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Committee of 1821, the Committee of 1836 and the evidence given before it, the pamphlet of " A Cumberland Landowner," Mr. Whitmore's" Letter to the Agriculturists of Salop," Mr. Tooke, Mr. M'Culloch, the evidence of statesmen, landed proprietors, theoretical writers, and farmers. Of the peculiar burthens pleaded by the landed interest, the highwayrate alone was exclusively borne by them; and that was as much an investment as any other outlay to give value to their lands, and as justly borne by them as local rates by a town. In fact, nothing but vague generalities had been brought forward to sustain the plea. The competition among farmers for land showed that they could only obtain the current rate of profit on their capital; the monopoly, therefore, did not benefit them; and the paramount interest of labourers always lies in procuring cheap food. The forced maintenance of the Corn-laws was making all men in the country politicians, and driving the middle and working classes to think that they were mis-represented. He concluded by moving" that all duties payable on the importation of corn, meal, or flour, do now cease and determine."

After several speakers had expressed their opinions for or against the amendment, Mr. T. B. Macaulay declared his intention of voting on neither side, agreeing with Mr. Villiers in wishing a total repeal of duties, but objecting to an immediate withdrawal of protection. He would omit the word "now" from the resolution. He thought Sir Robert Peel was wrong in his fundamental principle. "His principle is, that the cheapness of the necessaries of life

is not uniformly or necessarily a benefit to the people. When you suppose that a man has but 40%. a year for the support of himself, his wife, and children, it appears monstrous to argue that an outlay of 30l. for corn is not a matter in which he is deeply interested. I am now only putting the primá facie case. How is it met by the Government? Why, the right honourable Gentleman declares, against the universal sense of all ages and nations, that cheapness of food is not necessarily a benefit to a people. His argument, if I rightly understood it, was simply this there are countries where food is cheap, and the people are not so well off as the people of England; and the countries which he particularly cited were Prussia and Belgium. If the right honourable Gentleman used any other argument on this head, it escaped my attention. Now, Sir, is that argument absolutely worth anything is it even a plausible argument? If, indeed, any person were so egregiously absurd as to argue that cheapness of food is the sole cause of national prosperity, and that trade and manufactures, and a long course of successful events have nothing to do with it, I could understand the exposure of the fallacy which pointed out other countries where the necessaries of life were extremely cheap but the condition of the people not proportionably benefited. But all we have argued is, that cheapness of food is a blessing to a nation, exactly in the same sense as health is a blessing to an individual. Of course, a man in excellent bodily health may, from family afflictions and pecuniary difficulties, be on the whole worse off than the invalid; but that

does not shake the truth of the principle, that health is good for man-that the healthy man would be better off than the valetudinarian, if his circumstances were flourishing-or that the misery of the man in health would be aggravated by having the additional affliction of ill health. The right honourable Baronet's argument goes to prove that there is no such thing as a blessing vouchsafed by Providence to man. Fertility of soil even cannot, with his views, be considered a blessing to a country. Suppose he had an opportunity of making the mountains and moors of Scotland as fertile as the richest part of the vale of Taunton, he would say such a power ought not to be exercised. If you are desirous, he would argue, of your land acquiring fertility, look to India: there there are three harvests in the year, and food costs little or nothing: does the Bengal labourer enjoy half the luxuries, half the comforts, half the necessaries of the labourer of England? Certainly not. But you cannot stop here; you must show that by making food as cheap in Scotland as in Bengal, the people would be subjected to continual dearth; or that, if you were to transfer the skill and industry which supply the comforts of the Scotch to Bengal, the misery of the people of the latter country would be the consequence. The right honourable Baronet's argument consists in leaving entirely out of the question the important considerations of good government, security of property, internal order, the immense mass of our machinery, the existence of civil and religious liberty, our insular situation, our great mines of iron in the vicinity of our

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coal-mines; and, disregarding all these ingredients in a nation's prosperity, he sets up his declaration against the general sense of mankind in all ages and in all nations. Take one single point of difference-I shall not go through the others-between England and Prussia or Belgium. Reflect upon what we owe to our insular position and our maritime power. We never saw an enemy in this country; our fathers never saw It is not until we go back to '46, when some Highland clans marched to Derby and back again, that England was conscious of having a foreign enemy within her dominions. But take the case of such a country as Prussia: in the memory of men now living, fifty pitched battles have been fought within her territory, and in one province 13,000 houses have been laid in ashes. Is it to be wondered at, after such scenes, that the peasant of Prussia is not as well off as the peasant of England? or can the inferiority of his condition be converted into a proof that cheap bread is no blessing to a people? The right honourable Gentleman's induction is based on too narrow a ground. It is perfectly true that cheap corn and low wages go together in Prussia; but it is equally true, that on the banks of the Ohio food is cheaper than either in Prussia or Belgium, but wages are twice as high."

With respect to the question of independence of foreign supply, it might be logically proved to be impossible. "It is estimated that the people of this country consume annually 25,000,000 quarters of corn. It is quite certain, that even on an average year you must sow such a quantity of seed as will give you something more than

the average; and in abundant years you will produce a great deal more. It follows of necessity, from the very nature of the product and the change in the seasons, that you can never rely with certainty on bringing to market 25,000,000 of quarters; neither more nor less. If you want 25,000,000 of cotton stockings, you may order them, and machinery will supply you with neither more nor less; but if you want to have a certain fixed quantity yielded by the land, you cannot make any arrangements which will insure such an object. If corn is cheaper abroad than in England, you must export you surplus produce at the price which the corn of the surrounding countries brings in their own markets. Therefore, whatever you produce over a fixed quantity will be sold at such a loss as must prove ruinous to the English grower, and must ultimately induce him to withdraw his land from such cultivation; and experience confirms the justness of this speculation." Sir Robert Peel had admitted that we must be casually dependent on other countries; but Mr. Macaulay preferred constant to casual dependence, for constant dependence became mutual dependence. Such a country as this should be dependent on the whole world. As to war interrupting our supplies, a striking instance of the fallacy of that assumption was furnished in 1810, during the height of the Continental system, when Europe was against us, directed by a chief who sought to destroy us through our trade and commerce. In that year, 1810, there were 1,600,000 quarters of corn imported, onehalf of which came from France itself.

As for the Government scheme, it seemed to be without any definite purpose. "One object is, to prevent certain frauds in the averages; but is it clear that frauds are committed? No; the right honourable Baronet is in doubt upon the point, and says that if they are committed, he is sure the representations upon the subject are greatly exaggerated, The right honourable Baronet said, he would like to see the price of corn in this country at between 54s. and 58s.; but he gave no reason for fixing upon that price more than another; all his arguments upon that point were extremely vague. To be sure, it is a difficult thing for a statesman to say at what price any article ought to sell; but that is the reason why all wise statesmen refuse to state it; that is the reason why all wise statesmen leave the price to be settled between the buyer and the seller. Taking the right honourable Baronet's plan at his own valuation-taking it at his own statement-it is a measure which settles nothing; it is a measure which pleases nobody; it is a measure which nobody asks for, and which nobody thanks him for; it is a measure which will not extend trade; it is a measure which will not relieve distress."

Mr. J. S. Wortley vindicated Sir Robert Peel's arguments against the misrepresentation which, he said, Mr. Macaulay had given of them. He had never denied that cheap food was a blessing to the people. If the question were proposed abstractedly," Is cheap food a blessing to the people?" it would admit but of one answer. general principle, however correct, must sometimes, in application, be qualified by particular circum

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stances. The important point which the right honourable Gentleman omitted to notice, was the power of the population to whom the cheap food was offered to obtain a greater quantity of it and of other necessaries of life. No doubt, if the demand for labour exceeded the supply, the labourer would, if the price of food were reduced, be able to obtain a greater amount of the necessaries and comforts of life: but was that the case with the population of this country? If the price of food were to be at this moment reduced by the importation of foreign corn, the labouring manufacturers would derive no benefit from it-it would go into the pockets of other persons. This must be the case, and for the simple reason that at the present moment there was a great superabundance of labour.

Mr. Wakley argued, that what was called "protection to agriculture" was practically no protection to those engaged in the lower operations of that interest. He dwelt on the actual misery and destitution of the class of agricultural Could the duty on corn be any protection to him in his miserable mud hovel, or relief to his misfortunes or destitution? The agricultural labourer of England was in a most miserable condition -in a most deplorable condition. He had lately been in the West of England, and he found that the wages of the agricultural labourer in that part of the country were 6s. or 7s. a week-he had no more. They had heard the state of the workmen in the factories alluded to in that House; they had heard that they were in want of employment, and that they were in a state of destitution: now, what remedy had they proposed?

had they any remedy?—None; not a single remedy had been proposed for the alleviation of that distress and destitution under which the people of this country had for some time suffered. What had been the course of their legislation? They had reduced or taken away protection from the manufacturers; and the only objection he had to this was, that they had commenced at the wrong end; they ought to have begun with the food of the people. What was their Poor-law of 1834? By that law they said, "If you become poor and destitute, we will put you in gaol, on gaol-allowance.'" ("No, no!") It was true. Then, what did they say to them by the Corn-laws?" We won't give you the best opportunity to procure bread." That had been the course of their legislation; a course so fraught with folly and danger, that now every institution in the country was in a state of insecurity. He thus stated the demands and the feelings of the majority of his constituents of Finsbury. He had been sent to that House by a large constituency, and he was speaking in behalf of 260,000 inhabitants of the northern part of the metropolis, who had sent him there to demand justice for them in return for their allegiance to the Crown. They told him they would employ passive resistance to the course which Government proposed to adopt; they told him that they would no longer yield a passive obedience so long as the House of Commons continued to be constituted as it was. They demanded for the people the right of representation; they denied that the people were represented under the present system, and they demanded the reform of the Reform Act.

He thought they were wise in making such a demand: he hesitated not to tell them from that place, that he believed every attempt to remedy the evils complained of would be utterly useless unless they applied the axe to the tree of corruption. His belief was, that there was no remedy for the national grievances so long as the House of Commons was constituted as it was, for it did not at all represent the feelings of the mass of the community.

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Mr. Wykeham Martin, with the view of showing, in answer to Mr. Roebuck, that the landed interest was subject to peculiar burthens, instanced their liability to poorrates. Those rates did not fall equally on every description of persons. Where there was landed proprietor of 5,000l. a year, the poor-rate was levied upon every fraction he possessed; every tenant paying a poor-rate, in making a bargain with his landlord, always deducting the amount of the rate out of the landlord's share. The landlord of 5,000l. a year would have to pay 750l. poor-rates. Let them take the fundholder to the same amount, residing in a house on the largest scale the rating on his house of 3001. a year would not be more than 451. Thus the fundholder would contribute but 45., while the landholder contributed 750l. Both paid poor-rates, but the impost pressed unequally on them. The same would be found with respect to manufacturers, mortgagees, and annuitants. Let stock in trade, property in the funds, and manufactures be equally rated, and the land would be relieved of half the amount of the poor-rate now imposed upon it.

Sir Robert Peel referred to the

increased exports to which he had before alluded, not as an absolute test of corresponding prosperity, but as showing at least that the price of food in this country did not prevent us from overpowering the competition of foreign manufacturers. He then turned to the question of home and foreign consumption, borrowing his figures from Mr. Greg's recent pamphlet. He instituted a comparison of periods of four consecutive years. He showed that in the four years ending with 1836, which, by the admission of the manufacturers themselves, were distinguished by an unusual prosperity of trade, there was a less amount of imported corn than in any other. True, they were years of cheap corn at home, but then, what became of the argument that foreign corn was necessary to manufacturing prosperity? Compare the proportion of cotton goods consumed at home in those cheap years with the consumption of the four dear years ending with 1841. In the cheap years the home consumption had averaged 119,000,000 lbs. of cotton goods; in the dear years it had averaged no less than 142,000,000 lbs. There had, indeed, been a diminution in the last year, but then it must be remembered that in the year preceding, the consumption had been extraordinary and unusual, reaching to 195,000,000 lbs. Still he deeply sympathised in the distress of the labourers, and that sympathy for them was not lessened by their having burnt him in effigy. But he knew that a country circumstanced like England must be liable to partial distress, concurrent perhaps, with great manufacturing prosperity. He did not believe that machinery, in its

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