The Express.
London, England, 1850-05-03 00:00:00

IMPERIAL PARL LAMENT.

HOUSE OF LORDI3.—TIIOI3DAY, MAT S.
The House met at 6 o'clock, Lewd Lanoleaea sat Speaker.
BIRTH OF A PRIMO&
The Nemesis of LANSDOWNI cosy beds papas of
sailing their lerdelaps' attention to • wales beim essy ether
beams was proceeded with—a subject white to know their
lordship would *ink with him ought to have precedence
over all other mattes. Their lordships w, ald anticipate
that he was Ostia( to ea
ate, namely, the birth of • prime, aad Meal suet be
tgees of pest amegratalation to the public generally, bat
to sate more this to their lordships assembled in that
Lim. (Hess.) It had been besieged tontine sere than ems
to sell their lordships' attendee to similar anent',
when be bad always found that rupees. which
he was VIM he should meetwith on the pus% missies.
It Weald be s waste of weeds, therefore, to say more sham
that every passim; you of her Majesty's reign would only
Weems the desire whisk their lordship and the country
weld feel for the welfare sad happians of the Queen and
her family. (Hear, hear.) He wield months le by moving
that so hassles address be presented to her
and,ratalating her oa the birth of another prince, enuring
lee Majesty that ever, seen tea to her domestic happiness
effeedes the most sincere sateshetica to their lordsaipe•
Tl.beast (Hear, heir.)
a Duke of RICHMOND, on behalf of himself and
his noble friends mound les, begged to express his hearty
esseurresee ia the observations which the noble marquis
lad st,ds, and felt deeply grateful to an all-wise Provodenes
who bad sustained and preserved kit Majesty. (Hsu.)
The address ma then adopted.
AG RIC OLT URAL DISTRESS.
The Duke of RICHMOND the, rose, pursuant to notice,
to present upwards of 100 petitions from various pens of the
itenusy on ten subject of agricultural distress. He thought
it but due to the persons who had signed the numerous
petit:in.@ to give notice of hi' Mentes superset thc-s, and
la dotes eo he was anxious to draw the attention of the noble
out the Secretary tor the Colt aies to one part of the
country from which some of three petition came. The first
which he bad to present was from Elgin in Scotland, where
U kieh farming amid meet the present state of things, it
must have succeeded. The case of those petitions was see
of preview bsrdsbip, brews* the foreigner mi.ht send his
grata to the British merles (end a great deal of it was cul-
tivated by slave about) is any vessel he chose, but
the Scotch fuser laboured under the disadvantage
el the existing corn leers by which he could only
avail himself of Betted' bemoan. The Scotch farmers
were convinced that at the present price of eons it
was Impossible to cultivate it, and they were laying down
their lead in gram. He was afraid, however, that they
would sot make much profit by that, for the price of
stock was very low indeed, and hotly remunerative. To
show the state of the farmers in the worth, he miebt say
that he had rectally see a newspaper from the county of
Northumberland, which contained 60 advertisements from
farmers of the saki of their live and dead stock.
They were told that the. free trade was an exporimeaL An
experiment! Whet! were they going to sweep from
the rue of the land the formes sad tenantry of Breese ?
They could not grow wheat at the present prices, which the
noble marquis opp mite had admitted ; and if that was true,
tney would be obliged to leave their hose, and what would
happen to thus ? Why, they would not get one-fourth of
what their &tech had cost them tour years ago. Was it
wished, then, to drive %bent, with what they had left, to a
foreign land, sod put einem menufacterers in their
places? All that the petitioners asked was that they
should have fair protect ion, not for themselves !only,
but for all British industry; and he thought they
were right in not being selfish, although they were
abused when they presented petitions on the subject of
the navigatioe It ova. They were determined to pc and
when the ye •aten of this country put their shoulder to the
wheel it was Let very easy for a bode of mere theorises and
Manchester manufactures to turn thee from their peeper.
The farmers paid a larder proportion of taxation than soy
other case of the community, and it was certain that the
present system of local taxation newt soon he put on a better
footing, but that would not be an equivalent for the lots of
protection
Est GREY said the noble duke was very wrong in sup-
posing that his noble frauds on that side of the house Ararat
from the discussion of the subject of the petition
which the noble duke had presented. The only Tenon why
they did not debate the policy of going bock to protactioa
was because they thought it perfee;ly mee dies to do ea • sad
be merely rose now in consequence of a remark wkiik kis
noble friend had made re:ative to a county with which he
was connected. He had said that there were not less that
sixty aiverti.entents in one piper of farming stock to be soil
M the county of Northumberland. Probably he was bet
aware that this was the time of year when a change of occu-
pation in the north of England generally took place. It was
always the ease at this season, and it dlid not appear thet
there was more than Le aaaaaaaa number of such advertise.
mints. He would for a moment call the attention of his
noble friend to a letter which bad been put into his hand,
and which had been cut but of an old Sussex newspaper.
It was signed " A 801011 Farmer," and was dated the 25 k
of September, 1811 It stied attention to che act of there
bring at that time 70 advert...meats in • Suss: paper for
the sale of fanning stock-10 of which were general notices
of sales, but the scanning 60 advertised an immense quan-
tity of lies stock. The writer went on to any that the
afforded an index of the state of the country, and nothing
could more clearly show the depresion of the agri-
cultural interest. Therefore, distress was as preys.
lent in 1144. under protection, u it was now under
free trade. (Hear. berm)
The Dake of ARGYLL (who poke from the cross
benches on the ministerial side of the ham) depreested the
constant discussions on this subject, upon the mere presenta-
tion of petitions. It aerated to him that these debates
indicated on the opposition aide of the house, a want
of knowte tie of the real petition in which they sto el with
regard to this question. Ye ey uodue weight had been attached
by noble lords on that side of the house to an expression used
by the wage marquis (Letudesene) on the first eight of the
session, name:y, that free trade was an experiment, and
that wrong deductions had been drawn from it. They knew
what an experiment meant upon any quotes of
public inlay, and they knew it was difficult to procure
the repeal of say principle whet once adopted.
Noble lords on that side of the house thought
this was an experiment which they could stop at any
moment, whilst on the other (the ministerial) tide it was
contended that the existing agricultural distress was an ex-
ceptional assn, sad if free trade was an experiment at all, it
must be tried be a considerable time.

- -
Lvrd FEVERSHAM wondered that it could be expected
that the growers of corn is ibis country could compete with
the sautzed loreigeer ; and the present nate of things
was such that there was ao hope of improvement. The
farmers, with justice, eland for • repeal of those times which
premed so tweedy ea them He denied that the present state
of agricultural distress was exceptional, and there was no
chaste of any improvement taking place so long an • free.
trade policy should be continued. Wu it just to the farmer,
he would ink, to continue the present duty upon malt?
Earl St. GERMANS was unwilling to prolong this in-
cidental di•ciritilti, which would have no practical mash.
He admitted that there was considerable distress sacoget
the owaen and occupiers of land, but, convinced as ha was
that a return to the system of protection was an imperil:laity,
he thought that that man was no real friend to the farmer who
timed hie to upset protection. He believed that the re-
moval of the duties on the importation of foreign corn was,
under the circumstances of the time, ea absolute nosessity.
Be believed that it bad the effect of ganging( the horrors
L Ireland, sad had bad the effect of protecting this country
beam the perinea' storms which had °renamed so many
thrums ea the eminent.
The Raul of STRADBROKE doubted whether the prawn
depreenou of agriculture was ezeepticaal. It had been said
that the agriculturists of Frame* were more distressed than
they were here, but he begged leave to deny that. Within
the last -three mouths we had received from Antenna
1,800,000 qrs. of wheat. In several parts of Ireland, the
Lumen weld calculating frees weak to week what property
they 'mkt obtain to escape to America. It was said that
the retain to protection was impossible; which was teats-
Mount towing that the English farmer would he denied
*doe.
Tho Duke of RICHMOND alluded to the noble lord

(Reel Bt. Germslas) bevies said that free trade had pre-
vented this emery from being revolatiosieed. Be gave
the noble lord credit for ate of the meet extraordinary dis-
coveries he bad ever made ; but he would tell that lordship.
what did prevent the country from being revolutiunised —it
was the good feeling of the people of lagised; it was their
desire to maintain the law of the coals:Ey, rejoicing in a free
oonatitatioa ; sad this wee a part of a free coustitatioa, that
they shoal& bring their grievances before the house, and
that they should not take the advise of the noble lord oa
the epees beaches. It woe mid, forsooth, that by what we
had dose, we had recommended the people of the continent
Se sell at a less if he (the DeWitt Bol.Omaad) had ever
dose asything to stop the importers of corn, be was
delight's' et it, sad should matinee to 'do his beet for that
pupae& lie was delighted to kw the Wile lord
werAte say that nothing was more unsatisfactory than
the law of the income tax la the mate in which it had been
left b 7 Sir 'hen Peel. Re thought that the noble lords
holdiag the respossitsie 'hoagies of advisers of her
y, were bound to being forward some 1111610111111 as this
sa set. _ _