Sitting of 11 April 1827

CORN LAWS.
Lord Kingsaid, he had a petition to present to the House, which was very numerously signed, and which came from a part of the country which was at present extremely distressed—from Oldham, in the county of Lancaster. He was afraid that this petition could not meet with attention from their lordships, as it came from the lower orders, who, he knew, were in some quarters considered not very much worth attention. The petition came from persons greatly inter-
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ested—the consumers of corn—and was to be delivered to an assembly very disinterested, and withal very enlightened. The petitioners prayed for a complete repeal of the Corn-laws, and hoped that their lordships would come to a determination to make the currency of the country a metallic one. In both those particulars he perfectly agreed with the petition. He believed that the paper system had been the cause of the distress which the country had experienced, and under which it was still suffering. There had been at one time to be found in this country, ministers so besotted, as to maintain that paper and gold, in value, were one and the same thing. They contended for transubstantiation. They said that the real presence of the gold existed in the pound-note, and to the thirty-nine articles had added that fortieth article of state faith. It was another supposition of another statesman, that if every person in the world went to bed over night and awoke in the morning, finding a guinea in his pocket, no person would be the better for it. It was, however, unfortunately the case, that the people always awoke in the morning and found nothing in their pockets, as the measures of their lordships had taken every farthing away from them. Their lordships thought that a paper system was a very good thing to keep up high prices and high taxes; but they found that high prices were not to be maintained, or high taxes to be paid, under a specie system; and the ministers, therefore, came in with a Corn-bill, which they thought would enable the landlords to pay with increased facility. The present petitioners complained of the attempt to make a privileged order in this country—an order privileged to tax the rest of the community solely for their own benefit. He did not know what to think of the folly of the nineteenth century, in which an attempt was made—when the example of the French Revolution was before the eyes of the world—to give new privileges and new rights to one certain class. The French noblesse had defended only old abuses and old rights; in this country new abuses and new rights were contended for. The French noblesse thought, and acted upon the opinion, that the lower orders were made for the sole purpose of being worked and taxed for the benefit of their betters; and the nobles and gentry of this country appeared to think, that the lower orders

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were made only to starve for their advantage. But nobles, and he was apprehensive, princes also, were rather an indocile race, and had gained but very little in point of wisdom or knowledge, from the example of the French Revolution. The only country in Europe where corn was as dear as it was in this country was the country of king Ferdinand; and it was to be presumed that he too had his Corn-laws for the purpose of keeping up prices. Ferdinand was, indeed, "every inch a King;" and if, from any pressure of circumstances, he found it necessary to alter his administration and change his government, what did he do? Why, he naturally applied to the slyest Jesuit in his dominions, the keeper of his conscience, who advised him to make a government exactly upon the same principles as the old one was formed; so that the people never gained a single step. Ferdinand, it was said, was a very frivolous-minded king, very much pleased with petticoats and uniforms. He was, what cardinal Wolsey had said of his master, "truly royal-minded." He liked to indulge in his little resentments, and the keeper of his conscience liked to indulge in his little resentments also; so that between them, the country was suffering in order to continue the same person in the office of keeper of the conscience. He should now present the petition, which prayed for Reform in Parliament, Retrenchment in all Expenses, and a total Repeal of the Corn-laws.