# History of the Anti-Corn Law League/Chapter21

CHAPTER XXI.
SIR R. PEEL'S NEW SLIDING SCALE.
In the House of Commons, on Monday, February 14th, on the order of the day being read for the adjourned debate it was opened by Lord John Russell. His speech was an able exposition of the principles of free trade, but with the lame and impotent conclusion that a fixed duty was in accordance with them, and he moved as an amendment; "That this house, considering the evils which have been caused by the present Corn Laws, and especially by the fluctuations of the graduated or sliding scale, is not prepared to adopt the measure of her Majesty's government, which is founded on the same principles, and is likely to be attended by similar results." Mr. Gladstone followed, and contended that the sliding scale proposed was better than a fixed duty. Mr. Charles Wood entered into a number of details, to show that a fixed duty was superior measure as to a sliding scale. Mr. Liddell considered the one likely to satisfy both the agricultural and commercial interests. Dr. Bowring made many interesting statistical details to controvert Sir Robert Peel's deductions as to the comparative condition of the people of this country and of the continent and then came Mr. Ferrand, the buffoon of the house, who abused the manufacturers, and their wives and daughters, and said their only object was to make fortunes by reducing wages. The debate was ​protracted through the nights of Tuesday and Wednesday, dully enough, for the main point of discussion was whether the country should have the sliding scale or a fixed duty, relieved occasionally by some sturdy agriculturist, who complained of the removal of any protection.
On the division, the numbers were:—
| For the original motion, | 349 |
| For the amendment, | 226 |
The thorough free traders felt themselves at liberty to vote for Lord John Russell's amendment, for it did not commit them to the principle of a fixed duty. The members in the minority of 226 were soon to be tested as to their opinion of total repeal, and the free-trade electors of the country were to be shown how many of that number were deserving of their support. On the following Friday, Mr. Villiers brought forward his testing motion, and forced upon the house a discussion upon the real merits of the question. His speech was full of admirable argument, and embraced all the great bearings of the question. The debate, in which Mr. Brotherton, Dr. Bowring, Mr. Mark Philips, and Mr. Milner Gibson, took a prominent part, occupied the nights of Friday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, on which latter evening Sir Robert Peel spoke. He had restrained his colleagues from taking any part in the discussion, judging, rightly enough, that he was sure of an overwhelming majority, not only without argument, but without even the show of it; but he could not restrain the unruly band of his supporters—he could not even confine them to those inarticulate cries with which passion may be instinctively expressed, and every now and then some one of them would break forth from the pack, and give tongue. He had tried the silent system, and it had failed in his hands, and he was compelled to take upon himself the task of putting an end to the debate, which was telling powerfully on the country, although the free-trade advocates were listened to with impatience in a ​house seldom tolerant of close reasoning. He, therefore, rose, and, in a speech of great length, great apparent or rather great expressed candour, and great plausibility, attempted to show that the distress which confessedly prevailed was not to be attributed to the Corn Law alone, but to other causes, which were only temporary such as injudicious banking operations, both at home and in America, adroitly, and in accordance with the rules of single-speech "Hamilton's Parliamentary Logic," substituting effect for cause—the Corn Law being the main source of monetary difficulties, both at home and in the United States. He commended his own bill, as likely to prevent sudden inundations of foreign corn; and, in reliance upon the majority at his back, was pressing for an immediate division. Lord John Russell, who showed a much more determined spirit in opposition than he had done in office, protested against this speedy legislation, and the debate was once more adjourned.
On Thursday, the debate was diversified by a bold and telling speech from Mr. Cobden. Mr. Villiers had said that the debate had been one between two political parties, both of whom had striven to avoid the real question at issue, which Mr. Cobden said was simply, how far it was just, honest, or expedient, that any tax whatever should be laid on the people's food. He went on to controvert the fallacy, as old as the Corn Law itself, that high wages accompanied high prices of food. He charged the house with ignorance on this part of the question, and when derisive laughter, and cries of "Oh! oh!" arose from members of the ministerial side of the house, he turned round to them, and said:—
"Sir Robert Peel said it was impossible to fix the price of food by legislation.—(Loud cheers from the ministerial side.)
"Mr. Cobden: Then on what are we legislating? (Counter cheers ​from the opposition.) I thank the right honourable baronet for his avowal. Perhaps then he will oblige us by trying to do so. Supposing, however, that he will make the attempt, I ask the right honourable gentleman, and I again pause for a reply,—will he try to legislate so as to keep up the price of cotton, silk, and wool ? No reply. Then we come to this conclusion, that we are not legislating for the universal people. (Tremendous cheers.) If the agriculturists are to have the benefit of a law founded on the calculation of a ten years' average, to keep up their price at that average, I ask, are the manufacturers to have it too? (Hear, hear.) Take the ironmongers of the midland counties—the manufacturers of the very articles the agriculturists consume. Their goods have been depreciated thirty per cent, in the last ten years. Are they continue to exchange their commodities for the corn of the landlord, who has the benefit of a law keeping up his price on a calculation of a ten years' average, without the iron manufacturer having the benefit of the same consideration? (Hear, hear.) I ask the right honourable baronet, whether, while he fixes his scale of prices to secure to the landowners 56s. a quarter, he has a sliding scale for wages? (Cheers.) I know but of one class of labourers in this country whose interests are well secured by the sliding scale of corn duties, and that class is the clergy of the Established Church, whose tithes are calculated upon the averages. But I want to know what you will do with the hard-working classes of the community—the labouring artizans—if the price of bread is to be kept up by act of Parliament. Will you give them a law to keep up the rate of their wages? You will say that you have passed resolutions that you cannot keep up the rate of wages; but that is no reason you should pass a law to mulct the working man one–third of the loaf he earns. What are the pretexts upon which the corn tax is justified? We have heard in the first place, that there are exclusive burdens borne by the agriculturists. I heard one explanation given of those burdens by a witty gentleman who sits near me. He said that the only exclusive burden upon land which he knew of were mortgages. (Laughter.) I think the country has a right to know, and indeed I think it would have been no more than is due to this house, if those burdens, of which we have heard so much, had been named and enumerated. The answer I heard from the right honourable gentleman opposite was, that there was a great variety of opinions regarding these burdens. That I could myself have told the right honourable gentleman. As a law is to be framed and founded expressly upon these burdens, it would have been fair at least to tell us what they are. I shall not enter upon the subject now, but this I will tell the right hon. gentleman, that for every particular burden he can show me pressing upon the land, I will show him ten exemptions. (Hear, hear.) Yes, ​ten for his one. There was one burden referred to by the honourable member for Renfrewshire, which is the land tax. I am surprised we have not yet got the returns, moved for many months since, relative to the land tax of other countries.(Hear.) M. Humann, the finance minister of France, states that the land-tax in that country is forty per cent, on the whole revenue, and twenty-five per cent on the revenue of the proprietors of the soil; so, that in France, the landowner pays five shillings in the pound, while, in this country, you have a land tax of nineteen hundred thousand pounds, half of which tax is paid by the poor man; and after having paid this enormous tax, you call for a fresh one on his loaf to compensate you for the heavy burden you bear. Ought we not to know what those burdens were when this Corn Law was passed? Let us only legislate, if you please, for the introduction of corn when it is wanted. Exclude it as much as possible when it is not wanted. But all I supplicate for, on the part of the starving people is, that they, and not you, shall be the judge of when corn is wanted.(Cheers.) By what right do you pretend to guage the appetites and admeasure the wants of millions of people? Why, there is no despotism that ever dreamed of doing anything so monstrous as this; yet you sit here and presume to judge when people want food, dole out your supply when you condescend to think they want it, and stop it when you choose to consider they have had enough.(Hear, hear.) Are you in a position to judge of the wants of artizans—of hand-loom weavers—you, who never knew the want of a meal in your lives, do you presume to know when the people want bread? The right honourable baronet is the cause—yes, I say he is the cause of our present position, and, upon his shoulders will the people rest the the whole of the responsibility."
The opposition manifested much delight at hearing the responsibility thrown on the minister, who was assumed to have the power, if he had the will, to give the people bread. Cobden's quick eye had, no doubt, observed some of those who had lately held office joining in the manifestation, for, turning to them, he said:—
Mr. Ferrand followed Mr. Cobden, in a speech which kept the house in a continual state of excitement, alternate cheers from the protectionists and laughter from the free traders following every libellous and abusive sentence. Mr. Villiers somewhat subdued the impatience of the house when he rose to reply, and, after his speech, the house divided, when the numbers were:—
| For his motion, | 90 |
| Against it, | 393 |
The division showed that the adherents of the late whig ministry had swelled the majority. There had been 349 votes against his lordship's motion, and there were 393 against that of Mr. Villiers. The accession of 44 was from the whig ranks.
The scene in a dissecting-room, described by one of our novelists, where the reckless students mangle the dead body, while they smoke their cigars and crack their coarse jokes, and practically exhibit their wit, by throwing portions of the "subject" at each other, is not unlike the House of Commons when matters of serious discussion are before it. During the debate on Mr. Villiers' motion, ​the starvation of the people was the "subject" of much merriment to honourable members. Mr. W. Ewart had asked if Sir Robert Peel would have any objection to the appointment of a committee of inquiry as to the "peculiar burthens" on land, before proceeding with his Corn Bill? Sir Robert smartly said:"My answer is, that I have proposed a measure which will reduce the present duty on wheat from 22s. to about 10s., or something in that proportion. I hope the honourable gentleman will unite in passing my bill into a law as speedily as possible." Loud peals of laughter from all parts of the house showed how the wit was relished. Mr. Milnes was peculiarly fortunate in raising such laughs. When he said that Mr. Buller had appealed not only to the passions, but to the appetites of the people, there were loud bursts of laughter, as if it had been a capital joke against the argument for the repeal of the Corn Law, that the starving ought to have food. Again were the roars of laughter renewed, when he described Mr. Villiers as "the solitary Robinson Crusoe, standing on the barren rock of Corn-Law repeal." Those "merry descants on a nations woes," were in admirable keeping with the whole system of heartless legislation in a house that called itself representative of the people. When Dr. Bowring, to show that in handicrafts in which machinery was not applied there had been a great reduction of wages, took shoemaking and tailoring as illustrations, there was much merriment excited. He said that women were going about crying for work, and there was loud laughter; that women were making men's trousers for sixpence a pair, and there was loud laughter; that he saw thousands around him hungry and naked, and there and when he asked what was to become of the women of Manchester, there were peals of loud laughter! The "hear, hears," recorded were about as indecent as the " laughter," every falsehood stated by Ferrand, of the cruelty of the manufacturers, was followed ​by "hear, hear." Those eager cries followed every one of his calumnies, as if, even had they been true, it had been a good argument to say that the employed should be starved, because the employers were avaricious.
The following are the names of the members who voted for Mr. Villiers' motion, "That all duties on the importation of corn, grain, meal, or flour, do now cease and determine:"—
Aglionby, H. A. Ainsworth, P. Aldam, W. Bannerman, A. Berkeley, Capt. Berkeley, Hon. H. F. Blake, M. Blewett, R. J. Blake, Sir V. Bowring, Dr. Bridgeman, H. Brotherton, J. Bryan, G. Busfield, W. Byng, Right Hon. G. Collins, W. Crawford, W.S Currie, R. Dennistoun, J. Duncan, Lord Duncan, G. Duncombe, T. Dundas, A. D. Easthope, Sir J. Ellis, W. Elphinstone, H. Ewart, W. Ferguson, Col. Fielden, J. Fitzroy, Lord, C. Gibson, T. M. Hall, Sir B. Harford, S. Harris, J. Q. Hastie, A. Hawes, B. Hay, Sir H. L. Heron, Sir R. Hindley, C. Horsman, E. Humphrey, Ald. Johnston, A. Johnson, General Langton, W. G. Larpent, Sir G. Leader, J. T. Marjoribanks, S. Marshall, W. Marsland, H. Martin, J. Morrison, W. Muntz, G. F. Murphy, F. S. Napier, Sir C. O'Connell, D. O'Connell, M. J. Ord, W. Oswald, J. Parker, John Phillips, G. R. Philips, M. Philpots, J. Plumridge, Captain Protheroe, E. Ricardo, J. L. Rundle, J. Schofield, J. Smith, B. Somers, J. P. Stansfield, W. R. Steward, P. M. Stuart, Lord J. Stuart, W. N. Strickland, Sir G. Strutt, E. Tancred, H. W. Thornely, T. Villiers, F. Wakley, T. Walker, R. Wallace, R. Ward, H. G. Wawn, G. Wilde, Sir T. Williams, W. Wilson, M. Wood, B. Wood, G. W. Wood, Sir M. Yorke, H. R.
TELLERS. Villiers, C. P. Cobden, R.
Only one man in every six of the male adult population had a vote in the choice of members of Parliament; only ​one member out of seven so chosen voted against a law to make the food of the people scarce and dear. To assume that the House of Commons really represented the people was thus an assumption that forty-one out of forty-two of the male adult population were in favour of the Corn Laws With such proof of the mockery of representation—with such feeble result, in that house, of nearly three years of most energetic agitation, was it matter for wonder that many, in the despair of ever overturning selfish legislation while the house was so constituted, should begin to think that representative reform must precede all other reforms? The O'Connor chartists had held that opinion all along, and the signal defeat of the free traders was matter to them of loud rejoicing. Other thorough reformers—men, who, in earlier days, had been called radicals—men deserving the name of rational radicals—did not think that it accorded with either justice or policy to put down one agitation in order to exalt another, and they had heartily aided the anti-corn-law movement. The excellent Joseph Sturge, without slackening his exertions for the repeal of the Corn Laws, had originated the Complete Suffrage Union, and great numbers were glad to see, and to join, two movements, having the same practical end, though sought by different means. I was one of those who, promoting both, believing that the object of each would be best served by their being kept distinct and separate. I did not despair of the successful result of the anti-corn-law agitation. The teachings of the League, and the more stern teachings of intense suffering, had convinced at least one half of the community. It was true that the half of the people had only one-seventh of their so-called representation, but that seventh had all the argument on their side. There was but a small fraction of the house holding to the principle of prohibitory duties. Sir Robert Peel and his party, in supporting their modified sliding scale, almost went the length of asserting the doctrines of ​entirely free trade. Lord John Russell and his party, in supporting their fixed duty, made free-trade speeches. Both parties were forced to take their stand only on the allegation that there were "peculiar burthens" on land, which required some equivalent. Then the conviction of one-half of the community that the repeal of the Corn Laws was a matter of absolute necessity was not the mere recognition of a truth. Everywhere men were up and active, determined to succeed. The anti-corn-law petitions presented during the session, up to the 2nd of March, were:—
| For repeal, | 630 | petions, | 466,138 | signatures. |
| For repeal and freedom of trade, | 410 | ″ | 253,588 | ″ |
| For repeal of corn and provision laws, | 1,1718 | ″ | 749,750 | ″ |
| Against Proposed measure, | 123 | ″ | 71,279 | ″ |
| Total, | 2,881, | ″ | 1.540,755 | ″ |
A simultaneous agitation in nearly three thousand places was a proof that thoroughly free-trade principles were not only widely recognised, but had led to prompt action. The country had responded to the call of the League. That body had gained confidence by its distinctly specified object and its singleness of purpose. To add to its one demand that there should be NO CORN LAW, demands that there should be also annual parliaments, universal suffrage, vote by ballot, equal electoral districts, and payment of members—to merge one point in six, five of them inseparable and to be taken in all, or not taken at all; an especially to take into partnership, as it were, in the movement, a body of men, whose violence had disgusted even the most thorough of the radical party, would have been to abandon all the ground that had been already gained by the League. With these views, at the adjourned ​Manchester meeting, held in Stevenson Square, on Monday, February 14th, at which ten thousand persons were present, and where one of the resolutions passed was for universal suffrage, I said:—
The new Corn Bill proceeded as satisfactorily through the Commons as its framers could wish, the amendments proposed by the ultra "farmers' friends," on the one hand, and by the half-repealers on the other, being very summarily, and sometimes with "much laughter," disposed of. On the 25th of February, Mr. Christopher's motion, that when wheat was at 50s. the duty should be 25s. had only 104 votes. On the 28th, Mr. Wodehouse made an unsuccessful effort for an increase of the protection to barley; and the same result followed Mr. Redington's proposal to give better protection to the growers of oats and Lord Sandon's to give greater encouragement to British millers. On the 1st of March, Mr. Buller's motion, that when wheat was at and above 64s. there should be a duty of 6s., and Mr. Hastie's, that the scale of duties should be reduced one shilling annually, were also negatived. On the 9th, Lord Ebringtpn, after contending for a fixed duty, moved that the bill be read a second time that day six months. The second reading was carried by a majority of 284 against 176.
The third reading of the new Corn Bill was not moved until the 7th of April, in order that it and its twin measure, the new Income Tax, should march hand-in-hand. On that evening, Mr. Cobden made a motion, of which he had given notice: "That, inasmuch as this house has repeatedly declared, by its votes, and through reports of committees, that it is beyond the power of Parliament to regulate the wages of labour in this country, it is inexpedient and unjust to pass a law to regulate, with a view to raise, unnaturally, the price of food." He supported his motion with powerful argument, but none was elicited in reply. Sir Robert Peel said he had listened to the speech with great attention, but did not deem it necessary further to discuss the question; and he added, that the ​resolution was as much against a fixed duty as against the measure of government. Lord John Kussell said he would neither support Mr. Cobden's resolution nor oppose the third reading of the bill, his belief being that it would speedily be discovered that the sliding scale must be abandoned and a fixed duty adopted. The amendment had 86 supporters. Other amendments were rejected, and then came the motion for the third reading. Mr. Cobden entered a solemn protest against the bill, denouncing it as a robbery of the poor. The ayes were 229, and the noes 90, and then the bill was passed. On Monday, April 20th, the second reading in the Lords was carried by a majority of 119 against 17; and on Tuesday, Lord Melbourne's motion for a fixed duty was negatived by 207 against 71. Lord Brougham moved that all duties should cease, and had only four supporters.