Star. — London, England, 1814-05-06 00:00:00

tating of questions in Parliament, where it mishi`be objected that the discussion might have an injurious effect on a pending negociation. On the otherhand, supposing the fact to be that it was a sine with Sweden, a measure which Norway was now preparing to resist under the pressure of famine and starvation, it would be an abandonment of duty, both to the people of Norway and the people of this country, to delay bringing the question before Parliament. Upon the whole, therctore, his present inclination was to perse vere in his intention of submitting to their Lordships a proposition upon this subject on Tuesday next ; and in justification of himself he stated, that it ap pe4red from the best authority (a note given in by the Swedish Envoy himself) that it was the fixed purpose of the fillies not to dispense upon any terms with the annexation of Norway to Sweden. SLAVE TRADE. Lord GRENVILLE rose, pursuant to the notice, which he had given, to move that an humble Ad dress be presented to his Royal Highness the Prince Regent, requesting that he would exert the high in- 1 Buenc.e •wh;ch he possessed with his illustrious and "rear Allies-to put a speedy, effectual, and final end tne Slave Trade. His Lordship, in a most elo q •Ikt -and argumentative speech, expatiated on all ''orrers and evils attending the prosecution of that ne traffic, observing with deep regret that it was still continued by Spain and Portugal, aqd by English subjects nnder the countenance of foreign &gem His Lordship read a passage from a late edict issued by the Government of Portugal in the Brazils, by which it appeared, that contrary to stipulation and agreement, that Government not only did riot endeavour to suppress the hateful trade, but were actually taking measures to increase and extend it...- He strongly urged the propriety of procuring from all the Allied Powers, an united declaration of their abhorrence of the Slave Trade, and of their resolu tion to put an effectual stop to it, even though they should be compelled to use force for that purpose. . The Address was then read by the LORD CHAN CELLOR, and ordered to be presented nemine disientiente. Their Lordships then adjourned. HOUSE OF COMMONS. Colonel ALLAN presented a petition from Berwick•or.-Tweed against any repeal of the Corn Laws. Mr. DOUGLAS postponed till Monday next the Committee uponthe Election Expence Bill. Sir FRANCIS BURDLT presented a Petition from Nicho las Hammond, nominal contractor for carpenters' work at the Barracks in Jersey, complaining of certain griesancas, and pray. log to be heard thereou at the Bar of the 1 - louse.—Ordered to lie on the Table. On the mot ion of Mr. ROSE, the Slave Trade Ships Bill went through a Continittee, and the report vest, ordered for to morrow. He also moved for the roc:pore:mem of the further considera tion of the Mad-House Regulation Bill until Wednesday next.— Granted. Lord G. 1.. COWER presented a Pe , id in from the Debtors confined in Sumfad Gaol, praying fur the Relief of the Hgpse. Mr. M. A. TAYLOR presented Petit ons from the Borough of Dysart, and several other places, aga.unt the Repeal of the Corn Laws. M. PETER GRANT presented a similar Petition from the town of liaddingran, in Scotland. Mr. LUSH INGTON brought up the Resolutions of the Com mittee upon the War Duties, with a view to the reducilun of the present per centages upon French Manufactures, which wete agreed to. The Report to be receiv. ; ts-morrow. • The IrisS Judges' Annuity Bill was lead a third time and passed. Mr. BROGDEN brought up the Report on the Sugar Draw back Duties, and obtained leave to bring in a Bill thereon, which was accordingly r.ad a lint time, and the second fixed fur Monday. On the motion of Mr. GRENFEI.L, the papers relative to the Sinking Fund were ordered to be printed. Sir THOMAS ACK I.AM presented Petitions from Stoke Devon, and ether Towns in Devonshire, against the alteration of the Corn Laws. Mr. ARBUTHN'OT postponed until this day se'unight the se-' cond reading of the East-India Shipping Bill. Accounts of the Army Expenditure from the 4th December, 1614 to that date in 1813, were laid on the Table. Mr. ROSE gave notice, that as the General Fishery Act would expire at the end of the Session, he intended to move for its continuation. — Mr. Alderman ATKINS postponed, for three weeks, the se cond reading of the Bakers' Act. • C 031.1 LAWS. a Sir H. PARNELL moved the reading of the Or der of the Day for resuming the adjourned debate on the Corn Laws. Mr. PROTHEROE appealed to the fairness and candour of the Honourable Baronet whether it was proper to bring on the subject for discussion that evening, (a subject the issue of which was neither more nor lea than to fix the price of the bread of the people of England) when the Resolutions which were to aie discussed, and which were to have been printed and delivered to Members on Tuesday, were put into their hands only on that morning. Sir H. PARNELL saw no reason whatever for de laying the discussion. The Honourable Gentleman might have had the Resoldtions yesterday, on appli cation at the Vote Office. Besides, this as not a new or dif fi cult subject, but one which had been long before the House, and which might be comprehended in all its parts with the greatest facility. He denied most positively that there was the least intention to fix the price at which the people of England should hare their bread. The debate was then resumed ; the SPEAKER read ;he Resolution on which it had commenced, and weed that the question was whether or not it should Deleferred to the consideration of a Committee of the whale House ? Mr. ROSE contended that the Report of the Com mittee on the Corn Laws was such a one as had never been proceeded on in Parliament, and that even that Report did not justify the Resolution proposed by the Honourable Baronet, namely, to allow the ex portation of corn at all times without duty or re straint. The present law restraining the exportation of corn had been in active operation for near five centuries. Surely it would not be attempted to re peal it without the most mature deliberation and the Most positive proof of its inexpediency. Such an idea bad never entered the head even of the Committee of which the Honourable Baronet had been the Chair man, and who in their Report had merely recom sounded, nat. its repeal, but its regulation. From this Report, however, it appeared that the Committee had been exclusively solicitous for the interest of the grower of corn, and ,hat the interest of the consumer bad been forgotten by them altogether. The Report abounded with errors and snis-statements. „It de. elated that the Committee. had .carefully examined the laws on the subject, when the fact was, that of Wo or LSO Acts of Parliament, upwards of 00 of which were on the Statute-book, and . above 30 of l them of great importance. they had enquired only, ~ into seven ; and with respect to one of these they had committed a most egregious blunder, for they de scribed the 'Act of the 15th.of Charles 11. chap. 7, as an Act which had contributed more to tillage and to the freedom of commerce of torn than any other Act on the Statute-book, when the fact, as stated in a Re port of the Privy Council, was directly the contrary, namely, that it was passed for the express purpose of prohibiting .that commerce. In this Report of the PriVY Council it was recommended that the law should be repealed, and repealed it was accordingly ; and yet it isad been the subject of the culogium of the Committee ! The comparative statement of the prices of corn was erroneous from beginning to end. There was a fallacy also in the reference by the Committee to the year 1765, as involving a change of system. — There had been no change till 1773. The Committee stated, however, that until 1765 this had been an ex porting country, and that since 1765 it had been an importing country. That was not the fact. The fact was, that since 1773 there had been fifteen ex porting years, live years in which the exports and im ports had been equal, and only nine years which had been crooning. The price of corn, too, the Commit tee declared had been progressively increasing from the ,period alluded to. Astonishing assertion ! The fact was that in 1794—that was in '2O years after the, change of system, corn was 15s. a quarter lower than in 1774 ! Mr. Rose then read a part of the Report,, in which the Committee on the subject of exportation, said, that it ought to be allowed when pricer were rat very high. Even here the Committee did not talk of exportation unless when prices .were not high. The next part of the which he came to, referred to the importation7fl ol otr, on which, as they were not then calleclon to discuss it, he would not say -much. He could not refrain from expressing his extreme sur prise, that the Committee should have proposed any measure so monstrous, as the total prevention of im porting flour: It was well known that the importa tion of American flour was one of .the greate't re sources of the country in cases of scarcity; yet the only cause assigned by. the Committee for stopping this, was to encourage our own millers.—(Here the Right Hon. Gentleman threw the Report from him with sucn a ludkrout expression of contempt as moved the laughter of the House.) —The Right Honourable Gentleman then proceeded to examine, and comment upon the evi dence, as quoted in the Report; particularly those parts which related to the prices of flour said to be a proper average for Ireland. One person had said that forty-two shillings a barrel was a fair ex port price,.which be (Mr. Rose) considered to be eqpal to 70s. for our quarter of corn. The price in the Papers on the Table was 841. as the proposed average, which makes a diffetence of 6s. per quarter; the English average being 98s. and t h e Irish 70s Thus the evidence of the lion. Baronet's own wit nesses went to thew the necessity of keeping the sub ject on the ground on which it now stands. Another witness, Mr. Grierson, had stated the proper price to be 50s. a barrel ; this was considerably below the Hon. Baronet's estimate ; but they all concurred in this one point, that the agriculture of the country was not so productive as it might be made. He trusted that he should be able to make himself intelligible.— But his chief object was, to impress upon the House the necessity of giving the important subject the ut most deliberation, and to be assured that they were' well informed upon it, in all its bearings. He should not go out of die way in quest of illus trations of his own opinion ;.--..but he could not re frain from quoting the words of a Gentleman, now no longer a Member of that House, who would de cidedly support him in the views be entertained. —lt was not surprising, that after that period the peculiar circumstances of the' times, and the diffi culty of getting corn front abroad, materially in creased the price. After adverting to the opinions of that zealous agriculturalist, Mr. Cornet), he (Mr. Rose) declared his own to be, that corn ought to be at such a price as to afford a fair protection to the landholder and farmer, and at the same time to en sure to the consumer a full supply upon fair and mo derate terms. To effect this some new regulations might be desirable ; but these ought to be adopted with great caution, and not until after mature deli beration. For instance, it might be 'expedient to change the present regulations as connected with the returns, which returns were made every three months, so that it sometimes happened that corn sent for by our merchants to Dantzic and Bremen and brought down to those ports from the warehouses of the corn growers in Poland, could not by possibility be brought to England within the three months. It might be advisable also to abolish the regulation restricting the importation in British ships, and to admit of its being so imported in vessels belonging to any power in amity with Great Britain. Another ample mode , of supply to this country would be from the Black Sea, into which corn was brought down by the various rivers which flowed into it. All these were fit sub , jeers for consideration, for in his opinion the diminu... tion of the price cf bread was a matter of most seri. ous interest. To what were the immense existing poor rates attributable, but to the enormous price of bread. The poor rates were certainly six—he verily believed they were not less than seven or eight mil lions; and it was well known that the allowances to paupers were regulated by the existing price of bread. A number of circumstances, not adverted to by the Committee in their Report, had increased the price of corn in this country. Among these were the increase of population (a million and a half within the last ten years), and a change in the usages of many persons who '2O ye .rs ago were satisfied with barley meal, &c. but who now consumed wheat flower. With re. spect to prices, continued the Right Hon. Gentleman —from 1787 to 179 k, the quartern loaf fluctuated from 6d. to 7d. But if the Resolutions of the Ho. nourable Baronet be adopted, it would make the price of the quartern loaf 14d. They would be therefore establishing for all time to come, in so far as de pended on Patliament, that bread should never be lower than 130.—that is double what it was before the extraordinary circumstances in which the country was placed after 1794, and which lie hoped would never occur again. They ought to take a compre. hensive view at the question. Instead, however, of doing this, the Honourable Baronet came down with a string of Resolutions, tine avowed Object of which was to raise the price of Corn, Before the House at tempted to .do- any thing, they ought to make ample inquiry into the facts necessary to be known ; and he would therefore submit the propriety of snot proceed ing farther in this matter till another CinruiLtee et the House be appointed. and of postponing the consi . &ratio% of the measure till the next Session. Sir HENRY PARNELL was glad of an oppor tunity of meeting the Right Hon. Gentleman upon all the points to which he had adverted in the course of his speech. The Committee was appointed origi nally to consider the corn trade of Ireland only, but its duties were subsequently enlarged. The Com mittee, however, certainly had no such object in view as that charged by the Right Holt. Gentleman, who had thought proper, with less penetration, or with less candour than he should have expected from him, to overlook the distinction, that althoug h it was in tended for the present to keep up the price, the ulti mate purpose was to give that encouragement to till-, age which must terminate in an augmentation of the supply. If the demand were increased, even artifi. cially, it must produce an increased supply ; and if reduced in the same way, the supply would be diffe rently but equally affected. If the. Report had been accurately. understood by the Right Hon. Gentle man, he would have seen, that no such thing as a fixed or permanent price had ever been contemplated by the Committee: they followed the principle laid down in the Act of Charles the Second—that of se curing a permanent excess of export, and a full sup k ply at a moderate price to the consumer. The price at which .that Act referred was fifty-three shillings, and under the very different circumstances of die; present time, it had been the opinion of the Commit tee, that one hundred and five shillings was a proper price to be maintained. He did not mean to say, that this was the exact or most oopedient price : he would headily acquiesce in any other that mrht be supposed by the House snore reasonable. - 'I he re straining duty was eighty-four shillings, as recom mended by the Committee : if this should appear too high, as it seemed to appear to the Newcastle Peti tioners, he hail no objection to lower it to the extent of twenty-one shillings. The Right Hon. Gentle man had said, that the price of foreign corn must raise the price of home-grown to its level.--1" No!" from Mr. Rose.]-11 the Right Hon. Gentleman had not maintained this, he must abandon his posi tion, that the resolutions in the Report must necessa rily, if carried into effect, establish a faxed and per , raiment price. It had been said, that the first of his resolutions recommended a free export upon his mere authority, and without the sanction of the Commit tee : so far, however, from being alone in his opi nion upon this subject, he knew not one individual who thought otherwise : the Right Hon. Gentleman here stood alone against a general and concurrent persuasion. The prices of 1766 it was of course lift possible to procure from the Custom-house books, and in the absunce of these the Committee had ap plied to a work acknowledged to be of the best au thority, he meant Smith's Tracts. The s) stem esta blished inopposition to that of Charles 11. began in 1765, but it was not made permanent till 1773. This circumstance had been overlooked, by the Right Han. Gentleman in his account. Before this, there had been an average excess of export for 68 years. Since this period there had been an average excess of import. The inaccuracy. mentioned was a mistake merely of one year for another, without affecting the general principle. The tables to which the Commit tee had referred, were entitled to as Much attention as the authority of the Right Hon. Gentleman. By these tables it appeared (arid their correctness and authenticity had never been impeached) that the price in the reign of Charles 11. was 335. 3d. ; from 1700 to 1765, 445. 7d. ; from 176.5 to 178 l e 6.55. ; and since that period, as high - as 883. 11d. •It was not very fair to tell the House and the Public, that it was proposed to double the price of the quartern loaf that prevailed in 1791, omitting altogether the difference in the value of money. The bullion price of corn was probably, and would be cheaper than io 1794. This was a subjecr of principle, rather than of evidence, and if it was acbdlked to be expedient to restrain importation at all, the means of doing so could not be difficult. If the prices of cora in Eng land were on a par with those in other countries, then he should not propose the adoption of any arti ficial syst •rn ; but knowing how much industry and weall'i :tad been devoted to the growing of corn, especi.,:ly within the last few years, he wished to avert the effecte that must result from suddenly per mitting the. uarestricted importation of that article. He then examined many of the arguments of Dr. Adam Smith, contending, that as circumstances had completely altered since he wrote, his positious were no longer maintainable as applicable to the present question ; and he further submitted, that the idea that the rise in the price of corn would raise the price of labour, and hence the manufacturers, was quite groundless. It was an established fact, that the price of corn followed the price of labour. It was politic in a State to render itself as independent of foreign supplies as possible, and his plan would have that operation. Mr. ROSE explained. He opposed the Motion because it went to fix a high price, when it was most important that it should be low. Mr. F. LEWIS said, that it was peculiarly the duty of the House to proceed with caution, when.the. object of their measures was to protect the interest of any particular body ; nor indeed in general should they have any' interest in view but that of the whole body of the community. In the present instance, more especially, it behoved them to proceed with caution, because, among the discontented class of manufacturers, it was a common subject of complaint, that the Members of the House of Commons being chiefly landed proprietors, had in view in the ewer. rise of their legislative duties their own priv.ite inte rests. It was not consistent with justice that any sa pifice should be made to one class of men at the ex pence of all the others; but even if that were intend ed to be done, the present proposition carried the feeds of its destruction within itself, for it WAG pro d to raise the price of cora, so the! a stimulus being afforded to the farmer it might become at last cheap. It was reasonable then to suppose that when the cause ceased the effect would cease, and then things would be brought hack to their present state. It would be difficult, however, to persuade him that the real object of the Report was the low price of corn, while in every page of it a high price was in sisted on as the only protection to agriculture.— (f/ear, hear).—This increase would not even to the agricultural interest bordiductive of permanent good, fur as the subsistence erases of labourers de pended on bread corn, lsy an increase in its price the price of the produce of Ltbuur would be piepertion- ably increased, end after a short and painfu. inrrvat to the. consumer, the farmer would be met in the market by the increase of every article o f subs istence. lard d o T iii h o e ns H iro on m . be su ee ppzt du li ced iso b p e i.. fore the Committee, after which he observed, th at the principal reasons which had been adduced in sup port of the Report, was from the price of corn pre viously to to 1753, when the bounty on the upon of corn existed. But when we considered t hat the p o. i pulation of the Island was then but sI millions and a half, and now was twelve millions and a half, it would be seen that the present system was more fa vourable to the growth of corn than that whiel for merly existed. The slender information before fist' House was another reason tor hesitation on the sub; 4ect, and the present state of the coin was such, that it was probable that six months after the conclusion of peace if the Bank then paid in gold, the quarter N il of wheat would be reduced to 545. its present bullion price, and in that event 60s. would be equivalent to the 30s. fixed in the scale recommended in the Report. The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER, complimented the ability and clearness of the last Speaker, and thought this consideration respecting the state of the coin of great weight. He observed that the present state of the exchange, which was 30 per cent. against this country, operated as a duty of (40 shillings in the quarter on corn imported. Though he did not approve of all the propositions of the Hon. Baronet (Sir H. Parnell), yet he thought that the exportation of all the produce of our agriculture should be flee and unrestrained ; not that this per. mission, as he imagined, would be much taken ad vantage of, for from our superior wealth, anotthe consequent high price of labour, we might be very well conteAt to eat bread no cheaper than our neigh. boors. The reason why he disapproved of the re sent propositions of the Han. Baronet, though he had approved of them last year, was, that the propositions themselves were changed, and possessed all the evils of the present system, which was only prevented from • being mischievous by being inoperative. According to the second Resolution, by a slight variation in the price of Corn, there would be a duty of 20s. in the quarter imposed on Corn imported, on which the im porter could not calculate, and which would render his speculation ruinous. A graduated scale of duty would not be open to this objection; and an Amend ment to this effect would be proposed by an Hoe, Friend of his. He should, therefore, support the motion for a Committee, in which, when the House had decided on the first Resolution, and the A,mend ment to the second, he should propose an adjourn ment of the discussion. Sir J. NEWPORT, in allusion to what had fallen from a former speaker (Mr. F. Lewis), expressed his sense of the impropriety of any Member of the House being induced to deviate from the line which his con science pointed out, by any fear of being misrepre sented—(Hear.) Any one who was thus operated 03 by external pressure, was unworthy of a seat in the House—( Hear, hear.) Mr. F. LEWIS explained. He had not sapposed such a character belonged to them, burmerely stated. that it had come to his knowledge such an idea bad, in some instances, gone abroad. Sir W. DOUGLAS supported the motion, and the Report of the Committee. He observed, that the opinion that the high price of corn raised the price of manufactures was erroneous, for in the years of scar city, manufactured articles had been cheaper ; for in years of plenty, the workmen, by one day's work, could provide for their subsistence for several days, which they devoted to debauchery and idlenesi. It was essential to the prosperity of our agriculture, that foreign interference should be cut off. At present we were dependent for corn on foreign powers, who might replenish their exhaus.:ed treasures at our ex pence, and make the supply of corn a powerful pei*- tical engine to controul us. Lord A. HAMILTON opposed the motion, and observed, that the arguments of the supporters of the Report were contradictory, because their object was stated to be to remunerate the farmers by a high price, while they boasted that the effect of their measures w..uld be to lower it. Sir M. RIPLEY opposed the Resolutions, not merely from a consideration of the injury they would do to the landed interest, but likewise from the in jury they were calculated to Inflict on the commer cial interest, which was intimately connected with the landed. Sir N. COLTHURST supported the Resolutions and said, that in every part of the country from which he came, there existed a deep impression of the ne cessity of amending the present state of the corn Laws. Sir H. PARNELL explained, when the Gallery was cleared for a division ; but the division did not take place, and when we returned the House had ree solved itself into a Committee. The first Resolution was then put and carried : " Chat the exportation of Corn, Grain, Meal, ace. from any are tithe United Kingdom should he permitted et time., onnuut the payment of any ditty, and without receiviog any bu..nty whatever." Upon the second Resolution. " That the several duties now payable in raped to all Corn, Grain, Meal, an/ Flour, imported into the United Kingdom, should cease and determine ; and that cenain duties, spec.:ied in au annexed schedule, should be paid in lieu thereof," Mr. HUSKISSON rose to move an Amendment, which he prefaced by pointing out the injurious effects that were now, and had been produced, by the ope. ration of the Corn Laws as they at present stood.— Every great State ought to have two objects in view: the first, to make itself independent of any other coun try for a supply of corn ; the second, to maintain, if possible, a steady unitermity of price. He agreed with the Hon. Gentleman (Mr. F. Lewis) that the prohibition of importation, and the plentiful supply of corn in the country, though co-existent, were not necessarily cause and effect of each other. But if they looked back to the last sixty years, and fund this country daily getting still more aild more dependent on other countries for a supply of corn, and the fluc tuations of price great in the extreme—if they saw these things, it must be admitted there were grounds for supposing there might be something defective in the present system, and that it is at least proper to inquire, if the existing laws were wise and salutary It he proved, that before the present syste.t, was adop ted, we had not only a full supply of corn, but that its fluctuations of price were small (not exceeding one third) —if this were proved, under a system di rectly opposed to the present, why then he made out .1 181;Ina ficie case.that that which had been aban. in • b, tl b U 1g I • . 3 1 11.4 c. 2 I