selves to be brought further within the control of public opinion than to guide the judgment of the people by the mere exercise of political power ; whether, in a word, they can hope any longer to suppress popular feeling upon any question merely by majorities of this House in favour of their own interest on one side with argument and common good on the other.

For purposes of delusion, this question of the Corn Laws has been confounded with other questions on which men have differed much: with questions regarding changes in the Constitution for example. But surely there is a difference between a question of laws unsound in principle, discredited by experience and denounced by authority, and a question of measures that depend on speculation for the advantages that they promise! The only connection between such questions is that an unjust resistance to the one is the strongest recommendation for an experiment of the other.

Indeed, I am satisfied that if it were our misfortune that the peace and security of this country should now be disturbed by any popular commotion, and that such commotion were connected with the present Corn Laws, posterity regarding calmly the object and effect of these Laws, would ascribe all the blame of such disaster to those who have passed and maintained them.

We know how in this day we judge of those conflicts between power and justice recorded in our history how ready we are to side with the popular

party of the period, whether in the struggle against Privilege of 1641, or that against superstition of 1688; and how we regard the monstrous privileges of the French nobility as having justified as well as caused the Revolution in France. And yet I will venture to say that none of the oppressions in those times were more acutely felt by intelligent and patriotic men than the Corn Laws are felt by the corresponding class at present. Nor can it be expected that such feelings can be widely entertained for any length of time without the occurrence of some circumstance that will lead to their disclosure.

Commercial liberty is now as essential to the well-being of this country as civil and religious liberty have been considered to be in former times. Victories have been fought for and won in the course of each of these, and no one now dares to deny the right of the community to either. It therefore becomes every public man who seeks reform for public good, to devote all his energies to procure for his country the emancipation of its industry; and to win for its hard-working people freedom to fulfil the design of nature, by exchanging with their fellowmen in other countries the fruits of their respective labours. Thus he will afford to them individually the best prospect of adequate reward for their toil, and to the nation generally that of peace and permanent prosperity.

I now move: That the House resolve itself into a Committee of the whole House for the purpose of taking into consideration the Act 9 Geo. IV. c. 60,

relating to the importation of corn.

And I beg to

add that though I am friendly to a repeal of the Corn Laws, I have thus shaped my Motion in order that no person, unless he be a friend to these Laws, may find a pretext to abstain from supporting it.

II.'

HOUSE OF COMMONS, February 19, 1839.

At the close of 1838 the Manchester Anti-Corn-Law Association was formed. At the commencement of 1839, the distress in the country being on the increase, meetings attended by delegates from Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow and other great manufacturing towns, were held in London to consider what steps should be taken in the matter. Discontent was publicly expressed on the opening of Parliament at the omission of all reference to the Corn Laws in the Queen's Speech; and on Feb. 7 Mr. Villiers gave notice in the House of Commons of a Motion that evidence on the operation of the Corn Laws should be heard at the Bar. Lord J. Russell created a sensation by declaring that it would be his duty to oppose the Motion. On Feb. 18 Lord Brougham presented in the House of Lords several petitions against the Corn Laws, and moved that they be referred to a Committee of the whole House for the purpose of taking evidence on the matter thereof. The Motion was negatived without a division. On the following day, Feb. 19, Mr. Villiers, after presenting a number of petitions for the repeal of the Corn Laws, brought forward his Motion, That J. B. Smith, Robert Hyde Greg, and others, be heard at the Bar of this House . . . in support of the allegations of their petition presented to the House on the 15th inst. complaining of the operation of the Corn Laws.' One night only was given to the discussion, and after Sir Robert Peel had stated his belief that the repeal of the Corn Laws would be grossly unjust to the agriculturists and that he should give a decided negative to it, the Motion was rejected by 361 to 172.

IF in rising to move the Question of which I have given notice I do not apologise to the House for my incompetence for the task that has devolved upon me, I hope the House will consider that it is rather from a regard for their time than from any confidence

16 . . Mr. Villiers's speech that night was not lost. It was a statement of singular force and clearness; and the occasion was destined to great celebrity. . . . On that night he assumed his post undisputed as the head authority in the Legislature on the subject of the Corn Laws.' Martineau, History of the Peace.

in myself or want of respect to them; for I can unaffectedly assure the House that nothing would have induced me to have engaged in this task had I not been convinced by those whose interests are involved in the Question that its success depends simply on a statement of its merits, and not upon the ability or talent of any advocate.

These men have approached the House in the spirit of men of business, and I trust that the present discussion may be conducted in the spirit in which the petitioners come before it. Certainly nothing that I shall say, nothing that I shall address to the House, shall afford any one an example of a deviation from this course.

In accordance with the Notice that I have given, I have now to move that certain persons who have petitioned this House be allowed to prove the allegations of their petition at the Bar of the House. Who these persons are, what it is that they allege and are prepared to prove, and on what ground it is that they have been induced to make this application, I will as briefly and concisely as I am able now proceed to

state.

Deeply interested in the subject-matter of the petition themselves, the petitioners have been selected by their fellow-citizens and fellow-sufferers assembled at great public meetings for the purpose, to make known to this House by all legitimate means in their power the specific grievance of which they complain ; and they bring their complaint chiefly from those vast districts of industry in this country where the mass