The Express.
London, England, 1849-07-07 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, SATURDAY EVENING, JULY 7, 1849.

hon. member ? Are we to intones a high duty on the raw
cotton we receive from the United ?Riad? Wbat good
would a high duty do to our cotton manufacturers ? They
can beet the United States in neutral markets, though of
in their own • and what class in this country would dative
any benefit hoes a high duty on raw cotton ? I emelt that
'Du are far better able to compete with the hostile tariff of
the United States, in neutral miakots, by buying the raw
material at the cheapest posnible rat* than you would be
by imposing a countervailing duty on this material i•
order to retaliate the pr libitory dat7 ed 20 per cent.
impold oa our cotton masterdom. lake Francs as so.
other instance of the fallacy of this tom of reasoning. Site
won't ready' our hardwares nor our cotton manufactures.

Sew, thee, are we to deed with bee ? Are we to Mamma •
kisk Mat 7 on her wises? If yen do so you nowt beak's
She priesaplse of the Methuen treaty, which I thought had
bogs exploded and repudiated by every statesman in this
hoes, wben the wine dada were equalised. That treaty
wee based on the ground that Deceit's Portugal consented
to take English woollens we consented to admit her
wines eta Loser rate of duty than those of France. (Hear.)
Well, I cortaioly did think that the doctrines upon width
this treaty was based had bean exploded. (" Hear" and •
truth.) However, to premed with my illustration. In
the year 1815 we reduced the duty on French brandy
from 224. 6d. a gallon to 15e. What hu been the con-
sequence? Have we suffered in any degree from that
change ? Has the advantage been gained by France
alone ? If, imaged of reducing we had augm-oted the
duty we should have heal to pay dearer lit our
brandy, and we should have gained nothing in any other
way, whereas by reducing the duty on brandy without in-
sneak upon an equivalent, you have got your brandy at a
lets price by the whole of the difference in the duty. Well,
h n, has the revenue suffered in consequence of this re-
duction ? Let us see. In the year 1845, when the
duty was 22a. 6d. • gallon, the amount received was
1,208,00 w. on French brandy. In the year 1845 the duty
being 15s , the revenue derived from brandy was 1,206,0001.
So that there is little or no reduction in the revenue, whilst
there has been a vast increase on the import, a cur-
responding decrease in smuggling, and no correspond-
ing evils to be complained. of. What, therefore,
oe old we possibly have gained by fighting the French
duties en our hardware and cottons by • hostile tariff OA
our ride ? Well, now I come to Rusin. We are dissatirfied
with the restrictions which she imposes on our productions.
Would it be any advantage to us to raise the duty imposed on
the tallow, hemp, sad other raw produce which we receive
(ma Russia? I Hear.) Fee my own part, I see no advan-
tage is imposing countervailing duties on these arheles of
consumption. J. tbere:ore, without the slightest reservation,
do not hesitate to ay that the noble lord wee wrong when
he said that he would extend protection to all the articles of do-
mestic produce. I apprehend the real mese ing of the coition
now before the house-or, at least, one of the immediate con-
stquecces of its being affirmed-to be the re.impraition of
prstective duties on the food of the people. (Cheers, and
counter cheers.) Now, it is with the most solemn convic-
tion of the truth of what I am asserting, that I state it to be
my belief and my firm conviction, that any more fat .1 boon
could not be conferred up .n the agriculturists than such pro-
tection as the boa, member contemplates. (Hear, hear.)
I do entreat the agricultural interest in this house to
consider what the real value of this protection la.
I entreat you to coesiler whether it is not pcariele that the
importation of foreign corn into this country may have been
governed by ether considerations than those of the natural
course of trade. I entreat you to cousidt r weether or not
there have been great lows in the corn trade and in the im-
portation of corn, which may operate as • warning to tee
importers of corn in lieut., and that the price may have been
unduly depe elated, iudependently of all considerations of
few trade. It is of owes difficult to speak of the future.
My opinion is, however, that that is the case ; and I Mend
you alio to consider this, that you never could, in the peseta%
state of public opinmo, have maintain( d a law which would
give you • guarantee of high prices to the injury of the
people at large. (Hear, beer.) Sr, in 'he concluding pen
of the epet ch of the bon. gentlemen who introduced this mo-
tion, he spoke of the condition of the labouring classes, and
-aid he teeught the tendency of recent legislation had
been to lower the condition of that c:us, He de-
scribed them as members of a powerful hiererehy
end said that they had a right to consideration as the mem-
bers of that hierarchy. Now that was rather a romantic and
poetical view to take of the condition of the labouring cheese.
(A laugh.) Let me indu'ge in a more prose and practical
view of the condition of that great hierarchy in 1842.
( Ilea.) Allow me to take the position of a manufacturer at
Prni.lll, or a labourer at Dareetabire or On.• of the souther
counties. Let me suppose that in 1842 the mamba els re-
ceived 12s. a week, and the labour. rBl a week. Now make
from those wages the dedustioes fur Manse-rent, elothioe, and
menial attendance-suppose they have 4 or 6 children to sup
port, and let me call your attention to the sate of taxation at
that time. (Hear, hear.) Will you just consider, when you
contend that that which has been done has had a tends r y
to lower the condition end interfere with the comforts of that
man, whet it was that he was likely to require for the con-
' munition of his faintly? (Hear, hear) I will no take
Doraushire ; bat I will suppose the astriculrural
labourer to be receiving 104. &wick, a d paying 10.6 d. a week
perhaps fur lodging and clothing. This then was the Oates
of tuatiun. All animals, ox-t, sheep, and swine, were pro-
hibited. It' there were a drum/ among the sheep, you had
no reduction of the extraordinary price or mutton by tee im-
portation of sheep from ahruad. (Hear, hear.) Fresh p .1k
was prohib led. Salted beef was 12s. a eat. Salted pork
Was the same. Bacon, 28s. a cwt. ; potatoes even 24. •
ewe ; lard, Ss. a cwt.-Bs. a ewe ! It is only the other day
I saw a letter from Liverpool. stating that 9,000 tons of lard
had been leaven.' from the I.l.ite d State-, which had found
its way into L incashire End Yokihire, where it wax used as
• substitute for butter. (Cheers.) Ham'. of all kinds were
28s. ; cheese waa 10t. 6d. ; butter, 20s. a cwt ; tallow
Candles, 31. 3s. 4.1 per cwt. ; wheat, if it were 65e. • quarter,
was If. Is. 81.; oate if they were 2.54., were 9s. 31. ; barley,
at 33e., was 124. 4d.; Jed Indian corn win the eau
-Indian torn, which had been the great resource
of the i-h people during the famine, paid in 1542
• duty of 124. 41., anti that dependent on the
price of barley. (Hear, lee ar.) Sir, it pl aced this house to
reduce thus ituties. (Bear, hear) My buiet is that a
wiser declaim than that to which you came, to subject pro-
perty to direct taxation within certain limits, to remove the
proeiliemiis from meat and cattle, to permit s eine and oxen
to he imported, to reduce the duty on corn, bacon, lard,
nutter, and Cheese. could not have been adopted. hie
belief is that it was a most advisable measure, and
that you have b:en amply repaid fir any loss yea may
have sustained by that reduction. (Cheers) You thought
that the metropo:is presented a msenificent spectacle, and
so it did, weer some 150,000 men et the mi idle class
were ranged in support of the authorities, when there was
no tieoffection, when there au a determination, without
Mentes to party differences, to preserve the peace of
this country and to pat down the threats and menet es of
the ill disposed. But my belief is that the metropolis ex-
hibits an iecomplete-an imperfect example of the ad-
vantage you derived from that c ink once and support. You
must go to the great hives of manuf.cturing industry.
(Cheen.)o 5 to tee miner-go to those who are not sat' jetted
to the influence s which tell in the metropolis in favour of the
authorities. On to Paisley, to Glasgow, to Stockport, to
Mincheeter ; go to the Oen entricr, end there see the order
that was preserved in February, Is4B. (Hear, hear ) S e
. gen, when the manumouriag interests were deeply suffer-
e.g-when there was the loss of emplo) ment-when there
were great privetions-11‘ e the p silence lied resignation with
wt ich those sufferings were borne-(cheen)-and so b me
becaute it was felt that human legislation was not responsible
fee the calamities of the time. (Chum.) I will not take
L indon, then, as an ex ample of the order and the determiva-
taos to maintain the institutions which then pervaded this
ennntry. I leek at the report which was made by the police
officers. I wanted to me how a population behaved which I
remembered to have been moved from its foundations in
1.818 which at various jute evening periods had been subjected to
the arts of the seditious and disaffected, and who with dtlfi 'el ty
had resisted, in times of great suffering, the snares and tempta-
tion that were held out to them. I wanted to know what course
they had taken in 1848; with the example of Irish disaffec-
tion before them, with the example of the French revolu-
tion, of march triumphant, and thrones shaken to their
foundations; and! fled from an account published by a police
offleer, dated so recently as tee 19. h April, of the present
year, that much as the town of Manchester was indebted to
the enereetic a tares of the mayor, and the active co-ope-
ration of the eitims, the borough owed still more to the
working.cluses, and mill operatives, for the msiotenance of
order, for their express disaeproval of, and absence of sym-
pathy with the prise mdines of the few disorderly and dis-
affected. (Cheers.) Well, surely those are significant
lesson*, surely then are decisive preofe, that tee policy you
ad-spted in remitting the duties on sr ides of subsistsnes was
a wise policy. (Hear, hear) It was not the act of a sega-
cious minister ; the great coming crisis was not foreseen ;
my belief is that it pleased Almighty God to listen to
year prern to turn scarcity and dearth into cheapness
and plenty, "so to direct and prosper your consultations"
on the brink of a great precipice,-on the coming of a tre-
mendous calanaity,-as to estab ish peace and happiness on
the foundations of troth and justice. (Cheers.) You have
reap( d the emard of that policy. You have pawed un-
scathed during the severest trial to which the institutions of
any nation were ever exposed. Yon stood erect amid the
convul ias around you : and are you now to have proposals
male to yr uof some paltry fix d duly ? (felmeral cheering.)
Take your 51. duty, and contider what it is. If it be 6s ,
it will give you 5... on wheat, 2s. 6d on barley, and 24.
on eats; Is. 6d. mote than you have at present on
barley, and Is. mere than you have on oats. It is
au equivocal advantage at the bent. (Cheers.) But by
every consideration welch can influence rational and re-
flecting legislator, by the lei/hest sumo stions of a generous
policy, by the coldest calculations of the lowest and most
selfish prude ,er, I implore you to reject this proffered
boon-(cheers)-and not to secrifice-not to barter the
glorious heritage which you have obtained by your !emotions
and most timely policy, for the =allot: consideration which
ever was proposed to man, since the days of him who sold
his birthright for a mess of pottage. (The right bon. gentle-
man resumed his seat amidst dpi 1 cheering.)
The Marquis of ORANBY hoped that the house would
be kind enough to give him its indulgence for a short time,
feeling, as he did, the great disadvantages under which he
labour, din enleavouring to answer his right bon. friend, bnt
particularly on the resent occasion when the hour was so
lute. (12 o'clock.) His right hon. friend had made a very
able, but • very lengthy, speech, aid on both those grounds
he prayed for their indulgence. His right hon. friend began
his speech by 'eying that the question they bad to-night to
decide was whether they ought to retain the preseat
go-
v.rnmeet in office or subvert the commercial po of this
country. If that were :he question, with all respect for
the t lent of the government, he should have no
hesitation in deceling im west he conceived to be the trim,
material, essential interest of this country; for he mei not
twee with his right hon. friend that they had an heritage
tie these measures, and they ought to endeavour to retain it.
He hoped to be able to show that he had ground for sa)irg