CUSTOMS AND CORN IMPORTATION REPORT. (Hansard, 26 March 1846)

§ MR. FINCH
said, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Portsmouth (Mr. Baring) had the other night displayed an extraordinary degree of curiosity, and had proposed a long series of questions as to the principles, and policy, and probable measures of the protectionist party in the event of their becoming possessed of power. Now, it was hardly fair to put such questions to a party so long as they remained in opposition. But if the right hon. Baronet at the head of the Government would give a correct account of the course he intended to pursue during the current Session, very likely the protectionist party would be prepared to describe their intentions. As to the principles of the party, they were the good old English principles 90 of protection, under which this country had so long flourished, and attained to a height of prosperity beyond that of any other country. As to the measures they might propose, he could venture to declare that if they should become invested with power, they would propose such measures as would be best fitted in their judgment to afford an adequate and equitable protection to the agricultural, the manufacturing, the trading, and the colonial interests of the Empire. He hoped, after this explanation, that the thirst for information displayed by the right hon. Gentleman would be somewhat allayed. With respect to the reference which had been made to the difference between the sliding-scale and the fixed duty, he thought that difference comparatively insignificant in this point of view—that the sliding-scale, when the price of corn reached a certain height, fell to a nominal duty; and a fixed duty, when corn rose to that extent, must equally yield to the pressure of price. The right hon. Baronet had deprecated a "collision" between the two Houses upon the measure; but what right had the Minister to predict any such collision as the consequence of the rejection of the measure by the Upper House? He had always understood that, in a constitutional point of view, the privileges of the Lords were as inviolate as those of the Commons—that the Upper House had its prerogatives in legislation, as well as the Lower—and that, if the Lords in their wisdom thought proper to reject a measure, the Commons had no right to impeach that exercise of the legislative power of the Lords. And if the Upper House should think the measure was calculated to do great mischief; that the country had been somewhat taken by surprise respecting it; that the public were acting under a temporary excitement about it; and that an interval of reflection should be allowed; and that on a matter of such magnitude the people should be, appealed to—nothing could be more constitutional than such a course—nothing ought to be more popular—nothing, certainly could be more right or just. It would be perfectly in accordance with the spirit of the Constitution to reject the measure; for it introduced more sweeping changes in the Constitution of the country than had ever yet been projected by any Administration, It would produce, in fact, a fivefold revolution. It would effect a social revolution; for, however a Settlement Bill of some sort might accompany the measure, it could 91 not be denied that the principle of a Poor Law was utterly at variance with the principles of free trade. This was apparent in the works of writers of the Malthus school, and of political economists generally. Then the measure would equally tend to a commercial revolution, especially in respect to our Colonies, protection of which had hitherto been the chain that connected their interest and feeling with the mother country, but which were now to be regarded as encumbrances, and of course prompted to consider with what other nation they might be better off. Nor was the measure less a financial revolution, as it would shift the burdens of the State in a most unjust manner. And further, the measure would produce a twofold political revolution. For upwards of a thousand years—from the days of the Saxons—the landed interest had been paramount in the political system; and it was now proposed to transfer the pre-eminence to the manufacturing and monied interests, and mainly to that youngest horn among them, the interest of cotton. The measure would tend to augment that democratic power which was daily giving more and more of a republican aspect and character to our monarchical Constitution. If the Upper House, then, perceiving these pernicious tendencies of the measure—perceiving that it must tend to produce discontent and dissension between different interests in the Empire—to separate Ireland from England, and Britain from her Colonies—if the Upper House, apprehensive of these evil effects of the measure, were to reject it, they would act in perfect accordance with their constitutional powers and privileges, and would leave to the nation itself the responsibility of a measure so serious. The right hon. Baronet had spoken also of a "collision" between the agricultural and manufacturing interests in the event of the rejection of the measure. This, however, was only another of those feverish dreams in which the right hon. Baronet indulged. Why should the manufacturing interests feel at all incensed at the agriculturists for asserting the prerogatives of Englishmen, and for exercising the inalienable right of self-defence? If the manufacturing or mercantile interest were to be injured or assailed, would they be tame and inactive? Which of the various classes in or out of the House would be averse to a dissolution? As to the Liberal Members of the House, they must be eager to present themselves for a renewal 92 of the trust reposed in them by their constituents. As to those who were in favour of annual or triennial elections, they must be wearied of so long a Parliament. As to the Anti-Corn-Law Members, they surely would be happy to realize all their predictions as to the numbers of seats they were prepared to carry. While, as to the protectionist Members, they certainly were so far steeped in ignorance and delusion that they would be willing to venture on the contest, and to appeal to the country. He thought that the right hon. Baronet at the head of the Government had a far greater responsibility upon his shoulders than ever rested upon the shoulders of any Minister; but if he consulted his own interest, he would desire to devolve some portion of that responsibility upon the people. At what number should he rate the landowners of England and Wales? Some would say some hundred aristocrats, and some thousand country gentlemen. He rated them at two hundred thousand. He believed that the tenant-farmers of Great Britain had been estimated at one hundred thousand; but with their families he thought he might state their number to be upwards of a million of souls. One third at least of the population of this country depended upon agriculture; and if they went to the sister country, it would be found that three-fourths of that population likewise depended agriculture. He thought that if the result of the right hon. Baronet's measure was only to diminish the capital invested in land 20s. per cent, it would be the destruction of the landed interest. He did say, therefore, under all the circumstances, and considering the immense value of the interest which was in jeopardy by this measure, that the right hon. Baronet would have consulted his own interest, and relieved himself of great responsibility, if he had put that responsibility upon the nation at large. He was ready to admit that the right hon. Gentleman had at various times concocted measures fraught with great public good. He might refer to the reformation of our Criminal Code; but when he entered the Bullion Committee, he entered with one opinion, and left with another. With respect to the Corn Laws and free trade, it was well known that for many years the right hon. Gentleman had defended protection, and supported the Corn Laws; but the right hon. Gentleman was now of a different opinion than that he entertained five years ago. If the right hon. Baronet was invariably right 93 then, he must be invariably wrong now. There was no doubt that he was a person of very extraordinary talents and transcendent eloquence; but still he was a mortal like every other man, and, therefore, subject to human vicissitudes. He thought that orators, no more than authors, were the best judges of their own performances. Milton, it was known, preferred "Paradise Regained" to "Paradise Lost." He believed that upon a calm review of the right hon. Gentleman's former speeches, which were public property, upon the subject of the Corn Laws, they would be found to contain much greater wisdom and foresight than those now delivered with free-trade enthusiasm within the walls of that House. The noble Lord the Member for London had agreed to the introduction of this measure, although he before admitted that it would create distress among those connected with the landed interest. What would the manufacturers of the country think when, in assisting in the passing of measures, they incurred the risk of involving the manufacturing interest? This remark would apply equally to the agriculturists. He did think that the Gentlemen constituting the protectionist party were not to be accused of unjustifiable apprehension if they entertained fears as to the result of the Bill before the House. He found by the Returns that had been made to the House, that for three years, from 1842 to 1845, the total quantity of corn imported was 3,400,000 quarters; but supposing the quantity imported during that period to have been 9,000,000, he should have no hesitation in saying, that the greatest distress would have been brought upon the country. He thought that as the present measure was calculated to lower prices in a great degree, so it would operate to the great discouragement of the British agriculturist. It would throw great quantities of land out of employment, and would render it impossible almost for the Government to raise the taxes: it would also peril the existence of the Government, and even the Constitution itself. It was detrimental and injurious both to the agriculturists and the manufacturers of the country. He thought it was sufficiently evident from what had occurred, that the agricultural party ought not to be charged with bigotry and ignorance. He begged hon. Gentlemen to recollect, that for twenty years the Administration was composed of parties, all advocating the principle of protection. Now, he did not believe 94 it would be said that the country had been under the direction of bigots for twenty years. If the Anti-Corn-Law League were to direct their shafts against successive Administrations, the late Earl Grey and Mr. Canning being Members of them, the League would be regarded much as the Lilliputians were, when they discharged their arrows against Gulliver. That body was so absurd as almost to turn the deepest tragedy into the broadest farce. Upon looking abroad, it would be found that the principle of protection was maintained by the Ministers of Russia, the Ministers of Prussia, the Ministers of most of the minor States of Germany, the Ministers and Parliament of Holland, the Ministers and Parliament of Belgium, the Ministers and Parliament of France, and most of the distinguished statesmen and Congress of America. Nor could it be affirmed that the principle of protection had impeded the progress of national improvement. The Anti-Corn-Law Leaguers had proved themselves shallow reasoners. Let the agricultural Members drink deep of the Pierian spring, remembering that— Shallow drinks intoxicate the brain— But drinking deep will sober us again. He supposed his arguments had been so convincing that they had driven the enemy entirely out of the field, and dismounted all their brass guns. [The benches of the hon. Member's opponents were empty.] He was glad to see that one hon. Gentleman, who had for some time maintained his post, finding the fire too hot for him, had at length put himself under the flag of protection. After this, he should not be at all surprised at gaining the day in the end. He thought that every country ought to have a system of political economy of its own. The system adopted in Persia might not be adapted to China, and that adapted for Holland might not be suitable for France. It was in consequence of a misunderstanding upon this head, that there had been such egregious mistakes among the free traders upon the subject of taxation. A hope was expressed in a free-trade article in the Westminster Review, that the entire abolition of the Excise would be the next step of Sir R. Peel's financial reforms, Thus it was easy to see that the next agitation would be for the abolition of the Excise. He would venture to predict that if, in some future Session of Parliament, this Corn Law should unfortunately pass, the next subject of agitation would be for financial reform, for the abolition 95 of the Excise, and no inconsiderable part of the Customs. He did not despair, however, of seeing the right hon. Baronet taking shelter at some future period in the ranks of the protectionists, and calling upon them to aid him in his Budget. He should proceed with his observations, notwithstanding the way in which the House of Commons treated this great question. He knew there was a desire to extinguish the debate. Hon. Members talked as if this question were finished—as if the subject were exhausted, and no longer worthy the attention of the House. This he thought was most discreditable to the House and to the country, and he was resolved he would let the country see the way in which the House treated this great question. The interests of agriculture were at stake—the interests of a body the most loyal and constitutional—who had ever been the warmest friends of the Altar and the Throne; and yet there was not a single Member of the Opposition party in the House. They would not pay the agricultural interest the compliment of attending to the debate they wished extinguished. But he could tell them the measure would not pass a day the sooner for that. The agriculturists had laid down their course—they would pursue it steadily and perseveringly, and it would make no difference to them whatever. If they considered that it would be for the advantage of agriculture and of the country that this measure should be still further delayed, there were many Members on this side of the House who, even if there were nobody present but themselves, would speak for hours together, rather than that such a miserable manœuvre should succeed; therefore he should continue. Another point on which the free traders displayed almost infantine simplicity was, that this measure would lead to universal peace. Now, any one acquainted with history, however he might admire the amiability of these people, must pity their ignorance. He asked if there ever was a period in the history of the world which held out a hope that war might be extinguished by free trade? In all the wars of the last two hundred years, from those of Louis XIV. down to Bonaparte, it was impossible to put the finger on one of them which they could suppose might have been prevented or extinguished by measures of free trade. It might be true that the little cloud in the West might now be in course of being dispelled, for America knew that she would eventually 96 obtain the lion's share of Oregon; and on this subject he must say, that the tone of our Minister for Foreign Affairs in the other House lately was what a poet called "a quaver of consternation." So mean-spirited a speech he had never before listened to. England might now be said to be on her knees before America. But, however, as England and France might now be said to be united, and our finances were in as flourishing a condition as they possibly could be, considering that the Minister was dispersing them with so lavish a hand, the probability was, that America would remain at peace with us for the present; but, so soon as insurrection arose, or our finances were troubled, or we went to war with France, then America would revive her pretensions, and commercial and free-trade considerations would have as little weight with her as they ever had in any other country. And, seeing the evil effects of free trade, what was there on the other side? A system of protection, under which he believed the nation would rise to a degree of prosperity such as he had never before witnessed. He said the system of protection had never been fairly carried out. It ought to begin, as the basis of all protection, by protecting the poor. He would have a rate of wages established for the agricultural poor. When corn was from 47s. to 50s. a quarter, the labourer should have 10s. a week; from 50s. to 55s., 11s. per week; from 55s. to 60s., 12s. per week; in fact, he would have a sliding-scale for the labourers, varying from 10s. to 12s. per week, and let the condition of protection to profits be protection to the labourer. In going into the manufacturing districts, it would not be possible, perhaps, to interfere with the rate of wages, but they might interfere with the hours of labour. The hon. Member for Oldham and others were altogether inconsistent in advocating free trade along with an interference with the hours of labour; but such an interference would be quite in unison with the system of protection. He would protect manufacturers both at home and in the Colonies; and, as the price of that protection, he would have the poor provided for. Children of a tender age should not be allowed to work at all; children of a more mature age should not be overworked; while grown men should not be required to work beyond a certain time; in fact, he would take care that under the name of freedom they should not have a real and bonâ fide slavery. Then he would have 97 another kind of protection—a protection against sudden and unforeseen calamities; such as the introduction of new machinery, or war. In all cases of new machinery he thought the State ought to interfere. The public enjoyed the benefit of the change; therefore let the public pay the cost. Then with regard to war: there ought to be taxation imposed to go to the relief of the poor who suffered by it. That, then, would be the base of his system of protection. The next thing would be to carry on under this system a course of national improvement. The resources of this country were altogether incalculable. Mr. M'Culloch estimated that the produce of the soil might be doubled; he thought that was an over estimate; but he did think that one-third might be added to the produce of the soil. If that were so, the result would be, that the soil of this country would maintain forty millions of inhabitants. Then, with regard to the Colonies, he might mention that Upper Canada possessed some of the finest corn-growing soil in the world. Three millions of quarters might be expected gradually to come from that Colony, which would support four millions more in this country. Then, from the various soils and climates from different Colonies, we could have sugar, tobacco, coffee, almost every thing we wanted except tea. Colonial produce would have a monopoly in England, and English produce would have a monopoly in the Colonies; and this country would become the strongest, the most populous, and the most united Empire in the world; and being always prepared for war, she would be always able to command peace. Now, reverse the picture, and what were they doing? They were souring the minds of that portion of the community which had hitherto been most disposed to uphold the Altar and the Throne; they were spreading the spirit of insurrection in Ireland; they were alienating the affections of the Colonies. Let them not suppose that these were the gloomy forebodings of a discontented country Gentleman. There were three parties in the country; all of them shrewd, wise, and intelligent, and all of them bent on supporting this measure; not because it was a good measure, but because, being a bad measure, it would the more readily further their own ends. There was the Liberal party, who were anxious to have a more democratic spirit infused into the institutions of this country; and they supported the measure because in the discontent and dissatisfaction they foresaw it 98 would occasion, they looked forward to great organic changes in their favour. Then, there was the party opposed to the Church Establishment in this country. They supported the measure for the same reason; and because they knew, as it had been lately proved by a nobleman, democracy and an Established Church could not exist. Then, there was the party of the Repealers, who supported this question because they believed it was calculated to lead to discontent and disaffection both in England and Ireland; and in that discontented state of the country they hoped to be able to carry Repeal. For these reasons he objected to the Bill. The more he reflected on it, the more he thought it was the most pernicious measure that ever was presented to the British Parliament. He could not conceive how a Minister, with the smallest reputation for sagacity and foresight, could propose this measure. He trusted that the protectionists would persevere in their opposition. They did not despair; on the contrary, their hearts beat high with hope. He trusted that the protectionists out of the House would use tenfold exertions for the defeat of this measure. It was their duty to rally round the flag of protection; and to place it in the breach. If the agriculturists triumphed, it would be a national triumph; and if they failed, they would fail as honest men ought, in the path of duty and of honour.

§ LORD RENDLESHAM
said, opposed as he was to this measure, he was still more opposed to the way in which the right hon. Baronet had forced on the measure without making an appeal to the country. Such a radical change as this could only be sanctioned by a dissolution of the House; and, after the admission of the noble Lord the Member for London, the other night, that if he had accepted office, though he should have obtained the support of the right hon. Baronet, he still could not have carried this measure, constituted as the House was—after that admission, he thought the country had a right to say that, notwithstanding the majority of 97, this measure would be passed contrary to the opinion of the constituencies, that the question was decided, not upon its merits or its demerits, but because some 100 men thought that nobody could govern this country except the right hon. Baronet, and because some other 101 men changed their minds along with the noble Lord the Member for London, who saw no other chance of regaining power except by professing to advocate a 99 total repeal of the Com Laws. It would of course be folly to say that a man ought never to change his opinions; but when a public man did change, he thought the country had a right to have a clearly detailed account of the manner in which the change had been brought about. He decidedly thought that the country had a right to expect that the question put by the noble Lord the Member for Lynn should be answered, namely, what the right hon. Baronet expected would be the average price of corn under his new Bill. And, besides this, he thought the country had a right not only to hear the reasons which had induced hon. Gentlemen to change their opinions, but also to hear all those able and forcible arguments which they used only a short time ago now refuted by them. The noble Lord read a letter, written by Mr. Huskisson to his constituents in 1814, in which he advocated the Corn Laws as a means of always maintaining a supply of food in the country; and, like Mr. Huskisson, he declared that he did not care how cheap corn was provided the cheapness arose from an abundance of the home supply. He could assure the House that if he had an opinion that the measure now before the House would only affect the landlord, he should feel better satisfied, but by its operation the poor would suffer. Of that he was quite certain. Much had been said both within and without the walls of that House upon the amount of wages paid to the agricultural labourer. Fluctuations happened in all counties as a matter of course; but he knew the price paid to working men in the county from which he came (Suffolk) and he could quote them. In that county, the price of labour was regulated by the price of corn. When, in 1840, he inherited the estates he now held in Suffolk, the price of flour being 3s. per stone, the wages of the labourers were 12s. per week; and when the price of flour fell to 2s. 6d. per stone, the wages fell to 11s. When corn declined further, the rate of remuneration to the labourer fell to 8s. per week. It would also be seen that the lower the price of corn, the smaller would be the surplus of wages left for the labourer after purchasing the necessaries of life. The higher the price of corn, the more labourers would be employed on a farm. Now, it was quite evident, that if the present measure passed, much of the light lands of this kingdom must inevitably go out of cultivation. Certainly this would be the case in Suffolk. On this very point 100 he had taken the opinion of a practical farmer in his district, who had told him that when he took the farms he held, forty years ago, the price of corn was higher, and he had been able to bring a larger average of light land into cultivation. Since good prices had declined, the land had not of itself paid for tillage. The cultivation of this land, had, however, answered his purpose, inasmuch as it had enabled him to employ a large number of labourers, men, women, and children, who would otherwise have been paupers. The firm opinion of that farmer, however, was this—that if the present measure became the law of the country, this breadth of light land must be thrown out of culture entirely, and that he should not be able to employ one-half the labourers he had done. The hon. Member for Stockport had made the observation that the opinion of the tenant-farmers, if taken, would be found in favour of the propositions of Her Majesty's Government; but he could refer the hon. Gentleman to a meeting of tenant-farmers, where the whole body had said, that in order to secure the proper representation of their own opinions in the House, they would, at the next election, place one of themselves in the position of a candidate for their suffrages.

§ MR. FELLOWES
wished to prove to the people of this country, there still existed a large proportion of that once unanimous and united Conservative body, governed by political principle, and ready to watch with care and assiduity over the interests of those whose prosperity, and, indeed, he might say, existence, was mainly dependent upon that law which gave protection to native industry. When he last received the votes of the constituency he had the honour to represent, he was returned on the underetanding that he was faithful to the system of protection. He held the opinion then, that on protection to native industry depended the prosperity of this nation. His opinions were still unchanged, nor should he ever change them. Had his opinions altered, he should have thought it his duty to have resigned his charge into the hands of those who entrusted him with their votes. To have retained his position with a change of opinion, would have been highly dishonourable, and he should have deserved much reprehension. He had observed that the hon. Member for Hull had, a few days since, made allusion to a speech delivered by another hon. Member, upon the auspices under which that gigantic work the Bedford Level had been constructed. 101 He should have replied to the observations of the hon. Member for Hull, had he had the good fortune to catch the eye of the Speaker; and he was rather surprised that no other Member had risen to do that which he intended to do. Though the fact had been denied, yet the great work to which the hon. Member had alluded, had been constructed during the period of protection. Further than deny the inference drawn that the Bedford Level had been constructed at a period when protection had not existed in the country, he would not refer to ancient dates, but confine himself to a period of thirty years; and he could assure the right hon. Baronet, within that period, land, which had only grown reeds and rushes, now grew corn; land, which a few years since, had grown three quarters of wheat only, now, under protection, grew six or seven quarters. If this protective law were removed, the land in the district to which he had referred, from the expense of draining, must inevitably be thrown out of cultivation. In 1842, the right hon. Baronet had brought in his measures for the reduction of duties, and he had said the prices of corn would range between 48s. and 54s. per quarter: generally, prices would be steady. He would ask the right hon. Baronet if the expectations on this steadiness of price had been realized. He believed corn had risen above 54s. In the course of last year corn had gone down to 45s. The cry of famine had been raised by the Members of the League, and prices had reached 58s. All this had happened under this law of protection. But the right hon. Baronet at the head of the Government had said, that as a famine existed in Ireland, the measures proposed were highly necessary. Was not, however, the failure of the potato crop a temporary difficulty, and that being the case, should not that be met by a temporary remedy? Why, under the circumstance of a temporary difficulty, should a measure likely to create almost a revolution, be permanently introduced? The right hon. Baronet had said that a famine would rage in Ireland before the month of May were past. He did not despair that the month of July would go over the country before the long apprehended famine would be found desolating the sister kingdom. Of what use would it be to send corn to Ireland, when the people had no money to purchase provisions? He protested most sincerely against bringing forward a measure of this character for the purpose of 102 relieving a temporary circumstance. The measure, however unnecessary, was stated as likely to pass, and that being the case, he wished to know, if corn under its operation would range high or low. The Government had means of obtaining information not possessed by private Members of that House, and, therefore, the Gentlemen who occupied the Treasury benches could surely tell the country whether the price of corn would be down to 40s. or up to 60s. The Vice President of the Board of Trade had stated the prices of grain in this country would not decline to a low figure, and that foreign corn would rise, and also that the operation of the change would not injure the owners of tithe. If corn was not to be lower, of what use would be the change, and what reason existed for the measure? He, however, was fully of opinion that the operation of the law would create considerable alteration; and the effect would be, that the price of corn would be brought down to 40s.; and also that wide fluctuations in price would be the consequence. Who could benefit by fluctuations? Would it not be preferable if prices were to range between 40s. and 60s. that an average should be struck of 50s., and the price kept up to that point? In opposition to the opinion that corn would rise or maintain present prices, he might quote the effect to be produced on silk. The new law was to reduce prices in the article. Why should the effect prove contrary when the operation of the new law was applied to grain? Besides, it could be shown that previous to 1842, the price of 60s. per quarter was thought a remunerating figure for corn. In 1842, the right hon. Baronet reduced the law of protection on various articles, and the price of corn went down. If, then, the price of corn fell by the change of protective laws on other articles, would it not fall when the laws affecting grain were altered? He thought no doubt could exist on the point. The members of the Anti-Corn-Law League said, that under the circumstances of a change, it would be the duty of agriculturists to render the land more productive. The advice might be good, could it be followed; but the tillers of soil could not increase production by the use of machinery, and the over application of manure would create straw merely, and not ears of wheat. He did not despair but that, in the course of years, the agriculturists themselves would be able to reduce the price of corn, but they required time; and until that 103 time were given them, though the large farmer and capitalist might stand up manfully against the measure, the small farmer would be ruined, and the labourer starved. The hon. Member for Portsmouth had asked, if the agriculturists threw out the intended measure, were they prepared with another? In answer to that, he would say, that the agricultural body were content to remain where they stood. The hon. Member also asked, if the agriculturists were prepared to take the responsibility of defeating the measure? He was quite ready to take the responsibility of the rejection of the measure if this happened; and if any confusion were created in the country, let the Government take the responsibility on themselves, for on them would it naturally fall. He was quite ready to give the right hon. Baronet at the head of the Government credit for the motives which had influenced him; but did he think that by throwing the country into a state of alarm, any good would be produced? Would good result by setting one constituency against another constituency, or the manufacturing against the agricultural interest? He feared it would be seen that when men uttered sentiments one day which they repudiated the next, it would be found that the agricultural body would be betrayed into the hands of their opponents. The right hon. Baronet at the head of the Government might say he looked to posterity for his reward; and the right hon. Baronet the Secretary of State for the Home Department might answer all inquiries after his former opinions, by replying, he had changed his mind. This might satisfy those right hon. Gentlemen, but it would not satisfy the country. If an appeal to the country took place—the answer to that appeal would be this—that the Government must be conducted on principle, and that the people themselves would rather, if such changes were made as now proposed, prefer to receive them at the hands of the noble Lord the Member for London, than from those men who had deceived them. Before many months passed he believed the people of this nation would have an opportunity of exercising the elective franchise, when it would be proved that the constituencies preferred a Radical Government, kept in check by a strong Conservative body, rather than continue to support the right hon. Baronet and his friends. For himself, he did not expect good measures to emanate from the present Government. He should greatly distrust 104 any measure proposed by the Treasury bench; and it would be seen that the people were willing to dispense with their services.

§ MR. FULLER
had received a short letter which he would read to the House, from a person living at Anglesey:— With regard to corn the matter is very serious, and the dismay very general, without any one being able to see any cause whatever for such a sweeping change. Trusting to a Protection Minister, a vast number of our best farmers have sunk all their capital in draining, but now there is a complete check to it. For twenty men you saw draining this time last year, you will not now see two. It must be recollected, that in our country all draining and other improvements are done by the tenant; so you may imagine what a stop has been put to the progress of improvement. As to famine, there never was such humbug! No living man ever saw so much corn in Anglesey at this season as there is now; and two vessels laden with potatoes arrived at Carnarvon this week from Ireland. Pray tell Sir James Graham this. He could only say for himself, that if the proposed measure passed, this country would be reduced to the condition of Ireland, where no protection existed either for life or property.

§ MR. P. BORTHWICK
Knowing the congregated intelligence arrayed on the other side of the House, he was glad to perceive the hon. Member for Lambeth in his place, who, he thought, was almost the only Member who had stood firmly to his guns. ["No, no!"] He had no suspicion that the hon. Member for Lambeth had run from his guns. He had held the opinion, that the hon. Gentleman was one to whom might be applied the words of the poet— Among the faithless, faithful only he. But he (Mr. Borthwick) was glad to find the Member for Lambeth in his place, because when the hon. Member had, on a previous night, given some statistical details to the House, he (Mr. Borthwick) had intended to reply to them, though not able to do so because he had not caught the eye of the Speaker. He would now, however, endeavour to answer the statement of the hon. Member for Lambeth. The hon. Member, referring to several years of the last century, had endeavoured to show a remarkable equality of prices in these years, and he had said that the effect of a tree trade in corn would be to remove a fluctuation in prices. ["No, no!"] He certainly had so understood the hon. Member. Here were the words spoken by the hon. Member for Lambeth, which he had 105 taken from the usual sources of intelligence:— But the period to which he more particularly referred was from 1787 to 1792. The price of corn during these years was 42s. 8d., 37s., 36s., 44s., 45s., and 54s.; the lowest price being 41s., 34s., 36s., 42s., and 47s.; and the greatest difference between the highest and lowest prices was 7s., and of the lowest 2s. 5d. Now, he defied anybody to show, in any five years, under a restrictive trade, that the variation was so small as that. The object of the hon. Member was, to show that less fluctuation of price took place under free trade than under protection. He did not know from what source the hon. Gentleman had obtained his information; but he had appeared resolved that these last years should be considered those of free trade. But in those years free trade neither theoretically nor practically existed. But, from the year 1787 to the year 1792, the following were the amounts of the bounties paid upon corn exported, and the Customs' duties received upon corn imported:—

Years. Bounties paid upon corn exported. Duties paid upon corn imported.

£ s. d. £ s. d.

1787 55,882 17 5 5,061 12 2

1788 44,206 1 11 5,344 3 4

1789 76,551 16 1 4,814 3 7

1790 10,173 15 2 10,856 17 3

1791 7,657 0 0 27,511 0 0

1792 76,802 0 0 39,543 0 0

During these years, then, the quantities of wheat exported and imported varied from 47,000 to 357,000 quarters. Now, the hon. Gentleman, with that philosophy which was so abundant on the other side of the House, had deliberately told them that there had been practical free trade from 1787 to 1792, and yet neither was there theoretical nor practical free trade during that period; for he (Mr. Borthwick) had shown that there was both an import and an export duty, besides a bounty on exports. He said this, he could assure the hon. Gentleman, with every feeling of respect for him, because he knew that there were few Members of that House to whom the country was more indebted for information on subjects of this sort; but he certainly had thought he had meant to quote the five years which followed those to which he had referred; and if he had done so, he would have been much more able to have shown the effects of practical free trade in this country; for in 1797, and the five following years inclusive, they had an absolute free trade in corn; and further 106 than this, they had a bounty paid on corn imported; a thing, he believed, unexampled till then in the commercial history of this country. He would now quote from M'Pherson's "Annals of Commerce." That writer observes:— It was found necessary to hold out greater encouragement for the importation of corn and other articles of provision, than merely exempting them from duty, as by the Act passed in the beginning of this Session. Therefore, the following bounties were granted on wheat, wheat flour, Indian corn, Indian meal, and rye, imported either in British vessels or in vessels belonging to any friendly State, viz.:—

For every quarter of wheat weighing 440 lbs. avoirdupois £1 0 0

For every quarter of wheat weighing 424 lbs. avoirdupois 0 16 0

For every cwt. of wheat flour 0 6 0

That is, when imported from any part of Europe south of Cape Finisterre, the Mediteranean, Africa, the British Colonies in America, the United States, till 400,000 quarters should be imported from Europe or Africa, and 500,000 quarters from America.

For every quarter of wheat weighing 440 lbs £0 15 0

For every quarter of wheat weighing 424 lbs 0 12 0

For every cwt. of flour 0 4 6

from any part of Europe north of Cape Finisterre, not being His Majesty's dominions, till the quantity should be 500,000 quarters; and—

For every quarter of wheat weighing 440 lbs £0 10 0

For every quarter of wheat weighing 424 lbs 0 8 0

For every cwt. of flour 0 3 0

imported after the above quantities should be completed. Then—

For every quarter of Indian corn £0 5 0

For every cwt. of Indian meal 0 1 6

until the quantity amounted to 500,000 quarters.

For every quarter of Indian corn £0 3 0

For very cwt. of Indian meal 0 1 0

when the above quantities were completed.

For every quarter of rye, 10d., until the quantity amounted to 100,000 quarters; after which, 6d." He merely read this to show that the state of the law at the time he was about to supply him with, was singularly favourable to his theory; and when the right hon. Baronet (Sir R. Peel) told them that when once the people of this country had tasted the sweets of a free trade in corn, they would not easily be induced by any power to return to restriction, he begged to observe that, in the five years to which he had referred, and to which he had presumed the hon. Member for Lambeth had intended to refer, this country had an abundant taste of free trade, and that with the addition of a bounty on corn imported into it. In the year 1797 the average price of wheat in England and Wales, was 17s. 1d. (7s. being the amount of the variation of 107 price during the five years of restriction, be it remembered); in 1798 the price was only 50s. 3d.; in 1799 it was 67s. 6d.; whilst in 1800 it was 113s. 7d.; and in 1801, 118s. 3d. During this time, indeed, there was practically no Corn Law. They might tell him that these were years of scarcity. ["Hear, hear!"] Hon. Gentlemen cried "Hear, hear;" but was not their system of free trade intended to save this country from years of scarcity? They might tell him that these years formed a period of war and disturbance; but what said the hon. Member for Clitheroe the other night? "Never," said the hon. Gentleman, "talk to me of war. During the last war, you had corn from France, and cotton from America, when in open hostility with those countries; and, pass but this measure of free trade, and go to war with France and America, or not, as you please—trust no more to your wooden walls, but to your steam and your scientific improvements, and, like true philosophers, place confidence in your free trade, and depend upon it free trade will be your panacea for all the evils that may befal you." He had shown, then, the hon. Member for Lambeth, he hoped, that so far from the years he had taken proving his argument, they proved that the hon. Gentleman and those sitting round him were advocating laws the effect of which they said was to secure cheap prices. To turn now for a moment to the right hon. Baronet at the head of Her Majesty's Government. Mr. Canning once said in that House—and never did any sarcasm contain a greater truth—"that nothing in it was so deceitful as figures, unless it were facts." But if Mr. Canning were there now, he would have seen something more subtle than figures, more deceitful than facts, viz., the public principles on which public men proposed to conduct the Government of the country. He (Mr. Borthwick) said so, because he believed it, and because he thought that the right hon. Gentleman would agree with him—and particularly if he could show it on the authority of the right hon. Gentleman himself—that he (Sir R. Peel) drew diametrically opposite conclusions from the same facts. When the right hon. Gentleman addressed his constituents at Tamworth in 1841—and he (Mr. Borthwick) referred to this to show the dexterous ingenuity by which he (Sir Robert Peel) could, at different times, draw opposite conclusions from the same facts—in 1841, at Tamworth, when asked his opinion upon the 108 Corn Laws, the right hon. Gentleman referred to Mr. M'Culloch, and quoted from his work on the subject:— The price of wheat in England at an average of the ten years ending with 1820, was no less than 83s. 6d. a quarter. Its average price has since, as we have just seen, been reduced to 56s. 11¼d. a quarter, and yet, notwithstanding this tremendous fall, a most extraordinary improvement has taken place in agriculture since 1820; so much so, that we now provide for an additional population of at least seven millions, not only without any increase, but with a very considerable diminution of importation. Considering the vast importance of agriculture, that nearly half the population of the Empire are, directly or indirectly, dependent on it for employment and the means of subsistence, a prudent statesman would pause before he gave his sanction to any measure, however sound in principle, or beneficial to the mercantile and manufacturing classes, that might endanger the prosperity of agriculture, or cheek the rapid spread of improvement. In this passage the right hon. Baronet repeated and adopted M'Culloch, in 1841, on the hustings at Tamworth; and yet there, in the House of Commons, in 1846, he made these observations:— I will say that nothing can be more erroneous than the notion that the interests of agriculture are necessarily and intimately interwoven with the price of wheat. … I shall, however, be sincerely disappointed if any such reduction in the price of wheat should take place as would seriously injure the agricultural interest of this country; but what I want to show is, that agricultural prosperity has no necessary connexion with the price of wheat. I take it as admitted that there never was a period in which science was so much applied to agriculture, in which the improvements were so great, and the cost of production so reduced, as during the last three or four years. Then what has been the price of wheat? There is in this country a natural tendency to decline in the price of wheat, apart from legislation. In the ten years ending with 1805, the price of wheat was 81s. 2d. In the ten years ending with 1815, it was 97s. 6d.; 1825, 78s. 3d.: 1835, 56s. 6d.; 1845, 57s. 11d.; and during the last four years, 51s. 10d.; so that, during that period, there has been a fall in the price of wheat from 97s. 6d. and 81s. 2d. to 51s. 10d.; and yet agricultural prosperity was never more marked — agricultural improvement more extensive; and therefore, if there should be a continual fall in the price of wheat, don't attribute it all to the change in your laws; for it may be the result of the improvements which you are carrying into operation. The right hon. Gentleman here—continuing his figures, too, down to the very period at which he was speaking—made use of the same facts in 1841; and yet he drew from them the very opposite conclusion from that at which he then arrived, and said that, considering the potato famine in Ireland, and that prices had so diminished under protection, "it was the part of a prudent statesman" at once to remove all 109 protection from agriculture. But, to pursue the argument of the hon. Member for Lambeth, here was a proof that, under the protection which had prevailed for half a century, prices had diminished. The right hon. Gentleman the late Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Baring) had told them the other night, that all their legislation had tended to a removal of protection; but the right hon. Gentleman the present Secretary of State for the Home Department had assured the House that this argument was quite a mistake, because he had told it that the effect of the measure of 1842 was that of greater stringency on importation than had been produced by any of those measures in regard to corn which had preceded it. They found, then, practically, that exactly in the proportion in which protection had been maintained—in proportion as protection had been made more stringent—exactly in that proportion had agriculture flourished, and the price of wheat diminished to the people of this country. These were simple facts — plain figures, accessible to all the world—and he should be glad to hear from some hon. Member something like an answer to them. For his own part, he confessed he had heard none, either during the twelve nights' discussion they had had on the Corn Law Resolutions, or in any of the speeches which had been made in the present debate on the second reading of this Bill; and yet this was by no means the first time on which they had been introduced to the notice of the House. Whilst he (Mr. Borthwick) was quoting Mr. Canning, he believed the right hon. Gentleman (Sir R. Peel) cheered; but he was at a loss to know what was the meaning of that cheer, unless it was to be found in this—that he (Mr. Borthwick) had been an undeviating supporter of the right hon. Baronet up to the moment when he heard the words to which he had referred fall from his lips, and had defended him from the charges which he had thought had been unjustly brought against his Government. When he saw in the Times the announcement which, by some well-arranged contrivance, had reached the columns of that journal, he was one of those who had said that he believed it to be impossible that the right, hon. Gentleman could have so changed his opinions, and had proclaimed his conviction that, if he had so changed his own opinions, he would not ask himself, or any other of his former supporters, to change theirs, in the present Parliament 110 at all events. Even after the Speech from Her Majesty, at the commencement of the Session, and after the right hon. Gentleman had given therein a shadowy outline of his future measures—even after they had been told that their previous relaxations of commercial laws had worked so well, that they were advised to proceed further in the same course—even after those declarations he had still given the right hon. Gentleman his unlimited confidence. He had asked himself whether he had any reason to regret the vote which, in common with other Gentlemen then around him, he had given, by which he had helped to place him in power, and to displace the noble Lord the Member for London from office. "True," he had said to himself, "the right hon. Gentleman may purpose some alteration of the Corn Laws—true, he may propose some modification of our commercial system—I am not averse from taking such changes or modifications into consideration; but I will not believe", till I hear it from the lips of the right hon. Gentleman himself, that, considering the burden of our taxation, and the artificial state of our social relations, he will propose, at least to this Parliament, the complete removal of protection from corn." He had thus interpreted, then, the cheer of the right hon. Baronet; and he would now ask him to say whether the right hon. Gentlemen or himself was right as to the opinion which the country entertained upon this subject. And, speaking of the opinions of the country, let him remind the House that appeals had been made to it in Westminster, in East Gloucestershire, in Nottinghamshire, and elsewhere, which showed that the country was not in favour of the right hon. Gentleman's measures. He doubted not that the Government had no other than the most sincere conviction that upon these measures rested the welfare of their country; and he could readily believe that they were so pénétrés with a sense of their importance that, whatever might be the opinion of the country in respect of them, they were determined to overcome all the difficulties by which the measures were beset, and, inasmuch as they thought they could carry them, to risk all the consequences, and trust to posterity. Well, they would trust to posterity: but would the House allow him to repeat to it why it was that he felt it his duty to give his opposition to Her Majesty's Government on these questions; and to give it, he could assure them, with greater pain at being compelled to 111 take that course than he had ever felt upon any subject of political importance? And here let him observe, that his noble and hon. Friends around him required no aid of his in furtherance of the great cause they had undertaken; and he stood there in aid of no party, great or small. But he did stand there to record his vote, in a sentence in which that House was called upon to pronounce its opinion upon a great question, by which the powerful few were to be benefited at the expense of the weak and working many; and upon a matter with which posterity had no more to do than this—that they were anticipating the estate of posterity, and squandering it in order to make place for the miserable Mammon-collected capital, which was the god of their idolatry. He had referred to the quotations of hon. Gentlemen opposite, and he would now beg to refer to Burke's celebrated "Essay on Scarcity," and only for the purpose of confirming the view which he had taken. Mr. Burke said— Never since I have known England have I known more than a comparative scarcity. The price of wheat, taking a number of years together, has had no very considerable fluctuations, nor has it risen exceedingly until within the last twelve months. Even now, I do not know of one man, woman, or child, that has perished for famine—fewer, if any, than in years of plenty, when such things may happen by accident. This is owing to a care and superintendence of the poor far greater than I remember. The consideration of this ought to bind us all, rich and poor together, against those wicked writers of the newspapers who would inflame the poor against their friends, guardians, patrons, and protectors. He concludes— Let us be saved from too much wisdom of our own, and we shall do tolerably well. Now, he (Mr. Borthwick) believed these measures of the Government to be destructive to the interests of posterity, and destructive to those whom they called the labouring poor; and, in saying this, he made no distinction between those classes who employed their industry in the cultivation of the soil, and those who, under all the improvements of science and invention, mingled their labour with the labour of machinery in Manchester and their other great manufacturing towns; for he firmly believed that both classes of labourers, both the agricultural and the manufacturing workmen, were vitally concerned in the question before the House. Some of the advocates of these measures said, "Give the poor cheap bread;" but others said, in advocating them, that their effect would 112 be, not to cheapen bread, but to increase trade. But he would ask, how did they affect the Colonies? The hon. and learned Member for Liskeard had said that the Canadas were not at all alarmed at the prospect: but if he (Mr. Borthwick) might rely on the contents of a letter from Montreal, dated February 25, and which appeared in the Liverpool Standard of the 24th instant, he thought it contained very important and trustworthy evidence on that point. It was an extract from a letter from a member of an eminent firm in America, and was to the following effect:— Montreal, Feb. 25. The possibility of an American war, which, until the arrival of the packet, was the all-engrossing topic, seems now to be viewed as but of minor importance, contrasted with the evil likely to result to the province from the contemplated changes in the Corn Laws and the duties generally. Landed property here is now regarded as worth fifty per cent. less than it was previous to the arrival of the packet. Of course, the worst view is the one in which it is now looked at. With regard to the immediate effect of these changes in our produce market, the prevailing opinion seems to be that the dearth of bread stuffs at home will neutralize, to a great extent, the evil that would otherwise have resulted from them, at least for this season. It is not expected that flour will fall in price immediately. It is thought it will open at something between 27s. 6d. to 30s." And now, when they looked at the faith by which this House had pledged itself to Canada, in the Canada Corn Bill, he confessed he could scarcely understand how the hon. Gentlemen opposite connected the maintenance of the British Colonies with measures like the present. What he wished to know was, why it should be considered necessary that this country should be dependent upon any other parties for its food than its own native cultivators and the industrious inhabitants of its Colonies—provided that the labour of each were adequately protected. And to this principle they had nothing opposed but the vainest theories that ever possessed the brain of man. They could not point to any single authority who had written on political economy, and sustained the views of public policy which they who supported these measures were advocating. The Government had stated that they entertained those measures in consequence of a scarcity abroad, and on account of an apprehended scarcity of food in Ireland; but what said that greatest of all authorities upon political economy, Edmund Burke, upon the subject? In his "Thoughts on Scarcity" he said— 113 Of all things an indiscreet tampering with the trade of provisions is the most dangerous, and it is always worst in the time when men are most disposed to it—that is, in the time of scarcity. Because there is nothing on which the passions of men are so violent, and their judgment so weak, and on which there exist such a multitude of ill-grounded prejudices. And yet they referred to Burke as an authority for introducing measures of free trade, simply because there was an apprehended scarcity of food, and upon no other grounds. They also quoted from Deacon Hume; but although Deacon Hume was in the abstract, a free trader, and in favour of a relaxation of prohibitory duties, still he practically recommended a fixed duty; and in his letters to the Morning Chronicle, which were afterwards collected and published in a pamphlet, he denounced those laws as a violation of the laws of God, and the rights of man: he trembled at the idea of free trade. And to show that he was adverse to such a principle, he earnestly proposed the adoption of a fixed duty similar to that suggested by the noble Lord the Member for the city of London (Lord John Russell). Then Mr. M'Culloch had also been referred to; but Mr. M'Culloch and others who had written upon the science of political economy, had never lost a single opportunity of stigmatizing as stupid and factious exaggerations the theories of the hon. Member for Stockport and the other Gentlemen who advocated principles of free trade. What said Mr. M'Culloch?— The injurious influence of the existing Corn Law has been stupidly and factiously exaggerated. Still, however, it is incontestable that the sliding-scale is productive of great loss and inconvenience; and we have seen that the substitution of a fixed duty of 5s. or 6s. a quarter, to countervail the peculiar burdens falling on land, would be a signal improvement. Dr. Adam Smith and Mr. Ricardo all had denounced the principle of absolute free trade as fatal and injurious to the industry of the country; and yet they were told that such principles as those which had been proposed for adoption were to be classed with the wisdom of our ancestors. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. G. Vernon) had used an extraordinary argument. Although the hon. Member for Liskeard (Mr. C. Buller) had sported upon the borders of extravagance—and he was one of those hon. Members who had a right, perhaps, to make so free—yet the hon. Member for Bassetlaw, when taunting hon. Gentlemen at his (Mr. Borthwick's) side of the House with over-devotion to the 114 wisdom of their ancestry, had delivered a speech in ridicule of that wisdom of a description such as he had never had the misfortune to hear before. Yet the hon. Gentleman was addressing an assemblage of Englishmen in the nineteenth century, in a country whose rapid spread of civilization had gained for it the leading position among the nations of the earth, and had desired them to ridicule the inspirations of Shakspeare, Milton, and Burke—men who had immortalized their language, and who had been charged with high missions for the civilization of mankind. But the opinions of such men were to be discarded, and their wisdom ridiculed. The wisdom of such a man as Newton—Newton, who studied the heavens, and revealed to man the wonderful mystery by which the Almighty suspended the Heavens in space!—those lights of a generation that had passed away, were to be forsaken for the hon. Member for Bassetlaw, and the opinions and principles of a Sheridan, a Fox, or a Burke, were to be forgotten, in order that homage might be offered at the feet of that hon. Gentleman! The hon. Gentleman, with a ludicrous and strange self-complacency, had told them that in following the wisdom of their ancestors they were abandoning the wisdom best calculated to promote the interests of the country; but he (Mr. Borthwick) would tell him that in the history of human character, there had not been one solitary instance in which any man who despised the wisdom that had gone before him, had left behind him an example of adding to its stock. The authorities he had referred to bore him out in this assertion, because they had all admired the wisdom of those who had gone before them. They were reminded from the Treasury benches of the stores of science at command, of the power of steam and machinery, and appealed to whether by the hand of science they could not charge the lightning with a message, and that its obedient will would bring back a return. But who, he would ask, had invented the steam engine, or made those wonderful discoveries in chemistry which had been productive of so much advantage to mankind? Had they not all been admirers of the wisdom of our ancestors? But upon what grounds had the country been called upon by Her Majesty's Ministers to make those important changes? The right hon. Baronet at the head of the Government (Sir R. Peel) had talked of famine in Ireland; and the noble Lord opposite (Lord J. Russell) had mentioned the 115 same cause prospectively; but the noble Lord had been rather guarded in his allusions since his celebrated letter to the electors of the city of London. He (Mr. Borthwick) had looked to the state of Ireland, and in common with all who had listened to the speech of the hon. and learned Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Shaw) had heard with the utmost satisfaction the statements made by that hon. Gentleman. There could be but one feeling of satisfaction among all who heard those statements. He was sure nothing could make them dissatisfied unless they doubted their truth. The truth of them, however, could not be doubted, for the prices of the esculent therein quoted, corroborated their truth. The noble Lord opposite (Lord J. Russell) and his late Colleagues in office, were shy of touching upon the subject, and therefore saw the propriety of not committing themselves. The noble Lord the Member for the city of London, and the noble Lord close to him (Lord Morpeth) had escaped from the responsibility which was thrown upon the right hon. Baronet; but would the support and gratitude of the former be extended to the Government after the present measures were carried? Would the right hon. Baronet find in the hon. Member for Stockport (Mr. Cobden) and the Gentlemen who surrounded him, better followers than those he had abandoned; or would they not seize the first opportunity to return to that power from which the late followers of the right hon. Baronet had dislodged them? But why, he would ask, were the measures proposed by the Government for adoption more advantageous now than before? Did the repeal of the Corn Laws embrace everything? Was there no Church in England? Was there no Church in Ireland? Was there no Factory question, and were there no Poor Laws? Did none of those great principles remain? Yes, they all remained but the effect of the right hon. Baronet's carrying this law, would be to deliver the country which confided in him (not a party, but the country itself), and its poor industrious classes, with all its vast dependencies, bound hand and foot, to the mischievous policy of hon. Gentlemen opposite. It behoved every Gentleman to give a candid vote, and he agreed with the noble Lord opposite (Lord J. Russell), that every vote ought to be given on the assumption that it would carry the measure. His vote, he assured the House, would be given with due regard 116 to the importance of the subject, and in a totally disinterested manner. The hon. Gentleman who sat near him, had been asked what measures they were prepared to propose were they to form an Administration? But that was a question upon which he congratulated the hon. Member for Lynn for maintaining silence, because, if the question were answered, it might give the right hon. Baronet at the head of the Government the Budget he was fishing for, and he might adopt their policy; or, as the hon. Member for Shrewsbury had facetiously remarked, he might, finding them bathing, run away with their clothes. The noble Lord opposite (Lord J. Russell) would no doubt keep his counsel upon this question; but he (Mr. Borthwick) maintained that if his vote were the casting vote, and if he were told his voting one way would carry or defeat the measures proposed by the Government—viewing and not being ignorant of all the inconvenience to commerce and danger to society which would result from a dissolution of Parliament at this moment—still he would feel himself bound to vote precisely as he now felt himself bound to vote against the measure of the Government. He would in that case be responsible to God and his country, and posterity, for the judgment which they would pass upon him for the honest exercise of that right, by which he believed he would secure from imminent danger the fortunes of a great and powerful Empire. He had upon the present occasion advocated, at great disadvantage, the opinions he held, because he did not expect he would have been fortunate enough to address the House that night, and therefore was not so well prepared to do justice either to himself or to the cause he wished to support. He was most desirous he should not be misunderstood, that the principle upon which he recorded his vote against Her Majesty's Ministers, was not upon the principle of party or of faction—it was not from any desire to see a new party, or to unseat the Government—to see hon. Gentlemen opposite occupying their places; but because he considered that, in adopting the wild and theoretical legislation proposed, the House would be seriously injuring the interests of the country. When the right hon. Baronet (Sir R. Peel) changed his opinions, it recalled to his (Mr. Borthwick's) mind the reply of a distinguished physician, whom Moliere made ridiculous, but whom the right hon. Baronet had exalted to the sublime. 117 When Malgre Lui was told that the heart was situate not on the right, but on the left side, he coolly replied, "Nous avons changé tout cela." Thus it was with the right hon. Baronet. He sought to make all those changes in the body politic, but without assigning any valid reason. He (Mr. Borthwick) trusted the agricultural interest would long continue to afford to the world an example of that meek and honest worth which had made this country the most renowned in the world. If in the nineteenth century it continued to maintain its supremacy, and to stand unrivalled in all that tended to civilize and enlighten mankind, that fame, he believed, was due to the modest worth, the patient industry, the great intelligence, and the heaven-born piety of the peasantry of England. He implored the House to beware how it trampled upon their rights, and discarded their interests. He did not tax Hon. Gentlemen opposite (the free traders), who were connected with manufacturing and mercantile pursuits, with insincerity in the course they were adopting; but he could not forget that their experience was limited, and that they were not associated with the labouring classes employed in agriculture like the Gentlemen who sat behind him upon the protection benches. Hon. Gentlemen opposite, it was true, were now in the habit of employing large numbers of persons; but then those persons were often discharged at the end of a week, and returning pale, worn, and emaciated, from the din and turmoil of a large manufacturing town, where could they find employment and shelter? Could they find it in the agricultural parishes from which they had gone forth while yet health and strength were theirs? No; the only shelter they could find would be in that gloomy receptacle, the workhouse, which the present law afforded them. He believed that if this measure was passed into law, the condition of the peasantry of England would be much aggravated, and it was under that impression that he ventured to oppose, humbly, but earnestly, the scheme of the Government. He begged to thank the House for the great patience with which it had heard him; and he ventured to express the hope that hon. Gentlemen opposite would follow the example of hon. Members behind him, and not rise till they had something to say, and sit down when they had finished. If they followed the example set them by his Friends, there would be no 118 necessity to taunt hon. Gentlemen at his side of the House with a desire to delay the debate, or retard the adjustment of the question. The resistance which he and the Friends whom he saw around him, were making, was a consistent and not a factious one; and whatever might ultimately be the result, he and the party whose principles he supported would come out of the struggle with nothing but credit to themselves.

§ MR. C. BULLER
was exceedingly obliged to the hon. Member for Evesham for the personal compliments which he had paid him; but the hon. Gentleman did him injustice when he occused him (Mr. C. Buller) of having laughed at Gentlemen opposite when they quoted the "wisdom of our ancestors." What he complained of was, not of their always quoting that wisdom, so much as of their never following it. Our ancestors were doubtless wise men; but what he marvelled at—what he laughed at—was at their descendants and admirers so often keeping to every foolish saying or doing which their fathers had lapsed into, while they neglected the landmarks they had left of extended knowledge and true wisdom. For, whenever the "wisdom of our ancestors" was mentioned—their most sagacious sayings, their most solemn declarations—up got the hon. Member for Evesham to repeat the quotations, and apply them as supporting the policy of his party; while hon. Gentlemen behind cheered him on, without for one moment minding whether the citations told for or against themselves and their cause, so long as they were made by somebody on their side of the House. If he wished to quote the "wisdom of our ancestors" against restrictive laws, he should quote precisely those two sentences which at different times had been cited by the hon. Member for Evesham from the writings of Burke, He should warn the House against the folly of tampering with the subsistence of the people. He should tell the House, when they were proposing a law by which to insure a supply of food and of employment for the people, he should remind them, from Burke, that a people maintained a Government, but that no Government could maintain a people. One great feature, however, of the wisdom of our ancestors, compared with that of their descendants, was the comparative brevity of their debates. He did not believe that, in the Parliamentary history of this or any other country could be found such a phenomenon 119 as a three weeks' debate upon one Motion. [Hon. MEMBERS: Look to America.] He could hardly quote America in talking of the wisdom of our ancestors. But he did maintain that he had never heard of our forefathers debating a Motion for three weeks; and though he was willing to do justice to the strength and the variety of the arguments of the hon. Gentlemen opposite, yet he thought that they would have exhibited both to more advantage had they detailed them at half their length. He was not going to plunge into the subject of free trade. This was altogether too late a stage of the business for him to adopt such a course. Besides, it was a subject on which the good sense of mankind had made up the opinions of the world long ago; and whatever ingenuity hon. Gentlemen might show, they would find it impossible to persuade the world that the way to secure a cheap and constant supply of an article was to limit the range from whence that supply could be drawn; while they would find the task equally hard of persuading the world that they, or the sellers of any other commodity, ought to have more than the fair market price for their ware. He believed he might assume that, since 1815, there was to be perceived in the conduct of public men a general admission that, in dealing with corn, they had acted upon the feeling that it was to be considered in the light of an exception from the general principles of trade. A right hon. Friend of his had rightly explained the purpose and object of the law of 1815, when he described it as having arisen from the great demand for corn during war time, the consequent quantity of land taken into cultivation, and the bargains made upon the faith of a continuance of high prices. In order to preserve these last the Legislature deemed it wise to restrict the import of foreign corn. He must own, however, that the conduct of all successive Governments and public men had shown that they were impressed with the idea that, in dealing with the Corn Laws, the great principle to be kept in view was that of gradual relaxation, in the hope that they might be ultimately entirely done away with. Now, they had heard much lately of the merits of consistency. For himself he could claim no such merit; for, two or three years ago, he had voted for restriction in the trade in corn. But he at the same time could not admit that men could not change their opinions upon a point without gross inconsistency. 120 Therefore, he felt that in defending the right hon. Baronet opposite from the charge, he was also defending himself, as well as others who had changed their opinions: not that he would be inclined to load with indiscriminating eulogy right hon. Gentlemen opposite. He thought that they had shown a want of foresight in 1841 in not saying "these laws cannot be long kept up—we shall, therefore, prepare the country gradually for the adoption of perfect free trade." On the contrary, however, they fell into the error of imagining that the Corn Laws could be maintained much longer than it was possible that they could be kept up. Since then, however, symptoms of a coming change were one after another manifest; hon. Gentlemen below the gangway blamed the Ministers for inconsistency when they should blame their own want of perception. He did think that there had been abundant indication that the convictions of the right hon. Baronet at the head of the Government in favour of the Corn Laws were undergoing a gradual but great alteration. Year after year he gave up some argument in their favour. First, there was their alleged effect of producing steadiness of price—that consideration was thrown overboard. Then came the argument about dependence on foreigners—that met the same fate—and so on. The right hon. Baronet went on discarding one argument after another, until, as he (Mr. C. Buller) remembered, the general remark on this side of the House was, "Why, on what grounds are these Corn Laws to stand, as all the considerations in their favour are thus successively abandoned? And, in fact, for the last year or two, they had stood on nothing more secure than the annual promise which the Duke of Richmond managed to extract, that the Corn Laws should not be altered that year. He certainly thought that Ministers should have commenced the work much earlier; but the great and interesting question for consideration now was—"Under existing circumstances, can the Corn Laws be maintained any longer?" He thought it but fair to right hon. Gentlemen opposite to admit that the change of opinion which they now condemned was of long and gradual growth. He never could believe that, under all circumstances, men of sense could go on to the end as they started in the beginning. He blamed no man for changing his opinion, especially a particular opinion of this kind, with regard to 121 which circumstances must exercise a great influence. But who—who had experienced a change in his own opinion, as he confessed he had experienced many since he came into that House—who could say—certainly he, for his own part, could not—who could tell the exact moment when a change of opinion took place? He repeated he could not point to the exact moment when he threw the Corn Laws overboard, and took up his present opinions. Probably, after he was really convinced, he went on in the old course for some time from habit. Nobody could point to the precise period when they gave up one set of opinions and took to another; but the right hon. Gentlemen opposite gave from time to time plain indications of the change gradually working in their minds. With that conviction going on, how did circumstances operate in the autumn of last year? Hon. Gentlemen opposite had laughed at the arguments founded upon Irish famine, and had told the House that they were no arguments at all. And here he must say, that those hon. Gentlemen had shown a good deal of that inconsistency with which they were ready to reproach others: for let it be remembered that they had not been in the same mind as to the existence of scarcity in Ireland during the course of these debates. Nothing could be more marked than their tone in the early part of the debate in admitting the existence of circumstances of great distress. ["No, no!"] Why, they allowed that there was distress, against which the Government was bound to provide. The hon. Member for Somerset admitted that it was the duty of Government to open the ports, and suspend for a time the Corn Laws. [An Hon. MEMBER: Assuming the existence of the distress.] He told them that it was not until they found how they had, by their own admission, cut the whole argument from under their feet, that they had bethought themselves of bringing forward the Gentlemen who had lately attempted to deny the existence of famine in Ireland, It did seem to him that, with such a calamity impending, or even possible, in any part of the country, that for hon. Gentlemen to come forward, and on such evidence to deny the existence of the potato failure, and to recommend the House not to take any precautions against it; and in the teeth of evidence of the most decisive nature, that the calamity was imminent—such a course was not one he should like 122 to pursue. Talk of their denial of famine in Ireland; why, at first to admit it was the whole gist of their speeches. Then they moved round; and that there was no famine, and ought to be no precautions, became the burden of their song. ["No, no!"] Did they mean to say that they came forward and, in the first instance, denied the danger of famine. No, they said that Government ought to take precautions against it. But now, when it was suitable to their party views, they denied the existence of scarcity altogether; and the right hon. Member for the University of Dublin came forward with private letters and hearsay stories to contradict the most irrefutable public evidence furnished by public functionaries of all grades, beginning with the Lord Lieutenant, and ending with the authorities of Poor Law Unions. All these authorities told the same tale of scarcity existing, and famine and fever impending; but some hon. Gentlemen there were who could still see nothing in the present state of Ireland, or at least would see nothing in its present state, but what tallied with their favourite arguments. We might have what proof we would of coming fever and coming famine; but the only spectre from which they recoiled was that of abundance. It seemed to him, then, that this famine it was impossible to deny. Hon. Gentlemen once admitted its existence by offering their assistance in averting it. The hon. Member for Lincoln had told the House that he would subscribe 300l. [Colonel SIBTHORP: I should like to know what you will give.] Sorry should he be to remind the hon. and gallant Member of an inconvenient promise. He mentioned the fact, thinking it greatly to the hon. and gallant Member's honour. He thought nothing could be more handsome than his offer, and he was quite sure that the hon. and gallant Member would stand by his word. But when he and others subscribed, let them recollect that the whole weight of the Corn Laws would fall upon them—they would be paying an increased price for the supply of the starving people of Ireland. Why, was not the common-sense plan the suspension of the duties and the free admission of cheap food? But, then, it was said the Government might have opened the ports, but where was the necessity for altering the Corn Laws? He would ask hon. Gentlemen to recollect one or two facts connected with this subject. Since the year 1815 Government had only once 123 opened the ports by an Order in Council. It occurred in 1826, under the Ministry of Mr. Canning. Did that Cabinet propose to dispense for a time with the Corn Laws, without altering them? Why, the first thing they did was to ask for an Act of Indemnity for themselves, and to propose those alterations in the Corn Law, which after several changes—not as he thought for the better—were embodied in the law of 1828. The great argument against a fixed duty was, "let a time of scarcity once come, the opening of the ports could not be resisted," and no one would have the hardihood to propose its renewal. Was it likely that the right hon. Gentleman, if he once consented to open the ports, would re-enact his own law, which confessedly had not answered its purpose? He wanted to ask the protectionists one question—the ports once open, when would they shut them? They heard very consolatory stories about the new crops of potatoes, and experiments made by the Duke of Portland, which he supposed the Irish peasantry were to follow; and one hon. Member was so good as to take a young potato out of his pocket, and show the House that there was no disease in it. Why none of them were diseased until after they had been put by for food. Could we look at those and be sure of the next crop? The example of what occurred in America was fraught with warning, for in three successive years there was an increase of the disease in the potatoes: no Government could with common prudence have legislated for Ireland without considering the probability that the emergency of this year would be that of the next. Would you have had the Government open the ports, and shut them in September, believing they would have to open them by Order in Council next year—or would you have them open the ports for an indefinite period, and still keep the law unaltered? It would have been impossible for the Government to have retained the Corn Law under such circumstances. The feeling, therefore, of the right hon. Baronet must have been that the Corn Law would not be permanent, and that the necessity for altering it increased year by year; and no hon. Gentleman opposite had ventured to say that it was to be retained for ever. His hon. Friend the Member for Northamptonshire admitted that he could not say that it was a permanent law, and he spoke of alteration at a period which he did not specify. With this conviction, that the law 124 was not permanent, and the pressure of distress in Ireland, were there no other circumstances which pointed out the present as a time when this change might be made with peculiar facility and slight risk? One of the greatest fears which had been expressed as to the effect of this alteration, was the increase of the supply from abroad. They were guaranteed now, that for some time to come there will be little importation of food from abroad. The circumstances of Europe guard against any sudden alteration in the price of corn. Another fear was, that labourers would be thrown out of employ. The demand for labour was never so great as now. The demand caused by the formation of railways showed that this was a fitting time for a change which might affect the labourer. A third reason which had weighed with the Government, was the influence which our change of policy might have on that of other nations. He had heard many jokes made upon the chimerical nature of the right hon. Baronet's hopes that Prussia would be influenced by the change in our Corn Law. He saw last autumn in a foreign paper that, in the Council of the Zollverein held last year, the Prussian delegates used all their influence to induce a reduction of duties. Conceive how much you would strengthen the voice of Prussia at the Council of the Germanic League, if you would supply her with the argument that free trade was established here. Was there nothing in the present position of the United States which made it a fitting moment to relax our commercial policy? He would not advert to questions of a delicate nature. He would not speak of the hostility to this country which had been expressed there, and which he did not believe was the sober sense of the people. He would not speak of the probability of diminishing the chance of war by the relaxation of our commercial policy; but he would merely advert to the fact that the question of their tariff was now under consideration—that they were debating their tariff at the same time that we were debating ours. It was stated the other night that there were many manufacturers in America, and especially in the Northern States, who are averse to any relaxation. Why, the Americans might just as well say, that the agriculturists in this country, and the Duke of Richmond, were averse to our change in the Corn Law; but we say that we have the majority, and can prevent their opposition being effectual. In that 125 way they paraded the minority in America to support their opinion. In the last election a great deal turned upon the question of the tariff; and in Congress there was a decided majority in favour of relaxation in commercial policy. There never was a moment in which it was more likely that if England relaxed her policy, she would meet with a corresponding relaxation in the United States. On these grounds he believed they were wrong in finding fault with the right hon. Baronet for the course he had pursued. We have a right to find fault with him for maintaining the law so long as he has. They have no such right, for he has maintained it for them longer than any one else could, or than they could have maintained it without him. They should thank him for the kindness he had shown them, and at once admit that the right hon. Gentleman was now yielding to a necessity against which he could no longer struggle. But when he said that the other party had a right to blame the right hon. Gentleman for the past, he felt the greatest admiration for the course which he now pursued. If he had not listened to the voice of argument and truth sufficiently soon, he had certainly now propounded his measure of relief in a frank and determined spirit. No man, even of his enemies, had ventured to impugn his motives. He believed, if the right hon. Gentleman had acted on the vulgar views of party, and determined to go along with his own, right or wrong, he might have relied on a majority, and kept up those laws some time longer. But the result would have been in the end fatal not only to the Corn Laws, but to far more important interests. He must say that the most degrading policy a public man could pursue was, having changed his opinion, to give a vote which his reason condemned; to repeat arguments, of the fallacy of which he was convinced; and to impose on the country a policy which he believed to be dangerous. Such a course must lead to the belief that the position of a party leader and chief Minister of the Crown, instead of being one of honour and dignity, would become one of the most dishonourable to which any man could attain. He should touch on one other argument. It was said the Parliament should be dissolved, and the sense of the people taken. To a certain extent he admitted there was some validity in that argument. If the right hon. Gentleman thought the repeal of those laws was against the sense of 126 the country, he should say the experiment was not only unfair, but exceedingly dangerous, because the inevitable consequence would be, that on the assembling of a new Parliament the Act would be reversed, and the Corn Law restored. But really, after the decisive majority with which the question was carried, there was no ground for supposing that the party opposite would increase their numbers by a single unit in the event of an appeal to the country. "Oh, but," said they, "try." Grave reasons alone should induce a Minister to appeal to the country; and, in his opinion, the present state of the question of repeal furnished no such ground. The arguments of the protectionists, on this point, were some of the oddest. A free trader was returned in Westminster; and that, they said, was a great triumph to them. It was true he had heard of 400 protectionist voters being about to be brought up by the Duke of Richmond to turn the scale, but he never heard of their setting up a candidate on their own account. The result of the election must be taken as a proof that a majority of the people of Westminster were in favour of free trade. He should grant all the most sanguine notions of the protectionists, that they carried all the small towns and agricultural boroughs; and in that way, with the counties, obtained a majority—it would be impotent to keep up the Corn Laws, and the whole representative system would be brought tumbling about their ears. Take but the North Riding of Yorkshire, his noble Friend (Lord Morpeth) and his Colleague walked up the House, the representative (as correctly as he could make the calculation) of twenty-three county Members. The protectionists did not pretend they could alter the representation, the metropolitan representation, or that of the city, or of the county of Middlesex. Why, these represented more persons than 240 boroughs. He asked the protectionists, then, had they not sometimes trembled at the consequences of their own possible success? If they attempted to pursue a course which the great and intelligent majority condemned, so surely would a second Reform Bill be proposed, which it would be impossible to resist. He warned them of the ground on which they were treading; and before they followed it up in that and the other House, he put it to them whether they would excite the public mind to the consideration of questions of far more importance to the interests of the people of 127 this country than the Corn Laws. They talked of "conservative policy;" but never was there a more sagacious upholder of that policy than the right hon. Gentleman, when he resolved to give up laws which were the cause of great heartburning and discontent amongst the people.

§ LORD G. BENTINCK
said: Sir, the hon. and learned Gentleman who has just sat down commenced his observations to the House by stating that the universal common sense of mankind was agreed in the principles of free trade. Why, Sir, I think when the hon. and learned Gentleman looks to the opinions of the people of the United States of America—when he looks to the opinions of the monarch and people of Prussia — when he looks to the opinions of the people of France and her Government—when he looks to the united opinions of the Zollverein of Germany—and when he looks to the opinions of Russia—he must have paused before he came to the conclusion that the united common sense of all mankind was in favour of free trade. The three tailors of Tooley-street once mistook their opinions for the opinions of the united people of England; and so it is, I think, with the hon. and learned Gentleman. He mistakes the opinions of a party which, until the month of November last, was but a small minority in this House, for the universal common sense of all mankind. Sir, the hon. and learned Gentleman has made several observation with regard to the course that those around me have taken, and the opinions we have formed in respect of the alleged potato famine in Ireland. I believe, Sir, and every day convinces me more and more, that the alleged potato famine in Ireland has been a gross delusion upon the country. True it is, that we, having had the Ministers of the Crown come down to this House with a Speech from the Throne, stating that a great calamity was hanging over Ireland, and that there had been a great failure—an immense and general failure—in the potato crop; that this House was disposed, in the first instance, to listen to a statement coming from such high authority. Since that time, however, we have had better opportunities of informing ourselves on the subject, for we have had Returns laid on the Table of this House from no less than 414 market towns in Ireland, and the result of those Returns was, that the average price of potatoes per stone throughout the whole of Ireland was a fraction under fourpence. I 128 do not think that the people of England can be persuaded that there is that disastrous failure in the potato crop which some would make them believe. I do not think they will be brought to believe that there was such an absolute failure in the potato crop in Ireland as to produce absolute famine there, when they are told throughout the whole of Ireland the average price of potatoes is not quite 4d. a stone. But we have it, not only from those Returns dated the 24th of January last, and which were laid on the Table of this House, that such was the low average price of potatoes, but we are also informed from the daily newspapers of Ireland, which record the current prices of potatoes in all the market towns of that country, that instead of potatoes rising in price, as stated by the right hon. Baronet, they are rather falling, in the great majority of the markets. I have by me the prices of potatoes, in, I think, eighty or ninety of the principal markets of Ireland, from which I find, that up to the 24th instant, there were but four market towns, of the whole number stated in the Returns, in which the price of potatoes had risen, while in all the others the prices had remained as they had been stated in the Returns of the 24th of January last, which were laid on the Table of this House. But this is not all. We have it on the authority of an hon. Gentleman who read a letter from Carnarvon, stating that two shiploads of potatoes came over from Ireland to England; and we are also informed that several cargoes of potatoes have come over to this country in the course of the last few days. Why, the prices of potatoes must be rather on the decline than on the rise in Ireland, when they export them to England, where we all know that they have fallen nearly one-half since the month of December last. So that I think I am fully justified in saying that there never was so gross a delusion attempted to be practised upon any country as that which has been attempted to be practised on the people of England by Her Majesty's Government; and this they have attempted, while at the same time they keep out of sight their own great delinquencies and gross inconsistencies in abandoning all those principles which they entertained in former years. It will be in the recollection of the House, that, after much difficulty, I did, some few weeks ago, obtain a declaration from the right hon. Baronet as to what he thought would be the prospective effects of this measure 129 as regarded the price of wheat. The right hon. Baronet gave it as his opinion at last (he displayed so much courage in 1842, he was not disposed to be so courageous again), that had free trade in corn existed in 1836, when, as he stated, the average price of wheat in this country was 39s., the price of wheat would not be lower in the markets of this country by a free-trade commerce with foreign countries. The right hon. Baronet said that in 1836 the average price was 39s. The fact is, the average price in 1836 was 46s., and in 1839 the average price was 39s. I am, then, prepared to meet the right hon. Baronet on that question, and I am prepared to show that the prices would necessarily be considerably lower. The way properly to ascertain this will be to look back a little and to see what was the average price of wheat throughout all the markets of Europe in 1836, and then in connection with those prices to calculate the expenses of freight and other charges, accurately to ascertain at what price wheat could be imported into the port of London. Well, I have ascertained all those facts, that I might be enabled accurately to place the whole subject before the House. I find then, in 1836, in—

Places. Lowest. Highest. Average Price. Add Freight and Charges.

s. d. s. d. s. d. s. d. s. d.

Dantzic 21 10 34 10 28 4 5 6 34 10

1 0

Rotterdam 29 7 33 4 31 6 5 1 37 6

1 0

Hamburgh 21 1 36 8 29 10½ 5 0 34 10½

1 0

Amsterdam 20 6 35 7 28 1 5 0 34 1

1 0

Memel 18 1 26 1 22 1 5 6 28 6

1 0

Denmark 0 0 0 0 25 0 6 6 31 6

Antwerp 18 5 33 9 25 3 5 0 31 3

1 0

Odessa 16 2 21 1 18 7½ 11 0 30 7½

1 0

Riga free on board, Polish wheat, 62lbs. per bushel. 25 7 6 6 32 1

Riga free on board, Polish wheat, 62lbs. per bushel. 27 8 6 6 34 2

Average price in England, per London Gazette 46 2 32 11¼

Those prices are all taken from the returns of foreign countries—they are returns which admit of no dispute; and the result of the whole is, that wheat in 1836 could have been imported from those ten different countries into England, and sold at a very considerable profit. The right hon. Baronet 130 gave it as his opinion, and he gave it in this House, that it could not have been imported at a lower rate than 39s. But, I ask, how could he advance such an opinion, when the average price of wheat in England in 1836 was not 39s., but 46s. 2d.? Consequently, it was clear that wheat might be imported from ports of Europe into Mark-lane in 1836, at 13s. 3d. the quarter cheaper than the average price of all England; and when you recollect that in London the average prices of wheat are generally 3s. higher than throughout the whole country, there can be no doubt that if there had been a free-trade commerce in 1836, that the price of wheat would have been reduced far below 39s. a quarter; and I might have taken into calculation the year 1835, as in that year I found the average price in the whole of England to be 39s. 6d., and which calculations I have made by taking the prices of that year from the reports of the different countries in Europe, finding the result to be in 1835, in—

Places. Lowest. Highest. Average Price. Freight and Charges.

s. d. s. d. s. d. s. d. s. d.

Dantzic 21 0 24 11 22 6 5 6 29 0

1 0

Rotterdam 26 9 31 6 29 1½ 5 0 34 0½

1 0

Hamburgh 20 9 22 3 21 6 5 0 27 6

1 0

Amsterdam 21 10 26 0 23 10 5 0 29 10

1 0

Memel 19 4 26 0 22 8 5 6 29 2

1 0

Antwerp 18 5 21 6 19 9 5 0 25 9

1 0

Odessa 16 2 23 2 19 5 11 0 32 5

1 0

Denmark 0 0 0 0 19 0 6 6 25 6

Riga, free on board, Polish wheat, 62lbs. per bushel 25 2 6 6 31 8

Riga, free on board, Polish wheat, 62lbs. per bushel 27 2 6 6 33 8

Average price in England, per London Gazette. 39 4 29 10¼

From this calculation it is quite evident that in the year 1835, while the average price of wheat was in England 39s. 2d., the average price was in all the countries in Europe I have enumerated, 29s. 10¼d., which clearly proves that wheat could be imported into Mark-lane at nearly 10s. a quarter lower. I trust, therefore, I have shown to the House that the alarm of the farmers of England at this measure of the Government, was by no means visionary; and Her Majesty's Ministers, in introducing this measure, blew hot and cold. In one 131 half of their speeches they affirmed that the farmers needed not to be alarmed, for in looking at the effects of the Tariff in 1842, as seen in the prices, there was every reason to believe that free trade in corn would rather advance than lower the prices; and Her Majesty's Ministers, in addressing themselves to the agricultural Members, turned round and said, that their only object was to have cheap food to remove starvation, want, and misery—to alleviate human suffering. I hope and trust that the right hon. Baronet will be able to answer the positions which I have laid down, and that, as he has given no clear or distinct opinion as to what may be the future operations of his measure, that he will, by arguments or statements, this night do so. Let him do so clearly, distinctly, and satisfactorily—let him also justify the declaration he made as to the price of wheat in 1836; and if he cannot—and which I am sure he cannot—are we not entitled to ask him to return to those principles which he advocated for a period of thirty years? It had been urged that a free trade in corn is necessary to procure steadiness of prices in this country; and this was one of the principal arguments against the sliding-scale, that it had not promoted steadiness of price. I am prepared to show (and I defy the right hon. Baronet to prove the contrary), that since the year 1842 the prices in this country were subject to less variation than in former years. It has also been urged against us that we have given up the sliding-scale; but we have not given up the sliding-scale. We have not abandoned the sliding-scale; and I believe a large portion of the agricultural body are persuaded that the law of 1842 is a law which worked much better than any other law that had been in operation. The prices of the last few years since 1842, is so impressed on every Member, that it may be admitted that while the lowest price in any week since the change of the Corn Laws was 45s. 1d., the highest price for one week, and for one week only, was 60s. 1d.; and when we call to mind that that high price was created by the alarm which was spread, and industriously propagated throughout the country, I think I am justified in saying that when the fluctuation was only between 45s. 1d. and 60s. 1d. in the course of nearly four months, that of it the country had no reason to complain. Let me now see what were the fluctuations in other countries, as exhibited in the following tabular view:— 132

Places. Years. Lowest price. Years. Highest price. Fluctuations per cent.

s. d. s. d.

Dantziz 1835 20 1 1829 60 1 202

1836 21 10 1838 61 2

New York 1839 37 0 1838 66 0 77

Hamburgh 1835 20 9 1838 58 6 192

Amsterdam 1835 20 6 1838 63 0 204

Antwerp 1833 15 0 1831 55 6 269

Bordeaux 1834 32 3 1832 59 3 81

And let it be recollected that in France they have also a sliding scale.

Places. Years. Lowest price. Years. Highest price. Fluctuations per cent.

s. d. s. d.

Memel 1836 18 1 … 1831 49 3 166

Odessa 1830 16 0 … 1830 33 0 106

Rotterdam 1833 26 5 … 1831 60 9 128

Denmark 1834 18 0 … 1831 39 0 116

Sydney 1838 56 0 … 1839 170 0 201

England prior to 1842 36 0 … 1838 78 4 117

1836

—since 1812, Dec. 1844 45 1 Dec. 1845 60 1 32½

In same years—

England varied 1836 68 per cent.

Hamburg 1838 114 per cent.

Antwerp 1831 125 per cent.

Memel 1829 106 per cent.

Memel 1838 44 per cent.

Dantzie 1838 154 per cent.

Amsterdam 1838 131 per cent.

Bordeaux 59 per cent.

Odessa 1830 106 per cent.

Rotterdam 1838 44 per cent.

133 If you wish to have wheat at high and low prices, the best course certainly to adopt will be to abandon the sliding-scale and to adopt the measures of Her Majesty's Government; but as the great desideratum should be evenness of price, it is nowhere so well to be found as in the law of 1842. The right hon. Baronet said, in speaking of the famine in Ireland, that he could not think of calling on the people of England to pay a duty of 17s.; but I can show this duty of 17s. was paid by us in the profits of the importer from foreign countries. I hold in my hand an invoice which will explain this. Rostock, April 17, 1845. Cargo of 1,404 quarters of wheat, per Johannes, Captain Neiman:—

per Quarter.

s. d.

Invoice, price free on board 26 6

Mats for Dunnage 0 1½

Freight to London 3 6

Meetage 0 6

Storeage, labourage, and lighterage 1 6

Duty 16 0

49 1½

Mecklenburg wheat, free 61s. to 64s. 62 6

Say 62s. 2d.

Profit 13 4½

It has been said by the right hon. the ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer that we have abandoned the principle of the sliding-scale in expressing our willingness to open the ports; but we never have abandoned the sliding-scale. It was said that I spoke in poetic metaphor, and I was begged to express myself in plain intelligible prose. I was afraid I wearied the House on the first introduction of this measure, when I urged that there was no just ground for it. We know, and we have it from the right hon. Baronet himself, that when he proposed to open the ports in December, he had only three Members of the Cabinet, who saw the necessity of their being opened. And the Duke of Wellington, a man of the most masterly mind, stated that though there might be a deficiency in the potato crop, it could not be said that there was any great deficiency of food in Ireland; and he said more, that the present law would of itself meet the exigency: and these are, I believe, the opinions in which my hon. Friends around me concur. But, Sir, the right hon. Gentleman the late Chancellor of the Exchequer, in his great anxiety—as if all the sweets of office were about to be dashed from his lips—has asked what our policy is? and I feel myself 134 bound to give a comprehensive answer to the right hon. Gentleman. Recollecting, as I do, that the right hon. Gentleman has evinced the most decided opposition to any measure that has been propounded in regard to the Corn Laws—recollecting that I had the honour of supporting him in that opposition up till 1838, and resisting any alteration in the Corn Laws, and that it was not till 1841 that a fixed duty of 8s. a quarter was proposed by the right hon. Gentleman's Colleague—recollecting that when the Corn Law of 1842 was proposed, and finding that the clamour they had raised, and the cry for cheap bread had not been successful in returning a sufficient number of their friends to the House, that they again declared in favour of a fixed duty; and that it was only in November last that it came across the mind of the noble Lord the Member for the city of London that something was brewing in the Cabinet of Her Majesty's Ministers—that he sought to outbid them—and that he thought the only thing he could do would be to offer free trade. I will tell the right hon. Gentleman the comprehensive advice that I am prepared to give to this House and the country—to follow the advice universally given by the celebrated Doctor Baillie to his patients, to take no more of the remedies previously prescribed; and I would recommend that no more of the remedies prescribed by that side of the House should be attended to. And that is the policy which my hon. Friends, if they should come into office, would pursue; and the advice which they would give to the country, seeing that you do not understand the complaints of the country, they should take no more of your advice, as you do not understand how to treat your patients. With respect to the right hon. Gentlemen on the Treasury benches, who have so lately adopted the opinions of their former opponents, the same recommendation will be equally applicable. The right hon. Gentleman, when calling upon me not to speak in poetical metaphor, must have made some mistake as to the person of whom he was speaking; he must have been thinking of the right hon. Gentleman, who generally draws so largely upon his imagination, and who, on a former occasion, in speaking of the right hon. Gentleman himself, described him (Mr. Baring) as an angler fishing for the Budget, and said a good man struggling against fate was "a sight worthy of the gods." I think the right hon. Gentleman 135 has been fishing for the Budget from this side of the House. When the right hon. Gentleman ventures to impeach the course we recommend, and states that it would be dangerous to cause a dissolution of Parliament on a question of this exciting nature, with the cry of cheap bread for the people on one side, and protection for domestic industry on the other — when he ventures to tell us that we are setting the agricultural against the manufacturing classes—I must say, that I think he must have a short memory, or he would recollect that the present Parliament now site by reason of a dissolution obtained by that party of which he is a Member, upon the cry of this very question of cheap bread; and from the observations that were made by the right hon. Gentleman previous to that dissolution, I should not have expected that he would now have been so alarmed about submitting the question to the consideration of the country. I recollect that the right hon. Baronet the Secretary of State for the Home Department, complained that the hon. Gentleman and the noble Lord (Lord John Russell) who sat on the benches opposite, had excited the people, and compared them to the 300 foxes who had firebrands tied to their tails, and were sent into the midst of the standing corn; and I remember also that he compared them to pirates, who would, rather than surrender the ship and their command, apply the torch to the magazine. I would ask my right hon. Friends who occupy the Treasury benches, what do they think of themselves now? If the right hon. Gentleman and the noble Lord opposite are to be compared to pirates, are not they pirates too? Have they not pirated the doctrines, the arguments, and the old speeches of the Anti-Corn-Law League? But I cannot pay you the compliment of saying that you possessed the dare-devil courage of pirates—that, rather than yield to distress and danger, you would apply the torch to the magazine, and sink your ship. I cannot say that you have stood by your ship as long as you could keep her afloat. No; you have left your ship in the dark of the night when you had chartered to carry her home in safety. You have brought her upon a lee-shore, and left her among the breakers. You have placed her under the guns of the enemy's battery whilst your faithful crew were asleep in their hammocks. You have scuttled your ship—you, the captain and lieutenant, master, and mate—you scuttled 136 the ship, stole the compass, sneaked away in the long, boat and deserted to the enemy, hoping that your gallant crew would become an easy prey to those who would board her. But you judged of the mettle of your crew by your own craven hearts, and though for a moment we may have been thrown into confusion, we never have been discouraged—we have rallied from the temporary shock, and we will yet bring the good ship off the lee shore and carry her safe home to port.

Years.	Bounties paid upon corn exported.	Duties paid upon corn imported.
	£	s.	d.	£	s.	d.
1787	55,882	17	5	5,061	12	2
1788	44,206	1	11	5,344	3	4
1789	76,551	16	1	4,814	3	7
1790	10,173	15	2	10,856	17	3
1791	7,657	0	0	27,511	0	0
1792	76,802	0	0	39,543	0	0

For every quarter of wheat weighing 440 lbs. avoirdupois	£1	0
For every quarter of wheat weighing 424 lbs. avoirdupois	0	16
For every cwt. of wheat flour	0	6

For every quarter of wheat weighing 440 lbs	£0	15	0
For every quarter of wheat weighing 424 lbs	0	12	0
For every cwt. of flour	0	4	6
from any part of Europe north of Cape Finisterre, not being His Majesty's dominions, till the quantity should be 500,000 quarters; and—
For every quarter of wheat weighing 440 lbs	£0	10	0
For every quarter of wheat weighing 424 lbs	0	8	0
For every cwt. of flour	0	3	0
imported after the above quantities should be completed. Then—
For every quarter of Indian corn	£0	5	0
For every cwt. of Indian meal	0	1	6
until the quantity amounted to 500,000 quarters.
For every quarter of Indian corn	£0	3	0
For very cwt. of Indian meal	0	1	0
when the above quantities were completed.

Places.	Lowest.	Highest.	Average Price.	Add Freight and Charges.
	s.	d.	s.	d.	s.	d.	s.	d.	s.	d.
Dantzic	21	10	34	10	28	4	5	6	34	10
1	0
Rotterdam	29	7	33	4	31	6	5	1	37	6
1	0
Hamburgh	21	1	36	8	29	10½	5	0	34	10½
1	0
Amsterdam	20	6	35	7	28	1	5	0	34	1
1	0
Memel	18	1	26	1	22	1	5	6	28	6
1	0
Denmark	0	0	0	0	25	0	6	6	31	6
Antwerp	18	5	33	9	25	3	5	0	31	3
1	0
Odessa	16	2	21	1	18	7½	11	0	30	7½
1	0
Riga free on board, Polish wheat, 62lbs. per bushel.	25	7	6	6	32	1
Riga free on board, Polish wheat, 62lbs. per bushel.	27	8	6	6	34	2
Average price in England, per London Gazette	46	2			32	11¼

Places.	Years.	Lowest price.	Years.	Highest price.	Fluctuations per cent.
		s.	d.		s.	d.
Dantziz	1835	20	1	1829	60	1	202
	1836	21	10	1838	61	2
New York	1839	37	0	1838	66	0	77
Hamburgh	1835	20	9	1838	58	6	192
Amsterdam	1835	20	6	1838	63	0	204
Antwerp	1833	15	0	1831	55	6	269
Bordeaux	1834	32	3	1832	59	3	81

England varied	1836	68 per cent.
Hamburg	1838	114 per cent.
Antwerp	1831	125 per cent.
Memel	1829	106 per cent.
Memel	1838	44 per cent.
Dantzie	1838	154 per cent.
Amsterdam	1838	131 per cent.
Bordeaux		59 per cent.
Odessa	1830	106 per cent.
Rotterdam	1838	44 per cent.

	per Quarter.
	s.	d.
Invoice, price free on board	26	6
Mats for Dunnage	0	1½
Freight to London	3	6
Meetage	0	6
Storeage, labourage, and lighterage	1	6
Duty	16	0
	49	1½
Mecklenburg wheat, free 61s. to 64s.	62	6
Say 62s. 2d.
Profit	13	4½