effected by the necessity of a large and sudden demand for the export of the precious metals. The abstraction of a large portion of the circulating medium, even when unattended by the further diminution which the panics incident to a vicious system create, must of necessity be accompanied by a lessening of the usual banking accommodation, a derangement of the money market, and a general fall of prices, ruinously affecting all the great interests of the country. We were in this absurd position, that when, from a failure of our own harvests, we required corn from abroad, we could only get that corn from nations with whom we had taken the greatest pains to limit or destroy our commercial intercourse; and where, of course, there could be no market prepared to receive the produce of our manufacturing industry. What was the result? They will only take our gold; the abstraction of this lifeblood of our circulation paralyses the productive energies of the country, which languish, until, by some slow and circuitous process, we regain the sum of the precious metals necessary for the healthy state of our monetary system. Now these things were notorious; the facts to which he had referred could neither be gainsaid nor explained away, and yet hon. Gentlemen said the Corn-laws worked well, and there was no necessity for change. They might be quite assured such was not the feeling of the people. The contrary conviction was every day spreading more widely. Let the House look at the present state of the question as regards public feeling and opinion, contrasted with what it was only twelve months back, and see what hold it has taken of the public mind. The call for repeal has doubled in strength since last year, nor was this to be attributed (as had been asserted by the hon. Member for Nottinghamshire and others) to the exertions of the itinerant lecturers, not to the speeches at public meetings. He did not deny that the efforts which had been made to diffuse information on this great question, might have had some effect in exciting public attention; but, without the lessons which events have taught, orators might have spoken, and lecturers lectured in vain—such means of excitement were efficacious as adjuncts to the sterner schooling of experience—they were but of slender potency, unless, by circumstances, the public mind had been fitted for their reception. But whatever might be the effects to be ascribed respectively to various causes in producing the present state of public feeling, the fact was certain, that there was an intensity and accordance of feeling and opinion among great classes of the people as to the repeal of those laws which had never yet existed. He believed, that, ere long, the universal opinion of the public, with the single exception of the comparatively small number who believed (erroneously, as he thought), that they had an interest in keeping up the price of corn, would be in favour of the repeal of those laws. He would ask of the advocates of the Corn-laws whether, under these circumstances, they really thought those laws could be maintained? Supposing them to deny the force of the arguments against the policy and justice of these laws—supposing them to set but little value upon a free commercial intercourse with other countries—supposing them to be willing to encounter periodically the grave inconveniences of a deranged currency—did they believe that they could maintain laws against which the whole commercial and manufacturing interests, and all the greatest cities and towns of this country protested almost with one voice? He did not believe that such an opinion was very confidently entertained. There were symptoms, not very equivocal, of a doubt, at least among the most powerful supporters of the Corn-laws, whether, in the existing form, those laws could be maintained. He would beg leave to refer to a very significant passage in the speech of the right hon. Gentleman, the Member for Tarn-worth, on occasion of the recent debate on the motion of a want of confidence in Ministers. The hon. Gentleman was proceeding to read an extract from the speech in question, when he was interrupted by

The Speaker

, who said, that it was not in order to allude to any debate which had taken place in the course of the present Session.

Mr. Clay

said he supposed he might read what he had met with in a certain publication, and which reminded him very much of what he had heard fall from the right hon. Baronet on a certain occasion. The hon. Gentleman was again proceeding, amidst cries of "order, order," to read from a paper in his hand, when

The Speaker

said, the hon. Gentleman must be aware that he could not allude, either directly or indirectly, to speeches made in the course of the present session, and that it was a very shallow disguise under which he was now attempting to do so.

Mr. Clay

said he supposed, then, that he might be allowed to state what his impression of the right hon. Baronet's arguments were in reference to this subject, and was proceeding to do so, amidst some confusion and murmurs, when

Sir R. Peel

rose and said, that what he had really said, he believed, appeared in the form of a pamphlet, and under these circumstances he did not know how far this quotation might be allowable; but he did protest against the hon. Gentleman's giving his own version of his sentiments. Personally he had no objection to the hon. Gentleman's reading the passage he referred to.

Mr. Clay

proceeded to read the extract, which was as follows:— On that great question, my opinions remain unchanged. I adhere to those which I expressed in the discussion of last year. I did not then profess, nor do I now profess, an unchangeable adherence to the details of the existing law—a positive refusal, under any circumstances, to alter any figure of the scale which regulates the duty on foreign corn. I did profess, and I now repeat that I consider a liberal protection to domestic agriculture indispensable, not merely to the prosperity of agriculture, but to the general interests of the community—that I think a graduated duty, varying inversely with the price of corn, far preferable to a fixed duty; that I object to a fixed duty, first, from the great difficulty of determining the proper amount of it on any satisfactory data; but, secondly and chiefly, because I for see that it would be impossible to maintain that fixed duty under a very high price of corn, and that, once withdrawn, it would be extremely difficult to re-establish it. He did not wish to extract from the passage he had read any stronger meaning than the hon. Gentleman himself would avow, but he thought he was entitled to draw from it this inference, that the right hon. Gentleman did not feel quite confident that the corn-laws, in their present shape, could be maintained. Thus much, at least, however, was clear, that the right hon. Gentleman avowed his preference of the sliding scale. But he thought the right hon. Gentleman should go further, and state to the House what was the alteration of the rates of duty he would, if in his judgment any change were necessary, be disposed to make. He (Mr. Clay) thought this the more incumbent on the right hon. Gentleman after the declaration of opinion as to the amount of a fixed duty made by a member of the government, his right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade, last evening. He did not of course mean that his right hon. Friend spoke the language of the government—his right hon. Friend had expressly stated he spoke only as an individual—whether, however, the right hon. Baronet would be disposed to follow the example of frankness set by his right hon. Friend, of this at least he was glad, that the two great principles of free trade, with a moderate fixed duty on the one hand, and the present system of the sliding scale and fluctuating duties on the other, stood fairly in contrast with each other; and that it was mainly by the great party—the Liberal party to which he had the honour to belong—that the former principle was espoused. He felt perfectly certain, that, despite the powerful opposition of the right hon. Baronet, the day was not far distant when that principle would be sanctioned by the overwhelming weight of public opinion. He was completely opposed to the alteration shadowed out in the speech of the right hon. Gentleman, and embodied in the resolution proposed by his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Cambridge. Any mere reduction of the duty, any change which should retain the principle of the sliding scale, would leave untouched the most noxious element of the present system. The great evil of the present system was, that under the semblance of a free trade, it rendered any really free trade impossible. No people could grow corn for our use under a system which at one moment admitted the produce of their fields, and at another condemned it to rot in their granaries. No government could be expected to relax its exclusion of our manufactures in return for a commercial intercourse, so contrived as to inflict injury rather than confer advantage on its subjects. Any alteration of the Corn-laws, therefore, which did not sweep away the whole machinery of the present Corn-law, and substitute for the averages and the sliding scale of duties a trade really and honestly free, on clear and intelligible principles, he should hold to be completely nugatory. The House would observe, that in the observations he had made, he had gone but slightly into the general question of the Corn-laws. He had felt that the subject was exhausted, and that as regarded himself, he could add nothing to the arguments which by the indulgence of the House he had on former occasions advanced. He should, therefore, abstain wholly from trespassing on the time of the House, by entering on the wide field of argument which a consideration of the whole question of the Corn-laws presented, but content himself with earnestly requesting of those hon. Gentlemen who more especially represented agricultural interest in that House, to reflect whether it were consistent with a wise policy any longer to refuse a reconsideration of our present system. This request he would address equally to both sides of the House. This was not a party question—it was a question of classes, but only the more important and dangerous on that account. It was more and more felt every day to be a question between the class of landholders, identified not unnaturally or unjustly with the highest and most powerful classes, and the rest of the community. He had never argued the question in a spirit hostile to that class; on the contrary, he had more than once said, that in his opinion, if there were one class more than another deeply interested in the repeal of these laws, the landholders constituted that class. The wealthy capitalist, the skilful artisan, might quit our shores, but they must remain and partake the good or evil fortunes of their country. Whilst the country continued to prosper, and its wealth and population to increase in an equal ratio, to suppose that the value of landed property could decrease to suppose even that it should not increase, appeared to him the idlest and most chimerical fear. But if, unhappily, whilst our population increased, our means of employment should be stationary or decrease—if capital, finding no profitable employment, should be abstracted or extinguished, then indeed a time might arrive when the possession of extensive estates might confer something very different from wealth, or influence, or happiness on the possessor. Nor was this a question safely to be postponed or trifled with; our population increased at the rate of half a million a year. Did hon. Gentlemen not feel that one fact to involve the most awful consequences? Did they really believe it possible much longer to maintain a system which prevented our people from drawing their subsistence from a wider portion of the earth's surface than is comprehended within the limits of the British islands? At present a change in our system would have most beneficial results; but every year the chance of securing those results become less, inasmuch as it would become more difficult to establish sound commercial relations with other nations, and as a feeling of alienation and disgust should spread more and more widely through the great bulk of the people of this country. For these reasons he would implore the House at least to show such respect to the strong feeling that existed on this head, as to accede to the motion of his hon. Friend and go into committee. When in committee, some middle term—something approaching to friendly compromise—might be suggested. He was himself of opinion, as he had repeatedly expressed, that the agricultural interest need have no fear of a free trade unshackled by any duty; but would not conceal his opinion that a free trade, with a moderate fixed duty, if such should be insisted on, would be an improvement of the greatest value on our present system, and have effects on the best and most permanent interests of the country, of which it would be difficult to over-estimate the value.

Mr. Shaw

did not rise at that late hour to trespass long upon the attention of the House, but as he saw the hon. Member for Wolverhampton in his place, he was anxious to disabuse the House of one or two misrepresentations which the hon. Gentleman had, he was sure, unintentionally made in respect to the manner in which the interests of Ireland were affected by this question. The hon. Gentleman had said, that of all the shallow pretences which had been advanced in support of the Corn-laws, the case of Ireland was the shallowest and the boldest. He was exceedingly astonished to hear the hon. Gentleman make that statement, but still more so to hear the reasons the hon. Gentleman assigned in support of it. The hon. Gentleman stated, that from 1832 to the present time, Ireland had been exporting less and less corn than before. [Mr. Villiers: Wheat.] The hon. Gentleman said wheat. Now, he would beg to refer the hon. Gentleman to the return made last year, on the motion of the hon. Member for Sligo, of the quantity of corn imported from Ireland from the year 1800 to the 3rd of January, 1839; and first, with regard to corn generally, it appeared that in 1832 there had been imported 2,990,767 quarters of corn, whilst in the year 1838, there had been 3,474,302 quarters imported. Of wheat there had been imported, in 1832,790,000 quarters, in 1833 844,000 quarters, in 1834 779,000 quarters, in 1835 661,000 quarters, in 1836 598,000 quarters, and in 1837 534,000 quarters. [Mr. Villiers: That's a falling off.] It was a falling off as compared with the year 1833, but as compared with a former period since the Union it was a very considerable increase. In 1815, for instance, the quantity imported was 189,000 quarters. He would refer to the opinions of two Gentlemen of opposite politics, which were contradictory of the view taken by the hon. Member for Wolverhampton. The first was Mr. Sharman Crawford, who said that "it would be better for Ireland that she should not be an exporting market, and, therefore, the continuance of the Corn-laws could not be looked to as a means of advancing the prosperity of Ireland." The next was Mr. O'Connell, who said that "he considered that this country (Ireland) had no chance of recovering any portion of that wealth which had been abstracted from it, until the English market was thrown open to foreign corn, and the absentees made to return to Ireland." Now, if the hon. Member for Wolverhampton would be bound at all by the statements of those who were supposed to know most about the interests of Ireland, he thought he could not but admit that those opinions which he had quoted went directly in support of the fact that the Corn-laws did tend to promote and encourage the importation of corn from Ireland; and, therefore, the hon. Gentleman would not be surprised if he found a good number of Irish Members, of all politics, voting against his motion. He was sorry to be obliged to say that, in his opinion, it was but too true, that the people of Ireland were so low that it was impossible they could descend lower in the scale of human enjoyments. The hon. Gentleman said, he would find employment for them in the manufactures of England; but he could not hear that there was any want of hands in England; and if the Corn-laws were repealed, how many agricultural labourers would be driven to seek employment in the manufacturing towns? Why, if they were to repeal the Corn-laws, they would have, instead of an influx, an actual inundation of the people from Ireland, seeking food and employment. Upon all these grounds, therefore, he should give his cordial opposition to the present motion, or to any other of similar tendency.

Mr. Villiers

said, that having been directly charged with misrepresentation by the hon. and learned Member, perhaps the House would allow him to say a very few words in explanation. What he had said last night was, that of late years the importations of wheat from Ireland had been diminishing, and the hon. and learned Gentleman, by the returns he had read to the House, had precisely confirmed what he had stated. With the single exception of the year 1834, the imports had been decreasing every year since the year 1832.

Debate again adjourned.