The Sun.
London, England, 1830-12-10 00:00:00

No. 11,933.

LONDON, FRIDAY EVENING, DECEMBER7IO, 1830

IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT.

" only give them the power to issue small notes to the extent
for which they could depOsit Exchequer Bills as security.
Never was there a greater mistake than to say, that to
issue small notes would be a departure from the ancient
policy of the country. This ;Mint the Noble Lord illus-
trated by referring to the several Acts upon the subject, and
especially to the 17th George HI. [At this part of the
speech he solicited and obtained leave to sit while he ad-
dressed their Lordships, on account of his infirmities,]
He maintained that the 17th Geo. HI., and previous Sta-
tute., restricted the issue of small notes for fractions
of pounds sterling, because they were made the means
of fraud, as Sir George Sackville had established at the
Bar of Parliament. The restrictions upon the issue of
small notes were at variance with the maxims of political
economy. Political economists said—" Let every man
take care of himself;" but Parliament would net trust
country bankers with the management of their own affairs.
The next cause of distress assigned was excessive taxation.
It was admitted by the late Mr. Pitt, that the .Excise
alone took out of the pocket of the poor man two-fifths of
his wages ; and here he might briefly notice a great deal
that had been said on the subject of high rents. Rent
was only about one-fifth of the produce of the land, and
he mentioned it in order to relieve the landlords of the
country froth most unjust odium. Those who pressed
most heavily on the lower orders were a different class of
persons, who interposed -between the bounty of Providence-
and the object of that bounty—be meant the inferior class
of tradesmen and shopkeepers, who took more from the
pocket of the 'poor man than the landlord and the taxer.
It bad been said that rents ought to be reduced to the
standard of 1793 ; and he (Lord Wynford) would under-
take that in most parts of the country—those only excepted
that were peculiarly favoured—the owner of the soil had
expended more upon the permanent use of it than he
gained by his rent ; so that, in fact, land was cheaper than
in 1793. He bad taken great pains upon this subject,
and would pledge his character to support what he ad-
vanced by proof. He would undertake to prove, that
rents, upon the standard of 1793, could not be col-
lected at present, without some alteration of the law ;
nay, more, with regard to what were called tke se-
cond and third classes of land, no rent at all was taken
by the owner of the soil. The political economist
would say—" Then let them be thrown nut of cultivation,
and let us buy corn in Poland and elsewhere at a cheaper
rate." This argument, injurious as it was, had been sup-
ported by that powerful engine, the Public Press, which
had hastened the ruin of the agriculturalists. Let it nut be
forgotten, however, that if the poorer soils were left un-
tilled, millions of labourers must be thrown out of employ-
ment. Supposing alt's that the landed proprietor were
compelled to reduce hie rents to the standard of 1793,
what would be his condition? He would be degraded
below any other class of the community; for he must pur-
chase necessaries and luxuries, corn, wine, and education
for his children, at three times the price they cost in 1793.
But it was not merely the landed interest that would be
affected—it must drag down with it a dreadful portion of
the other classes of society. What, ton, in that case, was
to become of the home market for manufactures, which
had always, and justly, been considered so valuable ? Al-
lusion had been sometimes made to bad seasons as a cause
of distress ; but the last season was productive, and the
evil instead of diminishing, had been augmented. Next
it had been urged that the Corn Laws were must injurious
and to repeal them was at once to afford a remedy. He had
not the least objection to the repeal of the Corn Laws upon
one condition, viz.—that the land should be relieved from
all the burdens pressing peculiarly upon it. He was quite
sure that the last corn law was of no benefit to the agri-
culturist, although it had imparted from the Stock Ex-
change a most mischievous system of gambling and spe-
culation into every market-town. Some fixed and perma-
nent system of law was absolutely required for the protec-
tion of the land as at present circumstanced. Ile par-
ticularly objected to the mode of striking the averages,
into the calculation for which the price of Irish grain did
not enter, as well as to the permission to foreign vessels
to bring grain upon the same terms as British shipping,
although the foreigners usually returned in ballast, ear.
tying back nothing but British money, without Rion of
British manufactures. He was then brought to consider
the exclusive burdens to which the land was exposed,
amounting at least to 25 per cent. What equivalent had
the owner of the soil for this unfair distribution of the
public burdens ? None. The chief weight of the poor-
rates, amounting to three-fourths of the whole, fell upon
him, by the operation of the Statute of Elizabeth, and
subsequent Acts. He supported, almost exclusively, the
manufacturing poor. A manufacturer was rated only
for his factory, and not upon the whole value of his pro-
perty; besides, lie had his factory !in one place, whilst
his workmen obtained settlements in the adjoining and
agricultural parishes ; so that it might be truly said, that
scarcely a bale of cloth was exported to which the land
had not contributed. Next came the land-tax, originally
intended to be paid by every description of property ; but
every other description of property bad by degrees crept
nut and left the land to sustain the whole weight. The
bounty at first given to the proprietor of the soil had been
taken away, and many modern taxes were made to bear
with much greater severity upon him than upon any other
person in the community. Capital, too, hail been drawn
from the land for the support of the manufacturer : he
would not trouble their Lordships with details upon this
point, but he would refer them to documents upon the
table, by which it would appear, that while everything pro-
duced by the soil of this country might be imported almost at
a nominal duty, articles that would interfere with the into.
rests of the manufacturer were excluded by heavy impolite.
There was one other circumstance to which he wished to
allude. There were great complaints of the 4istressed
state of the country. He believed that representation to
be true ; but lie was convinced that the distress of the
manufacturing interest and the commercial interest was
but a symptom of that which affected the land. It was
impossible but that it must be so. If they looked at Mr.
Colquhoun's work, they would see that he represented the
landed interest as almost every thing, and surely he was
as much to be relied on as those other gentlemen profess-
ing political economy who held a different opinion. But
there was one criterion even safer than that of Mr. Col-
quhoun's authority—he meant the proof afforded by the
income tax ; from a view of the returns under that tax,
their Lordships might judge of the different importance of
the agricultural and the manufacturing interests. In
1815, the last in which that tax was levied, it would be
found that the income tax, levied on a rate of ten per
cent. produced for the land 8,200/., and deducting two
millions for houses, that left six millions as the contribu-
tion of the laud alone. If they looked, then, at the re-
turns of the same tax upon commerce and manufactures,
what would be the result ? Commerce, manufactures,
professions, and trades, together with property abroad,
which paid a tax in this country, produced but three mil-
lions. Take from that sum este million for property
abroad that paid a tax here, and that left two millions as
the whole of the income tax upon commerce, manufae-
turn, trades, and professions; while the land alone paid
six millions. Could it be denied, after that fact, that the
landed interest was the most important in the country?
his might add, with regard to the calculation he had just
made, that he believed it would be found that three-
fourths of the money paid on behalf of the towns was pro-
duced front the owner of the land and his tenants, and
from those concerned in the home trade of the
country. He did not undervalue the foreign trade,
but he did not think that, in order to preserve it,
we should sacrifice our internal means of prosperity.
If the foreign trade left us, as there was good reason to
believe it would, still we should find ample means for the
deveaopment of our industry in the home market, and in
our commerce with our colonies. Our merchants would
still be able to keep us, in any case of necessity, above the
possibility of a deficient supply, so that it was impossible
a country like this could ever feel itself dependent on any
other for a supply of corn. We saw already symptoms of
the decline of our foreign commerce, and we ought to
provide ourselves with a substitute in the additioqal en-
couragement given to our aeripultere. Onr commerce
was declining, because other countries had become, like
us, manufacturers. France had her manufactures.—
Americe had hers—and to that extent, too, that they had
occasioned a great falling off in our exports. The Rut-
trial's and Germans also had their manufactures. Those
people were so stupid as not to attend to the wise opinions
of our political ecoomphts, who told them to take our
manufactut es—they refused to do so-aahey manufaCtured
their own goods. The Dares did the sense. Ile hail
seen a very clever estaty—no doubt very clever—aie which
the Danes were told not to mannfaptere their Qs,•ll cletutr
because they could get it ao touch cheaper here ; but they
said, If I buy bout you I must pay money for it, but if

HOUSE OF LORDS, DEC. 9.

The Loan CHANCILLOA took his seat on the Wool-
sack at Five o'clock. His Lordship gave judgment in
the Scotch Appeal " v. Earl Dalhousie," in which
his Lordship affirmed the judgment of the Court of
Sessions without costs.

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