The Sun.
London, England, 1839-03-13 00:00:00

they will attend to the discussion which takes place on
this occasion. Sir, I think that they will expect some-
thing more on this occasion than vague decarna.tions about
their importance, or exaggerated statements of their dis-
tress; for they are to hear to-night that the Corn-laws
have protected their interests, and they will hear on the
other side that the Corn-laws certainly have not protected
them from distress—that they are not benefited by the Corn-
laws, but on the contrary, that they hare occasioned distress.
Sir, I wish the whole discussion would turn on the interests
of the farmers, because it is the only plausible plea, in my
opinion, for supporting the present system. I am very
anxious not to be in error in anything I may state with re-
ference to this part of the subj ect, and I hope I shall be
corrected if wrong ; but I want to know if the farmer is
anything but a person who, having a certain property,
wishes to employ his capital in the cultivation of land ; and
whether he does not go to the owner of the land in the
same spirit, and for the same purpose, as any merchant or
owner of a vessel, or person engaged in trade, might go to
borrow money for commercial purposes ? Can there be
any doubt that the price for which he is able to obtain the
land must he determined by the value of the produce of that
land "s The capitalist on his side will not allow him to ob-
tain more than an average rate of profit, and the owner of
the land, aware that there are other capitalists to compete
for it, will nut allow him to have the land at less than a cer-
tain rate. If a law should be passed to fix the produce of
land at 80z. or 645. an acre, and that the person who takes
the land expects that price for its produce, it cannot be de-
nied that he will fail to produce that amount in all circum-
stances. Then it is said that there are certain local charges
which press upon the industry of the farmer, and that it is
necessary and just he should have protection. But these
charges do not arise subsequently to his occupation of the
land—they are known beforehand--they are the subject of
precise estimate, and he is just as well acquainted with them
as with the charges incident to the occupation of a house,
and if he has not capital sufficient to cultivate the land and
pay those charges, what interest can he have in it ? There-
fore he takes the land subject to all these charges, and if
these charges are heavy, and the price of the prodnce of his
land high, he requires a larger capital than he otherwise
should. This is so evident that perhaps it will not be dis-
puted. But it maybe said that these charges place the agri-
culturists of this country under disadvantageous circum-
stances for competing with other countries. I will venture
to state that the manner in which it has been proposed to
indemnify them for these local charges has had the praeise
effees of enhancing them. Why, look at the outgoings of the
farmer? With the exception of relit there is hardly
one of them which is not enhanced by increasing the price
of provisions.—( Hear and cheers.) Look at the County-
rate, the Poor-ratc,the taxes on servants, the taxes on horses,
the Assessed taxes; which of these is not increased by
adding to the cost of provisions ?—( Hear, hear.) If all
these local charges are too high, his business is to go to
the person from whom he took the land in order to abate
the price. But it is clear that he has no interest in all
these outgoings being higher than necessary. Perhaps it
will be said that all these things may be true, and that the
farmers have no interest in pa:,ing high charges. I have
reason to expect from the nature of the amendment to
he proposed here to-night, notwithstanding all these things,
that either through the bounty of heaven, or the landlords,
or some other circumstance which cannot be explained,
that important class, the farmers of this country, have
gone on well since the Corn-laws were introduced. It
has often been contended that such was the crse, and that
it was a thousand pities to disturb that which worked so
well. if that be so, it will not be difficult to characterize
some of the statements which have been made in this
House in the present, and every other Session since the
Corn-laws have passed. I myself have heard Members
complain that they wanted language to convey an idea of
the sufferings of the agriculturists, and the detail of their
woes were the constant theme of discussion in this House.
A Noble Duke, whose constant friendship to the farmers
is matter of notoriety, has frequently brought forward
this question, and I have heard him commence by
regretting that he had to detail the same sad story which
he so often previously had repeated, of agricultural dis-
tress. We have heard of the deplorable state to which
they were reduced—we have heard of seizures and execu-
tions, and debt and imprisonments--of farmers becoming
insolvent—of great arrears of rents, tithes, and poor-rates
unpaid, of live stock lessened, and tradesmen's bills undis-
charged, and general poverty in the agricultural districts.
—( Loud cries of " Hear, hear.") Sir, I am quite con-
vinced that every Member here is perfectly familiar with
similar language. Within the last 20 years there have
been five Committees sitting on the unparalleled distress of
the agriculturists. I have read some of these reports, and I
find that in about four or five years after the first Corn-
Law Bill had passed, the distress was referred to the Corn-
law itself. The Corn-law is there denounced as a mea-
sure calculated to ruin every person engaged in the trade
of grain. It appeared that the distress increased in 1826,
and at last the law was altered in 1828; but the same prin-
ciple- existed in the last as in the former law, and again we
have distress in 1833 and 1936. Complaints were brought
before this House and a Committee was appointed to inves-
tigate the cause, and on looking through these inquiries I
find among them many details and much evidence of the
sufferings of the farmers. But, Sir, what I was curious to
ascertain was whether any great landowaer was called on
this occasion to state that he was suffering from distress.
I looked in rain for any evidence of that sort. We have
a goad many questions asked the farmers as to whether
they don't think that there would soon be nothing left
to pay the rents, and s good deal of evidence that rent was
paid out of the capital, but I don't see that the landlords
were giving up their horses or their establishments, or
lowering their rents, or going to the Continent to retrench.
I don't see any evidence of that at all. I have a decided
inference to draw from this, and I wish the farmers to con-
sider whether it is not the delusive promise of these Corn-
laws themselves, that have occasioned their ruin and that
distress. The Corn-laws professed to fix the price which
is to remunerate the farmer. In 1815, the farmer got 80s.
a quarter for his wheat, and trusting in what the House of
Commons did, he was perfectly ready to give rent for the
laud, with reference to that price. The law promised a
certain price for the produce of the land, but how far
does the low realise these expectations ? Four years
after the law promised eighty shillings a quarter for
the wheat, it was selling for thirty-seven shillings, but the
farmer had contracted with the landlord to give a rent ac-
cording to the promise of the law. Then the farmer finds
himself deceived and destroyed ; then he tells his tale of
paying rent out of capital, and then the landlord, who gets
all the benefit of these laws, and who has from the farmer
a legal undertaking that he shall pay rent on the promise
of 803. a quarter, tells him " go to the House and get a
Committee to inquire into your distress, and we will come
down and detail your distresses to the House, and we will
obtain for you the advantage of a Committee." That is
the history of some of these Committees of Inquiry. Now
I say that the same principle which was introduced into
the first law is still in existence. It is not 80s. now, but
645., and the law of 1828 still promised the farmer 645.
a quarter, and I find in the evidence given before
a Committee of the House of Lords in 1830
that the same farmers say, " iF we were aware of what has
happened, we never would have made such an engagement
as we have done ; we expected that wheat would have con-
tinued at 645. a quarter, when we took our farms in 1828;
but 1832 and 1633 came, and we found that wheat fell
some 30 or 40 per cent. ; we were unable to meet our en-
gagements, and then our ruin began." This is exactly the
consequence of these laws. You make these farmers en-
gage in certain expenses—you make them prepare for cer-
tain large outgoings—you prophecy that they will have a
highs price for their produce, and then they find themselves
disappointed, and you find them ruined. They pay a rent
according to a price which was promised them, and it is at-
tempted to introduce a priniiple which you neither can nor
dare enforce—which both ruins the farmer and angers the
people. You profess to regulate the price by these laws,
and you cannot regulate it but by limiting the quantity,
and that you dare not do.—(Cheers.) You tantalize the
people with food which they dare not touch, and you tan-
talize the farmer by telling him that foreign corn shall not
be introduced into this country. Then comes the accident
of a bad season, which is no advantage to the farmer,
although the price rises. His crops are short, but the
price being raised, you are compelled to let in a quantity
of foreign grain, produced at a much less cost than the
home producer can send it to market. You sink the
price at home, and the farmer, who has incurred all the
expenses of this system, finds himself ruined by the fall
which has taken place.--( Hear, hear,) Then, if there
happens to be a bad season abroad as well as at home, the
farmer finds a general clamour against these laws—they
are denounced in every town where the people can assemble
—he feels uncertain whether these laws will remain, and he
knows not what engagements he can enter into. And these
are time persons for whose benefit you say these laws are
made—these are the persons for whom you say these laws
have been called into existence. He finds himself selling
his produce one year at 120 s. a quarter, amidst the curses
of the people, and a few years afterwards ho is obliged to
sell at 375. a quarter, and perhaps it is the officer of the
sheriff who is selling it to pay his rent. Within the last
four years of these improved laws we find a fluctuation of
100 percent. in the price of corn, and you admit that a
steady price was, above all things, what you sought for, and
yet this is in the face of the experience of a system under
which you impose the nominal duty of 6d. per quarter on
foreign grain ; when time ports were open from 1773 to
17til, and when there was less fluctuation in the price, more
agricultural improvement going on—no complaints of dis-
tress and general contentment among the labouring popu-
lation. Sir, I really pity the farmer—l feel for him as one
of the industrious and productive classes, who wastes his
labour in fruitless efforts ; and I lament to see him the vic-
tim of the present system of Corn-laws. Sir, the farmers
are men of peculiar habits and feelings, and I cannot help
thinking that they have been practised upon.—( Hear, and
cries of "Oh 0 They are strongly attached to the sail
and locality on which their forefathers lived—they are men
of little education—( Cries of " Oh I" mid laughter)—and
they are not what is usually termed men of business.—
( Hear, and renewed laughter.) They feel themselves
helpless when engaging in any other occupation, and they
are unwilling to leave the place which gives them bread.
The consequence is that they are ready and willing to
make engagements which prudence does not justify, and
they are always ready to agree to the terms which the land-
lord proposes.—( Loud laughter.) I cannot help feeling
that is the struggle which is going on between the farmers
and the landlords, the former being anxious to retain occu-
pation, and the latter desirous of taxing the farmer be-
yond his ability. I know that this is what has taken place
of late years—the landlord exacting too much rent, and
the farmer being anxious to retain his land. He is anxious
to retain his land—he expects some redress from the
Legislature—he hopes that things may turn out better
--he is deluded by various circumstances, and he under-
takes to do what he cannot fuliil. Sir, lam not speaking
vs'•.hout book in these matters-_I am repealing almost the
very aekitiments expressed to me by farmers themselves.
know well what farmers say_tl•
land were
an
raised they Iv; :".'s then the prices of
would , ants corresponding benefit. It
retie to talk of much land going out of cultiva-
tion by a repeal of the Corn-laws, when we know
that all rent must cease before the land can be
permitted to go out of cultivation. And though it is
plain that a tenant at will in arrear will not express his
free opinion, yet it is certain that the farmers arc
becoming every day more enlightened respecting th
connexion of their interests with this question, and it will