The Sun.
London, England, 1830-02-26 00:00:00

Should cast upon them a censure the most severe, and an
imputation the most disreputable—that a motion for an
inquiry into the state of the naticn had a tendency to
effect their removal from office. I. seas admitting that
the errors of Ministers, which he believed to be gross and
various, would be made evident by the inquiry. He
would ask, what would be said—what would be thought
of that individual, who, on any imputation of misma-
. nagement, should refuse inquiry? What, bat that he
-- was wrong ? and who could be so desirous of having in-
vestigetion as the Ministers? IF this view were correct,
it composed the singular opinion expressed in that extra-.
ordinary paper, the Speech of the Lord Commiesionere,
and expressed by the Noble Duke in his speech: An
opinion that, if true, would be confirmed by such an he:
spiry, That distress was only partial, and temporary,--
W 43 imputable to the seasons--and was not caused, and
eould not be cured by legislation. If such were to be
the result of inquiry, inquiry must give great satis-
faction to Ministers. If Ministers were sincerely of
this opinion, and conscientiously believed the Speech
from the Throne, it was equally their interest
end duty to call for the feast inquiry, and would
justify them in the eyes of balers besides those who were
"neatly ready to approve of the measures of any individual'
who enjoy the same patronage. He felt most ttreangly a
personal veneration for the Noble Duke at the head of the
Government, and he was equally ifeeitous that the public
should be satisfied, by the result of an inquiry, that those
evils (lid not exist which he thought was the disgrace of
the Noble Duke's Administration, and destructive to the
interests of the country. The Noble Duke deserted great
veneration, and would be consigned to the latest posterity as
the great warrior who had defended Europe ; but he
would also be consigned to posterity as the Minister under
whose Administration the ruin of the country had been
consummated. What was the situation of the country?
He was sure that no man the least acqtsainted with the
country, could look on it without horror and dismay.—
(Hear, hear.) It was a general conviction that inquiry
was indispensible to ascertain the causes of this misery and
provide for its cure. Their Lordships were aware of the
sufferings of the agricultural classes; and though it was
said that the object of the Government was to uphold the
landed interest; yet were the landed gentlemen not lis-
tened to, and the petitions of the agriculturists were treated
with contempt. If, however, they had formed alliances,
and called to their assistance those of the other classes who
were complaining of the same oppreesion—if they had
formed a fund to prosecute their objects—if they had col-
• lected rents, and used the langoaee of menace and intimi-
dation, it was probable that their grievances would have
been attended with other effects.—(Hear, hear.) What
was, in fact, the situation of that class? Why, that they
were totally incapable of paying any rent from the pro-
fits of their produce. He believed there was not a
Noble Lord present who did not know this to be the case.
There was not a Noble Lord present who did not know
that in many places the rents were paid in part, nod
in other places almost wholly, net from the profits of the
farm, but from the capital of the farmer.—(Hear, hear.)
—And he would say new—let not those who might have
been fortunate enough to get a great portion of their rents
paid at the last audit day, fancy they will stilt continue
to be es) fortunate—let them not lay the flattering
unction to their souls, that thry will be so fortunate again.
They must know that many of the farmers have been
driven from their farms ; that others were ruined and
become bankrupts--they must know that their capital
and stock is daily wasting away, and when that
stock and that capital are exhausted, then the ruin and
misery of the agriculturists and the land-owners will
be completed. He was well aware that great numbers
of the land-owners were not wholly dependent on the
rents of their land for their expenditure—he knew
that many of them derived large revenues from property
in the funds—from canals and from houses, and from
various other sources; end that their situation was diffe-
rent from that of others who had no support, except what
they derived from the land ; and that they were, there-
fore, comparatively indifferent to that distress which did
not affect their interests to such an overpowering extent.
He would tell these persons, however, that they had no
right to dispose of the capital and property of the farmer
for their exclusive benefit; that they had no right to rob
-him of that sum which he had collected by the exertions of
honest industry, of economy, and of a successful application
of his skill in agriculture, in order to promote their own
selfish purposes. He knew it was said that a remedy could
be found—a reduction of the rents; an advice g.ven by
those who had no rents to receive, and no rents to pay, if
he excepted house rent.—(A laugh.)—'When, however,
farmers suffered from a reduction of the pi ices of all the
produce of their farms, the reduction of their rents followed
as a matter of course. A reduction of rent, however, in
his opinion, only transferred the produce from the occupier
of the land to the owner, and by compelling the landlord to
curtail the whole of his expenditure, only tended
to render the aggregate of distress more universal.
They might talk, however, of a reduction of rent, but
-those who did so knew very little of the matter. Rents
hail been reduced. lie was not now alluding to himself,
but he knew places in which the landlords had reduced
the rents upwards of 50 per cent. ; and he feared that
they would be now content to receive much less than that.
There never was a greater delusion than the assertion that
a reduction of rent would do good to the consumer. If not
an acre of land in England paid rent, he was confident
that it would net make a difference to the consumer of one
penny in the quartern loaf.--(Hear, and a laugh )—ln
many places no rents are paid at all at the ;resent moment,
and the Noble Duke and others ought to know' that where
no rent is paid none can be reduced. Ile feared that the
extent of public misery and agricultural distress was but
very little known by his Majesty's Government. He knew
several farms, in-which the expenses of cultivation exceed-
ed by six shillings, the whole of the gross produce of an
acre of land, without taking-the rent into consideration.
So that the farmer was a loser to the amount of six shil-
lings, and the rent on every acre he cultivated. They
were told, however, by the Noble Duke that this was the
result of unfortunate seasons. Now, it was rather curious
that Lord Liverpool, at the time that the agricultural dis-
tress was urged on his attention, attributed it to a
long course of favourable seasons, which bad created
a glut and auperabundancs ; and that, therefore,
the state of the land-owners was not so melancholy
as had been supposed, and that the increase of
consumption would speedily relieve them. The
great, however, as well as the most grievous and alarming
symptom of the present distress, was to be found in the
increase of the Poor's Rates, which are now at an amount
almost incredible, and without parallel in the history of
the country. He knew a rich and fertile district of
England—the vale of Aylesbury—in which the Poor's
Rates hail reached the proportion of thirty shillings on
every acre. Now, he would leave the Noble Duke to say
what was the measure of rent that would fall to the land-
lord, or of profit that could go to the tenant, after the
discharge of such a burthen ? Their Lordships would
also recollect tne statement of a Noble Viscount (Tor-
rington), the other evening, respecting the parish of
Mereworth, in Kent. In that parish the Noble Viscount
stated that the local assessments amounted to within just
forty pounds of the whole rental of the parish; conse-
quently there remained just that sum to Le divided among
the farmers and proprietors of land. He knew also a
parish in Sussex, in which the whole proceeds of the
land were insufficient to maintain its poor, and the
inhabitants had for some time been compelled to ap-
ply to the neighbouring parishes for assistance and
support. Looking at statements like these, and know-
ing the number of agricultural districts in which the
same description of distress could be found, he confessed
he thought we were fast on the road to, if we had not
quite arrived at, that state of distress in which the landed
proprietors held their properties, not for the purpose of
supporting or enriching their possessors, hut tee rely in
order to act as trustees for the paupers who resided on
their estates. The next stage to this teas, he feared, not
far distant—that stage in which the unhappy persons thus
scantily and wretchedly supported, would relieve them-

selves irom their miserable condition ; and finding they
could neither obtain' a livelihood by the exercise of
honest industry, nor support from the estate on which
they were placed, would at once endeavour to put an
end to a state of things so intolerable, and enforce,
through the power of their numbers, a division of
the land. Their Lordships knew the wretched con-
dition of the agricultural districts. They knew that in
some placit the labourers had been degraded to the con-
dition of beasts of burden, and yoked in carts like cattle, to
draw loads for their task-masters. Was this a state of
things that could be endured? Was this the condition of
the people of that happy land which once boasted to all the
world of the blessings of its glorious Constitution, and who
looked with an eye of compassion on the wretched condi-
tion of others who could not hoi,e to become partici-
pators in the same blessings ?—(Hear, hear.)—lt had
been said that distress: did; not exist in Ireland. Now, he
asserted that it did, and he would read part of a letter
which he had received from a highly respectable person in
Cork, as a proof of the truth of his assertion. Before he
read that letter, however, lie would just call their Lord-
ships' attention to the expressions used by no less a person
than the Chancellor of the Exchequer, while alluding to
the same subject in the other House of Parliament. That
Right Hon. Gentleman was reported to have expressed
himself thus ;—lt was not to be denied that there was a '
great and severe presetue of distress on the manufacturin6