The Sun.
London, England, 1849-03-16 00:00:00

prevailed in the speech of the Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer respecting the amount of expenditure on
the army and navy. The question proposed by
the Honourable Gentleman had been resolved by
the Chancellor- of the Exchequer into this, that it
was a proposal to lay on between 400,0001. and 000,000 i.
upon the tenant-tarniers on the plea of being a
benefit to them.—(Hear, hear.) That proceeded, too,
upon the assumption that it was proved to demonstra-
tion, and beyond cavil or contradiction, that the local
burdens laid upon property were borne by real property,
and not by the floating capital of the country. If the
House agreed to that proposition, they might feel in-
clined to reduce the burdens upon real property; but
was there one human being who would deny this propo-
sition, that if they reduced the burden upon real pro-
perty, the relief would go into the pockets of the owners
of that property ?—(Cheers, and dissent from the Pro-
tectionist benches.) But there would be farmers who
would read what he was saying, and farm labourers too,
and he would put the case of two farms to be let of pre-
cisely equal intrinsic value as regarded the quality of
the soil and the situation, but upon one of them the
poor-rates should be 2s. in the pound, and on the other
Bs. in the pound. Now, would any Hon. Member
tell him that he would let the two farms for the same
rent?—(Hear, hear.) He asked for even a nod of assent
from Hen. Gentlemen opposite.—(Laughter.) Why,
there was not a farm agent or valuer iR the kingdom who
would not scout the proposition that those two farms
would be let at the same rent.—(Hear, hear.) Those
persons would tell them that, after deducting the rates
from the value of the land, the difference was always
taken as the amount of the rent. Did not such a propo-

sition, therefore, as that of the lion. Gentleman, come
before them under false pretences, or even very much
like a hoax? First, the farmers were paraded before
them. Hon. Members came in hot haste from Willis's

Rooms, where ,resolutions were passed by tenant-far-
mers, and where they were told no one but tenant-
farmers were allowed to speak. Now he (Mr. Cobden)
knew that most of those persons whom they called
" tenant-farmers" were land agents, for he had met

hem all.—(A laugh and cries of " Hear, hear,") But

Hon. Gentlemen proposed to serve the tenant-farmers,
and in doing so they raised up quarrels between the
tenant-farmers and the manufacturers.—(Oh, oh.) The
peroration of the speech of the Honourable Gen-
tleman (Mr. Disraeli) was nothing but an attempt to
array the farmers against the manufacturers, under the
insidious title of the landed interest.—(Bear, hear.)
Now, he would maintain that there was no difference
whatever between the farmer and the manufacturer in
relation to the question before the House. The farmer
was a manufacturer; he held a farm for the purpose of
manufacture, and the interests of farmer and manufac-
turer were to that extent identical. But he would tell
them that the interests of farmer and landlord, as such,
were antagonistic, in spite of anything that could be said
to the contrary.—(Loud cries of " Oh! oh !") And let
him be understood. He did not want to set one class
against others.—(Laughter and interruption.) As
members of one and the same community, he did not say
that their interests were necessarily antagonistic; but it
they came to the House for measures for the benefit of
the landlord and tenant-farmer jointly, then he said
that those interests as such were antagonistic, for it was
the interest of the tenant-farmer to get the land as
cheap, and tha interest of the landlord to let the land as
dear as ho could.—(Hear.) It was just as impossible
for the House to legislate for one and the other, so that
they could be equally benefited by the same measure, as
it would be impossible for the cotton broker of Liverpool
and the cotton-spinner of Manchester to come with
common case, and ask the House to do something
that would benefit both those interests exclusively.—
(Cheers.) He thought they had got beyond the discus-
sion of such questions as these—(Hear)—and that the
time was coming when they might put plainly before the
farmer the real state of the case. It had been said that
he had admitted that the farmer had a claim for compen-
sation, and that he (Mr. Cobden) had been a party to in-
juring him. What he had said was that farming was in
future to be carried on like any other operation of com-
merce, and that he was prepared to relieve the farmer
from every impediteent to the free exercise of his in-
dustry—(Oh, oh)—among which impediments he had
enumerated the malt-tax. The present discussion had
very much taken the character of a free-trade debate,
and he (Mr. Cobden) had said that ha would not enter
upon a discussion of that question until there was a mo-
tion on the table of the House to restore protection in
corn. It was now alleged that free trade had produced
all kinds of disasters to agricultural labourers, as well as
farmers ; and he would accept these challenges. The
House were called upon to believe that the agricultural
labourer was suffering from the low price of pro-
visions.—(Cheers and laughter.) The Noble Lord
the Member for West Sussex (the Earl of March) spoke
of seven years of those Halcyon days of protection,
and declared how well the agricultural labourer was off
in those years. Now, he (Mr. Cobden) had taken some
pains to inform himself upon this:part of the question,
and he denied that the labourer was better off in dear
years than when corn was cheap. Take the year 1847,
adverted to by the Noble Earl, and let them compare
the situation of an agricultural labourer having a family
of five persons in that year and the present. If he
consumed as much bread as the union allowed him he
would eat 10 41b. loaves per week, which in the year
1847 cost him 9d. per loaf, or 7s. 6d. in all. The price
of these loaves is 6d. at present, so that the same quan-
tity of bread now would cost him 55., or less by 2s. 6d.
than in 1847. The reduction of wages might be is. per
week, or, taking the reduction at the Noble Earl's
own showing, at 2s. per ;week, it left the labourer be •
nefited to the amount of 6d. per week in bread, in ad-
dition to the reduction in the price of sugar and other
articles.—(Cheers.) But take the case of the manufac-
turing and other labourers in the north of England and
in London, and compare their situation at present with
what it was in the bygone and cherished years of pro-
tection—years which had gone by for ever. The me-
chanics, porters, and labourers, in the morth of England
were saving from 2s. to 3s. per week in the diminished
price of bread and other articles, which was tantamount
to an advance of 15 per cent. in their weekly income.—
(Hear, hear.) The House had heard from the lion.
Member (Mr. Cayley) that the free-traders had failed
in all their predictions, and he had made it appear as if
they had expected from free trade what he (Mr. Cob-
den) had never expected from it. Among other things
it had been said that free trade would reduce wages.
Hon. Gentlemen opposite were the authorities for that
assertion, and he denied that wages were reduced
either in manufacturing towns or in the neighbour-
hood of manufacturing districts.—(Hear, hear.) On the
contrary, there had been a tendency to raise wages during
the six weeks which had elapsed since the corn-laws
were abolished.—(Hear, hear.) The Noble Lord the
Member for Stamford (the Marquis of Granby) knew
something of the " stockingers," as they were called,
who made stockings and gloves in the midland coun-
ties. It appeared from what he had seen in the
Nottingham Review that four successive strikes had
taken place on the part of the stockingers, and that they
had succeeded in gaining an advance of wages—a thing
that had not been known for the last seventy years,

- -
during- the whole of which time their wages had been in
the course of gradual reduction.—(Hear, hear.) Let
them next take the district of the West Riding of
Yorkshire or Lancashire, and compare the present state
of dig labouring population with their state in those
years to which Hon. Members wished to go back. lie
did not hesitate to say that their state was now one of
comparative comfort and happiness to what it was when
about twelve months ago, he and other persons formed
part of a deputation to the Chancellor of the Exchequer
to represent the state of the town of Bradford. Take
the condition of the farmers themselves. He admitted

that there was suffering in certain districts of the
country, but he was not going to let Hon. Gentlemen
off as to the cause of that suffering. Had not the farmers
complained of suffering before ?—(Hear, hear.) If they
looked to " Hansard" they would find that in the years
1819, 1820, 1821, 1822, there were speeches and motions
made every night in that House on the subject of agri-
cultural distress, and on the suffering among farmers and
agricultural labourers. The farmers met, and they took
a sensible course, for they demanded a reduction of tax-
ation and expenditure, and they were not bamboozled
into a repeal of the malt-tax, and yet saying not a word
about Government expenditure.—(A laugh and hear,
hear.) A Committee was appointed in 1822, and at that
time the agricultural interest had a monopoly of the
supply of corn, and the Act gave them a protection up
to 80s. What said the report of that Committee ? It
admitted that protection could go no further than an en •
tire monopoly, and that the agricultural interest had
enjoyed a complete monopoly since 1819.—(Hear, hear.)
In 1835 the agricultural interests were in the samo con-
dition of distress, and a Committee was appointed to in-
' quire into the agricultural distress. That Committee
did not make any report, because they had no case.—
(Hear, hear.) That was under the sliding scale, which
was such a favourite with Hon. Gentlemen. When the
Marquis of Chandos, in 1836, carried a motion for a re-
peal of the malt-tax, and when, as the Hon. Gentleman
had stated, the agricultural interest were threatened
with a good comfortable property-tax if they did not
rescind that vote, a Member of that House (Mr. Beuett)
said that that threat had no force as far as the landed
gentry were concerned, and that they would not be
affected by such a measure. They said that free trade
caused the distress of the farmers : how could they say
so with any show of reason ? The distress was owing,
not to free trade, but to the fact that the corn-laws had
not been at once and promptly repealed. It was the
three years' delay and uncertainty that had proved moat
injurious. But, without dwelling upon that point, he
would go into a little computation with the Hon. Gentle-
men opposite, and he would begin by asking them
when was it that the farmers were most prosperous ?
Every one knew that their best time was between the
close of our disastrous contest with America and the
commencement of the French revolutionary war ; that
was to say, about the year 1790, or rather from 1785 to
1793. That was a period at which the farmers felt them-
selves perfectly safe and at ease, and how was it that they
found themselves in that condition when the prices of
their produce were as nearly as possible the same then
as now—what was it that occasioned the difference? The
price of wheat in 1790 was not much different from its
present price. But how was it then with the articles
which the farmers consumed? Iron and all the imple-
ments made of iron were then double their present
prices. Clothing—all clothing was at least double its
present price, and cotton clothing was four or five times
the price that it bore at present. Salt was double its
present price, having then been about 4s. 6d. a bushel,
and now not exceeding 2s. 3d. Tea, sugar, coffee, soap,
fuel, candles, spices, preserved fruits—(A laugh)—they
were all vastly dearer than at present. But, on the other
hand, butchers' meat, bacon, butter, cheese, poultry,
eggs, were all and every one of them cheaper than in
these days—all those articles were dearer now than then.
With the exception of beer, it might be said that every-
' thing that the farmer was interested in selling went
cheaply, and all that he wanted to consume bore high
• prices, not an article necessary for the use of himself or his
family which was not then dearer than now. Wherein,
LI he would ask, lay the secret of his prosperity? He put