CHEESE

HC Deb 25 May 1842 vol 63 cc744-51

On the clause that the duty on cheese of or from foreign countries be the cwt., of or from British possessions. The question put that the blank be filled up with "ten shillings. "

Viscount Howick

said, that the principle in this case being the same as in that which the committee had just decided, he should offer as far as he was concerned no opposition to the proposition of the Government in respect to cheese.

Sir P. Egerton

called the attention of the committee to the large quantity of cheese that had been imported into the country within the last six months from the western states of America. The result of that large importation had been that the price of Cheshire cheese had fallen in the market from 10s. to 15s. per cwt. He believed it was a consideration of these circumstances that had induced the Government to maintain the present rate of duty. The cheese-growers of the country were anxious to give every fair play to the colonial producer, but they feared that the American cheese would be brought in large quantities across the border into Canada, and thence imported into England as colonial produce. He therefore thought it advisable that the differential duty should be increased from 2s. 6d. to 5s., so as to protect the home-grower from the importation of American cheese in the way he had described.

Mr. Labouchere

regretted that the Government had not greatly reduced the duty on cheese, as it was a most important necessary of life. He referred to a Cheshire Conservative newspaper, in which it was stated that the Conservative Members for that county had been enabled to influence the Government to keep up the protection on cheese, when it was reduced on most other articles of provisions. The article to which he alluded was in the Chester Courant, a respectable Conservative newspaper, and was as follows: — The new tariff lowers the duties on all provisions admitted into this country, excepting those on cheese and butter: the continuance of the present duty on foreign cheese ought, therefore, to be considered by fanners as a decided gain, and should be viewed by them in the light of a protection. for this advantage, agriculturists are indebted to the Members of our county; for, by their unremitting applications to the Board of Trade, and to their strong remonstrances with the board, they obtained the omission of foreign cheese in the regulations of the new tariff, which includes every other article of food. Our indefatigable Members were not, however, satisfied with this omission alone; they obtained an assurance from the Colonial Secretary, that all American cheese, in its transit through Canada, or any of the British North American possessions, shall be branded or marked on passing the border; so that the introduction of it into any port of Great Britain or Ireland shall not be allowed, without payment of the present duty on foreign produce.

The hon.

Members for Cheshire had probably been more energetic in private than in public, and to them, according to this paper, the country owed this result.

Sir R. Peel

said, the right hon. Gentleman ought to make some allowance for the desire of the editor of a country paper to paint in glowing colours the Members for the county. He could only say, that in this, as in all other cases, he had acted wholly without deference to any local or political interest, as his right hon. Friend near him well knew. He could say, indeed, that he had never received any representations from the Members for the county of Chester on the subject. He could assure the right hon. Gentleman, upon his honour, that he had decided on this point without any communication at all with any party concerned in the matter.

Mr. Labouchere

said, it was wholly unnecessary for the right hon. Baronet to dwell upon his disavowal; whatever fell from him of that nature must, of course, be received with implicit credence in the House.

Mr. Gladstone

could corrobarate what had been stated by his right hon. Friend, but he wished to re-establish in some degree the character of the hon. Members for the county. His right hon. Friend had said that they had made no applications to him; but the same could not be said with respect to the Board of Trade, for the hon. Baronet (Sir P. Egerton) and a considerable array of Gentlemen connected with the county had come forward and pressed the Board of Trade, not for the continuance of the present duty, but for a considerable increase of it.

Mr. T. Egerton

could so far confirm what had fallen from the right hon. Gentleman as to say, that he had made many applications on this subject, to all of which a deaf ear had been turned. He was in favour of the protection, for unless the dairy farmers had due protection it would be impossible for them to compete with America.

Mr. M. Philips

felt it due to the working classes, whose distress he had daily had an opportunity of witnessing, to make a distinct motion for the reduction of the proposed duly on cheese. He did not think, that because there existed a temporary depression in the trade in that article, the House ought to legislate as if the depression would be permanent. He did not think the farmers of this country had anything to fear from the importation of cheeses from America. He feared, however, that from various causes inferior cheeses were now manufactured. In consequence of the great demand for butter, which was so essential an ingredient in good cheese, an inferior article was manufactured, in the composition of which there was little or no butter. The Government would do much better to yield on the article of butter, because then an article would be manufactured and brought to market with which no foreign cheese could compete in quality. The hon. Member concluded by moving a reduction of the duty from 10s.6d. to 7s. 6d.

Mr. T. Egerton

informed the hon. Member that there were two kinds of cheese made in Cheshire, one an inferior kind, called" toasting" cheese, and the other a superior article, in which the butter was allowed wholly to remain.

Mr. Hume

deprecated the adoption of any measures to discourage the importation of the produce of America, at the time when the United States were deliberating upon their own tariff, and when the resolutions they might adopt might affect our trade for years to come.

Mr. Cobden

remarked, that the increased importation of cheese from America had been accompanied by a decline in the importation from the continent. He rose, however, to protest against the attempts made by the landed interest to raise the price of food in the present condition of the community. He should not fail to remind the freeholders of Stockport, Ashton, and the other towns from which the Members for Cheshire derived influence at their elections, of the manner in which those hon. Gentlemen had endeavoured on this occasion to raise the price of an article of food so essential to the poor. How long would the landed interest still continue thus to drive on the working classes? How were those classes to subsist if every attempt to give increased facilities to the export of manufactures by the reduction of duties on imports was met by this perpetual cry of protection? The landed interest were driving the working classes on faster than they were aware of. If they understood their own real interest they would give every possible encouragement to manufactures as a source of employment to the poor. Upon the prosperity of the manufacturing interest depended the safety of the agricultural interest. If the manufacturers were ruined, and were forced to transport the wreck of their capital to other countries, where they would be hailed with welcome, what would then become of the working classes? Destitute of employment, they would turn round upon the landed interest, and the land would have at last to be given up to those hungry mortagees, the poor.

Mr. Wakley

said, although it was quite true that the right hon. Baronet at the head of her Majesty's Government had laid hold of the monster monopoly, and given it a terrible shake, yet it was a monster still, and both great and powerful. Last night the monster showed himself from Kent, to-night he had come from Cheshire. What would be the end of it all he knew not, but of this he felt sure, that if the agricultural interest could carry out their full scheme, there would be a revolution in this country in less than three years. They were even now pursuing a mad course. He only wished some of the hon. Gentlemen opposite would put forth their whole scheme of Government. They were now for increasing the duty on cheese. It was very fortunate indeed that the people could not eat wood. If the people could eat timber, what an outcry would be made against the right hon. Baronet for reducing the duties on timber. He would not have dared to reduce them. It was really monstrous for hon. Gentlemen to stand up in that House and object to the reduction of the duties on the food of a starving people., pretending that their zeal was all for the interests of the farmer. What did those hon. Gentlemen care about the farmer? Their real object was to keep up their rents, and for the sake of keeping up their rents they would maintain a system of protection the effect of which must be to reduce everything to anarchy and confusion. He must say, though, that the fault lay more with the House than with the right hon. Baronet: experience had shown that if that House were to make a strong demonstration against that system of protection, the right hon. Baronet would then turn round to his ultra supporters, and avow his determination to legislate for the whole people, and not for a class.

Mr. Darby

denied that the landed interest looked to themselves alone. They had willingly sacrificed the timber duties in order to bring the building of ships back to the country, and so give increased employment to the people. With regard to corn, also, they had shown a readiness to adopt that system which, by abandoning high rates of duty, equalized the price of corn and prevented sudden rises in the price of food.

Mr. Ward

said, it was the landed interest who would gain by the reduction of the timber duties. If the landed interest were determined to continue adding to the price of food, and refusing to do justice to the people, they must not be surprised if the day should come when the people would do justice to themselves.

Mr. Jervis

could not support the amendment of the hon. Member for Manchester, because he conceived, if the House were of opinion that there must be protection, that it ought to be an adequate protection. To the principle he was opposed, but the principle being maintained, he felt it due to his constituents to vote for the amount of duty proposed by the Government in preference to that moved by his hon. Friend.

Mr. F. Baring

said, that the proposed reduction was so very small that he hoped the House would agree to it, particularly as it regarded an article which was, perhaps, next in importance to the article of bread.

Sir R. Peel

thought, that the tenour of the observations made by hon. Gentlemen opposite would afford the House a fair opportunity of judging what the difficulties were which any one had to contend with who undertook to amend the commercial tariff of the country. When he saw the hon. Member for Chester enter the House a few minutes ago, he said to himself, "Here comes a fresh accession to the advocates of free-trade." The hon. Member however, while he took care to defend his general principles in favour of free-trade, said that on this occasion he must vote in favour of Chester. The hon. Member made use of an ingenious argument to justify himself in taking that course, namely, that protection ought to be done away with, but that the question being between a duty of 7s. 6d. and 10s., he was obliged to come to the conclusion that the duty of 10s. was the better of the two. He was listening to those ingenious arguments day after day, and he only referred to them now, in order to point out the real difficulties with which he had to contend. He therefore, hoped that the House would take the tariff as a whole, instead of trying to put him in a minority upon individual articles. He thought that the wisest conclusion they could come to at present was to finish the tariff that night, and get done with it.

Mr. Hume

fully coincided in what had fallen from the right hon. Baronet, but he conceived that the difficulties with which he had to contend were mainly attributable to the Gentlemen who sat behind him.

Sir J. Guest

said, that the duty proposed by his hon. Friend was too high and he would move that the duty be 5s.

Mr. M. Phillips

had not the slightest objection to a larger reduction, and only proposed a moderate one in the hope that hon. Gentlemen opposite would be induced to agree to it. The loss of one stray vote, however, in the hon. Member for Chester would not deter him from taking the sense of the House on the proposition he had made.

Mr. Greene

intimated that the question must be first put on the smaller amount of 5s.

The committee divided on the question that the duty be 5s.:—Ayes 37; Noes 82: Majority 45.

List of the AYES.
Barclay, D.	Mitchell, T. A.
Baring, rt. hn. F. T.	Morris, D.
Barnard, E. G.	Pendarves, E. W. W.
Bowring, Dr.	Philips, M.
Browne, hon. W.	Rice, E. R.
Busfeild, W.	Stansfield, W. R. C.
Cobden, R.	Strutt, E.
Craig, W. G.	Thornely, T.
Crawford, W. S.	Turner, E.
Divett, E.	Villiers, hon. C.
Duncan, G.	Wakley, T.
Evans, W.	Ward, H. G.
Fielden, J.	Wawn, J. T.
Forster, M.	Williams, W.
Gibson, T. M.	Wood, B.
Gill, T.	Wood, G. W.
Hume, J	Yorke, H. R.
Lemon, Sir C.	TELLERS.
Marsland, H.	Guest, Sir J.
Mitcalfe, H.	Parker, J.

List of the NOES.
Allix, J. P.	Colvile, C. R.
Astell, W.	Courtenay, Lord
Baillie, Col.	Cripps, W.
Baring, hn. W. B.	Darby, G.
Bramston, T. W.	Denison, E. B.
Broadley, H.	Dickinson, F. H.
Butler, hon. Col.	Duncombe, hon. A.
Cayley, E. S.	Egerton, W. T.
Clayton, R. R:	Egerton, Sir P.
Codrington, C. W.	Eliot, Lord

Escott, B.	McGeachy, F. A.
Esmonde, Sir T.	Marsham, Visct.
Farnham, E. B.	Martin, C. C.
Fitzroy, Capt.	Newry, Visct.
Fuller, A. E.	Nicholl, rt. hn. J.
Gaskell, J. Milnes	O'Brien, W. S.
Gladstone, rt. hn. W. E.	O'Conor, D.
Gordon, hon. Capt.	Palmer, G.
Gore, W. O.	Patten, J. W.
Goulburn, rt. hon. H.	Peel, rt. hon. Sir R.
Graham, rt. hn. Sir J.	Peel, J.
Greenall, P.	Plumptre, J. P.
Hamilton, W. J.	Polhill, F.
Hardinge, rt. hn. Sir H.	Pringle, A.
Henley, J. W.	Pusey, P.
Hepburn, Sir T. B.	Reade, W. M.
Herbert, hon. S.	Richards, R.
Hervey, Lord A.	Round, C. G.
Hodgson, R.	Scott, hon. F.
Hogg, J. W.	Shaw, rt. hon. F.
Hope, hon. C.	Stanley, Lord
Jackson, J. D.	Sutton, hon. H. M.
Jermyn, Earl	Tennent, J. E.
Jervis, J.	Tollemache, J.
Johnson, W. G.	Vere, Sir C. B.
Jones, Capt.	Vivian, J. E.
Kemble, H.	Wortley, hn. J. S.
Knatchbull, right. hon.	Wyndham, Col. C.
Sir E.	Young, J.
Legh, G. C.
Lincoln, Earl of	TELLERS.
Litton, E.	Clerk, Sir G.
Mackenzie, T.	Fremantle, Sir T.

Duty to be 10s.