Lords Sitting of 13 May 1841

MINUTES.
Bills. Read a first time:—Exchequer Bills; Excise Collection and Management.—Read a second time:—Banking Copartnership.—Read a third time: — Court of Exchequer (Ireland).
Petitions presented. By the Earls of Stradbrooke, and Mountcashel, Lord Portman, the Marquess of Aylesbury, Lords Beaumont, Prudhoe, and other noble Lords, from Suffolk, Cork, Somersetshire, West Grinsted, Marlborough, and various other places, against any Alteration
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of the Corn-laws.—By Earl Fitzwilliam, and the Duke of Cleveland, from Cupar, Yorkshire, Halifax, Durham, and other places, for a Total Repeal of the Corn-laws.—By the Earl of Haddington, Lord Sudeley, and the Earl of Warwick, from Blandford-square, and other Districts of London, for the Extinction of the Tolls on the Bridges. —By the Duke of Sutherland, the Earls of Lovelace, and Fitzwilliam, from Barnard Castle, Surrey, and Yorkshire, for the Abolition of Church Rates.—By the Earls of Errol, and Rosebery, from Aberdeen, Fife, and Arbroath, against any change in the Banking system of Scotland.—By the Earl of Winchilsea, from Blackburn, against any further Grant to Maynooth College.—By the Earl of Errol, Lord Stratford, and the Duke of Argyle, from Cookstown, Molin, Peterhead, Ballyshannon, and other places, against Lay Patronage.

CORN-LAWS — EDUCATION.
Earl Fitzwilliampresented a large number of petitions praying for a repeal or alteration of the Corn-laws; from the weavers of Cupar, for immediate repeal; from the woollen cloth-workers of a place in Yorkshire, complaining that their goods had been driven out of many foreign markets, and were losing others, through the operation of the Corn-laws; from Halifax; from female inhabitants of the West-Riding of Yorkshire; from another place in Yorkshire, representing that it was unjust to pass a law to keep up the price of food, when it was not possible to pass a law to keep up wages; from Yeddon, and several other places.
The Earl of Warwickreminded the House, that he had presented a petition lately which had been rather closely scrutinised. He had just taken up one of the petitions presented by the noble Earl opposite—that which purported to be from certain female inhabitants of— and found that all the signatures except five had crosses attached to them. Such was the way in which these petitions were got up. Of the five signatures which were without crosses, three were of persons named Wood, in the same handwriting: and two, Mary Stockton and Elizabeth Stockton, in the same handwriting; with these exceptions, all the signatures had crosses.
Earl Fitzwilliamthought, that this petition ought not to be treated so lightly as the noble Earl had treated it. The noble Earl had had all the inestimable advantages of education, and so had the whole of their Lordships, but would it be contended, because persons in the humble station of life of the petitioners had not all these advantages, that they were therefore to be deprived of the right of expressing their opinions, and of giving vent to their feelings? Whatever the noble Earl

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might suppose, those people, although uneducated, were perfectly capable of feeling and of appreciating the operation of a law which seriously injured them Individuals in elevated stations might look down with a contemptuous eye on those poor petitioners, but he would say, that no great political wisdom was manifested in viewing with too much nicety the flaws or errors that might be found in such petitions, and making unfriendly comments on them. If the noble Earl could show, that the petitioners had no serious evil to complain of, it would be more to the purpose for him to undertake that task, than to make observations on the ignorance of those people. The noble Earl had challenged observation. ["No, no," from the Opposition Benches.] What! had not the noble Earl challenged observation by the course which he had taken? He contended that the noble Earl had challenged observation; but the fact was, that noble Lords did not like observations of this kind to be made; he knew very well that they did not; they were not very fond of hearing comments of this kind from certain quarters. If noble Lords were displeased at the ignorance of the people, why did they not join in an endeavour to get rid of that ignorance? The ignorance of the people, it should be remembered, was not their crime, but their misfortune.
The Earl of Warwickdenied that he had alleged anything against the petitioners. What he meant to say was this, that, with the exception of five names, all the rest were crosses, which he considered an unprecedented thing. He did not say, nor insinuate, that the poor ought not to be heard, or that their Lordships Were not bound to hear their complaints, and, if possible, to redress them. When he spoke of the petition, it was with reference to the manner in which it was got up. With the exception of five, there were no names to it, and how could they tell in what manner, or by whom, the crosses were affixed?
The Earl of Hardwickecongratulated the noble Earl opposite on the opportunity which he had taken to make what he would call a clap-trap speech, a flourish, a sort of pompous declamation, that would go abroad and extend the notion that the noble Earl was a very great advocate for the poorer classes. He believed, however, that there were many noble Lords who,
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though they did not stand forward so prominently as the noble Earl, and differed from him in opinion, felt as deeply as he possibly could for the situation of the poor. He had not been so long in Parliament as the noble Earl, and possibly was not so well acquainted with its usages, but he believed that it was no uncommon thing to take up a petition that was said to express the opinion of a large body of the people,— and, coming from a large body of the people, must be supposed to carry with it a certain degree of weight,—for the purpose of seeing, by an inspection of the manner in which it was prepared, what importance ought to be attached to it. It was certainly their duty to consider the sufferings of the people, to attend to their complaints, and to alleviate their distress; but while he allowed that principle in its widest extent, they surely might be permitted to judge of the degree of weight which ought to be attached to those petitions, with reference to the education of the parties from whom they came. They regretted with the noble Lord, that the persons who signed these petitions were not educated as well as their Lordships themselves. But in the course of presentation of those petitions for the last three or four nights the noble Earl had continually addressed that House with the view of bringing on a debate on incidental points of the whole subject. [Earl Fitzwilliam.—" I did not begin it."]— which might tend, as he thought, to place his case before the public in a better position; but, a great part of the noble Earl's statement was very doubtful and debateable, whilst one point of the subject, which was not doubtful or debateable, the noble Earl blinked totally, and that was, that the object he had in view was that of ultimately giving to this county a fixed duty on corn, and not a sliding duty, and the noble Earl hoped in these incidental debates to be able to convince the people that a fixed duty was not any duty at all.
Petition laid on the table.
Adjourned.