Commons Sitting of 25 November 1852

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILL.—1o Tenant Right (Ireland).

COMMERCIAL LEGISLATION — FREE TRADE—EXPLANATIONS.
SIR WILLIAM CLAY: Sir, I rise for the purpose of asking, first, of my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. C. Villiers), and in the next place of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, questions which, not in my own estimation only, but I believe also in the estimation of many other hon. Members, have an important bearing on the proceedings of this House. In so doing I am happy to say that I shall not have occasion, or at least in the very
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slightest degree, to claim that indulgences which the House ordinarily extends to Members who have questions publicly to ask, namely, the permission to make such previous statement as may render such questions intelligible. ["Order, order!"]' I shall not, I repeat, have occasion to avail myself of that—
MR. COBDEN: Sir, I rise to order. I think it will be admitted on both sides of the House that it will be exceedingly inconvenient that a question should be put, accompanied by a speech, unless it is under circumstances which would admit of a reply. The hon. Gentleman, I submit, would, therefore, better promote the object he has in view if he wishes to make a statement by letting it be understood that he will finish with a Motion.
SIR WILLIAM CLAY: Sir, I have no intention to make any speech, but it is important that I should put the question, because I think it will have an important bearing on our proceedings here to-night. With these simple words of preface then, as my hon. Friend the Member for the West Biding will not permit me the smallest indulgence in that respect, I ask, first, of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, because I believe, in so doing, it will be more in accordance with the usage of this House in similar cases, whether he will be willing to withdraw that Amendment which he has put into your hand on the Motion of my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, on the understanding that if it be withdrawn the House will acquiesce in the Resolution proposed by the noble Lord the Member for Tiverton (Viscount Palmerston)? I ask of my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton whether, on a like understanding, he will be prepared to withdraw his Motion? And again I ask as a second question of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whether, in the event of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton refusing to withdraw his Motion, he (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) will accept the Resolution proposed by my noble Friend the Member for Tiverton as a substitute for his own Amendment?
SIR JAMES GRAHAM: My sense, Sir, of public duty will, I am sorry to say, compel me to make a speech, and to bring myself strictly within the rules of the House. I shall conclude with making a Motion. Sir, I beg in the first place to state, that in a new Parliament—having had long experience in this House—I am one of the

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last persons who would be disposed to strain the privileges of an individual Member to an undue extent, inconsistent with the transaction of public business; and I shall trust, after the statement which I have to make to the House, that they will be of opinion that this is an exceptional case, and that I am justified in the course I am about to pursue when I make a formal Motion "that this House do now adjourn." Having, Sir, placed myself strictly within the rules of the House, and having given to every Member of the House who may think proper to follow me the opportunity of stating his opinion with respect to the matter now pending, I think it right, after the question put by the hon. Baronet the Member for the Tower Hamlets (Sir Wm. Clay), and before Her Majesty's Government give an answer to the question he put, to make the statement which I am anxious, with the permission of the House, to address to them. The noble Viscount the Member for Tiverton (Viscount Palmerston), at the close of the discussion on Tuesday evening, tendered to the House, not in the form of a direct Motion, but rather in the shape of a suggestion, certain words in lieu both of the original Motion and of the Amendment, which he thought constituted a middle course, and one upon which, consistently with the honour of all parties, we might arrive at an agreement. Now, Sir, it is impossible that I, who am one of the surviving colleagues of the late Sir Robert Peel—who took a most active part in 1846 in pressing on the attention of Parliament the policy of a repeal of the Corn Laws—who had the good fortune, after the dissolution of that Government, to enjoy the confidential friendship of Sir Robert Peel to the last hour of his life—it is impossible I should not feel a deep and peculiar interest in the subject which stands for further discussion on the present occasion. And it is right, Sir, that I should state to the House the exact truth with respect to the part which I have taken, both with reference to the original Motion and with respect to certain words which the noble Lord has suggested as the medium of a possible agreement on both sides of the House. I hope the House will not regard it as presumption on my part if I state frankly all the concern I have had both in the framing of the original Motion, and in reference to the words in question. I did not arrive in London until late in the evening preceding Her Majesty's Speech from the Throne, and on the morning of
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that Speech, having to take my seat before two o'clock in the afternoon of that day, I had not an opportunity of conferring with any one, except my noble Friend the Earl of Aberdeen, one of my former colleagues, with whom happily I maintain the most cordial and sincere friendship. My noble Friend told mo what were the terms of Her Majesty's Speech on the question of an unrestricted policy with respect to matters of trade. He told me, also, that he had, in concert with my former colleagues, considered those words, and that they had come to the conclusion that, upon the whole, it was not expedient to be a party to moving an Amendment on the Address on the occasion; and he added, that he had also had an intimation that the noble Lord the Member for the City of London (Lord John Russell) and his former colleagues had arrived at the same conclusion. Sir, I saw no other person until you took your seat in the chair on that day; but I think I met in the lobby of the House the hon. Member for Manchester (Mr. Bright), who addressed you with so much ability on Tuesday evening, and he informed me that although the opinion of himself and several of his friends had been decidedly in favour of moving an Amendment to the Address on that occasion, yet, to prevent disunion among the friends of free trade in this House, and in a new Parliament, that he had declared his readiness to abstain from moving an Amendment; but that as he, as well as myself and my former Colleagues, and the noble Lord the Member for London, were of opinion that the words of the Speech on the subject of free trade were unsatisfactory, it had been suggested that my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, on the part of the free-trade party generally, should give notice of a substantive Motion on that subject; and that it was thought on all hands that, considering the part he had taken in these discussions, that he had fought the battle manfully from the beginning, it was due to him, in the last hour of the success of that policy which he had so long and so earnestly advocated, that he should take a prominent part. I told my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester. that I entirely agreed in that arrangement —that I was extremely glad there would not be an Amendment to the Address, and that I thought a substantive Motion was preferable, and particularly rejoiced in the selection of my hon. Friend the Member

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for Wolverhampton as the organ of the Free-trade party in this House on that occasion. So matters stood when I came into the House; and I certainly fully expected, considering that the terms of the Speech were somewhat ambiguous, that the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, on the part of Her Majesty's Government, would avail himself of the ordinary opportunity, before the commencement of the discussion on the Address, to give notice for a particular day of his intention to introduce the promised measure on the part of the Government. You, Sir, are always most particular on that day, when the mover and seconder of the Address are present, that the discussion should commence at the appointed hour. That hour is half-past four. You waited until twenty minutes to five—longer than usual—in consequence of the absence of the Chancellor of the Exchequer; and when the right hon. Gentleman entered the House, my impression was—and I do not think I was singular in that impression—that he was about to give notice for a particular day on which the measures of the Government would be introduced. He did not do so. The noble Lord the Member for North Northumberland (Lord Lovaine) moved the Address in a speech of great ability; but still I could not fail to remember that he had displaced in the representation of the county of Northumberland one of the most distinguished Members of the Free-trade party—my right hon. Friend Sir George Grey—that he had effected that victory in Northumberland principally on the ground of advocating protection as against free trade, and I could not believe that if protection was to he abandoned, it was a Percy that was to perform that operation in this House. When the speech of the seconder of the Address was nearly concluded, my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, sitting immediately behind me, stretched forward and asked, "Shall I still give notice of my Motion?"—I did not know what others said—I said, "Certainly, give your notice." That notice was given in point of time before any declaration of the policy of the Government had been pronounced in either House of Parliament, and it was made in the absence of any day being appropriated by the Government for the introduction of those measures which had been promised. I listened with attention to the debate which followed; I weighed well the terms of Her Majesty's Speech;
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and on the following morning, in addition to the information which I had derived from the discussion here, and from hearing the announcement on the part of the Government, made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, I had the advantage, through the ordinary channels, of reading what passed elsewhere, and of considering the statement made by the head of the Government. Having been a party to a notice given of a Motion, I frankly avow—considering the position to which I have alluded—that I took particular interest in reference to the mode in which that Motion should be framed; and on the morning of the 12th, having Her Majesty's Speech before me, and the speech to which I have alluded as having been made elsewhere, I endeavoured to frame the terms of that Motion. I shall state to the House without disguise what was the spirit in which I endeavoured to frame that Resolution. I remembered, as the noble Viscount the Member for Tiverton reminded us the other night, that this—whatever may be our differences of opinion—is an assembly of Gentlemen; and I was roost anxious, in framing that Resolution, to insert nothing in it which I thought would wound the feelings of any of those who perhaps, without changing their opinions, were ready to change their course with reference to a specific policy about to be triumphant. And also I am bound to say I did not forget that I myself had been a convert from former opinions, and was the very last person in the House who ought not to have some regard for the feelings of others in such circumstances. Now, will the House bear with me whilst I state how I proceeded in framing that Resolution? I took the Speech of Her Majesty and the paragraph which refers to protection and free trade, and I took the speech also made elsewhere, to which I have referred, and I endeavoured to insert in the shape of a Resolution everything which I thought necessary for the distinct assertion of the principle for which those who were attached to the policy of free trade contended, and to omit everything in the Resolution to which those who were willing, under the circum stances, to depart from the policy of protection, and to adopt that of free trade, could reasonably object. That is the spirit in which I endeavoured to frame the Resolution. I have the original Resolution be-fore me as so drawn, and with the permission of the House I will read it. The words are—

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"That it is the opinion of this House that the improved condition of the country, and especially of the industrious classes, is in a great measure the result of recent legislation, which has abolished taxes imposed for the purpose of protection, which has thereby diminished the cost of the principal articles of food, and which has established unrestricted competition.
"It is the opinion of this House that, without inflicting injury on any important interest, this policy, firmly maintained and prudently extended, will best enable the industry of the country to hear its burdens, and will thereby most surely promote the welfare and contentment of the community."
These were the original Resolutions; I have already told the House that, though inadequate yet honestly, I do consider myself a representative of the policy to which I was a party, under the guidance of my late most distinguished Friend Sir Robert Peel; and I put to myself the question— if my right hon. Friend were still alive, in the present circumstances, with no sinister object in view—for he disregarded all sinister objects—what with reference to the good of the country and to the security of the policy he had at heart, and its firm maintenance on the surest ground—what, under the present circumstances, would be the line he would take? And I assure you, Sir, and this House, on my honour, that to the best of my judgment, with my intimate knowledge both of his feelings and his general course of proceeding, I believe he would have framed a better Resolution, but a Resolution in the spirit of the one which I have read. Now, I sent this Resolution to my noble Friend the Member for the City of London, with whom, I am happy to say, I have been in cordial and friendly communication. ["Hear!"] Now, that cheer convinces me that there is an undue and an erroneous suspicion that there is a factious party spirit at work; but I am about to show to you—I think conclusively—that you have been premature in coming to that conclusion. What was the answer of my noble Friend? He said to me—
"On the whole, I approve of your words; I have seen none which I prefer; but I think there is an objection to the Resolutions, as they stand without some safeguard. If carried adversely, the Government will be of opinion that they are intended to obstruct the course which they deem it their duty to take, and that it is not desired by the House to see the measures which they have announced as prepared."
And my noble Friend, so far from desiring to pursue a factious course towards the Government, recommended the insertion of the third clause, to which I will now call
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the attention of the House. It is in these words:—
"That this House will be ready to take into consideration any measures consistent with these principles which, in pursuance of Her Majesty's gracious Speech and recommendation, may fee laid before it."
I thought that suggestion admirable; I thought it a great improvement; and it was in entire accordance with my desire that the Government should not be interrupted unduly in the presentation of their measures for the consideration of the House. Having obtained the opinion and sanction of my noble Friend, I then met my Lord Aberdeen and my Colleagues in the Government of the late Sir Robert Peel who had been officially responsible for the repeal of the corn laws. We discussed most carefully the words of the two Resolutions: they underwent some alterations, and the terms of some of them were changed. But in a matter of this kind, the entire truth ought to be stated to the House. I shall state exactly the result of those deliberations, and the changes which were effected in consequence of the interview which I had with my former Colleagues. I will now read how the Resolutions stood after that interview. The first Resolution was in these words:—
"It is the opinion of this House that the improved condition of the country, and especially of the industrious classes, is in a great measure the result of recent legislation, which has established the principle of unrestricted competition, has abolished taxes imposed for the purpose of protection, and has thereby diminished the cost of the principal articles of food."
Now, Sir, I must state to the House that in framing this Resolution, I had particular attention to the words of Her Majesty's Speech; and if the House will allow me, I will call their attention to those words. The part to which I am about to call the attention of the House states the matter hypothetically—
"If you should be of opinion that recent legislation, in contributing, with other causes, to this unhappy"—
[Laughter,] I beg pardon of the House—
—"this happy result has, at the same time, inflicted unavoidable injury on certain important interests, I recommend you dispassionately to consider how far it may be practicable equitably to mitigate their injury, and to enable the industry of the country to meet successfully that unrestricted competition to which Parliament in its wisdom has decided that it should be subjected."
Now, understanding distinctly from the various speeches made, both in this House and elsewhere, that if the policy of a conn-

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tervailing duty on corn were abandoned, it was thought indispensable by the Government that compensation for alleged injury-should then be sought by some other mode than by a countervailing duty, I thought that these words, which had been deliberately adopted by the Cabinet, and which Her Majesty under such advice had delivered from the Throne, studiously raised the presumption that such "injury" had been inflicted, and opened the door to the admission of compensation. Now, I will tell the House frankly, that in framing the second Resolution, I sought to traverse that presumption, and to assert—at least by implication—that there was no such injury, and that in reference to the future, the policy of free trade might be firmly maintained, and even prudently extended, without inflicting any injury upon any class —thereby shutting the door against compensation. Now, it is rather a nicety— but it is necessary that the whole truth should be stated. As I drew the Resolution at first, I had put these words:—
"It is the opinion of this House that without inflicting injury upon any important interest, this policy, firmly maintained and prudently extended, will enable the industry of the country to bear its burdens."
Thus placed, the Resolution might be supposed to have a retrospective effect, as well as a prospective. I individually had the strongest opinion that there is no case which gives a retrospective claim to compensation; but still I am bound to say that some of my former Colleagues in the Government of the late Sir Robert Peel thought that that question would be more fairly left open—that the Resolution should be merely prospective in its effect, and not combine the retrospective and prospective assertion of the principle. It was thought better that these words just quoted should follow after the word "will," rather than precede it, thus giving it entirely a prospective, and removing altogether the retrospective character of the sentence. It was accordingly thus amended:—
"It is the opinion of this House that this policy, firmly maintained and prudently extended, will, without inflicting injury upon any important interests, best enable the industry of the country to bear its burdens, and will thereby most surely promote the welfare and contentment of the people."
I was willing to adopt that suggestion, because I felt that whenever the question arose, and the Government thought fit to raise it with respect to compensation for the past, I should be enabled then to say,
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"this policy strictly maintained did not give rise to any just claim for compensation." I was content, therefore, to withdraw those words which might be supposed to have reference to the past, leaving only those which had a prospective effect. Subject to these observations, I adopted the Resolutions as I have read them to the House; and I placed them at the disposal of the noble Lord the Member for the City of London, in order that he might see whether it were possible to obtain a common consent to them. The Resolutions became the subject of discussion among the most distinguished Members who had been the consistent advocates of the repeal of the corn laws. It was deemed by them that the reference to the repeal of the corn laws should be more specific, and that it should be declared in express terms that that "Act was a wise, just, and beneficial measure." Now, Sir, considering the course which I have taken with respect to that repeal, if the question were put to me absolutely, Will you or can you dissent from the terms of that Resolution? I could not, as an honest man, say that I dissented from them. I certainly say that I should have infinitely preferred—perhaps from an overweening parental partiality—adherence to my own words; but when I found that they would not command general assent, I said at once, "If it be the opinion of a majority—a decided majority—of freetraders that there should be that special reference in these terms to the repeal of the corn laws, I cannot refuse my assent to that proposition." I heard no more of this until the Government—I think on the Friday following—presented the terms of their Amendment. I looked deliberately at that Amendment; and I must say that, weighing the difference of those terms, and considering the grave objections which I entertained to them—to which it would be inexpedient now to refer, but which, if the discussion should proceed, I hope by the kind indulgence of the House to be allowed to state—considering that I had to decide between the Amendment laid upon the table and the original Resolution as proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, I had no doubt that it would be my duty to support the original Motion. And I must add, that if the question of free trade is to turn upon words, I was more disposed to adopt the words of the consistent advocate of the repeal of the corn laws, in the person of my hon. Friend the Member for Wolver-

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hampton, rather than take the words of the Government suggested by the Chancellor fit the Exchequer. I heard no more of this until nearly the close of the debate on Tuesday evening, when the noble Viscount the Member for Tiverton, certainly without any previous concert with me, proposed the Amendment which is now upon the table of the House. The terms of this Amendment are conditional—in the event of either the original Resolution or Amendment being withdrawn, the noble Lord will move it. The House will recollect the words of the Resolution as agreed upon between the noble Lord the Member for the City of London and myself; and the House will now see how nearly the words in the Amendment of the noble Viscount are in conformity with them. The Amendment of the noble Viscount proceeds as follows: —
"That it is the opinion of this House that the improved condition of the country, and especially of the industrious classes, is mainly the result of recent legislation, which has established the principle of unrestricted competition, has abolished taxes for the purpose of protection"—
Then comes a small alteration. In my Resolution the words were
"—and has thereby diminished the cost of the principal articles of food."
In the Amendment of the noble Viscount there is an insertion which I think of importance. The words inserted arc, "and increased the abundance." The sentence runs thus:"—and has thereby diminished the cost and increased the abundance of the principal articles of food." Now, Sir, the reason which has induced me, from a sense of duty, to rise before the right hon. Gentleman answers the question of the hon. Baronet the Member for the Tower Hamlets (Sir W. Clay) is a most important variation in the words tendered by the noble Viscount, as contrasted with the words to which the noble Lord the Member for the City of London and myself had given our previous consent. The noble Viscount says—
"That it is the opinion of this House, that this policy, firmly maintained and prudently extended, will—"
I had inserted here the words
—"without inflicting injury upon any important interest—"
These words have entirely disappeared, and the proposition now is, that, these words being omitted, the sentence shall run
"— best enable the industry of the country
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to bear its burdens, and will thereby moat surely promote the welfare and contentment of the people"
I told the House distinctly that these words, "without inflicting injury on any important interest," with the Queen's Speech before me, were deliberately inserted by me, and adopted by my noble Friend and my Colleagues in the Government of the late Sir Robert Peel, prospectively for the purpose of barring the question of compensation for the future. I attach the greatest importance to those words; and whatever may be the feelings of others—before the Government gives the answer as to whether they will adopt or reject the proposal of the noble Viscount—I thought it but fair to tell Her Majesty's Government and the House the course I had taken, and that, so far as I am concerned, I could not be a party to a compromise of the question if these words are omitted. On the other hand, if there could be common consent to the insertion of these words— if the Government would assent to the reinsertion, I, for one-—having no authority to speak for others, but still, for the sake of free trade itself, and for the sake of combining the largest possible support to a Resolution fixing great principles, upon the eve of the introduction of a measure by Her Majesty's Government having reference to those principles, and from an anxious desire that those principles should be sustained by the largest possible majority, if not by the common consent of the House—I would earnestly, sincerely, and, if it be necessary for me to say so, would honestly entreat my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton in that case, with the consent of the House, to withdraw his original Motion, and to adopt the Amendment. I am ashamed of having trespassed upon the time of the House, but I thought it might consider my intrusion an exceptional ease, in reference to this subject; but I can assure you that I was actuated by no motive whatever of a personal or a sinister kind. If it would not be considered as inconsistent with the honour of the Government, I believe that, with the concurrence of my friends on this side, we might arrive at a most reasonable settlement, and one satisfactory to the great majority of the House; so that to-morrow the Government, without any interruption or difficulty, might have the opportunity of introducing its measures. We then should have the opportunity of giving them the fairest and

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fullest consideration. For my part, I am ready to consider them, not in a hostile, but in a friendly spirit—since they are to be founded on the principles for which I am contending—and I shall fairly try any measure of compensation which might be proposed by the most rigid rules of equity and justice.
The Motion for the adjournment of the House having been seconded,
LORD LOVAINEsaid, that he should not now have intruded himself upon the attention of the House, after having so lately addressed it, had it not been for the personal allusion made to him by the right hon. Baronet the Member for Carlisle (Sir J. Graham). It was true that he (Lord Lovaine) did beat Sir George Grey at the last election for North Northumberland. It was true, also, that he beat that right hon. Gentleman by polling a larger number of votes than the right hon. Gentleman had polled at the previous election. It was true, likewise, that he beat the right hon. Gentleman after he had been tried five years as the representative of that county. But it was equally true that the contest was conducted in the fairest, most open, and most gentleman-like manner; and he believed Sir George Grey left the hustings, on that occasion, with the same good feeling that he (Lord Lovaine) had entertained when he himself was a beaten candidate at the election before. He was aware that with the gratification of the victory, he had likewise to incur the difficulty of maintaining this high position, but he certainly did not expect that, upon entering the House for the first time after a lapse of twenty years, he should be subjected thus early to a direct and personal attack. It was the more extraordinary when he reflected that amongst the many changes and chances of the political career of the right hon. Baronet's (Sir J. Graham's), he was only a few years ago in direct opposition to Sir George Grey. ["Question!"] He would speak to the question, and he would declare his conviction that the object of the debate was not the triumph of the principle of Free Trade, but it was merely the effort of a faction to procure the defect and discomfiture of the opposite party. He believed that the right hon. Baronet had stated that the house of Percy ought to be the last to abandon the cause of Protection. He supposed that it was owing to the changes already alluded to that the right hon. Baronet had forgotten that upon his side of the question,
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under the late Sir Robert Peel, stood the heads of the house of Percy. And why had he (Lord Lovaine) come forward for the county of Northumberland? Simply and solely because, though the heads of the house of Percy had voted for the introduction of corn free of duty, because they believed that it would be for the public good, they were determined not to see the farmers run down, not to allow their com-plaints to pass unheeded, and their sufferings to remain unredressed. He had been misrepresented the first night of the Session, and that for the sake of a poor antithesis. What he had stated then, and upon the hustings broadly and openly was, that in his opinion duties should be imposed for revenue and not for Protection; but that efforts should be made to secure justice to the farmer by the abolition of all the restrictions to which he was subjected; and he would appeal to the right hon. the Member for Oxford, if there was anything in that statement contrary to the doctrines of Free Trade. He had to apologise to the House for thus trespassing upon their patience in a matter personal to himself; but he trusted that it would be remembered that it was hardly possible for him to sit still, when called upon in so personal and unusual a manner.
MR. GLADSTONE: I wish, Sir, to say a few words with respect to the question raised by my right hon. Friend (Sir J. Graham), and I rise simply in the hope that anything which may fall from me may only be of such a character as to contribute to an issue of these discussions such as shall be at once satisfactory to the feelings of the great body of the people and likely to promote the undisputed permanence of the present commercial policy of the country. I venture to hope that some progress has been made towards a settlement of that question, and that if we can agree upon the question which has been raised by the right hon. Baronet with respect to the insertion of certain words in the Amendment, suggested by my noble Friend near me (Viscount Palmerston), that then, although we should not be entitled, in point of form, to say that either the Amendment of the Government or the original Motion of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. C, Villiers) had been withdrawn, yet that both these concessions would be made by both parties respectively interested to the general feeling, and that we might come to something like a common agreement. Now, the whole question before us relates

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to one only of the two changes which have been made in the Resolution. There is a change in the Resolution of the phrase "in a great measure" to the word "mainly." I do not believe that any Gentleman considers that any objection is to be taken to that change, and shall therefore speak only of the words proposed to be inserted in the second Resolution. It is proposed to insert after the word "policy," the words "firmly maintained and prudently extended;" and the question we have to consider is, what will be the bearing of these words upon the sense of the Amendments, and how far it will be agreeable to the feelings and wishes of the great body of the House that those words should be inserted. It is now necessary for me to state what my responsibility is with respect to the present Motion. I am one of those, I confess, who strongly felt that it was necessary, under the circumstances of the election of the present Parliament, that a sanction, the most full and formal which our Constitution contemplates, should, so far as depends upon Parliament, be given in express words to the policy of free trade. And, therefore, I have been entirely favourable to the view of a proposition being submitted to this House on the subject, failing a distinct declaration on the subject in the Speech from the Throne. At the same time I so entirely sympathise with my right hon. Friend (Sir J. Graham) in the feeling that it was most desirable, if it could be obtained, to avoid the introduction into such a Motion of any words—I will not say which were disgraceful, but—which were deemed or thought disparaging to any body of Gentlemen in this House—I go to a further point, and do not hesitate to accept the responsibility for myself individually which the right hon. Baronet has just ascribed to several of his Colleagues in the Government of my illustrious Friend the late Sir Robert Peel—the responsibility of holding the opinion that the question of compensation, or relief, or redress, or whatever you may choose to call it, to the agricultural interest, important as that question may be, and strong as our opinions may be upon the one part of it or another, was a question which ought not to be settled in a Motion directed simply to the purpose of establishing the policy of free trade. It appeared to me that we had but one of two alternatives to adopt. We knew quite well that the Members of the Government had given out to their constituents, and had universally held out to them, either
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that Protection would be restored, or that, if Protection was not restored, endeavours would be made to afford specific relief to that interest supposed to be injured by the effects of the free-trade policy. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer had given notice that, on the 26th of this month, he would propose his Budget to the House, and it was to be presumed that in that Budget proposals of this nature would be included. I do not think, I confess, whether rightly or wrongly, that in respect to these questions of compensation which are supposed to be connected with the repeal of the Corn Laws, that we ought to preclude the Government from submitting any measures whatever which in their opinion they might think right by an anticipatory vote of this House. I held that it was plain we had but one of two courses to take—either to allow the Government to go forward with unfettered hands, and to propose their Budget upon the principles owned and acknowledged by them, among which I am happy now to include the principle of free trade; or else, by meeting them at once with a vote of want of confidence, in a true, sound, and constitutional manner to exercise the functions of the House to put a period at once to the existence of the Administration. So far, therefore, as regards this question, it appeared to me that it was not our duty to take a vote at the present moment on the subject of relief to any interest supposed to be injured by recent legislation, but that we ought to wait for the proposal of the measures of the Government, and to try their measures upon their merits, objecting, of course, to measures of compensation, should we find such measures included among them, where our opinion leads us to decline to follow such a course of conduct. My right hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle, on the other hand, attaches, I believe, considerable importance to the readmission of these words, and I understand the right hon. Baronet to have given to the House in the most distinct manner the construction which he fixes upon them. I frankly say that his construction is wholly unexceptionable to me. He says that he proposes to exclude the claim of compensation with respect to prospective measures, by the phrase in his Motion—that in deference to others, more than in pursuance of his own views, he has been content to leave the question of compensation or relief, so far as it grows out of past measures of policy, to be tried

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when we come to consider the proposals of Her Majesty's Government. If this be so, I think, if the House has a sense of what is due to its own dignity and to its own character in the country—that if there be happily a disposition in the various parties and sections of which this House is composed to seek for grounds of agreement, rather than of occasions of difference—I think I may say that the Resolution of the right hon. Baronet, admirably drawn up by a master hand as I think it was, and filled up with the words he proposes to insert, would be a Resolution which may be adopted both by the hon. Mover of the original Motion, and the right hon. Proposer of the Amendment of the Government, without the slightest dishonour or disparagement, and without the slightest sacrifice of consistency on either side. The Resolution so adopted will leave open every question which the Government can wish should be left open, and it will finally close up that great Imperial question which, upon this side of the House, we all feel the time has arrived finally to close. If this view be taken—such, at any rate, is my conviction—this Resolution will afford us the means of meeting on common ground for the purpose of considering measures alike beneficial to the country and honourable to the moderation and good sense of the parties of which this House is composed. I venture, therefore, for myself, earnestly and respectfully, to make an appeal to my noble Friend (Viscount Palmerston) near me. The spirit with which he has entered into the discussion is one with which I do not hesitate entirely to concur. I cannot, however, refrain from saying that, although my mind was fully made up to support the Motion of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton in preference to the Amendment of the Government, had that been the issue raised, yet I cannot help saying that, while there are several grounds which would have made it painful to me, as well as to my right hon. Friend, to take that course in opposition to the Government, I should still have taken it without the slightest doubt or hesitation, though not without regret. My noble Friend near me has by his Amendment saved us from this alternative, which would not have been satisfactory to the great bulk of the House; and I must also say that I think the country would have been perplexed and puzzled by a close division, upon whichever side, between the two Motions so nearly approximating in
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their terms the original Motion of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton and the Amendment of the right hon. the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I believe that the interests of the Free-trade policy, which are to be considered as paramount, will be infinitely better served by the concurrence of the great bulk and body of this House in the adoption of the Amendment of the noble Lord the Member for Tiverton, with the addition of those words referred to by the right hon. Baronet the Member for Carlisle (Sir J. Graham), than they could possibly be by the defeat of the Motion of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton by a narrow majority, or even by its acceptance by a majority in all probability not much larger.
MR. T. DUNCOMBEsaid: We have been reminded, over and over again, that this is a new House of Commons, and that it is so is evident not only from the nature of the opposition, but from the whole course of proceeding on this debate on both sides; for in the nine Parliaments during which I have sat in this House, I never before saw anything like the manner in which it appears the House, and, what is still more to the purpose, the people out of doors, are about to be trifled with. It was only the other evening (Friday) that it was resolved there should he a call of the House on Monday. Monday came, and 400 or 500 Members assembled to answer to their names; but instead of calling them over as they had resolved, and for which purpose only those Members had been summoned, the House immediately proceeded toun vote what it had voted on the previous Friday, and that in the absence of the hon. Member for Montrose (Mr. Hume), at whose instance the Resolution had been passed. I confess I should like to have seen my hon. Friend's face when he learned that the call of the House had been abandoned. But we were told the whole purpose of the call was answered, some thirty or forty Members haying come to the table and taken the oath of abjuration, which having done, of course they immediately went out of town again. Well, we have had one night's debate on the Resolution of my hon. Friend (Mr. C. Villiers), and some of the best speeches I ever heard, particularly that of the hon. Member for Manchester (Mr. Bright), have been spoken. We were told that we had a great duty to perform to the; people. We were to declare that the legislation of 1846 was wise, just, and beneficial, and that not a word of the Resolution of

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my hon. Friend, in which that declaration was contained, was to be changed. And not only that, we were told that there was a tribute, a debt, due to the memory of that illustrious man who passed the Act of 1846, which could only be paid by a public recognition of the policy on which that Act was founded. Now, after all this, we have these various Amendments. First, there is the Amendment of the Government; then we have the Amendment of the noble Lord the Member for Tiverton (Viscount Palmerston); and now, it appears, we are to have something more recent from the right hon. Baronet the Member for Carlisle (Sir James Graham). What next were they to have? The right hon. Member for Oxford University (Mr. Gladstone), told them that the country would be puzzled and perplexed at their proceedings; the country might well be puzzled and perplexed at them. Now, what I should recommend is this: the right hon. Baronet the Member for Carlisle has moved that the House should now adjourn. The right hon. Gentleman has moved that as a matter of form. Now, I say, we had better take the right hon. Gentleman at his word, and let the House adjourn until it can make up its mind—or that we should constitute a Committee, and put the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets (Sir W. Clay) at its head, to draw out this Amendment—this Amendment upon an Amendment—which we are to have, to which all are to agree, which is to settle the whole question, and make us all friendly, and prevent anything more being said either about Protection or Free Trade. I see no reason why we should not adopt the Motion, and adjourn at once for that purpose. But as questions appear to be the order of the day, there is one party, I think, of whom a question should be asked, and that is the noble Viscount the Member for Tiverton. How came the noble Viscount by the right hon. Baronet's Amendment? By what method of "appropriation" did he obtain that document? But this new Amendment is conditional, it will he observed—it is only to be brought forward in case the Resolution of my hon. Friend (Mr. C. Villiers), and the Amendment of the Government, should be withdrawn. Are we to understand, then, that there is to be no division? But suppose the debate proceeds—and I thought it a very pretty quarrel as it stood, and am truly sorry it was disturbed—but suppose the debate is continued, and the Amendment of the Government should be carried,
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and my hon. Friend (Mr. C. Villiers) should be defeated—what I want to know is, will the noble Viscount then move his Amendment to the Resolution of the Government, which will then become the main question, and which it will of course be competent for him to do? If he do not, the country will not be much perplexed—they will then say the whole affair is a cross. The country will begin to think that those Gentlemen below me—the Whigs—and I only wish Whiggery was about to be buried for over with Protection—feel they are not quite ripe for office—that they have not quite made up their minds for office— though no doubt the right hon. Baronet the Member for Carlisle has been rewhigged for the occasion. They—the country— will understand that the cause of all this mess in which we find ourselves involved is, that the party below me are not quite prepared to turn out the Gentlemen opposite. We were made fools of on Monday last, as though it had been the 1st of April —we have discussed the question brought forward by my hon. Friend (Mr. C. Villiers) a whole night, and we are on the point of discussing it again, and bringing it to a conclusion, as I hoped, satisfactory to the people of this country—and now we suddenly find ourselves removed further than ever from that settlement. Under these circumstances, I hope the House will agree to adjourn, and leave hon. Gentlemen below me some time to settle amicably as they may the difference that appears to exist between them.
MR. CAYLEYtrusted that he might be allowed to address the House upon the point at issue, the more especially as he was an old soldier upon this question, and he hoped that he had been a consistent one. Ever since protection had been abolished in 1846, he for one had never endeavoured to restore it. He was perfectly conscious that it never could be restored. When the hon. Member for Wolverhampton made his speech the other night upon the Address, he thought that if that hon. Member did not know that protection was dead, and that there was no possibility of restoring it, he was the only man in the country who was ignorant of the fact. It seemed to him, therefore, to be somewhat unfair that he should be placed in such a position as that predicament in which he now found himself—without any locus pœnitentia —without any means of escape. He admitted that free trade had conquered protection. After the verdict of the coun-

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try pronounced by the recent election, he for one would never attempt to restore protection, nor try to obtain compensation, except for financial injustice. The passage in the Address which was the subject of criticism, as he understood it, meant that, if the finances of the country did not correspond with the recent commercial legislation, then the Chancellor of the Exchequer would propose such measures as were equitable and just. With less than justice he should not be content. That was what he understood was recommended in the Speech from the Throne. For his part he was ready to be loyal to the law; and it was unfair, when he was willing to obey the law and carry it out with simplicity and singleness of purpose, that he should be asked to recant everything which he had ever said. Freedom of person, freedom of speech, were still left them, and he was in hope that a liberal Opposition would have also allowed them liberty of thought. He did not recant his opinions, although he might have modified them. At the same time he saw the House placed in a most unusual dilemma, and he thought that it would be for the national interest, and for the benefit of the public service, if some concessions were made upon all sides. He, for one, was perfectly willing to permit the words of the right hon. Baronet the Member for Carlisle to pass without opposition, if the hon. Members for the West Riding and Manchester should consent to them; and he entreated his hon. Friends whom he saw around him to allow the discussion to come to an end, and to leave the policy of free trade, which they could not reverse, free from attack. As to Sir Robert Peel, he always gave him credit for the honesty of his convictions. He did not object, on the contrary he thought he was quite right, having changed his convictions, to change his policy. There was only some difference between them as to the mode in which he carried out his change of opinion, as regarded his party. Wishing to see this unseemly discussion closed, he implored the House to forget all party dissensions, and at once to proceed to transact the other business of the nation, contenting themselves with the acknowledgment by Gentlemen upon his side that protection is dead, and cannot, under circumstances like the present, by any possibility be restored.
MR. ROBERT PALMERsaid, he thought the matter had been quite sufficiently debated. The question at issue was, whether the Government should be
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called upon to assert an abstract proposition, or whether the House would adopt the Amendment moved by the Government. Now he had no hesitation in saying that his own feelings, and that of a large number of his friends, were in direct antagonism to the Motion of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. C. Villiers), and that he should record his vote against it. He could not possibly concur in the first paragraph of that Resolution, namely, that the Act of 1846 was wise, just, and beneficial. He had had some experience in that House, and had hardly expected to be called upon, and certainly was not prepared, to turn round and recant all he had said for the last twenty-six years. He did not concur that in the opinion of the House the maintenance and further extension of the policy of Free Trade, as opposed to that of Protection, would best enable the property and industry of the nation to bear the burdens to which they are exposed, and would most contribute to the general prosperity, welfare, and contentment of the people. If he accepted that paragraph, he would be casting a slur, he would be pronouncing a condemnation of all their previous conduct. For his part, he was not prepared to recant the opinions which he had previously expressed and previously advocated; opinions which he begged the House to remember were not formed to-day or yesterday, upon this subject of protection to native industry. They were opinions which had been framed on the opinions of Mr. Huskisson, on the opinions of Mr. Canning, on the opinions of Sir Robert Peel, on the opinions of the noble Lord the Member for London (Lord John Russell), and last, not least, upon the authority of the right hon. Baronet the Member for Carlisle (Sir J. Graham). He had not adopted them hastily, or without consideration. They were, however, perfectly aware that the sense of the country was against their opinions. They felt perfectly confident that if they were to propose a direct Motion to renew the duty on corn, they would be left in a small minority. He was totally ignorant what course the Government would pursue. All he wished to say was, that if they adopted the proposition of the noble Lord the Member for Tiverton (Viscount Palmerston), he protested against being made a party to that Resolution. The country might be in favour of Free Trade, and he bowed to its decision; but if it were put to him "aye, or no," to say whether for the last six-and-twenty years he had been all

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wrong, and that he would on no occasion endeavour to procure means of remedying or alleviating the distresses of that class which, he believed, had been injured—he must protest against being made a party to such a Resolution.
VISCOUNT PALMERSTON: I cannot but hope, Sir, that the conversation which has taken place this afternoon affords an indication that we have a prospect of coming nearer to an agreement upon this great question than I had ventured to anticipate. I must say that what we have heard from the hon. Member for the North Riding of Yorkshire (Mr. Cayley) is alike honourable to him and gratifying to us, as coming from a man of his position in the House and in the country, who, always perfectly independent, always respected for his excellent judgment and sound sense, has hitherto strongly supported Protection; and who now, finding himself defeated on that question, gracefully acknowledges his defeat, and yields his private convictions to his sense of public duty and national interest. I should hope, also, that his example will influence those who have acted with him, and that others on that side of the House will adopt the advice which my hon. Friend—if he will allow me to call him so—has so judiciously propounded to the House. My hon. Friend the Member for Finsbury (Mr. T. Duncombe) has put a question to me; he wants to know how I came by the Resolution that was originally framed by my right hon. Friend (Sir J. Graham). I can only tell the hon. Gentleman that I came by it by very lawful means. I made a slight alteration in it, for the purpose, as I imagined, of avoiding discussion now on collateral points— as to compensation, for example—it being understood that the words proposed by my right hon. Friend apply to the future, and leave the Government open to propose such measures as they please with regard to the past, leaving us equally open to object to those measures if they ever should be brought forward. I have no objection to the insertion of those words, and I understand the hon. Member for the North Riding also to assent to those words. Now, Sir, my hon. Friend the Member for Finsbury has asked a more practical question. My hon. Friend asks what shall I do, supposing the Resolution of my hon. Friend (Mr. C. Villiers) to be rejected— will I then propose my Amendment as a substitute for the Amendment which Her
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Majesty's Government have tendered? I will answer that question by asking another question. Will he support me if I do so? [Mr. T. DUNCOMBE: Yes; I will, as against the Government.] Well, I assure him that if I am encouraged to expect adequate support in that Motion, I shall undoubtedly propose it; and I should really hope, from what has passed this night, supposing the Motion of my hon. Friend to be either withdrawn or to be negatived—that is to say, the putting of it to be negatived—that I might hope to have a general acquiescence in the Resolution of which I have given notice, and for which, as the House is aware, I am greatly indebted to my right hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (Sir J. Graham). But, Sir, I do trust that both sides of the House will agree that it really is of great national importance that this great question should be set at rest; the question being, not what hon. Gentlemen on one side of the House or on the other side think of the justice or the wisdom of the measures of 1846, but what they determine to do in regard to the maintenance of that policy, and to its prudent extension, so far as it may yet remain to extend it; and if the House be of opinion that that policy must be maintained—and I think there can hardly be ten Members of the House of a different opinion, because all must see, whatever they may wish, that its reversal is unattainable—if the House, or a majority of the House, have opened their eyes to the truth that that policy is irresistibly established, and that it is beyond the power of any party in this country to reverse it—I say let them calm the public mind; let them set at rest those expectations which may still linger in the breasts of persons out of doors, that by some change on the part of the Government that policy may by possibility be reversed; let this House answer by a solemn affirmation the question put to it by Her Majesty's Government when the present Parliament assembled; and, without inquiring what are the opinions of individual Members on past transactions, let us, unanimously if possible — if not, by the largest possible majority—affirm what is to be henceforward the foundation of the commercial legislation of the country.
SIR BULWER LYTTONsaid, that the sole question which the House had to decide was, the adoption of a form of words affirming the principle of free trade, which

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should satisfy the common sense of the great body of the people out of doors, and, at the same time, should not inflict an insidious condemnation on Gentlemen upon his side of the House for having conscientiously advocated the principles which they believed to be true. For his part, he could not accept the Resolution of the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton, because it did insinuate a condemnation upon the motives and past conduct of his hon. Friends. The noble Lord the Member for Tiverton had, however, proposed a Resolution which was worthy of one who had been long accustomed to unite our national honour with our political interests. He had listened with very great attention to the speeches of the right hon. Member for the University of Oxford, and of the right hon. Baronet the Member for Carlisle. In the Resolution they proposed there were certain expressions in it which made him prefer the Amendment of the Chancellor of the Exchequer; but he felt that having agreed upon the thing they meant to do, there was no necessity for extreme niceness of verbal criticism, provided the honour of Gentlemen was sufficiently protected. He did not consider, in having accepted the Resolution, that he was thereby precluded from doing his best for his constituents in the way of relief—not, indeed, attempting to obtain a renewal of protection under false names, but by a fair and impartial application of free trade, which, indeed, was what the fanners themselves demanded. Cordially agreeing in what had fallen from the hon. Member for the North Riding of Yorkshire, he called upon Gentlemen opposite to exhibit the same conciliatory spirit. It seemed to him that it would be something majestic and worthy of them, as a representative assembly, if they could on such an occasion' lay aside their party interests and political jealousies, and join unanimously in the affirmation of a principle which was to guide their future policy. It was for the interest of the principle itself that its affirmation should not be carried by an insignificant majority; when the evil incurred by the bitterness of contest would be ill compensated by the insignificancy of the triumph. He, therefore, earnestly recommended hon. Gentlemen to follow the example his hon. Friend had set, and thus propose the final and peaceful settlement of this momentous question.
The MARQUESS of GRANBY: Sir, I
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was anxious to ascertain, whether or no the hon. Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. C. Villiers) would accept or reject the proposal made to him.
MR. BRIGHT: The question was put to the Government, and not to him.
The MARQUESS of GRANBY: Well, of course, I must leave the hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton to decide for himself whether or not he will persevere with his Motion. For my own part, Sir, I have no hesitation in saying, that. I hope the hon. Gentleman will persevere with his Motion. ["Hear, hear 1"] Yes, I say, I hope he will. I heard the hon. Member for Manchester (Mr. Bright) declare the other evening that those hon. Gentlemen who pretended to be free-traders, but who were not prepared to vote for the Motion of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton in approval of "recent legislation," were no free-traders at all. Now, my own opinion is, and I tell the noble Lord the Member for Tiverton (Viscount Palmerston), that if he does not divide upon his Amendment, the opinion will go out to America that the House of Commons is in favour of Protection—that he dared not divide the House on the question. Last year a similar Motion was proposed in this House, and I received no answer to the speech which I then made —no answer to it is made now, and foresee that, in the present House, unless the hon. Member perseveres with his Motion, that I will not have an opportunity of addressing it. Sir, I, for one, cannot give my assent to any one of these Resolutions. I totally dissent from each and all of them. I agree with an hon. Gentleman who has spoken, that there is so much confusion—so much mystification—so much doubt and obscurity about them, that I, as well as others, am quite at a loss to make out what the difference between the several propositions is. I own, Sir, that I am completely baffled. So that, if this debate be continued, I hope that I may not be debarred from expressing my opinion; but, in case I should not have that opportunity, I now distinctly avow my determination to dissent from all those Resolutions or Amendments; I 'do not think, whilst I admit the general prosperity of the country, that that prosperity is owing to recent commercial legislations I think it is owing to other causes. I believe that the Free Trade system itself has not as yet been fully developed. I

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must repeat a hope that the House will give me another opportunity of relieving my mind upon this question—upon the question whether or no the country at large has been benefited by those commercial measures—I mean permanently benefited; for I do not deny that the poorer classes are better off now than they were previously to 1846; and I say, further, that if this he so, I think that some apology—some acknowledgment—-is due to the memory of that distinguished individual. ["Hear, hear!"] Yes, Sir, I say that some acknowledgment is due to the memory of that man whose patriotism I, for one, never doubted—and the purity of whose motives I never impugned. I say that, if what is alleged in the Resolution proposed to us be true, which I deny —then that some acknowledgment is due to his memory—an acknowledgment that he was not only patriotic and conscientious, but that he was also foreseeing and sagacious. May I add one word; may I address myself for one moment to my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer—may I tell him that I cordially agree with him in what he stated the other night? I fully admit that the right hon. Gentleman never brought the question of Protection before the House of Commons. But I am sure that he, too, will be ready to admit that, at all events, he has been generously, and without reserve, supported by the Protectionist party on this question, both in this House and out of it. Sir, with these few words I quit the subject for the present. I am not about to oppose myself to the deliberate verdict of the country as expressed against Protection. It is not my wish to agitate England in favour of that principle; hut, entertaining the opinion as I do, that the prosperity which I admit exists, and which, I fear, will not last, is owing to other causes than Free Trade, I beg to conclude, thanking the House for the indulgence with which they have listened to me, by saying that I reserve to myself the right to maintain those opinions whenever and wherever I may think fit to advocate them.
MR. BUTLER JOHNSTONEsaid, that he had listened with the greatest attention to the remarks of hon. Gentlemen on both sides of the House, and had come to the conclusion that there was but little use in the House of Commons wasting its time about a mere abstract form of words. He believed the real question was the passing
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a formal Resolution as to whether Free Trade was to be adopted or not. After the frank admission of the noble Lord at the head of the Government, and the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that they bowed to the decision of the country, he thought it useless to discuss the subject further. For his own part he entirely coincided in the Amendment, and in the observations of his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer. As for Protection itself, there was no longer any use in talking about it— never was an enemy so stabbed, maimed, and mutilated. As an independent Member of that House, and exercising a free and unbiassed opinion, he would vote against the Resolutions of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, because they contained an indirect attack upon the policy, character, and conduct of hon. Members on his (Mr. Johnstone's) side of the House.
The CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: My hon. Friend the Member for Berkshire seems somewhat to complain that I have not before replied to the question of the hon. Baronet the Member for the Tower Hamlets; but I confess that that question was of so peculiar a character that it was difficult for me to address myself to it. It seemed, in fact, to be a contingency dependent upon an hypothesis—"If an hon. Gentleman with whom I have no political connexion is prepared to do something, am I then prepared to do something else?"1 naturally thought that the most logical and legitimate course would have been for the hon. and learned Member for Wolverhampton, or his friends, to have expressed their feelings upon the subject first; and then, when I was acquainted with their views, I could, of course, communicate my own to the House. But as the hon. and learned Gentleman has not risen, I, on the part of the Government, take the liberty now of addressing you. My noble Friend the Member for North Leicestershire (the Marquess of Granhy)has reminded me how generously, and without reserve, I have been supported by the Protectionist party in this House and in the country; and I can truly say, Sir, that ever since I have been honoured by that confidence, of which till the last hour of my life I shall be proud, I have done every thing that any ability I possess could command, or any energy I had could accomplish, in behalf of the cause of the land of England. I think it has been unjustly treated by recent legisla-

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tion; but, as far as the terms go which I have used in the Amendment I have laid upon the table of the House, I cannot resist the conviction that recent legislation, so far as it has produced cheapness of pro-visions, has contributed to the welfare of the working classes. One would suppose, Sir, from some observations that have been made, and from the derisive cheers which occasionally arise from Gentlemen opposite, that a Protectionist Government had suddenly come down to the House of Commons to announce that they had changed their opinions. I can only say that if any Gentleman supposes that to be the case, he must take a very erroneous and perverted view of what has occurred. Here is a Government which in no way succeeded to office in connexion with that question. With the consent and concurrence, not only of the House, but of the whole country, it was determined that the question of protection should be left to the decision of the country, to be declared by a general election. The verdict of the country has been of an unmistakeable character. We have bowed to that unequivocal declaration. If we had acceded to office in order to advocate a system of protection—if we had dissolved Parliament on that question, and found that the country would not support us, we should have felt it our duty immediately to relinquish the posts which we now occupy; but, Sir, I am not aware, from all that has occurred, that that is at all our duty; and if there be any Gentleman in this House who thinks that it is our duty, and if it is the opinion of the majority of this House that it is our duty, that is an issue which can casily and speedily be tried. Sir, I have said myself that this Was a question of taxation. No one has pretended, for example, that the native industry of any country has a right to any artificial support unless it be subjected to some peculiar burdens or to some weight of taxation which otherwise might not be considered of an equitable character. If I find that protection, as it is called, being now abrogated, it is yet possible to recommend to the House a policy which will relieve the interests that are suffering from the withdrawal of that system, and which will allow them to compete with the industry of the world as fair rivals, I think that that is not only a consistent course for one who has advocated the principle of protection in former times, but that I am still doing my duty to that party in this House and out of it who have so generously sup-
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ported me; and I declare most sincerely that it is only because I think I can bring forward measures which will have the effect of relieving all those interests that have suffered from the precipitate abrogation of past laws, and at the same time of contributing to the general advantage of the community, that I consent for a moment to hold the position which I now occupy. Sir, I shall now advert—although physically, as you will perceive, I feel it almost impossible to address the House—I shall now advert to the point which is particularly before us—the Motion of the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton, as amended by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carlisle, and the contingent Amendment of the noble Lord the Member for Tiverton. Now, Sir, we have heard from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carlisle a minute narrative of his connexion with the documents now upon the table of the House. The House will perhaps permit me, on the part of the Government, with equal frankness, and I hope with not less brevity, to detail the course which we have thought it right to pursue, and the cause which induced us to take such a course. We have heard to-night from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carlisle a complete vindication of the passage once so much criticised in Her Majesty's Speech. That right hon. Gentleman told us to-night, that although, in his opinion, there was no claim for compensation by any interest in the country for any injury they may have experienced from recent legislation, still he thought it was a legitimate subject for Parliamentary decision. I think the right hon. Gentleman took a constitutional course, and used constitutional language in speaking on that subject, For what, Sir, were the words of Her Majesty's Speech? After laying down in an unequivocal manner that the principle of our commercial legislation had, after due deliberation, been settled by the country in favour of the principle of unrestricted competition, Her Majesty said that if the House should be of opinion that any great interests had suffered by the recent legislation, which had contributed to the common weal, Her Majesty recommended that the House should take their claims into consideration, Why, Sir, that is exactly the course which the right hon. Gentleman approves of. The right hon. Gentleman used the word "compensation" again and again; and upon that word, indeed, he

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based most of his observations, and the course which he recommended to the House. But I must say, Sir, that it would have been convenient to the House, when a person of such high authority founded the recommendation of a certain policy upon a phrase, if he had at least referred to some authentic record for the sentiment which he quoted. I have had no opportunity of previous investigation, but I confess I don't remember that in any Parliamentary discussion of the question the word "compensation" was ever brought forward. It is possible that the right hon. Gentleman may or may not have found such a phrase in some electioneering speech or another, by some Member or another sitting on this side of the House; but the right hon. Gentleman is the last person in this House who ought to encourage our having recourse to electioneering speeches, in order to deduce from them the opinions of great statesmen, and the maxims that ought to regulate the policy of the English Parliament. Well, Sir, I contend that upon the declaration of the right hon. Gentleman himself, the passage in Her Majesty's Speech is fully vindicated; that that Speech was drawn up on the true principle—of course, with that due reserve which should always exist in all Royal documents of the kind—that there was a clear and definite statement as to the state of the country, and other important points, and also allusions equally Parliamentary and constitutional with reference to points of other importance which were left to further consideration. I say that the expositions of the First Minister of the Crown, and the humble words which I may have used, would have removed any doubt, had any doubt existed, as to the meaning of that-particular passage in Her Majesty's Speech. But the right hon. Gentleman says that a doubt did exist on the subject, because I did not, before the Address was moved, name the day on which I would bring forward my financial statement. Why, Sir, there were peculiar reasons which rendered it impossible to fix the day for that purpose then; and I thought that, before the Address was moved, to say that on an early day I should bring forward my statement, without fixing the precise day, would have had an air of a not very satisfactory kind, and that it would be much better, as the day could not be fixed, to refer to it in the few words which I should probably have to address to the House in the course of the evening. But, Sir, there is no doubt
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that, from the first, there was some misconception on the subject; a misconception which I must say, was eagerly fostered by those who found it convenient for their own purposes to do so. At last it became evident that there was a general feeling in the House that there should be some declaration on the part of Parliament, expressing their opinion that the verdict of the country had been decisively unfavourable to the principle of a protective policy; and, although I think myself, as a general rule, that declarations of that kind by new Parliaments are not extremely expedient; because, after all, they do not settle any question—they do not bind even the next Session—they do not in any way affect opinion; and I should be sorry myself— wishing most sincerely that the principle of unrestricted competition should not now be disturbed—I say, I should be very sorry if the only security for that result was a hasty vote at the commencement of a new Parliament. But, hearing that there was a general feeling on the subject, and believing from many indications which I met with in the House that the Resolution to be proposed was not of a party character —that is, not of a party character in the more limited and odious sense of the phrase —we were of opinion that no opposition should be made, if some Resolution was brought forward which was in its character quite unequivocal as to the fact that the country had decided in favour of the system of free trade, and that it was the duty of the Government hereafter sincerely to adhere to the principle of unrestricted competition in their financial and commercial legislation. For myself individually, of course I could have no objection to such a Resolution, because in the measures which I have to recommend to the House, if there be one feature more decided than another, it is that they are based upon the principle of unrestricted competition—that that principle must be hereafter the basis of our whole commercial system; for, unless unrestricted competition be the principle of our financial and commercial policy, that which I would recommend cannot be supported. I will not now—as I could not feel justified in doing so on a previous occasion—I will not now, I say, be led into any reference to the character of those measures; for I am sure the House will feel that it would be most unfair to do so. All I can say, in answer to my noble Friend (the Marquess of Granby) is, that, as he acknowledges, and all must acknowledge,

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that the verdict of the country is opposed to that principle which for so many years we supported—feeling that it is impossible for any man in this House to propose legislation founded upon that principle with any success, or with any hope of carrying such measures, I trust he will find, when those measures are brought forward, that I have not been unmindful of the just claims of those who, I think, have been unfairly treated by recent legislation. Under these circumstances, what was the course which Her Majesty's Government took? My noble Friend (the Earl of Derby), to whose opinion we deferred, met his friends, and communicated to them frankly his opinion that, if a Resolution were brought forward declaring that the verdict of the country had been expressed in an unequivocal manner, and announcing that it would be the duty of Her Majesty's Ministers to adhere to and develop the principle of uurestricted competition, it would be most unwise in any way to keep alive the controversy by opposing it; but that it was perfectly open to any Gentleman on this side of the House who objected in any way to acknowledging what may be called almost a fact rather than a prevailing dogma, to take no part in the debate or in the division, if there were one. It was the noble Lord's opinion, however, that, as to the fact, we should heartily and unequivocally endeavour that the declaration should be unanimously adopted by the House of Commons. Now, the draft of a Resolution also reached me which I was told was to be submitted to the House. I am sure that what has occurred to-night must be very instructive, especially to those who have taken their seats in this House for the first time. They must have received a rich lesson as to the mode by which the opposition is carried on. All I know is, that when we sat on the benches opposite we were more discreet. I do not remember any such frank confessions having ever been made in our time. When we change sides, our youthful adherents will have received a lesson as to how it is possible to combine and manage mankind. Well, I say, a Resolution—I suppose it came from the clouds—fell into my hands, and although it was most precise and unequivocal in the declaration that the country had decided that the principle of unrestricted competition was to be the principle of our commercial policy—and that in all their future measures it was the duty of Ministers to adhere to that principle, there
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was nothing in that Resolution which I or any other Gentleman on this side of the House could not have accepted. Under these circumstances, my noble Friend recommended those who are proud to be his followers frankly to accept that Resolution, if it were brought forward. There was no secret made of the advice which he gave. We should not have cared if it had been made known at Charing-cross; and probably it was made known at Charing-cross. But the most remarkable circumstance is, that the moment this advice was known, three odious epithets were put into the Resolution. Now, that is not the way to bring about a unanimous decision of the House upon a subject of such vast importance; for the only consequence of such a course must be, that the hon. Member for Manchester and his Friends will never obtain their object by it; because, whether they gain the division or not, it can only be by a small majority, which would necessarily give the country and the world the idea that upon this vital question, which we are all agreed is settled at last, there are arrayed two great parties. Well, Sir, a Resolution very different from the Resolution which I first saw, was at length placed on the table of the House, and it became us then to consider what was the course which we should pursue. It was quite clear that, if the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton persisted in moving his Resolution, there would not only be a division, but a division of a most balanced kind; that, instead of commencing the new Parliament by a declaration which would stop further agitation on this controversial topic, we should commence the new Parliament by a movement which would render this question again the means of demarcation between parties. It was suggested, I believe, that the Resolution of the hon. and learned Gentleman would not only be injurious to the feelings of Gentlemen on this side of the House, but that it had not been received with much favour by many Gentlemen on the other side. It was, therefore, not impossible that we might have moved the previous question with some prospect of success. To have recommended our friends, for the sake of unanimity, to have acceded to the Resolution, was quite impossible. It is all very well to say that these are only words—that many who did not think the legislation of 1846 wise and beneficial may be of that opinion now, though they thought otherwise

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then. But, Sir, no one can have two opinions as to the meaning and the motive with which these words were inserted; and we were of opinion that in public as in private life, it was a mistake to submit to insult. Under these circumstances, we endeavoured to draw out a distinct Resolution which we considered would conciliate your opinions to such a degree that we hoped it might he accepted. I have not the Resolution at hand, but I can sufficiently recollect to know that it most unequivocally declared our opinion that the welfare of the working classes was attributable to the cheapness of provisions occasioned by recent legislation. We thought that that was a declaration which would have been received by hon. Gentlemen opposite as a sign of a conciliatory feeling on our side; and we did hope that hon. Gentlemen on this side of the House—however they might object to the policy which produced that result—although they might still be of opinion that great and unnecessary injuries had been incurred by a particular class occasioned by the precipitate legislation on the question—would still not attempt to deny the fact that cheapness of provisions had contributed to the welfare of the working classes. We therefore made that declaration most unequivocally. We laid down, as we thought, in language which could not be mistaken, what our opinion was as to the principle of our commercial legislation. We did that in language so distinct and so precise, that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Oxford himself said, that language could go no further on that point. We said more than that; we said that it was the duty of the Government rigidly and unreservedly to adhere to this principle in all the measures we should bring forward in future. And this Resolution has been called a frigid Resolution. I can assure the House that it was not conceived in any spirit of that kind—it was brought forward in a spirit of conciliation to all parties, and we were in hopes that it might have been accepted by the House as sufficient for the purpose. There is another Amendment—the Amendment of the noble Lord the Member for Tiverton—which is contingent upon the Amendment which I have proposed. And, besides the Amendment of the noble Lord, there is a fourth Amendment, which has been announced to-night by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carlisle. It is difficult to discuss an Amendment which is not printed;
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but, as far as I could follow the right hon. Gentleman, his Amendment means this— that if Ministers bring forward measures which injure certain classes in the country, those classes shall have no claim to compensation. I understand this to be the result of the right hon. Gentleman's Amendment: that in subsequent legislation, such as we have intimated, there shall he no compensation claimed, but that the House will reserve to itself the right of considering the propriety of compensation for legislation that has passed. If that he his meaning, I shall not be very captious on the subject. But we have to decide what we shall do if the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton persists in the course which he has taken. I shall certainly resist the Resolution of the hon. and learned Gentleman on the grounds which I have already stated to the House. I think it unjust, ungenerous, and unwise; and I think that the House will regret the day that they adopt or sanction that Resolution. With respect to the two Amendments before the House, I confess that the question is really assuming too trifling a character. Between the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton and ourselves there is a clear case of difference. He has asserted his opinion in a way which is most injurious to us, and in a way which I think, as a matter of general policy, is unwise. To such a Resolution, therefore, I shall give my unhesitating opposition. But, with respect to the Amendment which has been suggested by the noble Lord, I confess, that although I may have that parental fondness which has been already confessed in the debate, I cannot feel that I should be justified in opposing the general feeling of the House in any respect whatever. In the noble Lord's Resolution there may be expressions to which I might demur; there may be expressions in it which I might regret to see placed on the Journals of the House with my individual responsibility and sanction; but, after all, that is a mere fighting about words, and not about facts. There is no difference of opinion between the noble Lord the Member for Tiverton and the Government respecting the fact that the country has adopted in an unequivocal manner the system of free trade; and I must say that nothing surprises me more than the deep regret which some hon, Members opposite show that the country has adopted that system. It seems always to occasion them irritation that the question does not still

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remain an unsettled question, to divide the House as before. I believe that there is so difference between us with respect to facts; that it is a mere question of phrases; and I certainly shall not oppose the general feeling of the House as regards any preference they may have for the Amendment of the noble Lord over that of the Government. That is a question of very minor importance. The real question before us is, whether the hon. and learned Member for Wolverhampton and his friends are to outrage the feelings of this side of the House, and of many Gentlemen on the other aide, by a course which I think— totally irrespective of personal feeling—is most impolitic and unwise.
LORD JOHN RUSSELL: I hope, Sir, notwithstanding some parts of the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the tone of his concluding observations, that the House may yet be able to arrive at a decision on this subject which will, at least, include the great majority of the House, and settle the important question which has so long been in dispute between what is called "Free Trade" and what goes by the name of "Protection." I shall not now enter into the early part of the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman as to whether the Government are or are not properly a Protectionist Government—whether they came in on the ground of Protection, or were at all bound to adhere to the system. I hope, Sir, there may come another day when I shall have an opportunity of expressing my entire dissent from the statements of the right hon. Gentleman. But this is not the time to do so. It has appeared to me that when this Parliament was assembled, it was desirable, in the first place, that some decision should be come to on the great question of commercial and financial policy on which the country has been so long divided; and that, in the next place, it was desirable that those who had made themselves the peculiar advocates, and styled themselves the sole defenders, of the interest which had been affected by recent legislation, should have a full and ample opportunity of laying before this House and the country the measures which they consider will repair any evils which may have been done, and at the same time conduce to the general interests of the country, These two principles have guided my conduct since the commencement of the present Session, I own that with respect to the first of them it appeared to me that
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a great mistake had been made by Her Majesty's Ministers in not advising Her Majesty in the Speech from the Throne to make a clear and explicit declaration upon the subject of Free Trade. I quite agree with the right hon. Secretary of State for the Home Department in the general prudence, on ordinary occasions, of not giving advice to the Crown to allude in the Speech from the Throne to questions and topics which may immediately excite debate. But, Sir, this is no ordinary occasion. This is a great and extraordinary occasion; and, whatever might have been the previous opinions—whatever might have been the views of Her Majesty's Ministers, I think it was a duty which they owed to the people of this country to advise Her Majesty to place upon record in the Speech from the Throne a decision upon the question, whether or no the commercial policy which has now been in existence for the last eight years, was to be maintained and extended, whether it was to be reversed, or whether it was to be altered. Sir, I am confirmed in this view by the course the right hon. Gentleman has taken, because there is no question now as to whether it was wise or not to have an abstract Resolution. The right hon. Gentleman himself has proposed a Resolution in regard to our commercial legislation, and has thus, as it were, introduced a sort of supplement to the Queen's Speech, supplying what was deficient in that Speech. My opinion is, that those who sit on this side of the House, and all those who have taken an interest in this great question of Free Trade, showed remarkable forbearance in not moving an Amendment to the Address in answer to the Speech from the Throne. The terms of the Speech I hardly ventured at the time to criticise with the severity which I think they fairly provoked, because I felt that it was desirable to avoid a division upon the Address, in consequence of the melancholy occasion which was adverted to in the first paragraph of the Speech. I think, however, that if any hon. Member had pointed out in all their force the deficiencies and obscurities of that part of the Speech which adverted to this subject, it would have been almost impossible that some hon. Gentleman would not have said, "We cannot separate without an Amendment to such an Address. Now, the Speech, after stating, among other things, that certain important interests had been affected, proceeded to say that this House was not only to consider whether or no

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those interests might be relieved from the effects of the unavoidable injury which had been inflicted upon them, but that we should also consider whether we could enable the industry of the country to meet the unrestricted competition to which Parliament, in its wisdom, had subjected it. Why I hold, Sir, in the first place, that the industry of the country—taking it in its large and general sense—is fully able to meet competition, and has never been so able to do so as it is at the present moment; and the slightest reference to any official documents will show what is the state of the industry of the country in that respect. In fact, if it were not able to meet the existing competition, that prosperity of the working classes which is admitted on all sides could not possibly exist. But I say, further, that if the industry of the country could not meet unrestricted competition, it is impossible for you to enable it to meet such competition; and that the Parliament which had subjected the industry of the country to a competition which it could not meet should not be described as a wise Parliament, but it should be said that Parliament, in its folly, had submitted the industry of this great country to a competition which it could not successfully encounter. Such were the obvious defects of the Speech, and I repeat that I think great forbearance was shown by hon. Members in abstaining from moving any Amendment. It was not, therefore, I think, surprising that tome hon. Gentleman should immediately bring forward a Resolution on the subject; and no one was so much entitled to be heard with respect in this House on such a question as the hon. Member for Wolverhampton. My hon. Friend gave notice of a Motion on the subject. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer says that Her Majesty's Ministers were disposed to accept the Motion when they heard it; and that immediately on their acquiescence becoming known three odious epithets were added to the Resolution. Now, I must say the fact is—and it is a fact within my own knowledge—that the very first suggestions made to my hon. Friend upon the subject all contained the words "wise and just," as words fit to be introduced into the Resolution; and I myself was one of those who, long before the meeting in Downing-street which has been noticed, advised my hon. Friend to put the words "wise and just" into his Resolution. It ap-
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peared to me that, Parliament having sanctioned this legislation, the principal act of all those by which the condition of the country had been improved was a wise act. I also consider that the epithet "just" was equally applicable to these measures. The epithets are said to be "odious." I cannot conceive why they should be regarded as odious. The existing commercial system was established by an Act of Parliament, and are we to declare that Parliament was unjust in carrying such an Act? I certainly never shall consent to such a declaration. But, besides this, I have in mind, and I dare say others have in mind, and that my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton had in mind, that which was so properly and so honourably said by as honourable a Member as this House contains—the noble Lord the Member for North Leicestershire (the Marquess of Granby)—that if the Act of 1846 was a wise Act, some tribute is due to the memory of that illustrious statesman, who in the debates upon that measure, when it was passing through this House, and in his last words with respect to it, enforced the justice of that Act above all other considerations. Well, it appeared to be thought, however, that although this epithet was not an odious one, still its use would raise a controversy and a doubt and hesitation on the part of some of the free-traders in this House, which I think it was not desirable to create; and, therefore, when my right hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (Sir James Graham) showed me the words that he had drawn, I said I thought that those words, with the addition which I ventured to suggest, were fully sufficient, and answered the purpose which I conceived we ought to have in view. I thought that, on the one side, the words would be sufficiently explicit, and that, on the other, they would not give any unnecessary offence. I proposed to add the words "with respect to the consideration of future measures," in order that it might be clear that the proposed Motion was not a vote of want of confidence, because I thought that, if a vote of want of confidence was to be proposed, it ought to be proposed directly, and not by a side-wind. My hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton was, of course, the person to decide upon the various suggestions he might receive, and he thought, upon the whole, that those considerations which I have already mentioned in favour of calling this "a wise,

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just, and beneficial measure" preponderated, and he placed his Resolution in that form upon the table of the House. The question was thus fairly before the House, and the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer placed his Resolution upon the table as an Amendment. I own it appears to me that the Resolutions he has proposed are so equivocal— falling so far short of the length to which any Resolutions should go—that they would leave it hereafter a matter of dispute whether the Act of 1846 was not an Act of injustice and folly—a measure the injustice of which we should remedy as soon as we can, and the folly of which we should attempt to correct, by reversing the system as soon as popular opinion would allow us. I think the right hon. Gentleman's Amendment so much open to such as interpretation that I, for one, could never consent to its substitution for the words proposed either by the hon. Member for Wolverhampton or by the right hon. Member for Carlisle. The question, Sir, however, is one between Free Trade and Protection. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer the other night accused me of audacity in saying that such was the question; but still that is the question to which my mind is turned, and to which the mind of the country is turned. The right hon. Chancellor of the Exchequer thinks the only question is whether he should continue to hold office. [Cries of "Oh, oh I"] The right hon. Gentleman accused me of audacity for saying that this was a question of Free Trade or of Protection. I say that is the question for the Representatives of the People in this House to consider. Hon. Gentlemen opposite are not indignant at my being accused of audacity; that does not offend them; but that the Chancellor of the Exchequer should attach any importance to holding office is a suggestion which they cannot bear to hear. I think, however, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer said this was nothing but a question between those who sit on this side of the House and Her Majesty's Ministers, and whether hon. Gentlemen opposite, by their conduct during the last five years, are bound or not to support Protection. Now, I say that is not the question. If the debate should continue, I may make some comments upon the right hon. Gentleman's statements upon this subject; but I do not hold that that is at all the question. An occasion may arise
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when we can discuss that subject; but the question now before us is one large enough to hide out of our sight anything behind it —namely, whether that great system of commercial policy which the late Sir Robert Peel from 1842 to 1846 proposed and carried, and which we carried on from 1846 to 1852, in the shape of the Sugar Duties and the Navigation Laws, is, as a whole, a system beneficial to the country, and which ought to be persevered in, maintained, and extended. Now, I say it is desirable that all those who are of that opinion—all those who think it is a beneficial system—should unite, if possible, in one vote for the assertion of that doctrine. Don't tell me that what you are pleased to call abstract Resolutions are of no importance. Why, Sir, the stability of our currency has stood upon these abstract, or rather not abstract, but practical, Resolutions. When the currency was defaced in the reign of William III., in 1696, the Ministers of the Crown came to the House of Commons, and said they would not change the standard of value of the gold and silver coins of the realm in fineness, weight, or denomination. From 1696 to the time of Mr. Huskisson, that Resolution regulated and prescribed the laws with reference to the currency. Mr. Huskisson, when a question arose about the currency, got the House of Commons to reaffirm that Resolution. Other questions about the currency were raised when Lord Althorp was Chancellor of the Exchequer, and he proposed and carried the same Resolution; so that from 1696 to 1852 the stability of our currency may be said to have stood upon that Resolution, and on the firmness of Parliament in adhering to that standard. Why, then, Sir, should it not be the case that after a dissolution of Parliament— after the opinion of the country has been fully taken—we should solemnly decide-what is to be the general policy of the nation? and why should it not be the case that the Resolutions we may adopt should control and govern the commercial policy of this country for generations to come? Why should it not be the case that that great country which was alluded to the other day—the United States of America —which has recently chosen by an immense majority a President known to be favourable to Free Trade—why should not that country unite with us in promoting such a policy, so that these two great States of the same race, and governed by institutions very nearly similar, may make

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this great principle of Free Trade the rule of the intercourse of nations throughout the world? Such is the issue which this contest is to decide, and not that petty issue which the right hon. Chancellor of the Exchequer has put before us. Then, if I may venture to give advice to my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, it is, that, as the Chancellor of the Exchequer has declared, though not in very gracious terms certainly, his willingness to substitute for his own Resolution the Resolution which was first drawn out by my right hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (Sir J. Graham), and which was placed on the table of the House by the noble Lord the Member for Tiverton (Viscount Palmerston), that my hon. Friend (Mr. C. Villiers) should declare likewise his willingness to accept that Resolution, and that all those in this House who are in favour of Free Trade—whether they are like my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, or like my hon. Friend the Member for the West Riding of Yorkshire (Mr. Cobden), and other hon. Gentlemen, freetraders of very long date, or whether they date from 1842 or 1856. or whether they date from the month of November in the present year—whatever may be the date of their Free-trade professions, should unite, and that they should give to the Resolution the stamp of the authority of the British Parliament.
MR. COBDEN: Sir, in the early part of this conversation, I felt considerable difficulty to comprehend what was the tendency of the remarks of some of the speakers, and it was only by degrees that I arrived at a full understanding of what is the question at present at issue. When I listened to what was said by the noble Lord the Member for Tiverton (Viscount Palmerston), and other hon. Members, about behaving in a gentlemanly way to each other, and coming to a unanimous agreement on this great question, I was almost for a moment unconscious of what really was at issue between us; but the speech of the right hon. Baronet the Member for Carlisle (Sir J. Graham), and the remarks of other speakers, have completely developed what we are now discussing and disputing about. It appears that a Resolution prepared by the right hon. Baronet the Member for Carlisle, which contained a phrase asserting that the free-trade measures which had been passed since 1846 had not had the effect of inflicting injury on any great interests—a
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phrase inserted, as the right hon. Gentleman now distinctly tells us, to meet any claims for compensation by certain interests, and to bar all claims by asserting that no injury had been done to important interests—it appears that this Resolution, by what means we have not heard, dropped into the hands of the noble Lord the Member for Tiverton; and that he—taking this Resolution, and cutting out that important passage asserting that free trade had inflicted no injury, and, therefore, no compensation was called for—and having dispossessed the Resolution of that all-important phrase, it somehow found its way to the Carlton Club, and there, at a meeting of the Protectionist party it was resolved unanimously that they would accept this Resolution. ["No, no!"] Oh, not unanimously? ["No!"] Well, then, it seems we are not going to be that happy family which is so much desired. It appears that we cannot manage this matter in this drawing-room, gentlemanly fashion. I admit the excellent tone, and to a great extent I admit the soundness and the sufficiency, of the Resolution drawn up by the right hon. Baronet the Member for Carlisle; but it seems to be assumed by the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that those whom he is pleased to call the free-trade party had agreed to that Resolution, and then, after finding that the Carlton Club and Downing-street— ["No, no!"] Not the Carlton Club, then, but Downing-street, for it seems the Carlton Club are not free-traders yet, and that the Reform Club and the Carlton Club are not shaking hands yet— after finding that at a meeting in Downing-street, that place which was once called a barracoon when hon. Members were summoned there—it was resolved, though not unanimously, that the Protectionist party would endorse that Resolution, that the free-traders afterwards infused into it three odious epithets, with the view of preventing a portion of that body from adopting it. Now, I beg to say, and I think it is no presumption on my part in doing so, on this question, that it might not be unreasonable to expect that, before a Resolution had been adopted by the free-trade party, I should have bad the perusal of it. I can say this, I never saw that Resolution before it was handed to the Carlton Club or Downing-street. I never read that Resolution, and I was no assenting party to it. I was from the first of opinion that, whatever the phraseology, the Resolution should

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affirm the justice and wisdom of the policy of 1846. I have always said, "Affirm its justice and its wisdom, and I will not quarrel with you about the phraseology of the Resolution." We therefore stand in this position: you have adopted, at least a majority of you have adopted, a Resolution, from which you have expunged the assertion of the justice and wisdom of the policy of Sir Robert Peel, and erased that phrase which bars you from compensation. That question of compensation has assumed immense importance since this discussion arose, because we have the evidence of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, which the noble Member for North Leicestershire (the Marquess of Granby) has elicited, that in the Budget which he is preparing there are measures to ameliorate the condition of the agricultural classes. He has told us that the policy of 1846 was injurious to the interests of the landowners, and he is prepared to apply remedial measures. What does the hon. Baronet the Member for the Tower Hamlets (Sir W. Clay) say to that? The last time I met him was on the platform of the Free Trade Hall at Manchester. I never knew any one who had gone through the ordeal of standing on those boards in any danger of being seduced in this House. Least of all should I have supposed that the hon. Baronet would nibble at a bait deprived of half its goodness and virtue. If the hon. Baronet had the whole Resolution of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carlisle, there might be something to excuse him; but to take the bait, after it was modified, at the hands of the noble Lord the Member for Tiverton admits of no excuse. I am astonished at the hon. Baronet the Member for the Tower Hamlets not having had more sagacity. We have certainly been talking over matters without much reserve, and it seems to have come out in the course of this discussion, that there has been some little dexterity used in framing the right hon. Baronet's Resolution, in order to meet the difficulties of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Oxford (Mr. Gladstone). It seems that with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Oxford, who on one occasion did vote with the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, on a Motion for compensation, it was feared some scruples might arise, and this Resolution was so framed -that, whilst it should bar prospective com-
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pensation, it should not shut out the Protionists from retrospective compensation. It bars compensation for future free-trade, but leaves the door open for compensation for past free trade. That reduced to plain common sense—the test by which I would try everything — means compensation for corn and cattle, but no compensation for butter and cheese. I think the right hon. Gentleman, if he applies his mind to this question, will find better reasons to alter his judgment, than to abide by a precipipate vote given on a former occasion. I think if he compares the actual condition of things now with what they were in 1849, he will find novel arguments, which are every day developed, for asserting that no great interest has been affected by the change which has taken place. I will just allude at this point to the question, whether we are to give compensation at the expense of the taxpayers for the measures already passed; because if you admit that principle, then I say we have gained nothing, because it will be very easy for you, if you are determined to take money out of the pockets of the people in any other way, it will be quite as easy to do so by way of the tax-gatherer as by Protection. I myself will undertake to abolish Customs Duties, and to put down the Excise, and yet to levy a tax which by its incidence shall inflict greater injustice, and produce greater miseries, than a revival of Protection. I beg you not to dally with this question. Yon say because a majority of the House is ready to affirm principles contrary to your views, you are ready to make your bow. Now we do not bow to majorities— and I give hon. Gentlemen warning, that if they raise this question of compensation in the shape of taxation, you are beginning a struggle which, if my past consistency be any warrant for truth-telling, I will venture to say you will find just as disastrous as that through which you have passed. What I am most anxious to do is this—I am not going into, nor do I wish to go into, the question, but I want to bring this House to a vote to test the question whether, after the dissolution, we stand in as good a position as we did before; for in the last Parliament, not only did we affirm the free-trade policy to such an extent that no one could be found to impugn or dispute it, but in two instances, when the, right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer brought forward Motions to give compensation—that was the meaning in which they were understood by the country—the

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late Parliament on each occasion in a very large House refused compensation. Now I want, as early as possible, to have a division to know the starting point; and after the elections—after the turmoil in which the country has been placed by those elections—after the scenes of extravagance, riot, and corruption by which we are told the country has gained a great triumph— to see whether we stand in as good a position as we did before. Now, let us bring it to a test. We have a question pure and simple submitted to the House, and therefore I entreat my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. C. Villiers) that he will not shrink from the Resolutions he has moved, that we may at once go into the discussion of the main question, and get a division, when, in the result of that division, we shall know what is to be the work of free-traders in future.
MR. NEWDEGATEacknowledged the distinct manner in which the hon. Member for the West Riding of Yorkshire expressed his views at all times; hut the hon. Member did not always make the same statement with respect to the same circumstance in two different places. The hon. Member for the West Riding said, that whatever might be the issue which the House wished to try, the issue he wished to try upon the Resolution of the hon. and learned Member for Wolverhampton was, whether the claims of those who held themselves to have been injured by recent legislation should or should not be considered. He (Mr. Newdegate had been tolerably consistent as a Protectionist, and perhaps, in some degree, he represented the Protection societies, and he believed he was correct in saying of those with whom he had acted, that they acknowledged the decision of the country to be against protection. They believed that the question had not been decided by those to whom he addressed himself, but by circumstances, to which, however, he did not intend then further to allude. Acknowledging that decision, those with whom he acted were determined to see whether the present Government would not consider the injuries, the pressure of which they knew to exist. If this House were pleased to affirm a simple free-trade Resolution, he, being a Protectionist, but acting on a conviction that the majority of the country had declared in favour of free imports, would take no part till he saw whether measures for relief would be proposed by Her Majesty's Government. The hon. Member for the
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West Riding adverted to the presence of the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets at the Free Trade Hall, at Manchester. It was well known that the hon. Member for the West Riding was the must successful demagogue of his day, with good will, he (Mr. Newdegate) believed, to become an autocrat. The hon. Gentleman had given them at that meeting the means of knowing how the present Resolution was to be interpreted; for the hon. Member told the people at Manchester what was the interpretation they should place on the votes of any Protectionists who should vote for such a Resolution as that proposed by the hon. and learned Member for Wolverhampton. He (Mr. Newdegate) had constantly endeavoured to do his duty as a Protectionist, and the Times newspaper asked what he had gained by it? He had gained nothing but hard labour; but he had secured his honour—he had secured the respect of honest men; and, after the House had heard the words he was about to read, he should ask hon. Members to consider what would be his position if he voted for the Resolution of the hon. and learned Member for Wolverhampton? Let the House judge from what was said at a meeting summoned by the hon. Member for the West Riding, preliminary to the discussion of this very question now brought before the House, on the Resolution of the hon. and learned Member for Wolverhampton. The hon. Member for the West Riding said—
"I think we are fairly entitled to say this, that whatever else the men may be, we insist upon having a free-trade Administration; and when I say a free-trade Administration, I mean a body of men, if they are the men now in office, who shall distinctly and emphatically repudiate all the doctrines they have been promulgating in their past lives upon this great question. We have seen that done before by greater and better men than they. …. But it (their recantation) must be emphatic. They must say that free trade does not lower wages. They must say that free trade does not cause a drain of gold from this country. They must say that free trade has not thrown land out of cultivation in this country. The must say that the land of this country is still worth something."
Who had denied it?
"And they must say that wheat—good wheat—has not been imported into this country, and cannot be, at 24s. per quarter?"
Who ever said that?
"Those are a few things they must say, when they said the very opposite before; and we must have no accompaniment about compensation. Compensation! Well, but I deny that there has been any loss. I boldly declare, and challenge the adversary to deny it, that the value of land in

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this country—agricultural land—taking one acre with another, is greater now than it was in 1844."
That is, before the repeal of the corn laws. The hon. Gentleman seemed to have felt that he had overstrained the credulity of his audience, and went on to speak about compensation. He (Mr. Newdegate) rejoiced that the Government had resolved to resist the proposition brought forward by the hon. and learned Member for Wolverhampton. They were bound, as men of honour, to resist it, unless they were prepared to turn round upon and condemn their whole previous conduct. If they did resist this Motion, they should have his vote; because, of all circumstances that were to be lamented in 1846, he had most lamented the shock which had been given to public confidence in public men by the Government of the late Sir Robert Peel on that occasion. If a second Conservative Government, by any similar act, gave a similar shock to public confidence in public men, it would do more to subvert the institutions of the country than the worst efforts of the wiliest democrat. The noble Lord at the head of the Government took the only means by which to bring this question between the farmer and the present commercial legislation to a legitimate solution, when he submitted it to the decision of the country. He (Mr. Newdegate) would not dispute any Motion merely affirming free trade, so far as the present Parliament could command the future legislation of the country. In deference to the decision of the country, he should wait, because he wished to reserve his opinion until he should see whether justice was to be done to the classes which had been injured. He had not thought fit to let the speech of the hon. Member for the West Riding pass without noticing the gloss which that hon. Gentleman had put upon the question at issue. The question which the House had really to decide was, in fact, according to the hon. Member's formal declaration at the meeting in Manchester, which was preliminary to this Resolution, not whether compensation should be given, but ther cer the character of public men should wheth ntained.
MR. GLADSTONEsaid, he rose to explain a misunderstanding into which the hon. Member for the West Riding (Mr. Cobden) had fallen. The hon. Member seemed to think, and of course thinking so he could not help resenting it, that there was some connexion between the vote given
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by him (Mr. Gladstone) in 1850, and the framing of the Resolution. He begged to say there was no such connexion. He would not at that moment discuss the grounds of that vote, but he considered he approached the question of compensation or relief with hands entirely free. The opinion he had formed was, that in framing the Resolution, certain general principles should be declared—principles which he had endeavoured to state to-night in the plainest terms he could command.
MR. STAPLETONsaid, as a Member who had never sat in Parliament before, he owed no allegiance to any one, and he was as willing to vote for a Resolution of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer as for a Resolution of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. C. Villiers). In a proper and logical way, taking the Resolution of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton first, he had to consider whether he could conscientiously support it, and whether in supporting it he should be carrying out those views he had professed upon the hustings —whether he should be fulfilling the promises he had then made, and answering the expectations of those who sent him. The constituency he had the honour to represent had sent him there in preference to a gentleman who had sat on the opposite (the Government) side of the House, and who had declared himself a free-trader as fully and as frankly as the right hon. Chancellor of the Exchequer had done; but he said nothing on the point of compensation, and because he said nothing on that point the constituency would not re-elect him. He marked between these two Resolutions a very great distinction, which had not yet been noticed, and it was this—that whilst Gentlemen of the Manchester school regarded the question from one point, as consumers, and as the great mass of the people regarded it, those on the Ministerial side of the House regarded it from another point, as producers, subjected to unrestricted competition. The question presented different aspects, according to the point from which it was viewed, and in choosing between them he confessed he preferred that aspect in which it was regarded by the great body of the population, rather than that in which it was regarded by particular men. He understood from the speech of the right hon. Chancellor of the Exchequer, that it was the intention of Her Majesty's Government to grant some kind of compensation for this unrestricted competi-

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tion. Now, he said unrestricted competition with compensation at the expense of those who were to have the advantage of it, was no Free Trade at all. If they gave the people Free Trade, only on condition that they paid for licence to enjoy its advantages, it was not Free Trade. In conclusion, he begged to observe, that it struck him that no decision could be come to with unanimity which would satisfy free-traders in the country, because the people would not believe that those who till now had been united against Free Trade, were as anxious for it as the hon. Gentlemen who composed the Manchester school.
MR. C. VILLIERS: I rise, Sir, in consequence of the call which is now made upon me; but, as the old Members of this House must know, I have, as having already moved the Resolution, but small discretion in dealing with it now. I was summoned to this House to-day about half an hour before it met, by a letter from the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets (Sir W. Clay), who said that he had some very important communications to make to the House, as well as some questions to put in which I might be interested; and he begged that I would be in my place. Well, I came, accordingly, and having heard that the object was for me to withdraw the Resolution, I have been listening for some time to hear some reasons assigned by him or by anybody else, why I was to do so, and accept the Resolution of the noble Lord the Member for Tiverton instead. Now, Sir, I think there is no doubt that I am the mover, though I am told that I am not the author of this Resolution. Although I have not, it seems, the honour of its paternity, I have the liability of its support, and that I am willing to accept and to vindicate. Now, Sir, my statement on this matter will, I am afraid, be different from those that have preceded it, for it will be very simple. My purpose has been very simple throughout this matter, and that is, perhaps, why I cannot understand the new views that I hear to-night, and why I cannot understand some Amendments which have been proposed. On this side, if I am not mistaken, there was a general agreement as to the propriety of the Motion; and my right hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (Sir J. Graham) has, in a very friendly spirit to myself, stated that there was also some propriety in my being the mover. It was then agreed upon, that I was to submit a Resolution on
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the subject of Free Trade to the House. Well, Sir, I had to ask myself what was the purpose and the occasion of such a Resolution. I think that I state the general opinion on this matter correctly to be, as looking to the purpose of the late dissolution, and to the verdict on the subject of free trade given by the country, that there was not explicitness enough in the Queen's Speech, or clearness enough on the part of the Government, to satisfy the opinion of the House or the country on the subject—that the verdict upon the question which the First Minister had submitted to the country should be solemnly recorded by this House. The opinion of the country was taken upon the question of our recent commercial policy, and that has emphatically been, that this policy has produced great advantages, and improved the condition of all classes, especially the industrious classes, and that it was wise, just, and beneficial. It was my object to introduce these views into my Resolution, and I have done so; I have farther done what I believe the country has as much at heart, declared that this policy should be extended as well as maintained. It then proceeded to affirm the distinct and positive principle, that it was the opinion of the country that it should be further extended and maintained, as being to the interest of all classes, and the best mode of promoting the welfare and contentment of the people. The Resolution so drawn was submitted to many Gentlemen on this side for their approbation, and they considered that it was in accordance precisely with the views that ought to be expressed. The Resolution was drawn in the spirit which I have stated, and no other whatever. That Resolution was framed for no other earthly purpose but that. I had instructions, if I may call them so, to draw up this Resolution, and to submit it to the House. I do not deny that a great number of Gentlemen did favour me by sending suggestions. They all embodied the views which I have expressed, and seemed to have no other object but my own. I had no less than ten or twelve Resolutions sent me, and every one of them, without exception, expressed an opinion that recent legislation had been wise and just. I venture to say it never entered the mind of a human being—certainly, I venture to say that nothing would surprise the public at large more than to hear that in calling that legislation wise, just, and beneficial, it was designating it by three

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odious epithets. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer has alluded to the very open way in which the proceedings of different parties in this House are communicated to each other; hut I must say that there is some danger in that kind of openness, because the right hon. Gentleman has been induced by it to trust to information of the most unfounded kind. The right hon. Gentleman stated distinctly that he had it as an undoubted. fact that the three odious epithets—"wise, just, and beneficial," were introduced the moment after it was discovered by the Mover or his Friend that the meeting at Lord Derby's consented to acknowledge the principle of Free Trade. I acquit the right hon. Gentleman of any intentional misrepresentation; but I should not be doing justice to myself or my friends, did I not give the most complete contradiction to that statement which it is possible for me to give consistently with Parliamentary language, because it is most undisguisedly and unequivocally untrue. My noble Friend (Lord J. Russell) has stated to the House, that, in drawing up a Resolution on the subject several days before the meeting at Lord Derby's, he also inserted these offensive words. I have said that every other Resolution that was sent to me contained these words; and I will say, further, that this Resolution that I have moved was not altered at all after the meeting in question, it having been agreed upon before; and at this moment I don't know whether it is because I was never in diplomacy, or that I am not in office, or that, perhaps, according to the new rule, that I am not a gentleman, but I cannot understand what there is offensive in these words. I don't know how such a construction can be put upon them. It is the truth, and an opinion generally formed upon experience of the policy. If hon. Gentlemen have been in error, they must take the consequences, and allow that measures that they thought would be hurtful have been the contrary. A confession of error is rather humiliating, perhaps; but Gentlemen who have enjoyed the very highest degree of respect in this country have not been ashamed to avow that they have been in error, and there is no reason why they should. I cannot see what there is offensive in this Resolution, unless there is something ulterior which these words interfere with, but which I know nothing about. Certainly, one would not have thought it odious that this language should be applied, after hon. Gen-
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tlemen had admitted that they were mistaken in objecting to the Free-Trade policy, but are now ready to adopt it. I wish this could be explained. It was not the intention of anybody in using these words. Why is that construction to be put upon them? It must have some bearing on their ulterior projects which they do not see fit to disclose to the House. As I have before said, I proposed those Resolutions for the simple purpose of recording the opinion of the House. I believe that they express what was the opinion of the last—I believe that it is the opinion of the new—Parliament; and I believe it is the opinion of the country at large, that the recent legislation was wise, just, and beneficial; and they wish to have it so declared by their representatives. And if Gentlemen opposite did not think so before, experience ought to justify them in concluding that it is so now. I was surprised to hear the hon. Gentleman the Member for Berkshire (Mr. R. Palmer) declare himself proof against experience. "Don't tell me," said the hon. Member, "about the country having flourished under Free Trade, or about experience. I have been in this House for twenty-five years, and during that time all the great men have at some time declared against the adoption of Free Trade." Why, such a rule of action would shut out all improvement; we all of us here profit by experience every day, or ought to do so. I do not deny that some Gentlemen who supported Protection may have done so from a conscientious but, however, erroneous belief, that it was the proper policy to pursue; but why should they now hesitate to declare that, although they believed its effects would be most disastrous to the country, they find it has been just the contrary? We hear much of recent and sincere conversions; but I own that the specimens of these kinds of conversions have not been so apparent to me. If those conversions are genuine, it is indeed a marvel how those words in the Resolution can be incompatible with the honour of Gentlemen opposite. Since this conversation began, as far as I have heard, the declarations of hon. Members opposite do not go beyond that of the hon. Gentleman the Member for the North Riding (Mr. Cayley), who assures the House that he will never do again that which it is impossible for him to do, and restore Protection; but they don't say they would not if they could, or that they think themselves wrong; and with respect to many Gentlemen on the other

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side, I do not think there are any symptoms at all of despair as to the ultimate triumph of their views. They admit themselves to be under difficulties at present; but give them time, and they do not at all abandon the question of Protection. Are we, then, to be tender about their consciences, or their particular position with reference to this question? and am I, in my connexion with this subject, to consult the views of Protectionists? Why, I never thought of drawing up a Resolution to please hon. Gentlemen opposite; I had no such intention. My idea was that there was a majority in this House in favour of Free-Trade policy, and a minority against it; and if the Ministers of the Crown had been really Free Traders, they would probably have declared themselves so in the Speech from the Throne, or have made it quite obvious to the House that they were honestly in favour of this principle. It is because there is evidently yet a serious difference of opinion upon the success of the Free Trade policy, and because the majority feel bound to declare their opinion, that I have proposed this Resolution, and that I now feel bound to adhere to it as truly and simply declaring the opinion of the country.
SIR WILLIAM CLAYsaid, that he had been called upon to state the reasons why he had asked the hon. Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. C. Villiers) and the right hon. the Chancellor of the Exchequer to withdraw their respective Motions, so as to admit of the Motion of the noble Lord the Member for Tiverton (Viscount Palmerston) being adopted. He would reply to that call. But, in the first place, he wished to set right an inaccuracy in the speech of his hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton. The hon. Gentleman said that he (Sir W. Clay) sent him a note half an hour before the House met, in which he did not specify the nature of the question which he was about to put to him. On the contrary, he had himself left the note at twelve o'clock at a place where he understood the hon. Gentleman's letters were generally left, and in that note he told him that he would suggest that the hon. Gentleman should withdraw his Motion, and adopt as a substitute the Motion of the noble Lord (Viscount Palmerston). Now, if he (Sir W. Clay) wanted any justification for putting that question, he should find it in what had
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passed during the debate, because a very large proportion of the leaders of parties and most prominent Members of the House had declared that it would be the better course to accept the Resolution of the noble Lord, in preference to the Resolution of his hon. Friend. That had been declared by the noble Lord the Member for London (Lord J. Russell); it had been declared in substance by the right hon. Baronet the Member for Carlisle (Sir J. Graham), as well as by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Oxford (Mr. Gladstone). It had been assented to by the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and assented to, as he (Sir W. Clay) distinctly understood, with the addition of the words on which his hon. Friend near him laid so much stress. He thought it strange that he should be asked, after this all but universal consent, why he should object to the Motion of his hon. Friend. He would tell him, however, why he objected to it, and why he thought it could not have the effect which his hon. Friend desired and anticipated from its adoption. He objected to it, because, instead of merely affirming the justice of a Free-Trade policy, it insisted on the humiliation of the large party opposite. He (Sir W. Clay) wished, for his part, to obtain the widest possible assent of the House to a declaration that the policy of Free Trade was to be the policy of the country. He was therefore persuaded he was doing right in endeavouring to stop the debate, because it appeared to him to tend to no useful purpose—that its only effect could be to widen existing differences of opinion, to embitter feelings of irritation which we ought rather to seek to soothe and to allay, and thus to alienate those whose union it was desirable to promote for the general welfare of the country. Did his hon. Friend near him doubt his (Sir W. Clay's) devotion to the principles of Free Trade? He did not believe that any man would venture to doubt it. Nine years before the year 1846, he proposed a Resolution for the repeal of the corn laws; indeed, if he recollected rightly, his hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton commenced the career in which he had so honourably distinguished himself by seconding that Resolution. His objection to the Motion was, that it called on a great party to admit, in terms, that a particular measure which they opposed, was, at the time they opposed it, "just, wise, and beneficial." That was a humiliation

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which it was neither wise nor generous to attempt to force upon men of honour, and to Which it could not be expected that they should submit. What was the course taken by men of good sense and kind feeling in private life? If they found persons with whom they were engaged in pursuit of some common object (and had not all the Members of that House a common object—the good of their country?), and who had formerly differed with them, disposed to agree with them in opinion, and co-operate in action, did they refuse to accept their co-operation unless they would recant every word they had ever said? The noble Lord the Member for London said that it was justifiable for the House to accept an abstract Resolution. He (Sir W. Clay) had never denied it. It was because the Motion of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton made it impossible to have as large an assent as possible that he objected to it. He wanted the abstract Resolution to be carried by the largest possible majority. The difference between the two propositions before the House was this, that one asserted simply, although in the most emphatic terms, the principles of free trade, while the other was couched in terms that inflicted a feeling of mortification upon their political opponents. This was not an occasion for the indulgence of any petty personal or party triumph. He hailed with joy the accession of the great party opposite to the ranks of Free Trade, and he was very sorry that his hon. Friend had not thought fit to accede to his proposal. If his hon. Friend persevered in his Motion, and he (Sir. W. Clay) had no choice but to vote for that Motion or the Amendment proposed by the Government, he should, although with very great regret, vote for the Motion; but if the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer withdrew his Amendment in favour of the Resolution proposed by the noble Lord the Member for Tiverton, then he should vote for the noble Lord's Resolution, in preference to the Motion of his hon. Friend.
MR. SPEAKER: I think it necessary to remind the House, that the question before the House is not the Motion of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, but that this House do now adjourn. I will also remind them that this is a day devoted to Notices of Motion, which, by our Rules, will take precedence of the Orders of the Day; but owing to this Motion for adjournment, the House has been drawn into a
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discussion on an Order of the Day, instead of the Notices of Motion.
MR. BARROWsaid, he was ignorant of Parliamentary tactics, but he rose to prevent mistake as to any change in his opinions. He would remind the hon. Member for Manchester (Mr. Bright), that constituencies in general did not adopt the opinions of candidates, but sought candidates whose opinions coincided with their own. This had occurred in his case: he was not returned by the overwhelming power of great landowners to aid in keeping up their rents, but because he was known to have a strong opinion as to the injuries inflicted on the farming class, who were entitled to relief from peculiar taxation as a matter of justice rather than compensation. If the change of 1846 had been injurious to them because it was hasty, it was an act of injustice, and could not come within the category of "wise, just, and beneficial." He thought with Mr. Huskisson that the right kind of Free Trade was to have moderate protective but not prohibitory duties; and that, he believed, was the only policy under which the country would prosper in future. If they were to have unrestricted competition, it should be unrestricted; all burdens should be removed from farming produce; and farmers should not be prevented from using that produce free from duty in the most advantageous manner as regarded consumption by themselves, their labourers, and their cattle. He objected to the term compensation being fastened upon the farmer, in an offensive sense; he claimed the removal of restrictions by unjust taxes and burdens.
MR. STANHOPEsaid, he could not admit that the agricultural interest had suffered no injury. His county (North Lincolnshire) was a fair test of the operation of the Free Trade policy. The farmers held their land at moderate rents; they had a laborious and excellent peasantry; and if any men could have withstood the evil of free trade, those were the men who would have done it. He had seen men once independent obliged to rely for their bread on the charity of their landlords. In that county, where men received a higher remuneration than in any other, the labourers were in a far worse condition since the Act of 1846 than before. Without sufficient employment and sufficient remuneration, the cheapness of provisions was no benefit. Believing that great injury had been inflicted, he could not assent to the words "wise, just, and beneficial;" and, consistently with his duty to his constituents as

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tenant-farmers, he could not affirm any of the Resolutions now before the House. He was aware the question was settled by the decision of the country. and to that decision he thought it his duty to bow. The only constitutional course for a Member of Parliament, when a question was decided by the country, was to apply himself, however strong his personal feelings might be, to carry out that principle. If they were to have unrestricted competition, their industry ought not to be trammelled by any fiscal or unnatural regulation. If the soil of England was to compete with the soil of the whole world, they should be permitted to grow any crop they could possibly cultivate. He trusted that if they were obliged to accept of the principle of Free Trade, that the agriculturists would no longer be compelled to contribute so much to the revenue of the country.
SIR JAMES GRAHAMsaid, that under the circumstances of the case, he would ask the leave of the House to withdraw his Motion for its adjournment.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

TENANT RIGHT (IRELAND) BILL.
MR. C. VILLIERSsaid, that the hon. and learned Member for Kilkenny County had a Motion on the paper relative to Tenant Right, but he would appeal to the hon. and learned Gentleman to waive his right to precedence, and to allow the adjourned debate on the Resolutions he (Mr. Villiers) had proposed, and the Amendment of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to go on.
MR. SERJEANT SHEEsaid, the question he had to bring under the notice of the House was one of no ordinary importance. It was, indeed, a matter most important to Irish Members, and to himself, as well as to the constituencies they represented. If those constituencies could be present, and see with their own eyes what was going on, they might, however, understand the importance of the question which the House was anxious to discuss, and of the various propositions before them. If it was the general sense of the House that he ought to give way, he should be very sorry to interpose his Motion, and he was sure he would do no good to his constituents, or to the people of Ireland, in opposing himself to the strongly-declared sense of the House. But, on the other hand, if he gave up this point to the House, he thought the House ought to do something for him. He would ask the right hon. Chan-
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cellor of the Exchequer, therefore, on behalf of the Government, so far to assist him as to give him an opportunity of bringing in his Bill before the right hon. Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland (Mr. Napier) moved the second reading of the Bills he had introduced.
The CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, he thought the hon. and learned Gentleman, in yielding to the general feeling of the House on a subject of great interest, had exercised a wise discretion, and he was sure his constituents would not be dissatisfied with his conduct on that occasion. He would not object to the hon. and learned Gentleman bringing in his Bill, but he was afraid that if the hon. and learned Gentleman liked to put it down for to-morrow night, which was a Government night, the debate on the question now before the House might take up the whole time. He would assist the hon. and learned Member to bring in his Bill, but he could not pledge himself to support it. He might at the same time observe that he would not be able to make his financial statement to-morrow night (Friday), as he had given notice he would.
MR. SERJEANT SHEEsaid, he wished to have had an opportunity of stating the principles of the Bill; but as the House appeared so anxious to resume the debate on Commercial Legislation, he would only ask permission of the House for leave to bring in the Bill.
Leave given. Bill read o.

COMMERCIAL LEGISLATION—FREE TRADE—ADJOURNED DEBATE.
Order read, for resuming adjourned Debate on Amendment proposed to Question [23rd November],"That it is the opinion of this House that the improved condition of the Country, and particularly of the Industrious Classes, is mainly the result of recent Commercial Legislation, and especially of the Act of 1846, which established the free admission of Foreign Corn; and that that Act was a wise, just, and beneficial measure:"—(Mr. Charles Villiers:) — And which Amendment was to leave out from the first word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "this House acknowledges, with satisfaction, that the cheapness of provisions, occasioned by recent Legislation, has mainly contributed to improve the condition and increase the comforts of the Working-Classes; and that unrestricted competition having been adopted, after due delibera-

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tion, as the principle of our Commercial System, this House is of opinion that it is the duty of the Government unreservedly to adhere to that policy in those measures of Financial and Administrative Reform which, under the circumstances of the Country, they may deem it their duty to introduce,"—(Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer,) —instead thereof.
Question again proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
Debate resumed.
The CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: I hope the House will allow me to make a remark as to the course Her Majesty's Government are prepared to take. With respect to the Amendment which I proposed, and that which has been proposed by the noble Lord the Member for Tiverton (Viscount Palmerston), I have to say that I shall defer to what appears to be the feeling of the House. I shall not press the Amendment I have given notice of, and the question may now be taken on the Resolution of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. C. Villiers), and the Amendment of the noble Lord (Viscount Palmerston).
MR. BRIGHTsaid, he wished to say by way of explanation, before the House began the debate, that in his speech the other night he had referred to the fact that the Lord Advocate of Scotland had gone as a candidate to Lisburn, and had stood for that borough under the patronage of the Marquess of Hertford. It had been stated in at least one of the papers that he had asserted the gentleman in question had gone to Lisburn under the patronage of the Marquess of Londonderry; and as he did not wish to be supposed capable of making a mistake on such an important question and matter of fact, and as he had received a letter from the son of the noble Lord (the Marquess of Londonderry), who sat in that House, in reference to it, he wished to make that statement, and to correct any erroneous impression which might prevail on the subject.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
MR. GLADSTONE: As a matter of form I wish to observe, that I understand the Amendment of the noble Lord (Viscount Palmerston) was to be moved in case the Amendment of Government was withdrawn. The noble Lord's Amendment has not yet been moved.
VISCOUNT PALMERSTON: I intend to move— [An Hon. MEMBER: Do you
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move it?] Yes, I do. I beg leave to move the Amendment of which I have given notice.
Amendment proposed—
"To leave out from the word 'Country,' to the end of the Question, in order to add the words and especially of the Industrious Classes, is mainly the result of recent Legislation, which has established the principle of unrestricted competition, has abolished Taxes imposed for the purposes of Protection, and has thereby diminished the cost and increased the abundance of the principal articles of the Food of the People,' instead thereof."
Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
MR. BOOKER: Before I proceed to discuss the important question now before the House, I will beg to assure the noble Viscount opposite (Viscount Palmerston), of the high and grateful sense I entertain of the kindness and consideration which prompted him to step forward, under motives and feelings towards this side of the House which he has so well expressed, to make the conciliatory proposition which he has made, and which has been accepted by the Government. I hope, however, the noble Lord will not receive it as any mark of public or personal disrespect, if I, and those who act with me, feel ourselves unable to assent to his Amendment. Sir, there is no Member of this Assembly more thoroughly convinced of the hollowness and unsoundness of that system of commercial legislation now attempted to be forced permanently upon us, or who is more deeply but voluntarily committed to the opposite system, to which I still firmly adhere, than I am: and, notwithstanding I escaped the lash of the hon. Member for Manchester the other night, I desire to avow this—that there is no one who more deeply deplores than I do the course which Her Majesty's Government have been compelled, or have felt it their duty, to pursue, on this question of our future legislation. The speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer may have been a triumphant vindication of the Government—certainly it was a masterly exposition of the position in which the Government have found themselves placed. But in that speech there was no vindication of the course which I have openly and consistently pursued. I have been a member of that great party which has been called the Country party, which I have ever understood to have been united together by a principle, and that principle

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was, and is, protection to our native industry and capital. That principle, on the platform and the hustings, as well as in this House, I have endeavoured, to the utmost of my power, to maintain. I have done so, through good report and evil report, under much of obloquy, some of which I may have justly merited, hut much of which I have felt was harsh, and not justly deserved. Before, then, I can consent to read a recantation, and abjure the principles of a whole life, I trust the House will grant me its indulgence, while I give my reasons for the faith which is still in me. Now, Sir, I have always understood that the system of free trade, now to be extended to free and unrestricted competition, was ushered in by a system of relaxation of our commercial tariff in the year 1842. I admit that, under the circumstances of the country, that was a wise and beneficial measure, and that great advantages flowed from it to the country at large. I will also allow, what indeed it would be foolish and idle to deny, that the years 1843, 1844 and 1845, were years of great national prosperity. Let me, however, pause here for a moment, and inquire what financial and commercial measures passed the Legislature during this period: in 1844, the Charter of the Bank of England was passed, and in 1845 those of Scotland and Ireland followed: in the year 1844 money was abundant, and as easy of attainment as it is at the present moment; the Bank of England fixed its rate of interest at 2 per cent, and advances could be had, as now, from private sources at 1¾ per cent. And now, Sir, what followed? The year 1846 was confessedly a period of the wildest speculation ever known in the annals of the country. In addition to private and joint-stock adventures of every sort and kind, railway speculations, requiring capital to the extent of nearly four hundred millions, received the sanction of the Legislature. In 1846, too, the Corn Laws were repealed; and now commenced in earnest, and without restriction, the application of the principle, and the development of the effects, of your boasted system and policy of free trade. Well, Sir, the very next succeeding year, 1847, brought a collapse in the commercial world, and a convulsion which shook commercial credit to its very centre. In the crash, mercantile and commercial capital, to the extent, I think, of upwards of fifty millions, in a few months was swept away, and many of the highest, and some
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of the oldest of our commercial firms were levelled to the dust. Money, wealth, prosperity, all disappeared; the Government fixed the rate of interest for advances by the Bank of England at 8 per cent, and in private transactions it rose to 12, 15, and even, under the severity of the pressure, to 18 and 20 per cent: and this was under your boasted system of free trade. It certainly was an extraordinary and unexpected retribution, that trade and commerce should have felt and staggered under the first shock. You persevered in your system, and our domestic agriculture next reeled under the blow. During the succeeding years an amount of agricultural depression was experienced never before known. Agricultural capital was swept away by millions, as we have a ready witness in the hon. and learned Mover of these Resolutions. This, too, occurred under your boasted system of free trade; and the pressure continued with increased and accumulating violence from year to year, until Providence opened to us those vast regions and stores of mineral wealth, whence have flowed, over since, riches to an enormous extent. Providence, Sir, and not human legislation, nor any efforts or results of human wisdom, has removed the pressure, and produced these blessings under which the country is now beginning to revive; and, Sir, if the principle of protection to our native industry and capital were now prevailing—firmly maintained and prudently extended or relaxed, as occasion justified—I know of no limit within which our national prosperity would now be confined. Sir, I have felt this, and still feel it, that it is incontrovertible and true. I have endeavoured to fight the battle of protection honestly and manfully, but I am perfectly willing to admit that we have suffered defeat. I am willing to admit that Manchester has proved too strong for us. But I am of opinion, as the noble Viscount the Member for Tiverton seems to be of opinion, that, if we are vanquished and acknowledge it frankly, to require of us to abjure and surrender all the fixed opinions of our lives, and to give a flat denial, by our votes, to our own past career, is going much too far. Under the existing prosperity of the industrious classes, I, for one, have no intention to attempt to reverse or alter that policy which, after a distinct appeal made to it, the country has now unequivocally confirmed. I will give it a fair trial. My own convictions remain unaltered, and are not by force and vio-

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lence to be eradicated; but the battle has been fought in the country, and I acknowledge my party to be beaten. I utterly deny, however, that it is to that policy of free trade that the improved condition of the country is to be ascribed. I wish to be accurately informed of the extent to which that metallic wealth which Providence has disclosed to us, has flowed, and is continuing to flow, into this country. I believe it to be to an extent perfectly astonishing. The discovery of these gold regions, too, has had a double effect on the condition of the country. It has opened avenues and outlets for the outpouring of a redundant population; and it is my opinion that it is to this in-pouring of metallic wealth, coupled with a vast out-pouring, in a continuous stream, of masses of our people, that the prosperous condition of the working and industrious classes, and those who employ them, too, is to be mainly attributed. This conviction, Sir, is so impressed on my mind, that I deeply regret I cannot concur in the Amendment of the noble Lord; still less can I give my assent to the original Resolutions of the hon. and learned Member for Wolverhampton. But, Sir, I feel as little disposed to embarrass the Government, in whose general policy I most fully concur. Although, then, upon the great questions of free trade and protection I lament the policy they have adopted, and the surrender they have made, and I must differ from them, yet upon all the great constitutional questions that must force themselves on the consideration of Parliament —in upholding inviolate the safety, honour, and dignity of the Crown,—in protecting and purifying the Church, in maintaining the Christian character of the Legislature; in defending our Protestant institutions in Church and State, both in this and the sister island, against that monstrous confederacy which, under the guise and watchword of religious equality, has reared its head—on all these questions of public policy they will have my earnest, zealous, and unflinching support. And, Sir, on the question of free trade, or, as it is now to be, free and unrestricted competition, they will not need my support, for if Gentlemen opposite are true to their ancient professions, of regarding measures and not men, they must command theirs. I rose, Sir, at this stage of the debate, to record my unaltered convictions on the subject of protection to our native interests; to declare my determina-
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nation to vote against the Resolutions of the hon. and learned Member for Wolverhampton; and at the same time to express my deep regret, on every ground, that I cannot record my vote in favour of the Amendment of the noble Lord the Member for Tiverton.
MR. BERNAL OSBORNEsaid, he apprehended that the supplemental debate which they had witnessed that evening was about one of the most irregular things that had probably ever been witnessed in that House, and he should hope that the commencement of a new Parliament hon. Members would not make a precedent of a debate in which he did think the distinguished order of Baronets had not cut a very distinguished figure. Now his hon. Friend the Member for the Tower Hamlets (Sir W. Clay) was a very gentlemanly man —he was a man of very fine and sensitive feelings—and the Resolution of his hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. C. Villiers) had gained upon his susceptibility. His
…"native hue of resolution
Seemed sicklied o'er by the pale cast of thought;"
but he must say, if the hon. Baronet the Member for the Tower Hamlets brought these fine susceptibilities into the House, he would be more qualified to weep over the Sorrows of Werter, than to discuss the principle of Free Trade. He (Mr. B. Osborne) lamented that the hon. Baronet had thought proper to put the question to the hon. Member for Wolverhampton; he lamented that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carlisle (Sir J. Graham) should have originated that debate, which he thought Mr. Speaker would be of opinion had been completely out of order. But what was the position they stood in at the present moment? They had no less than four Resolutions before them. No; one had been withdrawn, and there were only three. [An Hon. MEMBER: NO! only two.] fie believed there was a third; or else, what had become of the Resolution proposed by the right hon. Baronet the Member for Carlisle? [An Hon. MEMBER: No, no! that's gone too.] What, had hon. Gentlemen opposite swallowed that too? ["No, no!".] Oh, then, it was not moved, but was intended to be a supplemental Resolution. But, if he understood the confusion of to-night, the noble Lord the Member for Tiverton (Viscount Palmerston) had moved an Amendment to the original Resolution, which had been improved by the right hon. Gentleman the

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Member for Carlisle, and adopted by the right hon. the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the name of the Government. But for himself he had no hesitation on reading the original Resolution, to say that it was the one which the House ought to adopt, nor did he think the country would be under any mistake as to its terms or appearance. This was no question of words: it was not a matter to be left to the etiquette of the Pump-room of Bath, or to a master of the ceremonies. It was the vindication of a policy—a policy which Sir Robert Peel commenced in 1842, and completed in 1846. It might be all very well for some Gentlemen to indulge in nice criticisms, and he must tell the noble Lord the Member for Tiverton that they were there to consider what was just and right: it was a great question of political morality, and not a question of what was agreeable to Gentlemen on the other side of the House. He was therefore very much surprised at the noble Lord's Amendment, but if he was surprised at the Amendment, he was still more surprised at the speech with which it was accompanied. He was aware that some people were of opinion that it was quite natural in the noble Lord—who might be considered as a sort of wet nurse to the present Administration—who attended them in their infancy, and cherished them in their adversities last Session—to step in to relieve the British Protectionist when he was almost choking with their endeavours to swallow a crust of Free Trade bread. Some people thought it was quite natural for the noble Lord, at such a conjunction to pat them on the back, and administer a mixture of his own creation. But if he took exception to the terms of the noble Lord's Amendment, what was he to say to his speech? He had a strong impression that the sympathies of the noble Lord would hereafter be enlisted more by the Tory benches than by his old and tried friends. He entertained a great respect for the noble Lord—he had a great admiration for him; yes, he proved that by his vote when the noble Lord on a memorable occasion was exposed to the danger of a vote of censure which his new friends wished to pass upon him: on that occasion, as an independent Member, he gave the noble Lord his humble support; he approved of the noble Lord's policy on that occasion, and, therefore, he had a just right now to speak his honest convictions as to the course pursued by the noble Lord now. It might be all very well for
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the noble Lord to say of his new friends and connexions on the other side of the House, that they were pursuing a politic course; but he thought that the noble Lord went rather too far when he said it was a course that was creditable. He might consent to say that it was a politic course; but he must dissent from the noble Lord in to to as to the credit which the noble Lord appeared to attach to that course. And when the noble Lord, forsooth, taunted his hon. Friend the Member for Manchester (Mr. Bright), and told him that he was making a great national interest a party question, he must take leave to ask the noble Lord who it was that had made it a party question for six long years? Who was it indeed? Was it the Free Traders in the House, or out of the House? No, it was the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer and his associates on the other side; and he thought there was little room for any man to talk about the credit of their course. For his part, no honest politician could say that the conduct of the Protectionist party had been a credit to themselves. But the noble Lord had taken his own line; he had chosen to move an Amendment to the original Resolution, thereby endeavouring to break up the united opinion of the liberal side of the House. It was very natural that the movement of the noble Lord should be viewed with suspicion by those who had hitherto been his friends; but if the noble Lord surprised him by his Amendment and his speech, what was his surprise to hear the speech of the Atlas of the Administration and the Proteus of protection, the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer? He thought the House would agree with him in saying, that the fluency of the right hon. Gentleman's dictum was only equalled by the hardiness of his assertions. The right hon. Gentleman talked of the audacity of the noble Lord the Member for the City of London (Lord John Russell). Why, the right hon. Gentleman appeared to him to have taken a leaf out of the book of a great French character. [Laughter.] Oh, but he did not allude to M. Thiers. He spoke of the great French character at the time of the French Revolution—Danton, who, when he was asked to give a reason for his success, said, "Audacity, always audacity." Well, now, what was the course pursued by the right hon. Gentleman? The right hon. Gentleman actually had the face to tell the House, the other night, after the course he

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bad pursued for six years, that neither the Earl of Derby nor himself had endeavoured to reverse the system of Free Trade. True, the right hon. Gentleman never had the courage to make a direct or specific attempt to reverse the Free Trade policy, but the House must recollect the course which he allowed his friends and followers to pursue. The right hon. Gentleman the other night favoured the House with his own history of the Protectionist party and their course during the last six years. Then the right hon. Gentleman reminded him somewhat of another history, or rather a romance, namely, Hume's Apology for the Stewarts. But the right hon. Gentle man's history was nothing more nor less than an apology for his party, or rather for himself. But what course did the right hon. Gentleman really pursue? He would have them believe that he had stood by ever since 1846, and never even attempted to refute the doctrines of Free Trade. But was there no external agitation in the country? Was there not a house taken in Bond-street for disseminating tracts and conducting the whole business of the Protectionist movement? Why, if he was not mistaken, the hon. Gentleman who was now Secretary to the Admiralty was Secretary to the Bond-street Association. Well, now, what was the first movement of this gang? If the House would bear with him for a few minutes, he would show them by a few quotations. There had been a good deal of quoting in the course of this debate, but he would promise them that what he read should be new matter. He would not trouble them with the notions of ancient county Members, who were men to be pitied, but he would draw upon the fountain-head of the party. The right hon. Gentleman had told them that neither he nor the Earl of Derby ever was engaged in the Protectionist agitation; but if they were not, some of their principal supporters were, and he would take leave to mention an incident in proof of this, which no doubt the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Admiralty would well remember. In the year 1849, on June the 26th, a meeting was held in Drury-lane Theatre, which the party had taken at the time. At this period the Duke of Richmond was in the chair, and very active; indeed, it might almost be said that there were six Richmonds in the field —for his Grace was here, there, and everywhere; now in Sussex, now in Essex, then in London, and in any announcements of Protectionist meetings you were always
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sure to see Mr. Ellman and the Duke of Richmond in red letters in the Bill. The Duke of Richmond invariably took the lead in opening the ball; for instance, he took the chair on this occasion, and the meeting was held to receive the Report of the Committee of the Central Society. The first Resolution for receiving the Report was moved by a Cabinet Minister. But before mentioning his name, the House should see what he said. These were the men, mark you! who never attempted to reverse the policy of Free Trade. This speaker thought the country was going to be ruined by a free trade in gloves, and then he went on to say—
"He was not one of those who wished a Minister to he obstinate in details, hut he wished him to be obstinate in principle; a man without firmness of principle was dangerous, unfitted for office. Three months before (the repeal of the Corn Laws) Sir Robert Peel spoke strongly in favour of this Bill of three years before.…What a blow to the character of our public men, and, through them, to the character of this country in the face of Europe '. It was not too late to retrace steps so rashly made. He hoped to God the time would never come when the free-trade theory would be consummated; hut, should it please God, in His anger, that it should he effected, then would this great kingdom soon return to her normal and natural state, a weather-beaten island in a northern sea."
And who did the House think was the speaker of this eloquent and moving address? Who was it that was afraid Free Trade would reduce this country into a weather beaten island in a northern sea? No other person, indeed, than the noble Lord the present Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (the Earl of Malmesbury), a colleague of the right hon. Gentleman, who had never done anything to reverse the doctrines of Free Trade. But was the noble Lord of that opinion still? He wished they had him in that House. The Motion for the adoption of the Report was seconded by another Minister, but not a Cabinet Minister. It was seconded by a gentleman not of so many words as the previous speaker; he took a passage from the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Well, the Chancellor of the Exchequer quotes, and why should not other people quote him? The gentleman said, "the flower of the country were with him, and therefore the cause of protected and regenerated England must triumph." He went on to observe—and the British lion was never taken such liber, ties with as in this passage—"The British lion is a loyal lion; he is a bold one, when

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you do put him on his legs; he may be easily put up, but he is an awkward animal to put down." A Mr. Bosanquet was the gentleman who said this, but who he was he (Mr. B. Osborne) did not know; but Mr. G. P. Young, whom the Earl of Derby wished to make Vice-President of the Board of Trade, concluded a Motion at the same meeting for passing a vote of thanks to the noble Chairman by counselling the farmers what to do. They were to "agitate, agitate, agitate!" So much, then, for 1849; but let him follow these loyal Protectionists up. That assiduous Gentleman the present Secretary to the Admiralty was at this time Secretary to No. 17, Bond-street, where he was everything. He was everywhere, and did all sorts of things. He took the Crown and Anchor, where he got up a meeting in 1850. Well, the Crown and Anchor was taken, and who was in the chair? He did not know what had become of him, for lately he had not heard of him. The chairman was a noble Duke, and the man who threatened to make and unmake Peel. What had become of the Duke of Richmond? Nothing had been heard of him in the other House lately. Well, the Duke of Richmond was in the chair, and the meeting was attended by a few Ministers—men who now professed that they had never done anything to reverse the doctrines of Free Trade. The Earl of Eglintoun was there, Major Beresford was there, and so was poor Mr. Christopher. The Earl of Malmesbury was there, Mr. Forbes Mackenzie was there, Lord John Manners was there, and so was Sir John Trollope and Mr. Chowler. Now let the House listen to the speech of this last-named individual, and remember that the Duke of Richmond was again in the chair, and opened the proceedings of the day. He said—
"If this country wore to continue great and; free, moderate import duties must be established; I the experiment (of free trade) had been tried and failed; common sense always said it would tail. He recommended the tenant-farmers to persevere; let each, when they returned home, tell their neighbours to persevere, and justice would sooner or later take place."
There were several Resolutions moved, and the first was proposed by the hon. Member for Hereford (Mr. Booker). Unless the House wished it, he would not read the hon. Gentleman's speech, because it was very much like the one he had made that evening. This was, however, the Resolution moved by him:—
"That the difficulty and intolerable distress of
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agriculture, and other great interests of the country, and the state of deprivation and suffering to which large masses of the industrial population are reduced, are fraught with consequences most disastrous to public welfare, and, if not speedily remedied, must prove fatal to the maintenance of public credit, will endanger the public peace, and may even place in peril the safety of the State."
This Resolution, which was pretty well for Mr. Booker, was carried with great enthusiasm, and it was seconded by that notorious and valiant gentleman Mr. Chowler. He did not know if the House would wish to hear what Mr. Chowler said; it was the famous horse speech, and Mr. Chowler (whom he looked upon as a very ill-used man) spoke to the following effect:—
"Mr. Cobden says, if you attempt to reintroduce protection, what he will do, and what will become of the landlords; but I say, if the landlords will stick to us, we will stick to them."[Here—this was the reporter's description of the scene—the assembly rose, and cheered vociferously. Earl Stanhope struck the speaker on the shoulders in approbation of the sentiment, and all on the platform rose and cheered.]"But we will go further—we have got nine-tenths of the horses of the kingdom, and men to ride them.…ֵ We will protect Her Majesty, if She will protect us. (Vociferous cheering.)"
The next Resolution was moved by a Mr. R. Ball. He hoped it was not the hon. Member of that name. [Mr. BALL here nodded his head acquiescingly.] He was happy to see the hon. Member looking so well after what he had said at the Crown and Anchor. He said, and he spoke out as he did the other night honestly and straightforwardly, for which he respected the hon. Member:—
"It was painful to speak of the landlords in terms of disparagement, but was it not true they (the farmers) had fallen, not by the League, not by the treachery of Sir Robert Peel, but because their landlords, the aristocracy, had swerved from their duty?"
What did the hon. Member say now? Let the House listen to what followed, and then look at the hon. Gentleman:—
"Would they tell him, a brokenhearted man, passing into a state of poverty, that he was to fear the threats of a demagogue?"
Then followed something rather obscure:—
"They, the tenant-farmers, would be prepared to take those terrible steps, which it was most frightful to imagine, but which necessity was driving them to contemplate. [Tremendous cheers, it the close of which a gentleman upon the platform proposed three groans for Sir Robert Peel, the archenemy of the human species.]"
Yet these were the Gentlemen who had done nothing to reverse Free Trade; and hon. Members were told to be careful not to wound the feelings of Gentlemen who

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had proposed three groans, as the greatest enemy of the human species, for the greatest Minister who ever lived! The proceedings were concluded by the Earl of Eglintoun, the present Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, proposing a vote of thanks to the noble Duke in the chair, "for his manly and consistent maintenance of the cause of protection on all occasions." This was seconded by a Cabinet Minister —Lord John Manners. And would the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer tell him that he did not stand by and pat them on the back, or that they would have gone to these meetings if they were not agreeable to the Earl of Derby, or to their present master, Mr. Disraeli? There must be plain speaking to-night; they must not have the politeness of diplomacy introduced for the evasion of a principle. Protection was the only thing upon which the Chancellor of the Exchequer had been consistent. On the 22nd of January, 1846, the right hon. Gentleman said in his speech on the Address—
"To the opinions which I have expressed in this House in favour of Protection I adhere. They sent me to this House, and, if I had relinquished them, I should have relinquished my seat also."[3 Hansard, lxxxiii. 112.]
Then the right hon. Gentleman introduced his famous parallel of the Turkish Admiral steering his fleet into the enemy' sport; and what did he say of a Ministry, honest and able, which he (Mr. B. Os borne) should be glad to see now in office? He said—
"Who does not remember the 'sacred cause of protection, the cause for which Sovereigns were thwarted—Parliaments dissolved—and a nation taken in! When one looks at the Ministry, seeing of what they are composed, one is hardly certain whether 'the future' of which they are thinking is indeed posterity, or only the coming quarter day."[Ibid. p. 115, 119.]
In his speech on the Corn Laws on May 15, 1846, the right hon. Gentleman spoke of the conversion of the Saxons by Charlemagne in battalions, and their being haptised in platoons. He then said of Sir Robert Peel—
"' His life has been one great appropriation clause,' and he concluded,' I believe the country will not long endure this huckstering tyranny of the Treasury bench—these political pedlars, that bought their party in the cheapest market and sold us in the dearest.'"[Ibid, lxxxvi. 675–76.]
In 1849, on the 1st of February, the right hon. Gentleman moved an Amendment on the Address, and withdrew it.
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He then said—"In my opinion the new commercial system has had a trial, a fair trial, and has failed." And the right hon. Gentleman looked forward to a time when it might be revised. On the 8th of March, 1849, the right hon. Gentleman moved for a Committee to inquire into the burdens on land. He then said, "I still believe our new commercial system is founded on erroneous principles." On the 15th of March the right hon. Gentleman made that allusion to "protected and regenerated England." On the 1st of February, 1850, the right hon. Gentleman voted for the Amendment to the Address moved by the right hon. Member for South Lincolnshire (Sir J. Trollope). He said he never made a direct Motion in that House against free trade, but he took advantage of a Motion in 1850 for a moderate fixed duty to speak and vote for it. On the 14th of May, 1850, the right hon. Gentleman said—
"I ask you to protect the rights and interests of labour generally—in the first place, by allowing no free imports from countries which meet you with countervailing duties; and, in the second place, with respect to agricultural produce, to compensate the soil for the burdens from which other classes are free, by an equivalent duty."[ 3 Hansard, cxi. 86.]
And then the right hon. Gentleman came to the House in a November Session in 1852, and, with a face which he never saw equalled in the theatre, he dared to tell the House that he had never attempted to reverse the policy of Free Trade! He said, too, that the Earl of Derby had never done so. Of the two he thought the Chancellor of the Exchequer was a much safer and more discreet man. The Earl of Derby affected to be affronted the other night in the House of Lords about his personal honour. He (Mr. B. Osborne) said this was gross affectation, and he would prove it. In 1846 the noble Lord broke up the Government of Sir Robert Peel.
"'I had placed before me,' he told the House of Lords, 'the choice of separating from my colleagues, or of sacrificing my own individual opinion, and what I conceive to be my own personal consistency and honour. I had to consider the course which, in my opinion, my public duty and my private honour required. I tried to school myself into the belief that, under certain circumstances, the interests of the country might require even the sacrifice of a public and personal character. My Lords,' he exalaimed, 'I could not bring myself to so humiliating a conclusion.'"
It was lamentable to see what a love of

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party would bring a man to. ["Oh, oh!"] Did hon. Gentlemen opposite want any more? Was not every man satisfied that the noble Earl at the head of the Government had done all he could to reverse Free Trade? He knew that what he was saying was disagreeable to hon. Gentlemen opposite. He did not wish to hurt the feelings of hon. Members opposite, but he must tell them that he did not sympathise with the fine sensibilities of the hon. Baronet the Member for the Tower Hamlets (Sir W. Clay). He had farmers for his constituents, and he spoke on their behalf. [Lord BURGHLEY: Bethnal-green.] This noble Lord—a Lord of the Bedchamber —who represented a snug borough, might well be proud of such a large and honest constituency as that of Bethnal-green. He would now refer to the noble Lord's (the Earl of Derby's) famous "Up-guards-and-at'em" speech: he was now gone into the Rifles. When the noble Lord had come into power, several gentlemen waited on the noble Lord to learn what he intended to do. Here was his answer. It was very important:—
"If there be any who are of opinion that I am flinching from, or hesitating in the advocacy of, those principles which I held in conjunction with my late Friend (Lord George Bentinck), I authorise you to assure one and all that those who represent that, in my case will find no hesitation, no flinching, no change of opinion. I only look for the day when it may be possible for me to use the memorable words of the Duke of Wellington, on the field of Waterloo [words, by the way, which he (Mr. B. Osborne) believed the Duke never did use], and say, 'Up, Guards, and at' em!'"
Such were the speeches of the Earl of Derby; and was there any Member so young, any Member so inexperienced in Parliamentary debates, that he would believe the statement of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that neither he nor his colleagues in the other House ever took any steps to reverse Free Trade. He would now refer to a speech made by a right hon. Gentleman of high character—the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Member for North Lincolnshire (Mr. Christopher). [Lord BURGHLEY: Hear, hear!] Ah! the noble Lord must listen: it might be disagreeable, but Lords of the Bedchamber must listen. He could well imagine that all this was very disagreeable to hear; but, perhaps, the noble Lord would answer him on his legs after he had done. Now, could anybody imagine that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North
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Lincolnshire would have gone to his constituents with this address if he had not been authorised to do so by the Earl of Derby—the address which he issued when he accepted office. Here was an address sent to him (Mr. B. Osborne) by one of the right hon. Gentleman's constituents in Lincolnshire—a constituent who had hitherto supported the right hon. Gentleman, but was now disgusted with him. The right hon. Gentleman said—
"Her Majesty having been graciously pleased to entrust to my care the Seals of the Duchy of Lancaster, I accept office under the administration of the Earl of Derby, from a conviction of his sincere desire to reverse'—[let the House mark the word 'reverse']—'to reverse that financial and commercial policy which is so injurious to native industry and capital.'"
Had he (Mr. B. Osborne) made out his case? Was the House of opinion that the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and his Colleagues, had from first to last, in season and out of season. been consistent in this one particular, their strenuous exertions and endeavours for six years to reverse the policy of Free Trade? It might be said, "Hon. Gentlemen wanted a cry; Protection was taken up, and therefore it was that all these honest men and deluded farmers were taken in." He did not know what the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer's future course would be; probably next month he would have an invasion, or something of that kind, to talk about; but there could be no doubt that the course which had been pursued on this occasion was not one which would conduce to the advancement of the great cause of public morality. They were told, however, that Protection was one of those things which were exhausted and obsolete. Was the House sure of that? Was it quite sure that the sudden conversion of these Gentlemen was sincere? He feared that it was not. He had there a very extraordinary speech, made within the last fortnight, by a Minister—a penitential Minister—the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. Christopher). The right hon. Gentleman went down to his constituents within the last fortnight—and this was very material, because it gave them the inference which was drawn by the supporters of the Government as to the course now taken by the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer. It seemed that there was a dinner given at the Angel Inn, Wainfleet. The right hon. Gentleman was present, and the account of his speech was copied from

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the Boston Herald. The right hon. Gentleman said—
"At the time when I accepted office there was a great struggle going on in the country for the maintenance of Protestant and Protectionist principles"—
Why the two were put together he (Mr. B. Osborne) could not understand, unless it was because both began with "P."
—"I trust the present constitution of Parliament is such as to leave no doubt that they will fully uphold our Protestant institutions; and with regard to the other subject—Protection—I have only emphatically to assure you that I entirely adhere to the opinions and principles I have always expressed. I can see nothing in the present aspect of affairs to alter my conviction that that which is called 'the Protectionist policy' is a true and wise policy for this nation to adopt. At the general election I stated that if the Government were unable to carry a Protective system, which would not except foreign corn—if the complexion of the new Parliament should be such as to prevent Her Majesty's Government from carrying out the principles which would raise from the foreign grower a large portion of revenue, and at the same time afford relief to the suffering class—then it would be their duty to establish such an equalisation and readjustment of the burdens of taxation as"—to do what?—"as indirectly to some extent to effect the same object."
This was on November the 13th. Here was an explanation by a Minister of the Queen's Speech—"You will have seen by Her Majesty's Speech that we" —speaking of the Ministry—"we have been compelled to adopt the latter alternative." Why, could there be a doubt in the mind of any man, after hearing that Speech, that it was a cut-and-shuffle transaction? Could there be any doubt that Her Majesty's Ministers were about to do indirectly what they had not the courage to do in the face of that House? They had seen, or at least they had got an inkling of the meaning of "unreserved adherence" to the Free-Trade policy; they had seen the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Lincolnshire confessing what that was. He believed it was an "unreserved adherence" not to Free Trade, but to their seats. But he did take exception, and he believed the House would take exception, as a matter of principle, to men carrying on the Government of this country who were opposed, in their hearts, to the principles of Free Trade. In spite of what had been said by the noble Lord the Member for Tiverton, as to the indifference of the great public out of doors, to the private opinions of Members of Parliament and of Ministers, he did take exception to the committing of any cause to the hands of men who were
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opposed to it in their hearts. What was the great theory of Parliamentary government by an Opposition, which was so frequently dilated upon, and in fact first denunciated, by the right hon. the Chancellor of the Exchequer? What was his complaint— his argument—against Sir Robert Peel? That he had no business to remain in office to advocate principles which were first advocated and maintained by the hon. Member for the West Riding (Mr. Cobden)? What was the basis of his opposition to a Bill, to which, in itself, he said, he had no objection? Why, that it was brought forward by men who, he contended, had no business to bring it forward. He (Mr. B. Osborne) now alluded to the Maynooth Bill of 1845. There was one passage in the right hon. Gentleman's speech on that occasion which was really so remarkable, that much as he had quoted, he thought it would not be unacceptable to the House. In the year 1845, Sir Robert Peel, as the House well knew, brought in his Motion— a just and wise Motion he (Mr. B. Osborne) thought it—to render the establishment of Maynooth more consonant with the feelings of the Irish people. What was the course taken on that occasion by the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who, forsooth, was now carrying out principles to which he was in his heart opposed? The Chancellor of the Exchequer, then simply Member for Buckinghamshire, said—
"I oppose this Bill on account of the manner in which it has been introduced. I oppose it also on account of the men by whom it has been brought forward, &c.; and to be told, because these men have crossed the House, and have abandoned with their former seats their former professions, these men's measures and actions are to remain unopposed, &c. You have permitted men to gain power and enter place, and then carry measures exactly the reverse of those which they professed when in opposition. I say that the Parliamentary course is for this House to have the advantage of a Government formed on distinct principles, &c, not a Parliamentary middleman, who bamboozles one party and plunders the other. Let us have no party question, but fixity of tenure. Let us dethrone this dynasty of deception by putting an end to the intolerable yoke of official despotism and Parliamentary imposture."
Now, he (Mr. B. Osborne) maintained that the man who had based his opposition on that ground had no right to hold office for one minute to carry out principles which he had stolen from other people. He must say that, since the lamented demise of that celebrated Oriental juggler, Ramo Samee—a gentleman who was equally known

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for his dexterity of hand and his great courage—a gentleman who could alike cut for himself a hand of trumps and swallow a broadsword—he had known no individual with so many ingenious devices, and such inordinate capacity of swallow, as the right hon. Gentleman, the creator of his party in that House. But, at the same time, he called upon that House not to be deluded by a great State conjuror—but in giving its vote to do what was right and just. [An Hon. MEMBER: Shame!] Yes: but no one on the other side called out "shame" when the late Sir Robert Peel was abused. They (the supporters of the Government), who acknowledged that night that Sir Robert Peel was a great and good man—a truth which all the country acknowledged out of doors—they who made that acknowledgment now did not call "shame" at the period to which he referred, but they stood by and hounded their man on, and now they cried "shame." He (Mr. B. Osborne) agreed with the noble Lord the Member for North Leicestershire (the Marquess of Granby) that something was due to the past; and when the new Members of that House were appealed to, and told to recollect their duties, he would ask them not to be behind the working and other classes in this country who had raised monuments to the late Sir Robert Peel, but to pay a tribute to his memory on that occasion, and not to hesitate for one moment in declaring by their vote that the policy of 1846 was wise and just. They need not be alarmed at the threat of resignation. That was an old threat, and sure he was, that if they did resign, the country would bow to their decision. The time had gone by when there need be any difficulty in creating a Ministry, and one use of the present one was to show how a Ministry might be improvised. The House might depend upon it, that so long as the cholera did not carry off the Government clerks, the Government would be carried on. For his own part, he had no confidence in the principles of the right hon. Gentleman or his party. He had alluded to their conduct in 1846, and probably their Protestantism might be on a par with their Protectionist principles, but he called on the House not to give their confidence to a gang of political latitudinarians who had no belief, politically speaking, save on the Treasury bench, no hope but in the perpetuity of place. He could feel no doubt as to how his vote should be given. He could not follow the noble Lord the
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Member for Tiverton in his Motion, but should give his confidene in all sincerity to the hon. Member for Wolverhampton.
MR. E. BALLsaid, that he rose under very great disadvantages, for he could not pretend to the possession of that quality of audacity, which the French authority quoted by the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down had declared essential to success— he could not, however, help subscribing to the truth of the sentiment from the example the House had been witnessing. He (Mr. Ball) felt that he had a right to trespass on the attention of the House, having attended many of the meetings to which hon. Gentlemen opposite had referred, and which it seemed to him they ought not to treat with such contumely, inasmuch as they appeared to have furnished the hon. Member, and the hon. Member for Manchester with the subject-matter of their speeches. It struck him that, having derived so much amusement from the proceedings at these meetings, they ought to refer to them in a very different spirit from that in which they did. [Laughter]. Not having anything of the ludicrous in his composition, wherewith to amuse the House, he (Mr. Ball) would proceed to address himself to the real question before them. The hon. and learned Member for Wolverhampton stated the other night when he introduced the Resolution, that "the farmers of England were not quite so quick as other persons, and that it was, therefore, very wrong for the landlords to take advantage of their ignorance." That statement he repudiated. He asserted that the farmers of England were not deficient of intelligence. Of course, he was not going to measure the intellect of the farmers with that of the legal or professional men, but, compared with their equals in society, they would not be found beneath them. If he took the orators, the historians, and general literati of the country, and compared them with those of the Continent, he had no doubt that their equals, it may be their superiors, would be found; but throughout the world —as far as the science and practice of agriculture went—the farmers of England had no superiors. The great theme of the hon. and learned Member for Wolverhampton was, that they should not have protection because it advanced the prices of all necessary commodities, and because cheapness was a desideratum, and influenced the happiness and prosperity of a country. He (Mr. Ball) disputed the assertion "that

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cheapness was a desideratum." Cheapness was no proof of national prosperity and welfare; hut, on the contrary, in proportion as things were cheap the nation was impoverished. Cheapness, as he understood the term, signified much work and little wages. If he were convinced that it would he for the benefit of the poor and the labouring classes that there should be no protection, he protested most solemnly he would not think of advocating it. But he looked on it as the duty of all Governments, and the first and most paramount duty, to protect the poor. The man who neglected the poor did that which parted society, and which finally recoiled on himself with terrible effect. He had no hesitation in declaring that, in his opinion, the man who defrauded the labourers was a shedder of blood; and consequently, if a duty on corn injured them, he would not be its advocate. The late Sir Robert Peel had been frequently referred to in the present debate; and therefore it could not be out of place to give the House an illustration of that right hon. Baronet at one period of his career, for the purpose of showing that people were not happy in proportion to cheapness. Sir Robert Peel, on one occasion, when referring to the corn laws, said—
"He had looked about over the world, and had endeavoured to ascertain the proportion in which the people of various countries consumed, in order to ascertain whether they get more for their individual consumption of the necessaries of life, where these commodities were cheap, as compared with where they were dear. He found that in Poland and Russia the consumption was about five bushels of grain to each individual per year; Germany, where corn was dearer, six bushels per head; in France, where corn was dearer than in any other country excepting England, seven bushels per head; but in England the average consumption was eight bushels per head, and nearly the whole of that consisted of wheat."
Now he should like hon. Gentlemen, instead of acting for the amusement of the House, to bring forward something that the mind could comprehend and the reason conceive. It had been stated several times in that House, that the entire community —particularly the working classes—were in favour of free trade, and that scarcely twenty persons could be found who entertained a different opinion. That he also denied, and in substantiation of his denial he hoped the House would permit him to read the Resolutions unanimously adopted at a meeting of the metropolitan trades' delegates held in London a few days since. The document and Resolutions were as follow:—
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"PROCLAMATION OF THE WORKING CLASSES OF GREAT BRITAIN.
"Free Trade v. Protection.
"Whereas a notice of Motion has been given and a Resolution placed on the journals of the House of Commons by Mr. Villiers, seeking to pledge the Legislature to an unqualified approval and a further extension of the miscalled free-trade policy, otherwise unrestricted competition; and whereas it is desirable that publicity should be given to the real and deliberate sentiments of the working classes in respect to the effects of that policy on their interests: Now, be it known that at a large meeting of the working classes convened to discuss the relative merits of free-trade and protection, the following Reeolutions were unanimously adopted, viz.—

"'1. Resolved—That the science of political economy as now taught, believed, and practised by those who advocate 'cheapness,' by means of unregulated universal competition, miscalled 'free trade,' has a most pernicious effect on the minds and actions of statesmen, is destructive of honest dealing, subversive of morality, ruinous to the national resources and character, tending to slavery, murderous in its operations of humanity, and therefore ought to be entirely abandoned.

"'2. That the principle of protection to humanity, to the products of labour, land, and capital in Great Britain and her colonies, is the true basis of political and social economy, calculated to give employment and fair remuneration for labour, profit on capital, promote the development of the national genius, energies, and resources, and thereby secure the peace, prosperity, independence, and happiness of the whole British empire.

"'3. That this meeting sympathises with all who are suffering under the miscalled 'free-trade' policy, and hails with great satisfaction the efforts now making to reverse the present system of universal competition, and the introduction of a sound practical protective policy for native industry and capital, and will cheerfully co-operate with all classes to obtain legislative enactments for its realisation.'

"These resolutions being founded upon the following address of the Metropolitan Trades' Delegates:—
"'Fellow Countrymen—As it is now admitted by all classes that labour is the source of wealth, it evidently follows that the prosperity and independence of Great Britain and her colonies will be best promoted by employing and protecting the greatest number of a healthy, industrious, intelligent, and moral population, that can be educated and comfortably maintained by their own industry; therefore it should be the first and most important duty of a wise Government to adopt such measures as will best secure employment to the entire population, and for their labour an abundance of the necessaries and comforts of life. We, therefore, fearlessly assert, that the unrestricted foreign cheap labour policy which has been for a series of years encouraged by the Legislature of the kingdom, and greatly extended by the late Parliament, is theoretically wrong, and, under the existing constitution of society, practically injurious to the working classes, by compelling them to enter into stimulated, unregulated, and hopeless competition at

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home and abroad, which is opposed to independence and happiness, dangerous to the country, and destructive to the general prosperity of the whole British people.
"'While reiterating the opinion which we formerly expressed against the present unfair system of reckless competition called free trade, from which its advocates promised so much good, especially to the working classes, but which has only proved "a mockery, a delusion, and a snare," we will not now impute blame on account of the experiment, nor do we desire to awaken in your minds angry feelings or enmity against any class of legislators or politicians; but we boldly call upon you to demand from any party that may hold the reins of office, a protective policy for native industry against unfair competition, so that you may be enabled to live by your labour, and give a rational, practical, and useful education to your children, without which the security and prosperity of the empire are impossible.'"
Now, he believed the great masses of the poorer classes who had been deluded by the question of the "big loaf" readily subscribed to that document. It really appeared to him to be not only an absurd but a cruel thing to represent cheapness as a blessing. ["Oh, oh!"] Let it be remembered that every article they ate, every beverage they drank, and every article, whether of dress or furniture, in daily use, was manufactured by the poor; and then to say that these things should be cheap, was, in his opinion, opposed to common sense. As to the reparation to be made, as well to the character of the late Sir Robert Peel as to the agricultural classes, he should say there was no man in this country who more loved to listen to Sir Robert Peel than he did, or who gave to the statements of that right hon. Baronet a more ready credence. He not alone believed in his statements, but he acted on them; and recollecting the triumphant manner in which the right hon. Baronet had defended the principle of protection in that House, he thought himself entitled to put in a claim for compensation on behalf of the agricultural classes, who had undertaken responsibilities on the faith of the laws under which they came into occupation of their holdings. Sir Robert Peel once said—
"When you tell me that corn is 60s. a quarter, I ask, Is there not a paramount necessity for maintaining the obligations of public faith? Can I shut out of my consideration altogether the operation of the malt tax, the operation of the poor-law, the operation of the county rate, and of all those bnrdens which press so heavily upon the landed interest?"
On another occasion that right hon. Baronet declared that—
"If these laws were repealed, land would be
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thrown out of cultivation to such an extent that the question would not alone be one for the landlords, but also for the farmers and even the labourers."
He (Mr. Ball) could adduce many other passages in which Sir Robert Peel had as strongly and clearly avowed his intention to maintain and uphold a protective policy. On another occasion he said—
"I do think that 8s. a quarter on corn coming from Poland will afford sufficient protection. Who pays church-rates? Who pays poor-rates? Who pays tithes? I say, not altogether, but chiefly, the landed proprietor; and if there be corn produced by land not pressed by these burdens, it would be clearly unjust to admit it on equal terms."
That right hon. Gentleman had been his (Mr. Ball's) great preceptor in political science. He had believed him to be one of the most distinguished and upright men that ever lived; but when reparation was now asked for his memory, he (Mr. Ball) would also ask for reparation for the farmers. The very faith which he had reposed in that statesman had taken many thousands of pounds out of his pocket; and when they talked of raising trophies to his name, every child of his (Mr. Ball's) would know that his position in this world had been damaged and diminished by his father's faith in Sir Robert Peel. The hon. Member for Manchester had said that he had always maintained that we should have corn cheaper than it had been before the repeal of the corn laws. Now he (Mr. Ball) denied that assertion. It had been the argument of the hon. Member, which was also sustained by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carlisle, that by taking away the protective laws of this country corn would not be made cheaper. And not only had that been the opinion of those hon. Members, but when Sir Robert Peel was asked in that House what would be the effect of the repeal of the corn laws, his answer was, "I do not enter into that subject, for I do not anticipate any diminution of price." And when the hon. Member for the West Riding was traversing the country, he had said on one occasion, "the argument of cheap bread was never mine;" and upon another occasion, "when free trade prevails, bread will be no cheaper than it is now. If the corn laws could be abolished by a secret edict, the farmers would not discover the fact by any injurious effects produced upon their interests." There was hardly anything which the free-traders had said that had not been falsified by the event; and

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scarcely a prediction that had turned out as they had anticipated. Mr. Cobden had asserted that if the unnatural corn laws were repealed, no Briton need any longer emigrate, and that emigration was created altogether by landlords and the corn laws. He had even said that those who were driven to emigrate were men condemned to transportation for the benefit of the landowners. Now, what was the result? Poverty had driven our poor by hundreds and thousands from Britain, and hundreds and hundreds of broken-hearted farmers had been condemned to a premature grave. More than that, hundreds and thousands of farmers were so hopelessly damaged and ruined by what had been done, that they could never be reinstated again. He had heard unmeasured abuse cast on the noble Earl at the head of the Government, and he had also heard some compliments passed on the right hon. Gentleman the leader in that House (the Chancellor of the Exchequer), which flattered his talents at the expense of his integrity. He (Mr. Ball) fancied that the right hon. Gentleman could not feel very much flattered by those compliments. Those compliments were not, he was satisfied, paid in sincerity, but because they believed that the best mode of fighting their battle was to create division on his (Mr. Ball's) side of the House. He (Mr. Ball) would now tell the House and his constituents what he intended to do. He never would be a party to approve of any Resolution which went to say that the happiness of the people and the prosperity of the country had been the result of free trade. He did not believe it. But he would say this, that after the country had showed itself determined to have free trade, when he saw what was the result, and what had been the response of the country, he was bound, as one of those who went there to make laws, to maintain and uphold the laws; and there was nothing more necessary for all parties to observe than that when the people of this country spoke through the majority in that House, the minority were bound in duty to submit:—and therefore he was compelled of necessity to say that he must submit. But he would not abandon the field if he were not to take with him the honours of war. He would not go out of the field if he were to be insulted as he was going; and therefore he would never accept the Resolution of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton. If the carrying of
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that Resolution should be destructive to Her Majesty's Ministry, he believed that that would be one of the most unhappy, one of the most fearful events that could befall us. This very week a gentleman who perhaps employed more hands than any man in London had said to him, "Mr. Ball, it is madness to stand out; you must give up protection principles; but I hope the consequences will not displace the Ministry; for though opposed to you in politics, I must confess that all the citizens, manufacturers, and shopkeepers of London would be distressed beyond measure at such a result, for they are the only body of gentlemen who are looked upon with any confidence." He maintained that that was true; and was he not bound, when about to give a vote which would determine the fate of the Ministry, to ask who should be their successors? Where was he to look for an answer? Was it from the hon. Member for Montrose, who, in a letter he had published, had referred to the jealousies and want of harmony which the Opposition exhibited, and who, if they were successful that night, would to-morrow diverge and separate? Notwithstanding all that had been said and written of Lord Derby, he would put it to the House, if in all classes of society everybody did not speak of that nobleman as of an upright, highminded, and honourable man? Then there was the testimony of Gentlemen opposite themselves as to the necessity of keeping the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Gentlemen opposite told them that he was the light of their party, the centre of their system, and the soul of their body. Well, then, if he were so extraordinarily clever as he was represented, what extraordinary fools they (the Ministerialists) must be to give him up. They said that Lord Derby and his Ministry had reacted the conduct of Sir Robert Peel when he threw over his party. The best proof that this was not so was, that when Sir Robert Peel sat down to ruin thousands who loved, cherished, venerated, and almost politically adored him, there were multitudes of his best friends who were obliged to violate all the kindlier feelings of human nature, and to separate themselves from him. But next look at Lord Derby. Was there one Gentleman amongst them (the Protectionists) —disappointed though they might be— grieved though they might be—lamenting as they did that they must abandon the view which they had so honestly, and as

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he believed so wisely, entertained—was there, he asked, one Gentleman among them who would cast one word of dishonour or reproach upon Lord Derby because he had been obliged to give up the contest? When the historian recorded the lives of the two men, he would say that the one statesman went down condemned and reprobated by those who had been his nearest and dearest friends; but that the other nobleman, amidst the disasters and trials, amidst the clouds and tempests that overcast his political horizon, had not one friend who abandoned him, and not one who charged him with their misfortune. They (the Protectionists) had been necessitated to surrender the principles which they had advocated— they acknowledged that they had been beaten; but he hoped that their opponents would remember that even the Indian who scalped his fallen foe did not lacerate his dead body, and that they would in their hour of triumph not forget the kindly and generous feelings which so universally distinguished the English character in such circumstances. And he said further, that if their real object was to obtain a settlement of this question, they would evince kindlier feelings and a better grace, and endeavour to win their opponents over by harmony and good fellowship, so as to have a united testimony given to their principles. Then they would better deserve their triumph by the magnanimity of their conduct; whereas, by trampling on those whom they had defeated, and by manifesting such bitterness of feeling, and pouring ridicule on those who had fought them valiantly and foot to foot, and would have beaten them if they had been able, they were only irritating the wound which they ought to seek to heal.
MR. PHILLIMOREsaid, that he should claim the indulgence of the House whilst in a very few words he stated the reasons why he should give his vote that night most decidedly in favour of the Resolution of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton. He regretted that in the speech which had just been delivered, the hon. Member for Cambridge should have been so hurried away by his feelings as to have spoken with such unnecessary disrespect of an eminent man whose memory was revered by many; and however he might differ from him as to some parts of conduct, it was scarcely generous at this moment to press with great severity on those points which might be open to ex-
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ception. It might be said of him and his party, Sint inepti, sceleris vero crimine liceat multis aliis liceat Cneio Pompeio mortuo carere. The inconsistency, moreover, of the hon. Member was most extraordinary; for what was there exceptionable in the conduct of Sir Robert Peel which was not far surpassed by that of Lord Derby and the Chancellor of the Exchequer? With regard to the Motion of the noble Lord the Member for Tiverton, every suggestion coming from such an authority in that House, ought to be received with attention; yet he (Mr. Phillimore) could not but feel that his Motion frittered away the most material and important part of the Resolution of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, and omitted the very expression upon which it was, in his opinion, the especial duty of the House to insist. If the recent commercial legislation had really increased the comforts of the industrious classes, if it had really strengthened their attachment to the Throne and the other institutions of the country, must it not necessarily follow that such a policy was wise and just? How could they grant the premises, and then refuse to admit the conclusion which inevitably followed from them? He could not but observe that throughout the Resolution of the noble Lord the words "free trade" did not occur so much as once; and he must say that he preferred the words "free trade" to those of "unrestricted competition," on which it was possible that something they did not anticipate might be hereafter founded. It was said that they had nothing to do with the former opinions or conduct of the Government; but it was forgotten that the case of the Government had been rested upon the character of those who now occupied the Treasury benches; and, without entering into any invidious or malignant discussion, he thought it a most constitutional and legitimate course to inquire what had been the principles and professions of the present Government. No principle had been better recognised by the constitution, and it had received the sanction of the highest authorities. Now, it was beyond a doubt that the Members of the present Government had for years past pursued a course of most unremitting and declared hostility to the principles of free trade; and the noble Lord at their head had but very recently asserted that his predilections for the opposite policy were unchanged. Yet they

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(the Free-trade Members) were told that they were malignant and offensive, because they hesitated to entrust the guardianship of a policy to those who all along had been its determined and most inveterate enemies. They all recollected the credit acquired by the Judge who discovered the mother of a child; but if the question had been as to its education, and it had been proved that the one claimant had cherished and supported it, while the other had repeatedly endeavoured to stifle it in its infancy, and had predicted that if ever it came to manhood it would be a scourge and pest to society, the wisdom of Solomon would not be requisite for the decision. He would not trespass any longer on the time of the House, but simply state that, as a Free-trade Parliament, he thought they ought to have an Administration irrevocably bound to adhere to and extend that great and important principle.
MR. BENTINCKapologised for rising at a time when the House was probably looking for much more able and eloquent arguments; but said, that having the honour of holding a seat in that House for the first time, and being the representative of one of the most important agricultural districts of England, he hoped that in the peculiar and somewhat anomalous state of public affairs, he should be allowed to make a few remarks. On a former occasion the hon. Member for Middlesex gave most affectionate advice to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and recommended him, in language the most classical, and in phraseology, the most courteous, "to take his physic like a man." The hon. Gentleman proceeded to animadvert on the position of the Members on that side of the House who had hitherto held Protectionist opinions, and were favourable to the present Government; and the hon. Gentleman said, that either they (on the Ministerial side) must cease to support the Government, or give their support in a shameful silence; but he (Mr. Bentinck) did not believe in the existence of any such difficulty. Credat Judæus now ego. The hon. Member for Manchester had done him the honour of referring to a speech he had delivered on the hustings, at the same time appearing to doubt the accuracy of the report of it from which he quoted. Now, after that lapse of time, he (Mr. Bentinck) was not able to say whether what he was reported to have said was strictly accurate; but he begged to tell the hon. Gentleman that whatever he
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had spoken on the hustings, be it correctly or incorrectly reported, he was ready to maintain at all times and under all circumstances. With regard to the comparative merits of Free Trade and Protection, the hon. Gentleman who made this Motion (Mr. Villiers) evidently had not derived the information with which he favoured the House from the most reliable sources. The hon. Gentleman, he was sure, was under a great misapprehension as to the present condition of the agricultural interest. He was ready to admit that there might be cases where want of industry or want of capital had formerly prevented the land being properly cultivated, and where free trade had proved a stimulant; but the hon. Member had omitted to state that free trade had pressed hardly upon those farmers who had carried the application of capital, industry, and talent to the farthest possible extent in the cultivation of the soil; and that that class was still suffering from the present financial policy. The very short experience he had had of that House taught him that the most disagreeable thing to hon. Gentlemen opposite was anything that could possibly be construed or misconstrued into ambiguity of expression. Therefore he would endeavour to avoid anything of the kind by stating that he held, as he always had, to the merits of the principles of a protective policy. He would not enter into details with regard to the principle of protection; but this he would say, that he was prepared to rest the defence of that principle and of the views which he now held, not upon any feeble arguments of his own, but upon the arguments and speeches of the late Sir Robert Peel—upon the speeches of the noble Lord the Member for London—he was content to rest their defence upon the glowing and brilliant eloquence of the right hon. Baronet the Member for Carlisle. He remembered the time when these high authorities treated as little better than lunatics the men who could gravely talk of the total repeal of the corn laws. But he should ill discharge his duty to his constituents if he limited his view of the present question to one of mere financial policy— he regarded it in a much broader light. He looked at it in two points of view— first, as to the spirit in which, and the object for which, this Motion was brought forward; and next, as to the probable effect of this Motion on the fate of the Ministry, should it be carried by a majority. In the first place, he did not be-

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lieve that it was brought forward in a fair and straightforward spirit—the object of it was not to defend a principle, but to upset an Administration. After the gracious Speech from the Throne, and the declaration of the noble Lord at the head of the Government in another place— after the clear and lucid statement made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, did any man really pretend to say that the principle of free trade was in danger? And if no one would pretend that, what, then, was the object of this Motion? He could not recognise any patriotic motive for its introduction—he saw in it nothing but the eager aspiration of expectant placemen. This, he believed, was the opinion of reflecting men throughout the country. Supposing they were successful in this Motion, and that they displaced the present Ministry, who was there to take their places? His attention was naturally called to that party which formed the late Government; but he confessed that he could not look with confidence to that quarter. After the weakness and internal dissensions which had marked their previous tenure of office, and the amputation of their ablest Member, he saw no hope of the reconstruction of the late Cabinet. Well, he next turned to the party on the other side, at the head of which stood the hon. Members for the West Riding and for Manchester. The country had been told by the hon. Member for the West Riding that he and his friends were ready to sacrifice their own private feelings for the benefit of the public, and to take upon themselves the highest offices of State. He had no doubt that, if the hon. Member for Manchester were once fairly installed in office, he would be well inclined not only to put down the haughty aristocracy, but to put down with them other higher and more revered institutions in Church and State; but he much doubted whether the people of this country were prepared to go hand in hand with the hon. Gentleman in the rapid strides he was prepared to take. He saw before him also a very small but distinguished band of able statesmen and Members who aspired to hold the reins of office; but he could not help thinking that the friends and followers of Sir Robert Peel overrated the estimation in which they were held by the public: they had lost sight of the old and truthful adage, that those who love the sin do not necessarily love the sinner. He much doubted that were those hon. Gentlemen restored
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to office they would be able to perpetuate throughout the country that spirit of subordination, of obedience to the law, of peace, tranquillity, and order, for which there was so much necessity both in this country and Ireland. So long as he sat in that House he should give his warm support to the present Government, they having accepted office at a time when, if they had declined, the country would have been thrown into the utmost difficulties.
SIR WILLIAM PAGE WOODsaid, the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down had stated, and stated most, truly, that that which appeared at all times to create the greatest disgust and indignation at that —the Opposition—side of the House, was any ambiguity in the expression of sentiment by hon. Members. It was on account of his own strong disgust at such ambiguity that he felt it impossible to avoid saying a few words—and they should be but few— which should at least indicate that he had not sat there wholly unimpressed with the extraordinary scene which took place the other night when the Chancellor of the Exchequer was delivering his address-—a scene that to him was the most surprising, since it exhibited the House sitting to listen, in a state, as it appeared to him, of the deepest humiliation at the gauge which the right hon. Gentleman had taken of their intellect, the appreciation he had made of their moral sentiments, when he could suppose that it would be tolerated in that House, in a society of Gentlemen, as the noble Lord the Member for Tiverton had properly reminded them — that he should venture to state, in the presence of so many who had been witnesses to the whole transactions of the last several years, that the line taken by the Protectionist party was one accepting free trade as an established fact, making no attempt to disturb or reverse that policy, and that that course had been pursued by them up to the time when the noble Earl at the head of Her Majesty's Government was called upon to accept office, in 1851, when, as he expressed it, that noble Earl found himself at the head of a large party who had made up their minds that that policy should not be reversed. He felt great respect for the hon. Member who had last spoken, and so distinctly disclaimed all ambiguity in the expression of his sentiments. Unfortunately he was not able very clearly to collect those sentiments; but he understood the hon. Member to advert, towards the close of his observations,

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to the state of parties in that House, and to characterise the proposition before them as one intended to produce the calamity of the secession of her Majesty's Ministers from office; and looking round the House to see what assistance could be afforded in that case to a desolate country, he referred to the small but distinguished party of the former supporters of Sir Robert Peel. Had it never occurred to the hon. Gentleman to ask himself the question, why those hon. Members had come to that—the Opposition—side of the House? Had it never occurred to the hon. Gentleman to ask himself the question, what it was that separated those hon. Members from the great party with which they were associated? They were separated from friends and supporters because they adhered to Sir Robert Peel in that policy in which the present leader of the Ministry stated it was now his determination to imitate him. There was another hon. Gentleman, the Member for Cambridgeshire (Mr. E. Ball), who had made a very manly and straightforward speech. It was a great comfort in these days to hear a straightforward speech; at the same time, he must confess he was a little puzzled with some portion of that speech also—for the hon. Gentleman told them of farmers annihilated by hundreds, of peasantry shipped off by cargoes, owing to the dreadful state of destitution in which this country was at present placed; and yet the hon. Gentleman told them, in the conclusion of his speech, that he had come to the resolution of supporting a Government which told them that they meant now to carry out heartily and honestly that very policy which had produced these disastrous results. He would not, at that late hour, enter into any examination of the hon. Gentleman's argument on the subject of protection; but, really, when they were considering how they could best express their almost universal concurrence in the principles of free trade, he thought he might leave the hon. Gentleman's whole argument on the subject of the working man and the destitution of the labourer to be answered in the next speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, because that right hon. Gentleman told them, in the Resolution he proposed, that the labourer's condition had been decidedly benefited by that policy. He would leave the right hon. Gentleman, then, to answer the invectives or complaints of his own zealous supporters; but he would observe to the hon. Member, if he did not presume too
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much in saying so, that he thought the hon. Member had not yet learned the precise line of duty which it would become one entertaining such decided opinions to follow. Surely it had not been by always bowing to majorities that great principles had made their way in this country. He (Sir W. P. Wood) belonged to a family, some members of which sat for twenty-eight years in that House. During most of that time they were in minorities; but they never bowed to a majority, and were at last successful in finding themselves in large majorities in favour of the principles which they had so steadfastly supported. If the hon. Member conceived, as he said, that the policy which his leader was now about to support was fraught with the mischiefs he described; if ruin and beggary had driven thousands of his fellow-subjects from these shores, and sent down others brokenhearted into the grave, it seemed to him that the hon. Member would be better doing his duty, as one of the farmers' friends, if he persevered in the policy he had conscientiously adopted, and were to continue to advocate and support it until he succeeded in its ultimate restoration. But what was the position they were placed in by the question before them? They had a Resolution proposed by the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, met, in the first instance, by an Amendment brought forward by the Chancellor of the Exchequer; and the conversation which took place in the early part of the evening finally eventuated in the right hon. Gentleman accepting the Resolution proposed by the noble Lord the Member for Tiverton. They had heard to-night the history of these Resolutions, and he was not sorry that the discussion of that evening had taken place. They had heard clearly and distinctly that, instead of that factious resolve which the right hon. Gentleman attributed to the supporters of the Resolution to encumber and clog in every possible way the movements of the Government, the greatest pains and caution had been taken to render the Resolution such a one as it would be reasonable and honourable for them to adopt. He could understand the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he told them that to move any Resolution at all indicated a want of confidence in Her Majesty's Government. The right hon. Gentleman certainly said—but in a very faltering and hesitating manner.—that after the declaration made by the noble Lord in another place, and that which he had himself made in that House, and after the em-

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phatic language of the Queen's Speech, it was impossible for anybody to mistake the policy of Ministers; but if so, there was no need of any Resolution at all, or, if any were proposed, the right hon. Gentleman should have treated it as one of want of confidence. But that course the right hon. Gentleman did not take; and when once he had adopted his Resolution, that ground was cut from under him, so that he was astonished that the right hon. Gentleman should attempt to treat this movement as a factious one. They had heard to-night that, by some means or other, they did not know exactly how, there was produced before the meeting in Downing-street a Resolution in certain words, and that after a determination being come to on the part of Her Majesty's Government to accept it—["No, no!"]—the Chancellor of the Exchequer said distinctly, that after that determination had been come to—and he said that he should not mind its being known at Charing-cross— to accept the Resolution, three odious words had been added, pronouncing the free-trade policy of 1846 to have been wise, just, and beneficial. He could fairly understand that there might be an impression on the right hon. Gentleman's mind, if those words were added in consequence of the Government being willing to accede to the first proposition, that this was done with a factious purpose; but they had heard to-night that those words were proposed by the noble Lord the Member for the City of London, long before the Resolution had come to the knowledge of Her Majesty's Government. But the question for them to decide to-night was, would they adopt that Resolution or the Resolution of the noble Lord the Member for Tiverton? If they had no Motion before them but the Resolution moved by the noble Lord the Member for Tiverton, or rather the original Resolution of the right hon. Baronet the Member for Carlisle, with that very essential passage in it respecting free trade being beneficial to every large interest of the community, then they might well have adopted and voted for that Resolution. But the hon. Member for Wolverhampton having first propounded his Resolution, and having thought it better to propose a Resolution in the shape he adopted, and the House being obliged to choose between the two Resolutions before it, the necessary consequence was that every one who rejected the first Resolution must be taken as recording his opinion, that the measure of 1846 had not
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been wise, just, or beneficial. They had to choose between the two, and if they chose a Resolution omiting those words, he asked if any individual in the country would have the least doubt in his mind that a Parliament assembled now for the purpose of discussing and deciding this very question, had come to a Resolution by a majority, though it might be a small one, that the measure was neither wise, just, nor beneficial? If that were the case, by adopting the Resolution of the Government, and rejecting that moved by the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, they would only be performing a solemn farce. They were called upon to express the feeling which all professed to be unanimous in entertaining, that the free-trade policy of the last few years was sound—so right and proper that it ought to be adhered to—and not merely adhered to, for the Resolution of the noble Lord went a little further than adherence—it went on to extend it, and that was not an unimportant difference. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had now, under pressure, accepted a Resolution— and it was important to remark this point of difference in the new position of the Government—pledging them not only to adhere to that policy, but to extend it; they were called upon, therefore, to declare it proper to adhere to, and even extend, the policy on which was founded that measure which the Ministers refused to admit to have been either wise, just, or beneficial. He could not conceive any course by which the House would more stultify itself than this. The only argument he had heard against the Resolution of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton was, that it would be ungentlemanly to press it on the other side. He was not willing to incur censure for un-gentlemanly conduct from any man; and least of all from the noble Lord the Member for Tiverton, whose urbanity and politeness were acknowledged, not only by every one in that House, but in his extensive communications throughout the whole world. He did not wish to have it supposed that he was taking an ungentlemanly course on the present occasion, but they could not stand bandying compliments on a serious discussion like that, when the House was met to consider a great public measure, and in some degree, owing to the line of conduct pursued by Her Majesty's Ministers, the character of public men also. He held it of the deepest importance that the Legislature of the country should maintain its high character, not only for ability,

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but for integrity, and that men high in office should hold an equally high place in the general estimation of the country. Because, when representative institutions were, as at present, in some peril throughout Europe, if that House failed for one moment to secure the respect of the country at large; if they failed to maintain their representative institutions at an elevated standard; if it was held for one moment that it was matter of indifference to them in what manner public men conducted themselves, great danger must ensue to political liberty. Was it indifferent whether they expressed themselves in clear unambiguous language, or had a policy, not only vacillating, but actually differing according as it was propounded by the different Members of the Government, who, instead of openly and frankly avowing that their convictions had undergone a change, attempted to colour and palliate that change by telling the House that no such thing as a Protectionist party had existed since 1846; that all those magnificent speeches they had heard from the other side of the House upon the subject of protected industry; that all those eulogies in the Morning Herald which saluted the right hon. Gentleman opposite in the morning, and all those paragraphs in the Standard which soothed his slumbers in the evening; that all the meetings at Drury-lane; that all the speeches made by the hon. Member for Cambridgeshire, Mr. Chowler, and others devoted to the cause, were all to go for nothing; and that the House were now to be told, "we have not changed our opinions in the least, we remain where we were, although we are about to pursue a policy opposite to every principle we ever advocated;"—he maintained that in such a state of things there was great danger to the character of public men, and to free institutions. What had, in fact, brought the Resolution before the House? It would not have been brought forward if there had been anything like a frank declaration from Her Majesty's Ministers at however late a period—even in the Speech from the Throne; but instead of that, even the statements in that document were all under the condition of an "if," the only admission being that mentioned by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who had told the House that Her Majesty had admitted that Parliament, in its wisdom, had sanctioned the free-trade policy. Certainly, the bare admission that an Act of Parliament had
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been passed did not do much credit to its authors for frankness; but if there had been such a declaration open, manly, and conclusive, instead of the miserable "if" which characterised the Speech, the Motion of his hon. and learned Friend would not have been heard of, because it would have been unnecessary for the public advantage. The Government came into power, not as they had represented it, from the falling away of the previous Ministry, but in consequence of their own act. They had up to that time been a great and united party banded together on the one point of protection; and although they had not brought forward any Motion for the reversal of the free-trade policy, because their leader was too great a master of parliamentary tactics not to know that it would be inexpedient, yet all their energies were devoted with great success to obtain such a majority in the House as would render it difficult, if not impossible, for their opponents to continue any longer to carry on the Government. They had a more dexterous mode of attaining this end than by bringing forward motions for the repeal of the free-trade measures; they endeavoured to render every Member of the Government then in-office an object of obloquy and of public censure. And they did this in a peculiar way; for if a Member of the Cabinet was in the House of Lords they attacked him in the House of Commons, and if he was a Member of that House they brought forward their Motions in the other House. Who would forget the attack on the noble Lord the Member for Tiverton, and the good policy by which it was commenced, where he had no opportunity to answer it? Who would forget the attacks on Lord Torrington, the Governor of Ceylon, or that on the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in the House of Commons; or that, only a few days before they came into office, the party now in power had threatened an attack, in the House of Commons, upon the noble Earl who then presided over the Colonial Office. Those were their weapons, and they were welcome to them; although he (Sir W. P. Wood) would certainly not have liked to have used them. Was it, however, supposed that Earl Grey, the noble Lord the Member for Tiverton, or Lord Torrington, were the real objects of attack? No; the attacks were directed against the then Government: and their object was to force them from their position, and to place their opponents on the Treasury bench, that they might then

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carry out the promises which they had made to those who had so zealously supported them. But what did they do when they entered office? We had then for the first time in the annals of statesmanship in this country a noble Lord taking high office, who would not tell the country whether he had any principles at all; while the noble Lord the Member for Sussex (the Earl of March) a prominent supporter of theirs in this House, told us that the principles of his followers were confidence in Lord Derby. He (Sir W. P. Wood) had heard of men representing principles—he had heard of Foxites, who represented the great principles of Mr. Fox; of Pittites, who represented the policy of Mr. Pitt; and of Peelites, who supported the policy of Sir Robert Peel; but he never before heard of substituting a man for a principle. A man might be the symbol of a principle, but could not be substituted for it. That, however, was done in this case; for we had no principle, but we had Lord Derby in its stead. We were simply told that the country were to have confidence in Lord Derby, and that his supporters had given him their entire confidence. He (Sir W. P. Wood) did not, however, know what part of the noble Lord's history induced them to give him this entire confidence. Was it because he was in 1832 a member of a reforming Cabinet? He did not think it could be; for he remembered that his right hon. Friend the Member for the county of Oxford (Mr. Henley) had, in a speech delivered not long since, stated that one great object of the policy of the present Government was to resist anything like a creation of now Peers, and the noble Lord was understood to have given his assent to such a measure in 1832. Again, was it the noble Earl's policy, when he entered or when he left the Cabinet of Sir Robert Peel which had gained him the confidence of his supporters? If we were to have a Veiled Prophet, we should at least have some of his oracles; but we had never heard what the noble Earl's principles were. As far as could be gathered from his declarations, they were opposed to free trade. It was only a few weeks before or after he was invited to take office in 1851 that he declared that he had never abandoned the principle of protection—that if such a notion had gone abroad it was erroneous, and that he only waited for the moment to say "Up, Guards, and at them!" Again, when he entered office in 1852, he said that although he was not
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prepared to carry out his principles to the utmost, he still held them, but that he would appeal to the country and see what it said to them. He did not say that he would reverse the policy of free trade, but that he would wait and learn from the decision of the country what his own policy was to be. He (Sir W. P. Wood) never witnessed conduct more humiliating than this for a man who had undertaken to govern a great country; it amounted to a declaration, "I have no policy of my own—I have no foresight—I do not know what to decide upon; but I am content to take the reins of Government, and to accept a policy from the constituency of England as soon as they will be kind enough to inform me of their wishes." The noble Earl had been very stout in his speeches against the democratic principle. He did not complain, nor ever should, of the noble Earl's confidence in the sentiments of the country; but he did say that it was the worst of all democratic principles not to make a distinction between the Legislature and the Executive, and not to have an Executive that should have the manliness, courage, foresight, and vigour to devise a line of policy and the determination to carry it out; or that, if the Legislature were against them, would say—not,"I make my bow to the constituency,"but—"I make my bow to office." He was shocked and ashamed when he heard of these things first. He had hoped, however, that after the time for reflection and thought which the recess had afforded, the noble Earl would have advised Her Majesty to make an explicit statement in Her gracious Speech. We had not, how-over, had the slightest avowal of any principle, but a continued misleading of the public mind by one Minister saying one thing, and another the reverse. Encouragement was given in all quarters, the result of which must be that all would be equally misled and disappointed when the result came to be known. The noble Earl's declaration about "Up, Guards, and at them!" was made to correct the impression produced by an unfortunate speech at Aylesbury, which had alarmed the protectionists; then we had last Session a statement of the advantages of the free-trade policy from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, which highly delighted every one on the Opposition side of the House, and was thoroughly understood; but then, a few days afterwards, the noble Earl made a speech at the Mansion-house in favour of a policy of

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compromise. In this way, at the elections, while speeches were made on the one hand about the readiness to bow to the decision of the country, on the other an officer of the Government, when canvassing the county of Suffolk, told the electors that the time was coming for the restoration of protection. The hon. Member for Dorsetshire (Mr. Seymer) told them the other night that there was something peculiar in the atmosphere of the House of Commons, for while there everybody professed to be in doubt, nobody in Dorsetshire had any doubt as to the policy that was to be established; but, on the other hand, they had read a protectionist speech made by the other Member for Dorsetshire (Mr. Bankes), who was connected with the Government, and he would defy any one to say that in his part of the county, at all events, the farmers of Dorsetshire could have been free from doubts. He (Sir W. P. Wood) could assure the House that the farmers of Suffolk, at all events, were not clear upon this subject; they had little doubt that they were to have protection restored, either directly or by what was called compensation. Now, that last word showed the vast importance of carrying the Resolution in the form in which it was proposed. If the House declared that a measure was wise, just, and beneficial, they could resist a claim for compensation for an act which was just and beneficial. Compensation was not, as stated by the noble Lord the Member for Tiverton, a separate question, but was one involved in the very question of free trade, and in the grounds on which alone it had proceeded. If free trade were right, it was because it was founded on just principles. It was essential to the support of free trade that the question of compensation should not be admitted, for free trade had always been advocated on the ground that it would benefit every class of the community; that it would, in fact, even benefit the farmer himself, for by teaching him not to lean on those factitious supports on which he had before depended, but to trust to his own energies, it would make him able to meet any rivals who might endeavour to supplant him. If that was so, was it right or not that this principle should be asserted? The House was compelled to do so after the back-wards-and-forwards statements of Her Majesty's Ministers, which rendered it utterly impossible to know what policy they would finally adopt. It was marvellous that when the Chancellor of the Exchequer talked of
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the "audacity" of the noble Lord the Member for the City of London, in doubting the intentions of Ministers, he did not see that it was impossible to gather from the speeches of the various Members of the Government any precise conclusion as to the view which they took on the question of free trade, and whether they thought the farmers were entitled to compensation. He (Sir W. P. Wood) said, let the House of Commons, at least, speak with a clear and definite voice. It was not becoming in that House now to speak with a faltering voice. They were the representatives of a straightforward truth-loving people. If, therefore, they hesitated to say the measure was "wise and just," and if the Government succeeded in carrying a Resolution which really meant none of those things, they would be again tampering with the people, with whom they had tampered sufficiently long already. Surely, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Oxford—who seemed inclined to favour the principle of compensation—could not now, if it were only on the ground so feelingly put forward by the noble Lord the Member for North Leicestershire, of paying a just tribute to the memory of the late Sir Robert Peel, hesitate to acknowledge that the measure was "wise, just, and beneficial." If the measure did not deserve that character, then was Sir Robert Peel open to all the odium to which he had been exposed—not, indeed, of being the arch-enemy of the human race, but—for having been the cause of public disaster, by using his great power to carry into effect a measure which was unjust. He would ask whether any man respected Sir Robert Peel the less—if, indeed, he did not respect him the more— for his frank avowal of the change his opinions had undergone on the question of the corn laws? He (Sir W. P. Wood) felt the Government had made a fatal mistake to palliate, and almost deny the change in their principles. But with respect to the House generally, he trusted they would now speak out in a manly honourable, and straightforward manner, as became the representatives of the English people, and so pronounce that to be "wise, just, and beneficial," which was now acknowledged on all hands to deserve all the three appellations.
SIR JOHN PAKINGTON: Sir, if the House will indulge me for but a very few moments, I can assure them that, at this late hour, I will not trespass upon them

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longer. I should not have asked their indulgence, even for that short space, had it not been for some of the expressions which have fallen from the hon. and learned Gentleman who has just sat down. Indeed I had no desire to address the House at all. I did not feel that I had much to say, and for this very simple reason—that it appears to me there is no question before the House. After what took place in the early part of the evening—after what was submitted by the noble Viscount the Member for Tiverton on Tuesday night—after the manner in which my Friends on this side of the House met that overture—after the explanations given by the noble Lord (Lord John Russell), and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carlisle (Sir James Graham), I certainly cannot approach this question, or discuss it, in that language and in that spirit which I should have done had I addressed the House on Tuesday evening, and before those explanations were given, and that understanding was come to. Sir, after that understanding I think this debate ought not to have proceeded. I am sorry, deeply sorry, that the hon. Member for Wolverhampton has felt it his duty to force on this discussion. I am the more sorry for it, because I have felt from the first, and I feel it now as strongly as ever, that this discussion as it stands is not creditable to the House of Commons. Sir, I am sorry that the new Parliament should commence with its first debate being addressed, not to any question of principle—not to any question of politics—not to any great measures submitted to us—these are the subjects to which Parliament generally devotes its attention in great discussions; but in the present instance the question before us concerns Resolutions which have been admitted by almost all the Members who have yet spoken to be in spirit, intention, and object, precisely the same; and I know of no good purpose to be accomplished by your discussing whether you shall on that side of the House cast more or less of vituperation and abuse upon Gentlemen on this side of the House. You profess to desire the settlement of a great principle—a principle interesting, I grant, to every man in this great community, and a principle which, I fully admit, after the circumstances of the late election, ought to be entertained and ought to be decided. But, instead of doing that, you are questioning whether you shall accompany the settlement of that principle by the insertion of
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words that are painful and unacceptable to this side of the House. Now, I think in the words used to-night by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that, even for the promotion of your own object, you could not have taken a more unwise course. You wanted the settlement of a great question, and we have met you frankly. We have no concealment. ["Hear, hear!"] I am speaking the earnest, the sincere sentiments of my heart. We acknowledge that the verdict of the country is against the principles that we have hitherto supported; and if you wanted nothing but a fair settlement of those principles, you should have taken the line indicated by the noble Lord the Member for Tiverton, and been contented with that assertion of those principles which he proposed. The noble Lord said, and said wisely and with truth, that all the country cares for, and all the country has a right to care for, is what is to be the future commercial policy of the Government, no matter in what hands that Government may be placed. That is, for the moment, a subordinate question; but if you want to raise that question, let me beg of you to do it openly. You do not profess to raise that question now. If you did, we would meet you fairly. But you say your great object is the settlement of the question, upon what principles the future commercial policy of the country is to be carried on, whatever the hands which hold the reins of Government. You ought, therefore, to have been content with the admissions and advances which have been made on this side of the House. What said my right hon. Friend the Member for Oxford University (Mr. Gladstone), on the very night of the Address in reply to the Queen's Speech? If I remember aright—but I speak entirely from memory—he said, "I do not ask you for your opinions—I do not ask you for an internal conversion. All I ask you for is that which the country has a right to demand—on what policy do you intend to proceed hereafter?" Upon that subject, then, we have fairly met you; and therefore I say there is no question now at issue, unless it be whether you shall be permitted to force upon men on this side of the House, as honourable and as sincere as yourselves, a Resolution humiliating and offensive to them. As far as my own opinion goes, I cannot accept the terms of the hon. and learned Gentleman's Resolution, which I am sorry to say appear to have been studiously introduced so as to be

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offensive to us; and let me tell you that, although I am willing to join in the opinion entertained unanimously by my Colleagues in the Government, that we must how to the decision of the country—and we do so cheerfully—yet I, for one, cannot concur in the words contained in the Resolution of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, and I cannot admit that the measure of 1846, when it was first passed, was either just or wise. It is very easy to argue from results, and to cast censure and odium upon men who find themselves in the position of being obliged to confess that, in some respects, they have been mistaken; hut I think you will admit that, upon these great questions of commercial policy, there is nothing more difficult than to, foretell with anything like accuracy what their effects will be. It was remarked to-night with great truth, that there was hardly a single prophecy indulged in on this great subject on either side of the House which has not been found to be mistaken. I remember that we, on this side of the House, prophesied that, if free trade in corn were carried into a law, the importations would have to be paid for in gold, and that the Bank would be drained. But who can deny that since that period there has been more gold in the Bank than was ever known before? I do not shrink from making that avowal. On the other hand, I remember the hon. Member for the West Riding (Mr. Cobden) prophesying what would be the price of corn, and what the effects on price of a repeal of the corn law would be—and has proved to be equally at fault. Another prophecy he indulged in was, "Don't be afraid of a repeal of the corn laws; the very freightage will act, pro tanto, as a duty on foreign corn." To what extent these prophecies, too, have been verified, we are all well aware—the ships that have brought corn to. this country have gone back in ballast. For myself, I may say that in 1846, and from that period to the present day, I have always been of opinion that it would have been a wise settlement of the question to have adopted a moderate fixed duty for the purpose of revenue as well as protection; and I was one of a very few Members in this House, who, in 1846, wished even then to bring about such an arrangement as that. But it could not be done. When, therefore, you say. that the measure of total repeal was a just and wise measure, I beg you to recollect that the noble Lord, opposite (Lord John Rus-
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sell) introduced in the Speech from the Throne several years after that measure passed, an admission of the great distress under which the farmers laboured—at all events, their distress was recognised on the occasion to which I allude. Then, again, with regard to another question of free trade, I mean the sugar duties—into which, however, I cannot enter at this late hour—nobody can dispute the enormous amount of distress that that measure has produced in our Colonies—and surely nobody can deny, with regard to the agricultural interest, that the repeal of the corn laws has been the cause of great distress. Why, within my own limited circle, I myself know of the most painful cases of men who have held up their heads for generations as respectable farmers, and who are now reduced to the position of day labourers. We treated the question, I remember, very much as a labour question; but we also treated it as a question which affected the general interests of agriculture. As a labour question, I have not the slightest hesitation in admitting that we were mistaken. I have no hesitation in admitting that the prices of provisions have fallen in a much greater ratio than wages have fallen; and that although in some agricultural districts the labourers are not so well off as in others, yet, speaking generally, the condition of the labourer is far better than it had been previously to the repeal of the corn laws. That is, undoubtedly, a most important branch of the subject, and one to which Government cannot and ought not to shut its eyes. That, as a Government, we are bound honestly to admit. But upon this very ground I must pause before I also concede that it is "just" to benefit the working classes at the expense of the interests of another class of the community. With these views, then, I think that to compel Gentlemen on this side of the House to adopt expressions at variance with their views, inconsistent with their principles, opposed to their past conduct, and grating to their feelings, is taking an unwise course, and, above all, unwise on the ground that you must recollect that even Gentlemen on the other side of the House do not all stand in the position of the hon. and learned Member for Wolverhampton. That hon. and learned Gentleman has been for years the able and consistent advocate of free trade; but. the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Oxford (Mr. Gladstone) said the other

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night, with great candour, and I honoured him for the expression, that he was in no condition to throw stones at other men for their change of opinion on this question. And what, let me ask, is the position of the right hon. Baronet opposite (Sir James Graham) on this question? And what is the position of the noble Lord the Member for London? I have been long: enough in Parliament—and it does not require a man to have been very long there—to remember the day—it was indeed only as it were the other day—that I followed the right hon. Baronet (Sir James Graham), and the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Gladstone), and other statesmen with whom I was then acting, into the lobby time after time in defence of protection. And what is the position of the noble Lord (Lord John Russell)? I am sure that the noble Lord will admit that his conversion is of very recent date. It was only in 1841 when those great struggles were taking place between my late right hon. Friend Sir Robert Peel and the noble Lord, that the noble Lord and the Liberal side of the House were advocating a fixed duty of 8s. Under these circumstances, looking at the position of the whole House and the recent date of the conversions of the most eminent statesmen in it—the recent date even of the conversion of my late right hon. Friend Sir Robert Peel, I think that all men must feel that this is not the moment for one small handful of Gentlemen, whom, however, I respect for their consistency and undoubted sincerity upon this question, to throw odium upon other men, because they have retained their principles for a rather longer period. We shall have occasion before long to discuss other questions connected with the great principles of our commercial policy; and I, for one, will never shrink from avowing—no taunts from the other side of the House will deter me for one day or one hour from confessing, frankly to the House any change which may have taken place in my views. And here, in connexion with the question of change of views—there have been allusions this evening by different Gentlemen, and among others by my noble Friend the Member for North Leicestershire (the Marquess of Granby), to the late Sir Robert Peel. My noble Friend spoke in a frank and an honourable spirit on that subject. The Members of Government have been pointedly alluded to on that subject since; and therefore I cannot and will not shrink from
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saying that no single word of disrespect to Sir Robert Peel ever has escaped or ever will escape my lips. It was my misfortune in 1846 that I could not concur with Sir Robert Peel; and in opposing him on that occasion I made a great sacrifice of both party feeling and personal feeling. I op-posed the right hon. Gentleman then; and, with whatever degree of diffidence I did so, I never shrank from voting against him when my conscience would not allow me to vote with him. But I agree with my noble Friend that a purer patriot never lived. I always received kindness and friendship from that right hon. Gentleman, and I shall always entertain feelings of kindness and friendship for his memory. The hon. and learned Gentleman opposite, the Member for Oxford (Sir W. P. Wood), used one expression to which I must advert. He spoke of the disgust with which he had heard the ambiguous language used on this side of the House, and of the manner in which it had been contended, that from 1846 till now, we had never advocated a return to the principle of protection. What we have said is this: that from that day to this we have never proposed protection to this House in connexion with land. We did not come into office last year on the question of protection. On the contrary, my noble Friend Lord Derby, in 1851, and again in 1852, when he took office, uniformly and consistently declared that the settlement of this great question must be referred to the determination of the people at a general election. There is no man more free than I am with regard to the use of such language as has been imputed to us; for I challenge any hon. Gentleman opposite—let him search Hansard as he pleases—to find that I have ever said anything inconsistent with what I now state. [An Hon. MEMBER on the Opposition side: Sugar.] I know not who it is that interrupts me; but if any hon. Member thinks I have any intention of shrinking from anything I have said, or of prevaricating in regard to any statements I have made on the subject of the sugar duties, he will find, when the proper time comes for the discussion of the question, that he is very much mistaken. I was speaking, however, upon the question of the corn laws, which we are now debating, and I say that from 1846 to the present time the language I have held, both in the country and in this House, has been uniformly the same— that, after such a great change of policy as then took place, it would be absolutely

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impossible for us to retrace our steps, unless in deference to the general voice of the country. That is the opinion I have always entertained, and which I still entertain. The hon. and learned Gentleman has alluded to my noble Friend Lord Derby in terms which I was very sorry to hear him employ. I think the expression of the hon. and learned Gentleman was, that it had been reserved for my noble Friend now at the head of Her Majesty's Government to be the first Minister who acceded to power in this country, avowing that he did so without principle. I really don't wish to say anything disrespectful of the hon. and learned Gentleman, for whom generally I entertain the utmost respect, but I can only treat such a declaration as an absurdity in itself. I deeply regretted to hear him use such language. I do not believe that any statesman ever more distinctly enunciated principles— [Derisive cheers and laughter from the Opposition, and loud cheers from the Ministerial benches.] I do not think any statesman ever enunciated principles more distinct or better defined, more worthy of his high and noble character, than my noble Friend Lord Derby did when he took the reins of office. The hon. and learned Gentleman has asked a question which I think we might rather have asked him—why has this Resolution been brought forward? I admit that is a matter I cannot understand, except upon the painful principle to which I have before adverted. The noble Member for the City of London has this evening again dwelt upon what he calls the ambiguity of the language in the Queen's Speech. I most distinctly say that I cannot concur in his opinion. I fully admit that this House had a right, after the circumstances of the last election, to know what are the intentions of the Government with regard to the great question of free-trade; and I contend that the announcement of those intentions was conveyed in the Royal Speech with as much distinctness as was consistent with the language which Ministers are in the habit of advising the Sovereign to use. I know not what language you could have more distinct, or what expression could be more intelligible, than the expression of "unrestricted competition," which was the phrase used in the Speech delivered from; the Throne. The noble Lord then spoke of the Resolution moved by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, as a supplement to the Queen's
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Speech. No, Sir, it was no supplement to the Queen's Speech; but it was a step which I think we were bound to take after the language which had been held by hon. Gentlemen opposite with regard to Her Majesty's Speech. They have complained of ambiguity; but, I must say, I am rather disposed to think they have only arrived at a foregone conclusion, and that they wished to consider the language of the Speech ambiguous. As the announcement in the Queen's Speech was not held to be sufficiently distinct, hon. Gentlemen opposite moved a Resolution declaratory of their principles; and we felt it to be our duty to move a Resolution showing that we do not desire to shrink from a plain announcement of our intentions. I must say, however, that I think there is another answer to the question why the Resolution of the hon. and learned! Gentleman opposite was proposed. I cannot help thinking that it is very much the same Resolution with which we were threatened in April last. It was not considered politic then to bring that Resolution forward; and I cannot help suspecting that it has been brought forward now in the hope that four distinct parties on the opposite side might be combined in one vote, it being very difficult; perhaps, to find any other subject on which they could be combined. It seems, further, to have been thought desirable to effect this combination before Her Majesty's Government had had the opportunity of bring their measures before Parliament. By the good spirit which has been shown, however, and by the readiness with which hon. Gentlemen opposite have subscribed to the arrangement that has been suggested, whatever schemes might have been entertained have signally failed; and I believe and hope that the country—who look not to these petty personal matters, but to the great and important question of what is to be the future policy of the Government—will have the satisfaction of seeing that future policy affirmed by an overwhelming majority, and by a Resolution free from the objectionable language and the objectionable purposes which, in my judgment, lurk in the Resolution which has been moved by the hon. and learned Member for Wolverhampton. Sincerely apologising to the House for having detained them so long, I will only express my earnest hope that the majority upon this occasion may be an overwhelming one, and that the House will not be disposed to join in a form of vote which, in my

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mind, is unworthy of those who are parties to it, and derogatory to the character of this House.
House adjourned at a quarter before One o'clock.