THE CORN-LAWS. (Hansard, 23 September 1841)

§ The Earl of Ducie

presented petitions from the Dissenters of Ebenezer Chapel, London, Wootton-under-Edge, and other places, praying a repeal of the Corn-laws. The noble Earl also presented a petition from the ministers meeting at the Conference of Ministers held at Manchester, on the subject of the Corn-laws. He begged to call the attention of their Lordships to the petition, as he looked upon it as well worthy of their consideration, not only on account of the number of signatures attached to it, upwards of 650, but that it also represented the feelings of upwards of 700 more ministers of religion who were unable to attend this conference. This large number of ministers of all religious denominations, after the most ample deliberation, had come to the conclusion that the Corn-laws were religiously wrong, because they were opposed to the letter and spirit of the Bible. The present petition was the first of a series of movements on the part 724 of the country, which would either be for good or for evil, according to the mode in which they were met by the executive Government. The petition was drawn up in much better and more forcible language than he could use; he, therefore, would read it to the House, and earnestly claimed their attention to it. The noble Earl then read the petition, as follows:— That your petitioners are ministers of the God of love and mercy, who have assembled to consider the laws which restrict the food of the people. That your petitioners, dwelling in the midst of their respective charges, and by habits of frequent and pastoral intercourse, familiar with their actual condition, and still further informed by the evidence submitted to this conference by unimpeachable witnesses; it is most unquestionable that evils the most serious are preying on the very vitals of the country, and that the labouring classes throughout the kingdom are sinking into the lowest condition of physical suffering, and pining away under a wasting destitution of the necessaries of life. That your petitioners would feel themselves most unworthy of the office they sustain, and the master they serve, were they to view such a state of things with indifference, or to allow it to become daily more and more aggravated, without directing their attention to its cause, and seeking the means of alleviation. That to your petitioners it appears obvious, beyond all doubt, that whatever other causes may have contributed to the frightful amount of misery which they deplore, the principal has been the provision laws, which make the very necessaries of life scarce and dear, and by their mischievous operation have at the same time enhanced the price of food and diminished the ability to purchase it; and that as obviously the remedy for this evil is the abrogation of the laws which produced it. That to your petitioners it is manifest that any law tending to produce a scarcity of the food necessary to sustain the life of man, or to increase its price, and so to throw difficulties in the way of procuring it, is a wrong done to society at large, and a direct and glaring violation of the will and law of the universal parent of mankind. That your petitioners are only acting in the spirit of their office, when they remind your honourable House that laws of human legislatures should be framed in strict accordance with the declared will of God, and the beneficent designs of his providence; and that all laws which contradict his will, and counteract his bounty, must of necessity be wrong in principle and injurious in their tendency; and that it is the deliberate and solemn conviction of this assembly, that this is the unrighteous character of the operation of the provision laws of this kingdom, under 725 whose baneful influence our beloved country is severed from profitable intercourse with other countries which are ready to exchange their products for our manufactures—the skill and labour of the industrious classes of our countrymen are rendered of less and less avail to their own subsistence, whilst immense numbers of them from day to day are thrown out of employment, and reduced to a state of utter destitution, or cast upon the rapidly decreasing resources of the humane and charitable, who, in their turn, are sinking down into the abject condition of paupers; and famine, disease, and death are spreading with fearful desolation throughout the length and breadth of this once prosperous and happy land. Your petitioners, therefore, convinced of the sinfulness of these laws, which violate the paramount law of God, and restrict the bounty of his providence; of their injurious operation on the domestic comforts, and the social, moral, and religious condition of the people of these realms; of the vast amount of evil they have already produced; and of the fearful rapidity with which they are driving on their injured and suffering victims to despondency or desperation, and threatening the peace and safety of the empire—implore your honourable House, as you fear that God who is the friend and avenger of the poor,—as you love that country whose interests are committed into your hands—to take into your early and most serious consideration the provision laws, and especially the Corn-laws, which have wrought this enormous amount of evil and misery, for the purpose of devising such means as to your honourable House may seem meet for their abolition. The noble Earl proceeded to say, that before he sat down he could not help expressing his deep regret that her Majesty's Ministers bad determined to postpone all inquiry into the distressed state of the country till next year. He could hardly have expected such conduct from any body of men, and he could not help saying, that it appeared to him very like heartlessness to pursue such a course, when it was known that an immense mass of the population of the country would be exposed to the want of food and fuel, in the coming winter months. According to the evidence of many medical men, it was an undoubted fact, that hundreds and hundreds, during the last year, had fallen into an untimely grave, in consequence of the operation of these laws, and he felt convinced that before they met again, thousands would have been added to those hundreds. He thought such a postponement a great responsibility for any Government to undertake, and one, which he must confess, he 726 thought would not have been undertaken by a Conservative Government. He could not help feeling that no Utile fraud had been practised on the people by the course pursued on this subject, for the noble Earl who moved the amendment to the Address, stated, that when they had a Government possessing the confidence of the Parliament and the country, it would be lime to enter on a discussion of those laws, and to engage in inquiry. This, he contended, was either a fraud on the people, or the noble Fiords opposite had not the confidence of the House. He could hardly suppose that the noble Earl intended a fraud, or that the noble Earl had no confidence in himself; or that the noble Duke had no confidence in those who were marshalled around him; or that another noble Duke, a Member of the Government, who had put himself forward very prominently as the defender of the agricultural interests, had no confidence in his Colleagues. The result, however, would almost appear that no confidence in each other was the principle of the Cabinet. Before he sat down, he would put a question to the noble Duke opposite, to which, however, he had no right to expect an answer. The noble Duke had been described as being peculiarly the farmer's friend, and it was reported that he had stated at a public dinner, a short time since, that he would not consent to any alteration whatever of the Corn-laws. Now it would satisfy the minds of farmers in many parts of the country, if the noble Duke would state whether he really said so or not.