The Sun. — London, England, 1839-03-15 00:00:00

N • Governor 01 ate of 'Maine , car, hear.) Int a queltio!l he thought It in their places ). to the stat e ' he fog ration . to 1 , 11 , i1 ; lement ' )N 13 1141 ' ,ended to PO. er the Easte4 'V. lBAal'T. .0, debate h ° F,TP\TINC4- PI,DTTION. 1 out of the pockets of free party to put into the pockets of another.—( Hear.) He knew that under protecting laws and a prohibitory system wrear establishments had grown Up in the country and he did not wish to do that hastily which would injure them, Red throw impediments in the way of trade.—( Hear, hear.) When they saw that the price of this commodity entered into the value of every article, he considered it incumbent on the House to con sider whether the price of corn might not., in a great de gree, affect the dTreeiation of manufactures, and whether a timely change in the Corn-laws might not remove some of the grievances at present pressing on our manufactures.. Ilia impres s i on was, that it was an entire mist a k e t o sup pose that an alteration in the Corn-laws (he did not mean a sudden alteration, such as might be calculated to excite the alarm of the agriculturists), would have all the dire effects which the farmers feared. On the other hand, if any law were to pass, saying that from and after the Ist of August next all corn should be imported free into this country, such a measure would be calculated to produce injury and misery. In 1825, when Mr. Huskisson had it in contemplation to bring in a Bill for the importation of foreign copper ore, he ( Sir Hussey Vivian) then repre senting the borough of Cornwall, entreated the Right lien. Gentleman not to bring in such a Bill, because the effect of it would be to ruin the produce of copper mines in this country. Such a Bill was brought in, and in 1825 not a single ounce of foreign copper ore was brought here ; but ever after that large quantities were im ported and the value of it had risen ever since. The same affect had been produced in every other instance in which an extens i on of trade had taken place. The point was always urged that the quantity of grain grown here was always limited by the quantity of foreign grain imported, but that was a fallacy, and every year proved that the greater the importation the greater the consumption here. It was the supply that was brought to the market that always increased consumption. That Principle was verified every day. In proof of this the House had only to look to the effect of railroads. He sup posed there was no place on earth that was less in neces sity of an increase of locomotion than England, and yet since the introduction of railroads here the number of pas sengers had been increased fourfold.—(Hear, hear.) So that he argued that if foreign corn were admitted in any quantity it would not injure the home grower, but increase the consumption and the prosperity of the country. There was another point that was constantly referred to, and which had been alluded to by a Noble Friend of his last night; that Noble Lord stat e d th a t t h e ma nufactures o f this country were about 150,000.000, of which about 100,000,000 were consume d b y t h e age icul- Hear, h ear .) H e a d m i tte d t h at the agricul .....( icul was the best customer, but he was not the only cus tomer; , --a' ; and if the two were shut up together by a sea, toaa could not support each other. He thought there was I very great objection to the present law, because the eff..ct of that was which ought not to be to fix a maximum on every man's prisperty. One effect was of the present l aws, that the moment the price rose to a certain amount, foreign corn was, thrown in in large quantities, so that in reference to the freedom of trade, it was, in point of fact, a disadvantage to the e rower. He adverted to an ex tract from a letter that appeared in the public prints froin an advocate of the present Corn-laws, and he objected to the present laws on the very ground th at was were out in that letter, namely, on th e groun d that they were equally prejudicial to the agriculturist and Ito the consumer. He did not think that a hasty or sweep ing change would do good, but he thought all attempts to Tel reg u l ate prices objectionable. He had no peculi a r inte t in this quest ion, but he was anxious to take the :honest opinion of the house, and he had no doubt that the interests of the agriculturist and those of the manufacturer '''ere so dove -tailed and bound together, that the one 'could not be benefitted and the other injured. Believing, al P °l the whole, the present Corn-laws to be prejudicial he should certainly feel bound to support the motion. ‘. Mr. EMERSON TENNENT said that as no Irish 'neither had yet risen he felt bound to address some observations on this question, particularly as the ankject affected Ireland. With regard to the question the most obvious and inevitable effect of abolishing the protection against forei g n c om p e titi on i n gra i n, i n d ee d t h e effect which was proposed and anticipated was the dirni tnitien of the receipts of the farmer and landed proprietor. NiW, howe ver unsuited the condition of the agricultural duet hna, hives morally impossible to regard its effects on the agriculture of Ireland otherwise than with an anticipa ttrion of utter ruin. There could be no question that with tt.uhreseonfeouragement which it had enjoyed from the protec tion of Great Britain for the last thirty years, the agricul- Ireland had prodigiously improved, and would still this incipient to make rapid advances. But, notwithstanding , I 8 incipient amelioration, it was notorious that the state 0,,L agriculture in that country was still the most backward, ti me most depressed, and the least remunerative of any nas "of Europe. And whether we regarded the state of agricu l tural scien ce , t h e deficiency of capital, or the low rate of wages an d of prices, it was impossible to come to any other result. Now, what was the state of agriculture in Ireland, as compared to England ? The ! u mber of cultivated acres in Great Britain, according to tables laid before the emigration Committee of 1827, f4unireceatreclaim a a ." l "nted to 34,014,000 acres, and with about 240,000 Great Britain 1,055,902 made a total of 34,254,000 arable and pas present under cultivation. For these there were in , ,05 5,902 agricultural labourers, raising an annual produce to the valu of 150,000,000/. In Ireland, aeluilttilvieatLthnerl4h,ar‘d, we had the total amount of lands under 605 ,000 tilled by no less than 1,131,715 agriculturists, (exclusive of 95,339 occupiers of land,) tur n employing, labourers, producing an annual re- T hes ° l bb.ut 36,000,000/. lies of hear, hear.) but , w ilst the agricultural families of England formed te _ one-fourth of the population, those of Ireland were in "° proportion of at least two-thirds of the entire ; and evrpheilnst Ireland afforded nee labourers for every two employed ' gram the same quantity of land in Great Britain, so back a.h. , W are the sci ence and practice even of that art on rich I " they were dependent, that although occupying a s et tr • and more productive soil, the Irish b fa ar r from the same extent of surfacethe e m ly er one ul -foutth hlst h A nd Produce which it yielded to his English competitor. of , to descend te minute particulars, t e wages the 7 , 4:i 1 labourer in England varied from 10s. to 12s• week those of the Irish labourer would scarce ave rage Bs. er ea. ; a nd when deductions were made for Urienaployed time, owing to competition, festivals, and other causes seldom averaged more than 25. 6d. to 3s. for the Year round. And no better proof could be given of the Poverty of this class, than the fact that even the ems Ployer--the occupier of the soil himself —as a general rule, was, in Ireland, too poor to consume the better kinds of his own produce. Potatoes or oat• meal, and not wheat, were the staple commodity at the table of nine -tenths, he might say of nineteen out of every twenty, of the Irish farmers. And singular as the matter was, it was no less true, that whilst the agitation of this question in England, where wheat was generally consumed by the labouring classes, might have the object at least, if not the effect, of redu c i ng t h e price of the ordinary article of food in Ireland, it would have totally the opposite result, inasmuch as the higher th e va l ue of wheat, the more oatmeal' and potatoes would t h e f armer be enabled to consumein ex change for it, and the greater amount would it power to expend w i t h the manufacturer be in his in order to en• able him also to enjoy the same indulgence. Diminish the Price of corn, and they at once decreased the comforts of thefarmer, and the rec e ipt s o f the retailer arid tradesm an . .With a bran c h o f nat i onal industry thus reduced as it was lit Ireland, to the lowest possible ebb, compatible with the engagements of the lessee, and the positive existence of s th ta e ry la a b tin o e urer— w ith a ca lli ng attenuated actually to the point, what further experiments in the way of reduction was it possible to attempt with safety, much less a o t. carry into effect ? And the desperate nature of the th e would be the more apparent, when in addition to which fluctuating engagements of the farmer—those outgoings ii it was in her power to incur or to curtail, as his in '2',9le. permitted. They calculated the permanent burthens 7 ..c : ti l .h . , no matter what might be the value of the produce, 7, Id she be leviable off the surface of the earth, such as __PLlccevrt charge, now secured by the best title in the em , n lieu of tithes —the county cess every year increasing sta'it),e. existence of the Stipendary Magistracy and Con dabir e r r Y, and that which promised to be the most formi -I,,eviabl!, t i t i li e e r rate for tho support of the poor now /rat, iable only from the occupiers of land in go ". 'Wi th an interest so critically poised, and already heavily loaded, he did hope that the Legislature . would p i f ( ttis l el before they ventured upon any immature experiments. . if tae rparromteecrt ieofnhaeglaairngis 12os instant competitionaawaith t , foreign corn were withdrawn, and !va Manifestly matter o e f en c t o i u e r e s l e it , al wa g s re b w ro e u r g , h i t t one branch inuYinil indebted for a advantages she at present enjoyed to this markets of England—to what must be vantages d e ,namely, that .st e s ucedas her rest over-population natio nalwhich i s a r d e: e of . the cost of labou; ' and production to the very lowest Point compatible with animal life—( Hear, hear)—it was utterly • equ a l Y e na possible that she should long maintain the un- A. ee ontest with countries, the low price of whose shepro _:liieharote from the . possession of the very advantages of . ch e , ip was de steute_countries in which labour, though (e rte .' was not redundant, and which, with a soil equal in supers that of Ireland, possessed a climate infinitely tai xpd ,' It was impossible that Ireland, with her heavily th e - „, ',and, and heavily taxed commodities, should hold by n 'e e rl s t .. ite ‘ t for any length of time against rivals repressed . it an e such restrictions, and who, if not at a less, at least Gr eat r'lly low, cost of production, could transmit to th e main grain of a quality superior to that agri l",ist climate, the uncertain seasons, and the imperfect ,‘. cuitural sci Ape result of !rice of Ireland, enabled_ her to raise. of /rel..,j this experiment must be to the disadvantage tam e 0 "", and in the present imperfectly reniunerative to an n .Ogriculture, to reduce its profits in any degree was was the "ae it. It had even been felt that as agriculture an y Main employment and resource of the Irish people, t h r Poirean eat • improvement designed for . them must . come e ati Qa tt gh the medium of improving it—( Hear, hear) — now must be equally clear to destroy it (A hich the course eeous__roposed would inevitably lead to) must be simulta tligieursain to them. He had already stated that the pro tbirt, fears in Irish agriculture during the last N e i' 0 : 1 ,°, 1 11 had arisen from the protection and encourage try of the"reat Britain, and considering that no other coun proeeee_e;vorld afforded a market for her produce, the im after tioi pausing be attributable to no other cause. Even Yea r jae .? , sing of the Legislative Union, and up till the r eetie °die the Irish grain trade had been placed upon the ben J j o_f a coloni a l tra d e, sad was discouraged by a /lum en / et meolc restraints, all o f w hi c h were removed by - .. e passed in that y ear , th e 44 t h G eo. 111., c. 109, twhile'tnweestablished a n a b so l ute l y free trade in corn between become countries, and from that hour forward Ireland had 'ra nee 1 ° llngland w h at Si c il y was to Rome, a public %as 'Y and stock-far m . I n every succerding year the in h4 i f e of her exports had been immense, and Ireland, w hi c h , .„ e xtent c nury iv 6. -, ,imported annually Engli s h corn to the Britain ea ,, a million s t er li ng , now exported to Great anti p er ' agric u l tural produce to the value of 12,000,000 f. e Tha exp orts o f gra i n f rom I reland to this i:,ltatr a : v ty aro Years t; in the year of the Union, in 1600, 3,238 qrs. after, when the new law was passed, it was_. In 1805 306,924 qrs. In 1810 In 1820 _ In 1830 In 1836 an increase in one article of ccmmerce between two coun tries such as the annals of commerce could possibly parallel And the most convincing proof of the effect which this supply from Ireland had had. in relieving us from a de pendency for food upon foreign States was afforded by the decreasing importation from other countries in each year since 1806. In the five years from 1800 to 1805 the average imports of foreign wheat into England was 686.560 quarters; 1805 to 1810, 715,336 quarters; 1810 to 1820, 459,578 quarters ; 1820 to 1830, 534,992 quarters ; 1830 to 1835, 398,509 quarters. And the fact of this decrease in importation from 686,560 qrs. to one-half the amount was the more striking when it was remembered that the population of Great Britain had increased from 10,942,646 in 1801 to 16,539,818 in 1831. And on this point, on the probable influence of Irish agriculture in liberating us from any dependence upon Continental States, he ( Mr. E. T.) could not quote a more popular authority than that of one who was himself an opponent of the existing Corn laws, Mr. AP Culloch, in whose Dictior ary of Commerce occurred the following passage, to which he ( Mr. E. T.) would beg to call the attention of the House.—(Hear.) " Previous to 1806, when a perfectly free corn-trade was, for the first time established between Great Britain and Ireland, the yearly imports did not amount to 400,000 quarters, whereas they now (1832) amount to 2,400,000. Any one who has ever been in Ireland, or is aware of the wretched state of agriculture there, and of the amazing fer tility of the soil, must be satisfied that a very slight im provement would occasion an extraordinary increase in the imports from that country; and it is believed by those best qualified to form an opinion on such a subject, that the set tlement of the Catholic question, and the disfranchisement of the forty-shilling freeholders, by promoting the public tranquillity, and taking away one of the principal induce ments to the pernicious practice of splitting farms, has, in this respect already had great influence, and that it will eventually lead to the most material improvements. Hence it is by no means improbable, that the growing imports from Ireland may, at no distant period, reduce our prices to the level of those of the Continent, and even render us an occasionally exporting country."—( Hear.) But it was not in the article of gain alone that our agri cultural interest in Ireland had benefited by the Union with Great Britain. Every species of agricultural produce had received an equal encouragement—exhibited an equal increase. \Vit'nout fatiguing the Ilousa with sta tistical details and arrays of figures, which were always tedious and uninteresting, he ( Mr. E. T.) would go no farther blck than to compare the exports to England o agricultural articles, exclusive of grain, in the year 1835 with the same trade in 1825. We exported to England In 1825. In 1835. Oxen and black cattle .. 63,524 head 98,150 Sheep Pigs Butter 474,161.cwt. 827,009 Flax and tow And the increased amount of our agricultural exports to , Great Britain in 1835, over those of ten years before, was no less a sum than 2,850,450/ —( Hear, hear, hoar.) Nor was this all—the advantages we had reaped, were not confined to the raw produce of our lands alone, but the same impetus had been communicated to all those branches of manufacture which were connected with or dependant upon laud, and of which Ireland fifty years ago, might be said to be utterly destitute. He (Mr. E. T.) referred to the trade which had recently sprung up in grinding flour and other grain, in malting, brewing, distilling,_ and every other process dependent upon ag r i cu lt ure . Now, to take one of these departments. Solate as 1792, there was but one considerable flour mill in the entire of the north of Ireland, and till within a very recent period, the mills of Bristol and of Liverpool, enjoy cd a complete monopoly of the trade in converting Irish wheat into flour. The pro cess was performed now at home. The aspect of affairs was widely altered, and there was scarcely a county of im portance in Ireland which was not abundantly supplied with extensive mills. Antrim, Down, Monaghan, and Tyrone, were amply provided for, and some of these esta blishments, such as those on the estate of Lord Calcdon, in the county of Armagh, and of Mr. Alexander, in the county of Carlow, were not surpassed in the empire, either in the extent of their operations, or the excellence of their machinery.—( Hear, hear.) Almost every mill likewise in Ireland, combined the aid of steam with water-power, thus, not only evincing an advance in the science, but showing evidence of a steady, as well as an increasing market, when it was thus necessary toprovide for the summer as well as the winter demand. The number of registered flour mills in Ireland in 1835 was 1,882, and they were still rapidly increasing ; and these exports to Great Britain of wheat-meal, flour, and oat-meal, which was, in 1825, 599,124 cwt., had risen in 1835 to 984,480 cwt., being an increase in ten years of 1,390,000 cwt. Closely connected with this was the process of malting and brewing, and the export .of the latter, which was comparatively of recent date, was not the least sur prising feature in the case of such trading prosperity. In 1825 the export of malt liquor from Ireland to this coun try was almost unknown; it had grown up entirely within the last few years, and in 1835 the quantity landed in Great Britain amounted to no less than 2,686,688 gallons. Distillation, the manufacture of starch, and every other produce for converting the raw produce of the land into articles of commerce, seemed to have felt the same impe tus, and to have advanced in an equal ratio with the march of agriculture itself—nor was it possible to contemplate without alarm and dismay the possibility of a change of policy on the part of the country which could have the effect of throwing them back, without feeling. that the confusion, the ruin, and the destitution which must eusne would be infinitely worse than their original nothingness and poverty.—( Cries of " Hear, hear.") He (Mr. E, Teanent) was prepared to be met here by the same argument by which the protective system had been assailed in England, and to be told, that admitting the prosperity of those manufactures which shared in the fa vour and protection shown to agriculture, that this was no argument as regarded other branches which were not dependent on it, but which was represented as oppressed and depressed by the protections afforded to it. So far from suffering any depression, these manufactures were in Ireland participators of the general prosperity, and advanc ing pari passe with their common patron and parent the agriculture of Ireland. Indeed, when we contemplated the enormous proportion of manufacturing produce con sumed by the home market alone, there was no difficulty in perceiving that the prosperity of Irish manufactures must of necessity rise and fall with agricultural elevation or depression. He would not fatigue the House with mi nute details upon this branc h of the subject, which would necessarily participate of the uninviting character of all statistical statements. The silk trade of Ireland had not for years been so flourishing as at present, and her wool- I:nmandaetur manufacture ,thougha , 0 n le of the m essesied in apparent extent, was stated by mr. \ iin intelligent capi. talists in Ireland, to be on a sounder basis, and in a healthier position than it had been since 1 823, when the duties on woollen goods imported from England into Ireland ceased. Besides any apparent diminuti o n in the woollens during this space was amply accounted home mfao tbevaetthuereimo! mense increase of imports of Englis h cloths. ' P his amounted in 1825 to 3,384,918 yam, Is and in 1835 to 7 , 834,000 . I n the same manner the manufacture of cottons had not been increas ing in amount in Ireland, but that this did not arise from any national depression was attested by the enormous increase in the cotton exports from England during the same space. There were exported in 1825, 4,996,88 is yards, and in 1835, 1.1,17. 1 ,000. Another circumstance also, which accounted for the apparent diminution of manufacturing labour in cottons in Ireland, was the fact that the difference had been transferred to the new and more profitable manufacture of linen and linen yarns. The trade in the latter article, now one of our most valuable exports to the Continent., having entirely sprung up within the last eight or ten years. In addition to 9 cotton-mills of about 350-horse power, they had in Belfast, at this moment, and within a few miles of it. no less than 23 linen mills, work ing 120,000 spindles, every one of which had been erected or converted from a cotton to a linen mill within the last seven or eight years, and within the last three they had originated for themselves an export trade of their produce to France which, if not prohibited by the imposition of duties by that country, pro mised to become one of the most valuable branches of British com merce. But he (Mr. E. Tennent) was prepared to be met by another and a different species of argument, which had before now been repeatedly urged, that all this agricultural encourage ment accorded to Ireland was a positive pecuniary loss to Great Britain. and that whilst the labour market was over stocked by Irish immigration her produce was reduced in:value in the mar ket by Irish competition, and that it would be more desirable that the Irish labourer should stay at home to consume the pro duce he raised, and thus leave remunerating prices to the Eng lish farmer. Nothing could be more fallacious than this argu ment, and before proceeding to an easy proof that the real state of the case was diamotricalry the reverse of that advanced, he would beg the attention of the House to a very brief extract from the third Report of the Commissioners of Poor-law In quiry in Ireland:— " Those who complain of the introduction of Irish produce into England should be informed, too, that it takes no money from England ; that part of it goes to pay the rents of Irish absentee landlords; and that the rest is exchanged for English manufactures ; that if it did not go into England, English ma nufactures would not go into Ireland ; and that there would not be one penny more than at present applicable to the purchase of the agricultural produce of Great Britain. In proportion as the quantity of Irish produce sent into England was reduced, the quantity of English manufactures sent into Ireland must be re duced, and the English manufacturer's means of purchasing any agricultural produce must contract accordingly. The price, therefore, would not rise, for the quantity consumed would di minish, and the effect would be to throw the English labourer who works for the Irish market, and the Irish who works for the English, both out of employment, to the destruction of them, the injuries of their employers, and the general deterio ration of the interest of both countries. All this may be shown, not merely by general reasoning, but by an appeal to facts. As the import of Irish produce into England has increased, so has the import of English manufactures into Ireland." Now he (Mr. Emerson Tennent) had appealed to facts, the evidence of which most amply attested and bore out the ac curacy of the assertion, and it would be found in every instance that precisely as Irish exports to England had increased in amount, precisely in the same proportion had a market been opened and a demand created for English manufactures in Ire land. He would earnestly beg the attention of the House for one moment to this part of the subject. The value of Irish exports to Great Britain, and of exports from Great Britain to Ireland from 1801 to 1825 inclusive, was as follows : Exports Exports To Great Britain From Great Britain In 1801 3,270,350/. 3,537,725/. 1305 ...... 4,067,717/. 4,288,167/. 1809 ...... 5,316,557/. 4,588,305/. 1813 6,7 46,353/. ....•• 5,410,326/. 1817 4,722,766/. •••••• 5,696,613/. 1821 5,333,838/. 7,117,452/. 1825 7,045,936/. 8,531,3551. In 1835 Ireland exported to Great Britain agricultural pro duce to the amount of 12,083,558/., and took back in return of British and Colonial produce no less an amount than 10,918,459/. 4s. 4d. Some items in that amount marked also the increasing prosperity of Ireland; for instance, she im ported in 1825 1835 Coals Coffee 335,9211b5. Tea 3,889,6581b5. ... 4,794,316 Now when they heard this question argued, as it had always been in that House and beyond it, almost exclusively on the grounds of diminished demand for British manufactures, surely those who subscribed to that argument in the abstract would think seriously of the result, before they proceeded to impoverish a market which annually consumed no less than ten millions of their manufactures, or ratlicr more than one-tenth of her entire exports to all pa s rts of the world. And as Ireland, before her participation in the protection of the Corn-laws, was too poor THE SUN, LONDON, FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 183 g. to be an importing country, so her re-impoverization by the withdrawal of the protection must replace her, as regarded the manufactures of England, in the same position which she occupied previous to her original destitution.—(Hear, hear, hear.) But leaving aside the narrow-minded view of the question, and looking at tit- interests of Ireland apart, from those of Great Britain, (if indeed it were possible to re gard the interest of one integral portion of the Empire apart from the remainder)—but consi&ring it solely on the ground so ' often admitted, that Irish prosperity was the best guarantee for British tranquillity—(Hear, hear)—it ♦vas impossible to ob serve without satisfaction, the effect which the encouragement of agriculture had litd during the last thirty years upon every department of the internal economy of Ireland. The demand for her produce had naturally given an impetus at once to the improvement of her inland navigation, and other modes of communication • and to her Channel shipping employed between her ports and those of England. So lately as 1816 Ireland had not a single steam-vessel. Steam-vessels. Tons. In 1317 she had 1 of 63 1825 3 198 1830 31 5,490 1816 71 13,460 and this irrespective of the enormous tonnage in steam belonging to England and to Scotland, and chiefly oc cupied in the Irish Channel trade. To capital thus vested, and to enterprize of this kind the abolition of the Corn-laws would be absolute destruction.—( Hear, hear.) As t• the internal communication of Ireland, although her railroad were yet only in contemplation, the anxiety with which t!:ey hare been projected was at least evidence of the confidence of the country in Bee means •f traffic by which they were to be ultimately supported. But her canals, which for so great a length of time were regarded as exploded speculations, seemed to have received, from the increase of her agricultural produc tion, a revival and encouragement which promised shortly to render them sources of private as well as national wealth. On the grand canal, which communicated between Dublin and the Shannon, there were c3rried in Flour. Grain. Meal. Malt. Cattle. 1822.... 9,805 tons 14,347 tons 2,075 2,967 - 10 18.36.... 28,378 22 , 255 4,533 4,862 1,912 The same result seemed likely to attend on the enterprise of opening up the navigation of the Shannon ; thus providing a market in Great 13rii_ain for produce •f the rich but hitherto neglected country t-rough which that magnificent river flowed. The boats of the Inland Navigation Company carried on the Shannon, in 1826.... 2,004 tons of agricultural produce. 4'330. 11,027 1836.... 47,28 fl And Limerick, which had by this undertaking become the central depot for the export of Irish produce to England, had experienced in trade and exports a corre sponding increase during the same brief period.—( Hear. ) Not only would the repeal of the Corn-laws have the instant effect of checking all further improvement in those means for the advancement of Ireland, which were already in existence— not only would it repress all attempts at investment or enter prise in steam shipping in the Channel, in canals and still water navigation—:n opening up rivers, and in extending railroads, but it would effectually prevent all further progress in that speculation which has ever been looked forward to as one of the most instant and permanent remedies for over population, and all the evils which flowed from it in Ireland, namely, the re claiming of the bogs and uncultivated lands which abounded in the provinces of Connaught and of Munster. By the calcula tion of Mr. Griffiths, for the Poor-law Commissioners, it ap peared that there were 14,603,000 acres at present under cul tivation, and 5,340,000 more which were more or less suscep tible of it, and which year by year, as the demand for agricul tural produce increased, were gradually yielding to the plough. This huge and unexplored resource must of course be for ever locked up, should Parliament declare for the future that the Continent, and not Irelend, was to have the supply of England's increasing demands. And if the fourteen and a half million acres which were at present but imperfectly tilled, afforded a support, such as it was, to a population of 7,767,400, it would not be much to expect that the five millions yet to be reclaimed, if they did not snpply an equal resource for a proportionate amount of additional population, would at least contribute, by affording a fresh location for the superabundant labour of the present day, to augment the comforts of the present inhabitants whilst it added to the general wealth and production of the nation. The prospect of such a result must be for ever abandoned, once the stimulus and the means for its accomplishment were withdrawn by the abolition of the Corn-laws. Even the im provements of our present Irish backward and imperfect state of agricultural science must be despaired ef. Further outlay on the land would become impossible; draining, fencing, and reclamation would be suspended; nor would there be a possibility of getting rid of the half human hovels which now dis graced, and the still less human habits which were peculiar to them, by the abandoned hope of seeing the introduction of a better class of farm-b iildings than those which now encum bered the earth in Ireland.—( Hear, hear.) Nor would the mis chief end with the destruction of the market for grain and white crops in Ireland. 'The abolitionists declared as one of their principles, that the effect of tlle Corn-laws in England had been to bring into cultivation for corn cold and secondary soils, which would have been better left for pasture, but which, as a more remun e r a ti ve crop , h a d b een ploughed for tillage. They traced as one of the causes of the increased price of grain the increased cost of raising it off these ungenial soils— and they proposed that the effect of the repeal should be to return them again to pasture as before.--( Hear, hear. ) With out debating that point, he asked in such an event what was to become of the demand for the live stock and provisions now loading in every steamer which crosses the Irish Channel for Scotland, Liverpool, or Bristol?—( Hear, hear.) Of course the demand for these would cease along with the market for her corn, when England was driven to supply herself with live stock from her own pastures, and to import her corn from the Baltic and the Continent of Europe. In fact it were impossi ble to conceive that department of the national resources of Ire land, which would not be paralysed and impeded by the measure. Even that long:vexed, and, as he hoped, now finally settled ques tion, the adjustment of Irish Tithes, must be instantly re-opened, on the passing of such a Bill. The present composition for tithes in Ireland was originally calculated on the corn averages of the years preceding its introduction, and on the security that such a standard would not be superseded by subsequent legislation. Could the occupier of the land, with diminished prices and a closing market, afford to perform his contract with the Clergy under the existing law ?—(Hear, hear.) The thing would be impossible ; especially when we con ceived (if we could conceive) the immense masses of agricul tural labourers who wouLi he driven from the soil to seek em ployment amongst the manufacturing population of the towns, and who, after swamping and destroying them, would fall back upon the last resource—the poor-rates of the district, which were to be levied compulsorily off the already over burthened, impoverished farmer.--( Hear, hear.) And again, looking to the landlords themselves and their liabilities—what, if they diminished the income from the land, was to become of the annuitants, the mortgagees, and trustees, to settle ments which, on the faith of a permanent security, had been effected upon the landed interests of Ireland ?—( Hear.) These to the last shilling must be discharged, though the diminution of the occupier's income should not leave another shilling in his pos session ? And what, he should wish to know,in such an event,would become of the provincial importer, the small retailer, and the tradesman of Ireland, -.hose very existence was dependant upon the home consumption of the landed interest and resident proprietary ? What was to be the effect upon property itself in the towns of Ireland, where wharfs and stores, and offices and dwellings. now derived their value and demand from the traffic between the coast and the interior ?—( Hear, hear.) Would a reduction in the price of foreign grain, and a readier supply from a distant market, recompense England for the ruin of an integral portion of her own dominions? Or were we Quite sure that having destroyed our supply at home, we should always find a Continental substitute, in quantity as plentiful, and on terms as moderate? Were we quite certain that our Continen tal neighbours, emulous as they were of becoming manufactu rers like ourselves, might net one day attain their object, and of course, diminishing their agricultural as they multiplied their manufacturing power, raise the price of that grain which was to be for the common supply of themselves and us, to a pitch that we might no longer be able to afford to purchase at.—( Hear, hear.) And on what resource are we to fall back, when our own granary was destroyed at home? Again, would the people of the Continent, in return for our free admission of their grain, consent to admit the entry of British produce without a pro hibitory duty? Would they agree to a free trade in everything else as well as in corn ? Or rather, would they not, as the United States had already done, permit us to take their raw produce ; but when we returned it to them in the state of British manufacture, raise it only with such a duty as would be an exclusion in any country in which labour was moderately cheap? He ( Mr. E. Torment) had to apologise to the House for the length at which he had entered into these details—( Cheers) — but feeling as he did that the question, whatever might be its importance in England, was one of life and death in Ireland, he could not reconcile it with his duty to give a silent vote upon it. We should remember that in this matter we were not dealing with a colony or a conquered province, but with an in timate and important portion of the British empire, and whilst corn was as much a staple in Ireland as timber was to Canada, or sugar to the Indies, he could not reconcile it either to policy or to justice, that Ireland should be postponed to either of those colonies, withholding from her the same protection which was accorded to them, and to which she had if not a paramount, at least an equal claim.—(Cheers. ) Sir HENRY PARNELL gave great credit to the Hon. Member for Belfast for the talent and research displayed in his speech—but he thought he might be permitted to say that the most of his facts did not bear precisely on the main question. He thought Ireland would have nothing like so much to appre hend from a repeal of the Corn-laws as the Hon. Member would have the Hou e believe. Tinder tiny circumstances, Ireland, by her proximity to Liverpool, and other of our own ports, would have an advantage of at least ss. a quarter over the foreign produce, in sending corn to England. The average price of corn in this country had been falling since the Act of 1815. During the first six years it had been 31. 155., during the next ten years 3/., during the last six years 21. 10s. a quarter. But putting that even against this moderate price, the cost at which foreign corn could be landed on our shores, it would be found that the landed interest could' not possibly be effected to such an injurious eitent by a repeal of the existing laws as they had beed led to suppose. He would refer to the same high au thority quoted by the Hon. Member for Belfast (Mr. loch) to show that taking an average of nine years' wheat. could not be exported from Dantzic to England at less than 445. or 455. a quarter. From liamburgh it might arrive at 365., but the quality would be much inferior to that of Dantzic wheat. From Odessa it might be lower still—but then the quality would be still worse. He thought that wheat from Poland, shipped from .Dantzie, could not, affording allowance for carting, freight, damage, &c. reach England under 50s. aquarter. He found by reference to Mr. M'Culloch's work on this sub ject, that the utmost possible quantity of corn that could be ex pected to be exported to this country from Dantzic, did not ex ceed (as we understood the Hon. Baronet to say) 30,000 quar ters, that the utmost that could be expected from Odessa did not exceed 40 ',OOO quarters a-year, that in fact the utmost possible importation of corn that could take place into this coun try, did not exceed 700,000 quarters annually, and considering what was the consumption of corn in this country, this quantity would produce very little effect in the way of injuring the landed interest. On the last •ccasiori on which the United States in consequence of a scarcity, had to import cern, the price of foreign corn in that country in bond amounted to 70s. ; therefore the charge would be reduced little or nothing, which he believed would be the state of the case, and that the landed proprietors, and the home producers of corn, would sustain little injury by the admission of foreign cern into our ports. He would now remark on one curious charge which had taken place under the operations of the existing Corn-laws. He alluded to the great reductions which had taken place in the price of the home produce. He would ask how this circumstance could be explained. The averageprice of corn under the operation of the laws had been gradually reduced from 31. 15s. a quarter, to 50s. a quarter. This could only be ac counted for by the great increase which had taxen place in the production of corn in this country ; and this increase had taken place in the face of a great increase of the population. This must be swing to the great improvement which had taken place in cultivation. Was it reasonable to suppose we should stop where we were ? Great improvements would yet take place in England. And in Ireland, which now sent 3,000,000 quarters to th , s country, the system of alternate crops had not been in troduced. When that improvement took place, Ireland would export treble the quantity—( Hear, hear)—and he had no doubt that if the Scotch method of hnsbandry were introduced into England, there would be an immense increase on the present production of the soil. There was reason also to suppose that the effect of the new law for the commutation of tithes would also produce a considerable addition to the produce of the soil. Therefore the mischief the agriculturists ap prehended from a repeal of the Corn-laws would be reduced to nothing in consequence of the increased production of the soil. He was not inclined to impute to the Corn-laws all the evils which had been imputed to them. In fact, in 1814 he had advocated a protective duty because he had bell ved its effect would be to increase the investment of capital in land, and that an increased investment of capital in land would pro duce the same effect which it had done in manufactures, a di munition in price. The Hon. Member here quoted from his speech on this subject in 1814, in proof of this assertion. His object, therefore, had always been to produce a diminution in price. Taking this question as affecting the country at large, no doubt a great evil had resulted from the Corn-laws, in wasting the capital of the country. If, instead of sending cot ton goods to Poland to the amount of 1,0001., and getting corn in exchange, goods to the amount of 1,500 i. were required to purchase the same quantity of corn of the home producer, here was a clear waste of the capital of the country to the amount of 500/. by forcing inferior soils into cultivation. Another evil of these laws was the forcing the price higher than it would be. Now the proper object of commercial legislation should be to diminish the cost of production so as to enable every con sumer to purchase at the lowest possible rate, and no commer cial system was worthy of support that did not effect this obct. All these evils originated in the .Corn-laws, and how were the people at large compensated for this exclusive evil, the fact was these laws benefited the landed interest ex clusively, no other class derived benefit from them but the landlords ; and it was a great error to say either that farmers or labourers were benefited by them. With regard to the ques- . ton of taxation, which pressed OR the landed interest, it was a fallacy to say that the general taxation of the country raised the price of corn mere than any other produce. In order to justify the imposition of a countervailing, duty, it was neces sary that they should show that some tax pressed directly upon the production of core. Now the Land-tax, which had been mentioned, fell upon rent and not upon corn; the tithes also fell upon rent, and did not increase the price of the production of corn. The Poor -rates certainly partially fell upon corn, but the greater part of them did not do so. In 1b33 no less than three millions fell upon public buildings, mills, and facto ries, and a great. portion o i the Poor-rates fell in .fact upon the rent. The Road-rates, he would admit, fell upon corn ; but if they were minutely examined, so as to ascertain what would be the proper degree of taxation to impose upon the impor tation of foreign corn, it would .be found that these rates did not amount to more than four or five millions ; and if this were equally divided upon the whole value ofthe corn produced in this country, it would not amount to more than Is. or 2s. per quarter. The mere he examined this subject the more he was convinced of the correctness of the views be entertained of it. Gentle men opposite entertained very erroneous views on this subject. If they considered what was best for the prosperity of the country, they would not adhere . to the present system. The present system of the Corn-laws wasted the capital of the country; the prosperity of the country depended upon its wealth, and its wealth depended upon the facilities possessed by the capital of the country for its augmentation. He should, there fore, eppose the continuance of the present system.—( Hear.) Lord MAIDSTONE protested against this system of porta naciously bringing this question before the House. He hoped Hon. _Members would say all they had to say on this subject during the present debate, and if the question were proposed again, it would be disposed of by a silent vote ; but he had thought that a majority of 200 had decided this question last Session, but in consequence of a temporary rise in the price of corn, it was again brought forward.—(Hear.) In the House those laws had been discussed philosophically, but out of the House it had been denominated the Bread-tax, and and a system of robbing the poor for the benefit of the rich— an insult to God—an injury to man. Now, it would not be diffi cult to prove that it was none of these things, but that it was a just protection to the producer of food within our own boundaries, so as to render us totally independent of any foreign state, an ad vantage which would be cheaply purchased at the price of millions. The effect of the present system had been to lower the price, and to make it steadier. Who is as it who cried out for a repeal of the Corn-iaws ? Not the working classes, but the manufac turers, and more especially the master manufacturers.—( Hear, hear ) At this moment commerce was allowed to be in a very flourishing state. Mr. T. ATT WOOD—No, no,—certainly not. (The sonor ous tone of voice in which the Hon. Member gave this denial, created great laughter.) Viscount MAIDSTONE said, that were it otherwise, he might entertain more favourably the request that was now made for the repeal of the Corn-laws. Any one who went into the manufacturing districts (and he had been there very lately) could see the luxuries that pervaded them.—(Hear, hear, and laughter.) Witness the enormous wealth of th e Chamber of Commerce at Manchester. He maintained the manufacturing districts were doing well. The effect of the repeal would be to add fifteen or twenty per cent. to the profits of the manufacturers which were already large enough, to take it from those who could scarcely make any profit, and entirely to destroy and ruin the agricultural interest.—( Cries of " Hear, hear, hear.") If the manufacturers' profits were decreasing, that might be attributed to their own folly in sending machinery to foreign countries. The Hon. Member for Wolverhampton had put the question in a very different point of view to that in which it had hitherto been argued. Formerly it assumed the garb of a boon to the manufacturers, but now it was said the agri culturists were to benefit more than any other class by the re peal, but he thought it would be difficult to persuade the agriculturists of this.—( Hear, hear.) The Hon. Gentleman had admitted that only one class could be injured by the re peal; that class would be the landlords, for the Hon. Member hinted that the landlords would have to reduce their rents one half. Why were the landlords, who formed a large portion of the community, to be injured more than any other class ? ( Hear, hear.) He wished the Hon. Member was himself a landed proprietor—he had acted rather scurvily towards the agriculturists, and he wished that sonic one would leave the Hon. Member a landed property--( Hear, hear, from Mr. Villiers, and laughter)—and then perhaps he would find that he was wrong in some of his particulars. He would find that lan:fiords were in difficulty and distress, and that he would not only have to return rent occasionally, but would have to come to a permanent reduction. Had the Honourable Member not heard of rents being reduced 45 per cent. since the war ? Then the Hon. Baronet who seconded the. motion, said that in the agricultural districts the Newspapers were crowded with accidents, of suicides committed by farmers; but. he (Viscount Maidstone) contended that the plan proposed by the Hon. Baronet would counteract any such calamity as that, for, if adopted, there would be no farmers to commit suicide at all. —( Great laughter.) They would thereby destroy at one blow the whole of the agricultural interest, and would destroy the commercial interests, for they would lead into the commercial community an influx of men, who would work for anything rather than starve.—( Hear, hear.) It was a very easy mat ter with the machinery now used to work in some of the manufactories, and he thought that he himself could work at one of the mills as well as a person that'had been brought up to it all his life.—(Laughter.) Then:who was the.persons who would gain by the repeal of the Corn,laws ? Only the w.aster.; manufacturer—not the operative at all. He would call upon them to come forward in their true colours, and state that they only wished to have a slice from the capital of the landed in terest. Repealing the Corn-laws would virtually have the effect of transferring a large portion of the capital of the landed interest into the capital of the manufacturers.-( Hear, hear. ) Having attacked Hon. Geittlemen, which he hoped they would excuse him for doing—( Hear, hear)—he came at last to the Government, and lee wished to know why they had made this great and important question an open question.—( Hear, hear.) He rather thought it was not an open question, because he be lieved that every one of the Members of the Government in that House would vote against the agricultural interest.— ( Cheers, and counter cheers.) The present Government might be compared to Meg Merrities' soup, in Guy Manner ing—it was composed of every description of game.— (Laughter.) That composition might make very good soup, but it did not make a very good Government.—( Cheers and laughter.) What was the use of having a Government, unless they brought forward great plans and adhered to them.— ( Hear, hear.) He believed that neither the Repealers nor the anti-Repealers were satisfied with the Government— ( Hear, hear.) If he looked to the proceedings of the Delegates he found that they were far more angry, and spoke in less mea sured terms of the conduct of the Government than the agri culturist did.—( Hear, hear, hear.) He looked forward to the time when not only this uuestion but other questions would be discussed in a different manner and when the Government would take a straightforward course, and hang together. —( Great laughter and cheering.) He would venture to say, that if a Government were composed of those who sat on his side of the House, their conduct would be more straightforward and statesmanlike on this subject, and on every other.--( Hear, hear. ) Mr. WARD commenced by saying, that the Noble Lord who had just sat down was entitled, as one of our future heredi tary Legislators, to be heard with the utmost respect and at tention, and he believed the good feeling of the House had given him that indulgence which he was entitled to. But he differed with the Noble Lord on every point in his speech. He differed with him as to the finality in legislation, and he doubted whe ther by any possibility the decision to which the House could arrive that night, of which decision he believed very little doubt was entertained, would be final. The House of Commons was in point of fact a packed Jury, and were not likely to come to a fair conclusion on this question, although they might come to a foregone conclusion.—( Hear, hear. ) He also differed with the Noble Lord in his prognostications of evil to the landed interests, and although he concurred with him in wishing that the Government had taken a united Govero part at on this question, yet he should be sorrytose altogether.—(Hear, e a in power who would put a veto upon it hear.) He congratulated the House on the aspect which the Corn-law question had now assumed. It was a question that could no longer be met with silence, contempt, (Hear, hear. It was now a quest i on and Hon. Gents. had shown their sense must o ftheclia b change argued, geinthe position of the country, by meeting it is a more fair and rational manner than when a sort of apathy on the subject existed out of doors. The time would soon arrive when landowners, happily for His li opinions tteawk.taken the country, if not too late for themselves, would come to the con clusion that this question must be settled in the only way in which it could be settled, namely, by reconsidering the question, and adapting the Corn-laws to the altered situation of the com munity at large.—(Cheers.) His own opinions on this subject had v oted , with h t e c e . inaBsl3el.3'ibig, Dearing Nr, illenrgoenc'oonl: conclu sive the considerations l i Vnen ne‘v tto had undergone the greatest pos t s i i e ble co c , h n ai l ge. t the question, and unaware of I the question involved, lie opposite, the Member for the 1 embroke Burghs, thinking the argumentstothlei e existence e co cid e :cc: f t i p n e . inh cu is li s a p r ee b e n h rth MSC as landed interests. Since that time, he had turned his attention life, he had to the subject, NS hich in to h d i o s , humbleforbe shpanderieearo.f) the. utmost inducement 0 no prospects for opinions ha g d ed by representing amanufacturin himself and children, independent of land.— had not been affect for it was well known . with that his change of his connection Sheffield, and that that place long before mainly brought about by that very change. connection was He conceived the plea alleged by —(Hear, hear.) t . lin , the tax, was a the Right Hon. Baronet for con in , plea that could and that there was no burthe not be maintained ;n on the justified them in taxing the c agriculturists which which the agriculturistsorn'lunity at large. Any advantage trade and from our manufactures. was gained from our foreign • ur manufactures. Therefore it was a financial policy to injure our manufactures. There might have been exaggeration in —( Hear, hear.) some produced by the manufacturers,' and lie portions of the case 1 regretted that very much ? uch because he tho ug h t the manufac turers injured themselves by sonic facts they h a d b reug the whole character it forward. No man could doubt that of our export s . had undergone a total c hange within tho last five year s ; an d raw material was rapidly becoming that in most cases the article. The H on sub stituted for the manufactured Member for with respect to that to . Leeds had proved this a town which harp last night. He (Mr. Ward) represented not the ad vantageto aid it in its schemes' of that machinery. nee nhabitants, subsist' of . i ndestry_ a town containine 12, 1 . . , ~subsisting entirely on the ' facturing industry, and suffering snore produce of their manu g se t system than the verely under the resent inhabitants of those asil the character of towns which could change c Y , . their exports, to a great degree, their and could thus maintain , foreign trade. The inhabitants of Sheffield found themselves driven out of most of the markets which they had formerly te ls hardware rednjnYed. In America, which formerly took five -eights of w"e of Sheffield, tho quantity of orders was diminishing year by year, and the only commodity now findini, e its war, to any ext ent, i nto the Ame rican market was the steel, which was then worked up by the American manufacturers. The Sheffield manufacturers found • t them becoming every the competition evensyear more severe.—( Hear, hear, hear.) They had Ward) a return of several supplied th e wor ld, in which, in spite of the most extraordinary reductions in price, 65 and 70 per cent. in some cases, they found it now impossible to pay n. their workmen. He NS ould mention one or two of the most striking cases. They formerly supplied America with circular steel saws, in those articles 1 there had been a reduction already of 65 per cent ; and i n axes their trade had entirely ceased ; wages had been greatly re duced, still the manufacturers were unable te keep up the com petition. With these facts before them, his (Mr. Ward's) con stituents were entitled to say, as they had in the petition which they had sent to that House against the Corn-laws, that, with every national advantage, with a. full com mand of water, with steam power, with coal in abund ance, with the necessaries to manufacturing industry almost under their feet, they still found themselves met and overcome at every step by the obnoxious Corn-laws.— (Hear, hear.) Gentlemen who held land in the neighbour hood of manufacturing towns, would find their interest in fluenced by every thing affecting the trade of those towns._ (Hear, hear.) In a community like this it was impossible to raw a line of demarkatiorabetweea one interest and another. The prosperity if the landed interests could only be secured by the prosperity of the community at large—( Hear, hear)--and that prosperity could only be secured—additional value to the produce of the land, could only be given by creating a continually increasing demand for it upon the part of a flourishing trading community.—(Hear, hear.) It was said that the repeal of the Corn-laws would tend to reduce the prices. On the contrary; he (Mr. Ward) did net believe that the Corn-laws produced high prices in this country—he be lieved in spits of the repeal of the Corn-laws, there would be high prices. If the landed interests could have kept up the price of corn in 1814 at 80s. per quarter, which was the avowed intention of the Corn-law of 1815, our prices would have been reduced to the continental level, for the whole of our foreign trade would have been lost.—(Hear, hear, hear.) Now as to the effect of the Corn-laws upon the landlords themselves, he would just remind the House, that in the year 1835, in January, the price of corn was 365. a quarter ; in January, 1839, the price was 84s. An Hon. Gentleman had alleged that a free trade would be dangerous, because it had been tried in Tuscany and failed, and the Hon. Gentleman had appealed to Dr. Bowring's authority. But the Hon. Member could only have read Dr. Bowring's report very slightly, for though he had quoted the report accurately enough as to the fluctuation of prices, he had omitted the fact that those fluctuations—from two to nineteen, and from three to twenty, in one year—that these variations did not take place under free trade, but under the old monopolising system, and before the introduction of a free trade in corn, which after it had been tried, was found to be immeasurably superior, for under it commerce had revived and population in creased—the export trade introduced, the agriculturists relieved from the evils of those enormous fluctuations to which they were formerly subject.—( Hear, hear.) The question as be tween the landlords and the tenantry had been so much argued that he (Mr. W.) would not have alluded to it, had it not been for a statement of the Noble Lord the Member for Shropshire last night, that the interests of the landlord and the tenant were always identical—and that this system of the Corn-laws was one in which the labourers were chiefly interested. —( Hear, hear.) Now the result of his (Mr. Ward's) inqui ries had been to lead him to the conclusion that the interests of the tenants and the landlords were perfectly distinct upon this question. It was the clearest possible case that the price at which agricultural produce was sold in our markets must be the guide by which the landlord estimated his rent— and that to the tenants steadiness of price was the chief object. The question then was whether the tenants had estimated rightly their interests in this question. He (Mr. W.) agreed with his Hon. Friend, the Member for Wolverhampton in his opinion as to the tenantry of England, than whom there could not be found a class more honourable, and more intelligent in their own sphere. But their sphere was a contracted one— they looked to their own business and to nothing else, they ex ercised a degree of credulity as to everything that the land lords, and the landlords' Parliament recommended to them, which he, (Mr. W,) deeply regretted—they believed in the possibility of keeping up prices by Act of Parliament. Many of them meddled with the hocus pocus of the currency— a great many of them talked of " remunerating prices"—whien were much spoken of in that House. What was meant by the phrase " remunerat prices ?" Remuner ating for good husbandry or f or bad? -(An Hon. Member on the Opposition side cried out " for both.") A remunerating price for bad husbandry !—(Hear, hear)—to protect those who had not common industry aid intelligence ! A remu nerating price—for England or for Scotland'? They were two very different things.—( Hear, hear.) Looking to the evidence before the Agricultural Committee of 1836 he found in it the most important discrepancy between the evidence given en this subject by the English and by the Scotch farmers. Tke English farmers stated that farms were thrown up—that there could be no profitable cultivation of wheat under 645. a quarter—that there was a const nt diminution in the numbers of agricultural labourers. But in Scotland, with a poorer soil and a worse cli mate, there was found a competition for land, agriculture stea dily improving, and draining of a most expensive kind—un known in England, unless under prices most unprecedentedly high—and the Scotch farmer stated that he thought 40s. a quarter a remunerating price. Ought not this to induce the House to believe that the tampering with prices, in which Par liament had been so much in the habit of indulging, was a very dangerous kind of experiment—( Hear, hear)—and that mo nopoly itself was ineffectual when applied to agriculture, unless you could destroy the surplus produce of the land in very good years ? Nor was he (Mr. W.) starting an imaginary theory— the destruction of the produce by way of enhancing the prices under the present system of Corn-laws, had been gravely re commended to the agricultural interests as a proiciple upon which they could uniformly act—in Mr. Senior's letters to the agricultural interests, recommending that the influential land lords of the country should destroy the surplus of very abundant crops—feed sheep with corn, whenever the price was low, and never use any substitute for corn.—( Hear, hear.) But then the rest of the community were told that when by this process prices had been established which remunerated the farmer, corn would be grown sufficient to satisfy all de mands.—(Hear, hear.) The idea of a factitious scarcity in a country teeming with inhabitants, and dependent upon foreign trade, and exposed to a severe competition in its manufactures with the rest of the world, such an idea was the wildest that could be possibly entertained, and could not fail, if attempted to be carried out, to produce the most awful convul tions.—( Hear, hear.) There was no extravagance of which men might not he guilty when they came to talk of remune rating prices, fixed by Acts oil Parliament.—( Hear, bear. ) There had been another pamphlet published, entitled " An Ap peal to the Conservative Party"—the author of which was evi dently wild for " remunerating prices"—and which denounced the Right Hon. Baronet opposite (Sir R. Peel) as the most dangerous enemy to the community, and that the only hope of salvation to the country was in a union between the land aris tocracy and the working classes, upon three conditions-Ist, the repeal of Peel's Currency Bill—(Hear,from Mr. Thos. Attwood) —the repeal of the free trade system, and of the trade in ma chinery and inventions, and of this society M r . C a yl ey ' s Agricul tural Association m i g h t form an admirable nuelens.--( Laughter. ) Again, they were told that the present was a farmers' qnestion. It was almost tine to abandon that fallacy—it was a landlords' question, clearly, entirely, and exclusively.—(No, no, and cheers.) That was his deliberate opinion. Could any Hou. ' Gentleman show him a reduction in the farmers, profits without a corresponding reduction in the price of land ? There had been great exaggeration as to the effects which were likely to be pro duced by a change in the present system. He, for one, was no believer in the statement that England would be flooded and inundated by the immense quantity of corn which would be im ported if the ports were opened. Corn was a bulky article, and vessels could only carry a limited cargo, and the distance from which it would be imported was considerable. Let them look to t he countries to which they were likely to have re course—France, with its population of twenty-seven or thirty miilions, and its minute divisions of land, would never be an exporting country to any ex tent. Although from the nature of the country in Spain a great deal of corn was grown there, and although the plains of Castile were the finest corn growing districts in the world, they could never be rendered available from the went of canals and other means of transport. Then as to Belgium and Holland they had little to fear from those countries. Sweden and Nor way did not grow enough for themselves, and then they came to the ports of the Baltic and Russia, and what was the fact with respect to these places? The largest imports that had ever taken place were in the year 1802, 1810, and 1818, and the average price at Dantzic was 645. per quarter. In 1802 the exports from Dantzic amounted to 687,000 quarters, in 1810 they were 450,000 Quarters, and in 1818 the exports were 337,769 quar ters. The average exports for eleven years from Dantzic were 314,000 quarters. The whole quantity of corn exported from Dantzic in a period of 166 years amounted in round numbers to 19,000,000 quarters. Mr. Jacob, from whose work he quoted, stated that it required ten years of un exampled prosperity to enable Poland, between the years 1801 and 1805 to export 500,000 quarters of. wheat. If they looked back to the average of prices in these places from 1791 to 1831 they would find that it amounted to 455. 11d. a quarter. For a long series of years the first cost at Warsaw was 2sis., and at Cracow 225. ; and the charges from the port of Dantzic ave raged from 21s. to 235. It was therefOre almost certain that corn could not be imported from Dantzic under 455. It might be said, and no doubt there wag, a large quantity about Odessa; but then the distance of that _port, and the risk and injury attending its transport, would be always a protection to a certain extent te the English corn growers. Wheat was now at a very low price at Odessa, but the moment the English came into the market, and threw their great de mand into the limited supply, it was impossible to conjecture er i n t a h s a n t o part stock, of the prices at which it could be imported. ri'li e w no farming implements, and a scanty populati o n the Russian empire ; and the distance and the difficulty of transport ensured to the English landholder all the advantages thoy could reasonably require. On the other hand the English farmer had the richest market in the world at their doors— they had capital, skill, enterprise, and th e i ndustry of one of the finest populati ons in the world—(Hear, hear)—and he could not see how such a competition could give rise to the exaggerated apprehensions which he knew many gentlemen of the landed interest conscientiously entertained. The:import of foreign corn might increase, but the House would recollect that they had seven millions of mouths to supply more than they had in 1815 ; and could anybody who knew how the progress of population was checked by the Corn-laws, calcu late how rapid the increase would be when these reseraints were removed, and fair play given to the natural capabilities the country ?—( Hear.) There was not an article consumed by the landholders that was not materially affected by the price of corn. He had put the narrow and selfish considerations which the landlords might be supposed to entertain first; but the moral and political considerations were of far greater importance.—( Hear.) The Honourable Member for Nor folk had ridiculed the idea of depending upon foreign countries, but his arguments had been refuted in the same breath, for he admitted that Napoleon in 1810 had been forced te allow his own Generals to smuggle corn cut of France, because the popu lation required to be supplied with British manufactures. —( Hear, hear.) By being dependent on foreign powers, peace was preserved; and the best security for the preservation of peace with a great northern power was in the fact that the Russian landholders world not allow their traffic in corn to be inter rupted.—(Hesr, hear.) What prevented the boundary ques tion between the state of Maine and the province of New Brunswick from terminating in serious results? It was the probability of the loss of the immense trade between England and the United States. There was a greater community of in terest between the employer and the employed than some H in. Members were willing to admit; and it was well known that when there wag a great fluctuation in price wages followed and very slowly.—(Hear, hear.) The Hon. Member then' read some returns of the wages paid to agricultural labourers in Hertfordshire, Essex, Cambridge, Sussex, and Surrey, to show that the increase had been very trifling, Added to the Corn-laws there was the operation of the Poor-laws, with which the former was altogether incompatible, and which threw the labourer on his own resources, vrhilo the Corn laws did not allow him to employ his labour to the best advan tage. One of the arguments used by landed proprietors was, that they were too heavily and unequally taxed ; but if that was the ease, the proper way would be to revise the whole sys tem of taxation of the country. He would take the liberty of reading to the House an extract from a statement made by a manufacturing operative at what was called the Convention of Delegates of the Working Classes. There was no violence in it—it was framed in the spirit of deep and just complaint, and contained nothing which they ought not to hear. The Hon. Member then read the statement, purporting to be from a hand-loom weaver of Preston. It stated, that the utmost wages a man could earn•was ss. or 6s. a week, hut the casu alties of life were wholly nuprovided for, And that. bad work, or sickness for even a day, would reduce him to a state of starva tion—that- he was frequently two or three days without food provided, or any knowledge of the means by which it could be obtained, and his meals were frequently made upon a little meal, a few potatoes, or a few pence obtained by W ay of loan. On the Wednesday, as he had nothing to do, he was completely destitute ; his feelings were now most poignant, not so much on account of his own sufferings as of those of his wife, who had a strong healthy baby at her breast, who sucked the stronger because it had no other food. During the night he found his wife had fainted, and he shook oat the few remaining grains from the meal-bag and made some water-gruel, which he verily believed had saved her life.—( Hear, hear.) Now he knew that it was not in the power of the House to relieve the whole of this suffering, but if it could be shown that the minutest por tion of this suffering was ascribable to a law which the wealthy aristocracy of England declared to be necessary for their support, in what position was that aristocracy placed?— ( Hear, hear, hear.) Why, it occupied the position which had been occupied by the old French Nobl esse b e f ore t h e revolution.—( Oh! o h ! from the Opposition benches, responded to by cheers from the Ministerial side of the House. ) They claimed an exemption from their fair share of taxation--and where was that nobility now? It had been said that the people were devoted to the institutions of the country, he believed the people of this country to be a loyal and faithful people, —( Hear, hear)—but there was great truth in the observations of Mr. Carlyle, on this subject in his history of the French revolution. He asked, speaking of the people of France at that time, what was the Constitution to them ? Breed to eat was what they wanted. His unprejudiced opinion was that the landed interest of this country were placing themselves in a most dangerous position by refusing to give up this tax of 2d. upon every loaf consumed by the poor man._(" Ne ! no !" answered by cheers !) He would not follow this subject further, but he felt the vote he was about te give this night was not only founded in justice, but was in fact an act of self-preservation, depending as he did solely upon the land, and he felt that if the House came to the decision they ought on this subject, that decision would not only be dictated by principles of justice but by sonnd common sense.—( Cheers.) . Sir JAS. GRAHAM rose with great reluctance ; he would not have addressed the House on this subject had not his name been alluded to in the course of the debate. He considered this question of such vast importance, so large and extensive in its bearings on the national interests, that he confessed he was unable to grapple with it, and almost shrunk from the discus sion. He considered that it was at all times most dangerous for the Legislature to attempt any alterations in the established laws regulating- the supply of food to the people. Because it was a subject calculated to excite the minds of the people more especially, and when the price of food was high, thus making it additionally dangerous to legis late en the subject.—( Hear, hear.) He would refer to the speech of the Hon. Gentleman opposite, who had just sat down, to prove the truth of this assertion. That Hon. Gentle man had chosen to compare the state of France before the Revolution to th e p resen t s t ate o f E ng l an d ; an d t h e aristocracy a England to the aristocracy of France at that period. Was not this a most inflammatory representation?—( Hear, hear.) The Hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets had talked of the increased pressure from without. The landlords had been held up by the promoters of this question as the oppressors of the people. The possessors of the soil were a powerful body, and they were also an honourable body. If it could be shown that any of the burdens on land had been diminished, they might be induced to re-consider the subject. They would be ready to listen to reason ; but those would find their mistake who thought they could make them fear.—(Loud cheering from the Opposition side of the House.) If a struggle were provoked, the present possessors of the land might sink in the struggle, but the land would still remain. —(Cheers.) But what would become of the manufacturers? They would make to themselves wings, and fly away to those happier regions where no political passions prevailed.—( Hear, hear.) But if it was the duty of the Legislature not, to agitate this subject, still more was it the duty of the Government to put a stop to any disposition to legislate upon it. What then was his astonishment to hear the speech of the President of the Board of Trade encouraging this agitation.--( Hear, hear.) A speech well worthy the Member for Manchester, but utterly unworthy a Minister of the Crown ; and which seemed to give some authenticity to the report, which he (Sir J. G.) could scarcely believe, although it was current in the north, that that Right Hon. Gentleman at the close of his visit to his consti tuency last year, had requested them to work the Corn-laws. He wished to draw the attention of these Gentlemen who sup ported Government on this subject—and if they still continued that support, their eyes must be blinded that they could not see —their ears must be deafened that they would not hear, by party spirit—and they must labour under awful de lusion, from which they could only be awakened by the loss of their estates. He was bound to say that those who brought forward that question had explained their views explicitly enough , --they were as much opposed to a fixed duty as to the present system; but no one could gather from the speech of the President of the Board of Trade, or of the Secretary of War, what were the intentions of her Ma jesty's Government on going into Committee. In fast he thought they intended it as a fishing Committee, to take the chance of what might happen, being perfectly satisfied if they could procure a few stray votes. In fact, with one alteration the line applied by Pope to the human mind might be applied to the present Government. It was " A mighty maze, but ALL without a plan." He distinctly asked the Noble Lord opposite what were the in tentions of her Majesty's Government on this subject. Th e opinion of Lord Melbourne was well known.—(Here the Honourable Member read an extract from Lord Mel bourne's speech of last year in favour of the Corn-laws.) It had been said that this was an open question under Lord Grey's Government, and he denied this as far as he was con cerned. Some Members of that Government, but not of the Cabinet who had given pledges to their constituents on this sub ject, had been permitted to redeem them, but no member of the Cabinet had voted in favour of a repeal. He would refer to the speech of Lord Althorp, in 1834, as proof that he (Lord Althorp) was then voting under duresse. That Noble Lord said, that he could not speak in favour of those with whom he was about to rote, because he believed that the other side had the best of the argument. This would show that Lord Althorp at least did not consider this an open question. But Lord Althorp, although he had made a very short speech on this question, had mad, one distinguished, as all Lord Althorp's speeches were, by good common sense ; and it was on the ground of common sense , a ft er all, that this questi on s h ou ld be argued. He had given as a reason fix the vote which he should be compelled to give on that occasion, that he always asked himself, before voting for a measure, not only how that measure was to be carried, but what would be the results to which that measu re would lead.--(Hear, hear, hear.) He would ask the Noble Lord opposite if he had used the cau tion used by Lord Althorp on thatoccasion? He would ask Hon. ' Gentleman opposite what their intentions were with regard to the price of corn ? Great knowledge of political economy had been displayed by Hon. Gentlemen opposite in discussing this subject, but after all they were bound to test it by the prin ciples of common sense. What, then, did they intend with re gard to the,price of corn ? Some of the Hon. Gentlemen had stated it was their intention to lower the price of corn, and others had stated their belief that although a slight fall of price might at fir,t take place, yet that ultimately the price of corn would be raised. Those gentlemen who were of this opinion had some grounds for it, from the fact that in 1776 when a free trade in corn was established in this country it ceased to be an exporting country—it became an im porting country, and what was the effect ? The effect was to raise the price to 425. a quarter.—( Hear, hear.) If they raised the price of corn, the effect would be to raise wages. If wages rose there would be a diminution of profits, and the diminution of profits was not what the manufac turer sought. But let them state frankly that their object was to lower the price of corn ; let them be more explicit and state at once that their intention was to lower wages.—(Loud cheers.) Let the agricultural labourer_ let the manufacturing labourer understand that the lowering of wages would be cer tain, but the ultimate effect on the price of cern uncertain ; and that when once wages were lowered, the effect of the displace ment oflabourwould be to throw among the manufacturing la bourers additional hands; and that when the price of corn should rise, after fourorfive years dependence on foreign supplies, and large tracts of land should be thrown out of cultivation, it would be in vain for the unhappy labourer to endeavour to re store the price of labour. He argued that this was Alabourer's question, and his honest judgment and conviction was that no thing could be more dangerous to the real interests and future comfort of the labourer, than the distress which the repeal of those laws would drag him into.—(Cheers.) Then there was a talk about equalizing the price of corn. He likedthe letter from Woburn better than he did the squib fired from Downing street, and directed to the Anti-Corn-law Association at Stroud.—(Cheers.) He agreed with the Noble Lord in the sentiments he pot forth in the Woburn address, that equalizing the price would produce wretched ploughs, wretched horses, and wretched men.—( Cheers and laughter.) If they equalized the price, he (Sir J. Graham) thought the inevitable consequence would be, as in all measures of equalization, that they would have equal beggary, equal wretchedness, and equal want ; for by some law which prevailed in politics as well as in physics, it would seem that it was always an easy process to pull down that which was above, but difficult to raise that which was below—the effect of the levelling process always was to sink both high and low somewhere below their original level—that would be the effect of equalizing prices.—(Cheers.) If thsy succeeded in lowering the rate of wages they would degrade the cha racter of our agricultural labourers. Low prices of wages and low prices of bread were concomitant with a wretched and degraded population.—( Hear, hear.) But then they were told that if they relaxed their Corn-laws they were certain of gaining advantage from the reciprocity of commercial inter course, and sone hope of that sort was held out by the Presi dent of the Board of Trade. But the evidence which that Right Hon. Gentleman produced on this subject was most meagre.—( Hear, hear.) Ile had thought that the Right Hon. Gentleman 'would have produced some official documents, or some declaration on the part of foreign powers to bear out this statement. But what was the evidence he produced ? Why three letters from a Mr. APGregor, one of them bearing slightly on the case of Prussia, and another relating to that very important corn-growing country, in the eyes of the Hon. Gentleman, the state of Wirtemburgh. When it was difficult to answer an argument, nothing was so easy as to treat it with d er i s i on an d contempt ; and the danger of depending on foreign supply had been treated as a fallacy, which as the Hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets (Arr. Clay) had said no rational man entertained, and that it was only an imaginary danger. Now he (Sir J. Graham) had yet to learn that Cie danger was imaginary. —(Hear, hear.) He had heard something of an argument of this kind, that if the country importing suffered from the loss of the commodity of corn which it had been accustomed to receive, the country ex porting suffered more from the suspension of trade in its chan nel of lucrative commerce. He could never refer to this subject without regarding with the highest deference and respect the opinions of the late Mr. Huskisson.—( Hear, hear, hear. ) He knqw there was a single passage which had been quoted as an authority ag ainst the Corn-laws in the speech lie made in 183 Q , but he cou ld' not set that casual expression in a singles speech in the heat of debate against the whole policy of Mr. Huskisson's long ministerial life. He remembered that Mr. Huskisson was a party to the report of the Agricul tural • Cotnrnittee of 1821 ; he knew it also from him self, and Mr. Jacob was a living witness of the fact that the present plan was an invention of his own. It was said there would be a-mutual dependence between the ittmcirt ing country I and the exporting country. He entreated the House to listen to what Mr. Huskisson said when Mr. Ricardo urged this express argument. On May 30, 1820, Mr. Huskisson thus expressed himself:—" Another object which appeared to him of great importance was that this country in its peculiar cir cumstances should not be dependent to a great extent on foreign countries for the necessaries of life. The llon. Member for Portarlington (Mr. Ricardo) had stated that there would be suffering on both sides if the foreign country attempted to withhold the supply, but the contest would not be an equal one. TO the foreign nation the result might be a dimi nation of revenue; to us the result might possibly be great revolution and subversion of the State." That was in 1820. But in 1827 he laid down this principle, when he brought forward, with Mr. Canning, the Act t hat :vas now the lam of the land. He said—" I think nothing is so dangerous to this country as to rely too largely and too frankly on foreign countries for a supply of corn. I wish to make this country independent of the foreigner, commercially as well as politically. You may rest assured that as long as it is the interest of the foreigners to produce distress, or to cause no political discom fiture, they will endeavour unwearily to do so.' And he then laid down this general principle—" Whatever arrangement is made respecting the Corn-laws, we must take care not to put ourselves in the power of the foreigner."—(Cheers. ) Another f a ll ac y put forward was still more astounding than the appeal which had been made to the authority of Mr. Huskisson. It was no less than this—that the law of 1828 was identical with the law of 1815. Light to darkness was not more opposed than these two laws.--( Hear, hear.) In his conscience he believed that if this country placed itself in a state of depend ance on foreign countries for a supply of daily food, these countries might in seasons of dearth cut off that supply, and reduce us to a state of subjection. No human legislation could prevent the occurrence of a deficient harvest, and no human legislation could prevent a deficient harvest being a na tional calamity.—( Hear, hear.) Since the year 1801 he did not believe that calamity had visited us to the same extent as it had in the present year; and yet under this law which had been so much abused, he found from an account of the state of the market in Mark-lane, last Saturday, within the short s p a ce of seven months, no less th an 2,5 00,000 quarters had aeaa; brought into the market for home consumption; whereas he did not believe that in any twelve months, under any other law snore than 2,000,000 were available. Not only that onr " foreig n supplies from abroad were expected," but according t o thi s account "already prices were reduced 20 per cent., and the deficient supply had been met by the largest importation of fo reign corn ever known in this country. "—(Hear, hear.) Gen tlemen more competent than himself had treated of the manu facturing part of the question, but it would appear that our exports of manufactures in which manual labour entered, had in this year of extreme scarcity and deficient crops been un . usually large. In no f ormer p ar t o f our hi story, therefore, had so large a quantity o f f ore i gn corn been import e d i nto this ;,roan= try, or had o ur ex p or t s o f manu f actures in which ma:uailabost r material entered, been so l a r ge as th ey h a d b een under the exisstiminigialrawdes Reference had be en ma d e t o th e d epen d ence of this count ra for the staple of the co tt on manu f acture—for the ra upon foreign countrie s , an d Waves( concluded that a pendence might take place as to the main article of food__ corn. He (Sir J. G.) was happy to see the Right Honour able President of the India Board opposite, and he must say, that looking 'to the situation of this country—looking to the great amount of capital which was embarked in the cotton trade, and the immense population dependent upon that manufacture, and looking to that quarter of the globe from whence the snp ply of the raw material was derived, it had never ceased to be with him an object of paramount anxiety. He had always wished that in our Indian empire, instead of dangerous at tempts to extend our limits, the More wholesome arts of peace should be studied—that every attention should be paid to the raising the Cotton plant—to the preparation of it—to the whole process of rendering it fit for manufacture in this country, and he did know an object of greater national importance than emancipating this country from dependence upon the United States for the supply of cot- . ton.—(Hear, hear.) But in addition to the raw material of our own staple manufacture—with our eyes open —to resider ourselves dependent upon foreign countries for the principal ne cessaries of life—would be utter madness--would be fatal to tho manufactures, to the independence to the pro s p er i ty of the em pire. —(Loud cheers.) Something had been said as to the taxes affecting land. Now, in 1833, the poor rate and county-rate amounted to 860,0001. a year : and of this sum there was levied directly upon the land 543,900/. five-eighths of the whole, and of the remaining three-eighths paid by dwelling houses, the larger portion was paid by land lords or by persons dependent upon agriculture. To take a par ticular instance, that of the county of Stafford, in 1792 the bridges cost 298/., and in 1522 they rest 5,667/. In 1792 the prosecutions cost 102/. In 1832 they cost 6,000/.:ln 1792 the Gaols cost 2601. In 1832 they cost 7,1801.—( Hear, hear. ) He admitted thut the Malt-tax in some measure, nay princi pally, pressed upon the consumer; but still it was a tax that did affect the land, because it enhanced the price of beer, diminished the demand for malt, lowered the price of barley, and was in fact pro tanto, as Adam Smith hail stated, a tax upon barley land, having the same effect as though the barley land was subject to comparative barrenness—as though the land which naturally would produce five quarters, would under this tax only produce three or four. If the Corn-laws were re pealed, the Malt-tax could not by human power be retained another year.—(Hear, hear.) Hon. Gentlemen opposite were , certainly very liberal, and said they were willing to give up the Malt-tax and all protections to their manufactures, if free trade in corn was established. He ( Sir J. G.) would ask if the landowners were to be precluded from the growth of tobacco in this country by a tax of 1,200 per cent ?—( Hear, hear. ) The whole system of our finance would be affected by the application of such a principle.—(Hear. hear.) In 1826 he bad written a book upon the subject, from which the Right Hon. President of the Board of Trade had quoted a decla ration in favour of a fixed duty, but the Right Hon. Gen tleman had mar re d th e passage, both in the English and the Latin, by his recitation of it—(Laughter) —and Tacitus himself would not have been recognized under such pronun ciation in an assembly of scholars.—( Great laughter.) From that declaration in favour of fixed duty, he (Sir J.,Graham) did not wish to shrink—he had certainly recommended a fixed duty of 15s. a quarter, but he had also proposed a great alteration in our financial system, and had adopted the suggestion which he had found in an essay of Hume's, not the Hon. Member for Kilkenny—(Laughter) —but the celebrated historian ; that a tax should be imposed upon all annuities charged upon land or paid out of the Exchequer ; and he begged to ask whether there was inconsistency in having supported Mr. Huskisson in 1527, when he with Mr. Canning brought forward a fluctuating scale, in direct opposition to the law which then prevailed of unrestricted importation. He supported it in 1827 and in 1828. As Chairman of the Agri cultural Committee of 1833, he drew up a Report, which formed the vindication of the existing law. 'ln 1834 he took his part, as a Member of Lord Grey's Government, in defence of that measure ; and in 1836, upon an Agricultural Com mittee, he carried it against the Right Hon. President of the Board of Trade, the Noble Lord the Home Secretary, and the Secretary at War, who were in favour of a fixed duty.— ( Hear.) But without taking such low ground, he would say that in 1836 he had written this book, after the great financial crisis of 1825, when the small note act introduced by Lord Lon donderry in 1822 to put off the immediate effect of the mea sure of 1619 was about to be repeated-Lhe had argued that the effect of the restoration of the value of money in so sudden a manner would be fatal to the agricultural interests—but he had stated that in questions of currency, time was every thing ; that what was just in 1826 upon such questions, might in 1839 be come fraud and injustice; he was not vain enough ,to think that there were not many errors in his book, but he thought he might take the benefit of subseqaant steady and enlarged experience, and he should hereafter con sider himself not bound by that book ; and should express him self upon the subjeet fre e ly an d w ith out reserve. ---(W ear, But now he must say, b u t h e cou ld not believeelying as be en t near. ) did upon the honou r an d goo d f a i t h of the Govern nag these opinions on thi s su bj ect, so f ar as they had yet botex pressed in fa vour o f th e a l terat i on, were not of very recent growth ; if they were not, he must declare that they had been guilty of a gross fraud upon the agricaltural interests. Why did he say so ? In 1535, a measure had been introducedfor the corn- mutation of Tithes, by the Government, by which it was pro vided that a fixed amount should be calculated upon an average of the prices of seven preceding years. Now, take the case of a parish, the landlord of which receives 2,000/. in rent—a fourth of the produce, 8,0001., the tithe for the average of seven preceding years would be put at 5001., which, when wheat was at bOs. would be equivalent to 200 quarters of wheat—that was for ever a fixed, a permament charge on the land. The effect of the repeal of the Corn-laws would be to throw out of cultivation half the land ; the landlords' income would be re duced from 2,0001. to 1,0001. ; the produce froni 8,0001. to 4,0004 ; and, in fairness, the 500/. Tithe ought to be reduced to 2501., the 203 qaarters of wheat to 100 quarters ; whereas the quantity remained the same ; and he (Sir J.' Graha m did in his consci ence b e li eve t h at the result of the repeal of tbe ) Corn-laws, combined with the effect of the Tithe Commuta tion Act, would be, that in most eases the parson would enter into ;possession of the estate.—( Hear , hear. Above all, however, he viewed the operation of the repeal of the Co re d been on Ireland with apprehension—with horror. What had been the tendency of the measures lately past, affecting tha t country ? Last Session the landlord was charged with th p t y t ment of the tithe, which he had never contemplated ; and he landlord had been also charged with the payment Of an d alf the poor rate. N o man wag more anxious_ than he, that h the duties—the i mportant duties--of the landlords sheuld lie disl charged.—(Hear, hear. ) But he could 'not fcirget that; in Ireland, the most religious discharge, of such duties ,was no security against assassination.(Hear, hear.) What would be the effect of the 'repeal of the' Corn:laws in that' country ? Polish wheat would b e i n t ro d uce d i nto ' England instead of,lrish wheat. The Irish tenant would no longer be able to pay rent. Ejectment in Ireland was impossible ; - and the -result would be an agrarian law, giving over the e s t a t es t o the occupiers, to the exclusion of the landlords, who Would become outcasts . in so ciety.—(Hear, hear.) No w , w ith respect to the conapaaativo variations of the pekes of corn. Fro m 1802 to 1 . 806; the fluc tuation was as 100 per cent. ; from 1807 to 1811,•74 per cent.; from 1812. to 1816, 183 per cent. ; from 1817 to 1821, 143 per, cent. ; from 1822 to 1826, 81 per cent. Now came the operation of the existing law—from 1828 to 1833 the variation was but 49, per cent. the lowest ever known in this country.--(Hear. ) And from 1833 to 1836 the highest price was 565. 6d.—th e lowest 365. 6d., the only variation 19 per cent. As to the present year, of course a deficient harvest would cause great variation of rice. —(Hear, hear.) A fixed duty wou l d not produce steadiness of price. I n New York there was a fixed lars duty of Bs. 4d. on the importation o f cern . L et the House listen to the following statement. It appearealfB3ro6m, 6 Tables, that the prices of a bar re l o f fl our was in 1834, 5- dol lars, 25 cents, in 1835, 4 dollars, 87 cent s , in 3 cents, in 1837, 11 dollars. Nor was this unusual,. for in 1816 it was nine dollars; in 1817 it was thirteen dollars; in 1818 it was ten dollars ; in 1829 it was eight dollars ;'in 1830 it was four dollars; in Is3l it was six dollars —a degre e of variation unknown under the Corn-laws of this counts.) (Hear, hear, hear.) But it was urged that the price of duce in this country would- not be raised to the extent of which the agriculturists were afraid. The immediate effect would be the throwing out of cultivation the inferior soils: But the Ulti mate effect would be a large increase in the price of corn from foreign supply being depended upon in place of British. l Every year he lived he was more distrustful of speculative opinions, and mere inclined to look to the results of experience had forti fied the expectations of the Committee of 1536, we believe. The Right Hors. Gentleman then read the amendment, which it was his intention to move on that occasion, and proceeded. Subsequent experience had confirmed him in the views he had then taken, and if the House only let well alone, it would found that this country could continue altogether independent of foreign supplies. He now came to the most important part of the subject, and that •was the displacement of agricultural labour by land going out of cultivation. What would be the effect of throwing the land out of cultivation ? Oh ! it had been said "you can convert it into grasi." He feared the result would be the tame as was produced by the tithe adjustment in Ireland—that the working classes would be the greatest 'sufferers, and that want, discontent, and he feared insurrection t would inevitably follow.—( Hear, hear). It was alleged that it was only a diversion of capital into n e wa resde c h annel, and nt ef the and the Right Hon. Gentleman, attachment.r vaa Bcommodityoard of Trade, withou t had habits t w e s l ma d soo country to eor injury. .t how much_suf- • f and gen t ly atedaffected awnhoitchher might without be transported from one part B o il f w e o ri r n d g s. and T he sorrow changelaj , u t n h d a e t r A change the manners, habits, and even the life of he • f o t t r h h o e , f h em s t t t O e ll i a i soft, and these men. : President o e tfi n l'ae . bo morn" g " The breezy ca 11 of incense breath' more cruel cersld not be attempted from to the sad sound of the factory bell. A change from th e and the village green, thatched cottage, the blooming g arden, crowded city. A change from the rural walk, and the ca l m 1 to the pestilential deb asement to some dark garret or dark a cellar in the noisy all e y o f and temptations aal sorrows of congregated multitud es.— w ere all their moralists? Talk n o t to him (Hear.) Where enjoyment a the rustic Ssbbat of Mauritius—they contemplated a change far f tne banishment of the Poles to Siberia, or th e export of Hill Coolies to t more cruel and heart-rending in the bosom of their native land. The measure which they contemplated to-night wa s per . haps the first step in that direction.—(Cheers.) The y wi s h ed to make England the workshop of the world, and dependent upon distant nations for the supply of their daily bread. They would not mend'in that, but if they did, he agreed with his Noble in the • T I wor ld h . should wish to inhabit. The present Friend Lord Ashburnham, that England was the last country civi isec e was the first st*, and he agreed with Lord Melbourne, that next to the e consequent upon the chan g e was the fear of :he change itse . ' Ile would give his cordial a nd deeided opp ea eition to the motion.—(Loud cheers. he had the hono ur had heard the u o f th e Lord J. RUSSELL —Long as of a seat frequently as ho a d it had never happened to him to address subject. He had preferred to listen to others the House on t he i C n or t n il - a l t ae ll- s o d u i s s e ci ' isse whom he thought more competent to address the House, and instruct rather than it by the examination of the various details, as " as e theea at principles of the ques tion a part in the discussion himself. He therefore entered upon the discussion with great diffidence, and h e h a d a further reason , to deter him from addressing the House, because he could not agree with either of the two parties who took extreme views upon the subject. When Mr. Canning, in 1827, brought for ward his measure upon the subject, he saidathe extreme views - on it were the total prohibition of foreign corn and an entire. free trade. That was not now the case ; they had on one side the proposition of the Hon. Member for Wolverhampton, and on the other side there was the proposition to maintain the ex isting laws. He could not agree with either of those, and therefore he feared what he bad to say would receive very little favour from the great majority of the House. The EVENING EDITION