HL Deb 24 August 1841 vol 59 cc109-10

DISSENTIENT:—

1.Because we are adverse in principle to all restraints upon commerce. We consider that public prosperity is best promoted by leaving the national industry to flow in its natural free current; and we think that practical measures should be adopted to bring our commercial legislation back to a straight and simple course of wisdom, instead of continuing a system of artificial and injurious restriction.

2.Because we think that the great principle of leaving commerce unfettered, applies more peculiarly, and on the highest ground of justice, to the trade in those articles which constitute the sustenance of the people. The experience of a quarter of a century has proved that the Corn-laws passed subsequently to the year 1815 have neither produced the plenty, the cheapness, the steadiness of price, nor any of the other benefits anticipated by the advocates of those laws; while, on the other hand, all the evil consequences predicted at the time by those opposed to monopoly have been realised.

3.Because the practical effect of the variable scale of duties has been to introduce a system of speculative jobbing and of fictitious sales, for the purpose of raising the averages, in order to enter corn at the minimum duties. It is impossible, under this system, to ascertain whether sales are real or fictitious, and it is well known that during the last two years the averages have been raised by bringing for sale, into the principal markets of the kingdom, only the best qualities of corn, and that the inferior grain has been withheld from those markets until the high average price reduced the duties to minimum rates.

4.Because the inevitable effect of a system which prevents a regular trade in corn is to derange the course of commerce, whenever the accidents of the seasons occasion a deficiency in the harvest. The fall of the foreign exchanges and exports of bullion, consequent on a sudden demand from large quantities of corn from countries with whom our restrictive laws preclude interchange in ordinary years, have already, on more than one occasion, brought the banking institutions of the country to the verge of bankruptcy, and occasioned general commercial distress.

5.Because the prosperity of a great manu- facturing and commercial nation depends, in a great measure, upon foreign trade and access to foreign markets. The multitude of restrictions and prohibitions with which our tariff is encumbered, throw great obstacles in the way of trade, without any corresponding advantage to the revenue, and the system of excluding foreign produce has already had a most prejudicial effect in inducing those countries to encourage native manufactures, and to retaliate by corresponding restrictions upon British merchandise. In the present state of our relations with other powers, it appears impossible to persist longer in this restrictive system, without imminent danger of losing some of our best markets.

Lastly, Because we think it one of the first duties of a government to impose no unnecessary burdens upon the industrious classes. A system which excludes, or imposes high duties on foreign produce, for the sake of protecting particular interests, violates this obligation on the one hand, by impeding the free course of industry, and, on the other, by enhancing artificially the cost of subsistence.

Under present circumstances, the maintenance of this system involves, in addition to those indirect burdens, the necessity of imposing a large amount of direct taxes to make good a deficiency in the revenue, which would not exist, if all articles of consumption and merchandise were admitted into our ports at moderate duties.

For the first, second, third, and last reasons.

GOSFORD,

Forward to