The Sun.
London, England, 1841-05-26 00:00:00

that he had heard -rules-laid down on the other side of the
House, which were not followed. by Noble Lords on that
side.-2-(Hear, hear.) The other night he was told that
he had no right to allude to a paperwithout giving notice
of it.—(" No, no," from the Duke of Wellington.) He
referred, not to the Noble Duke himself, but to the Noble
Earl behind him (the Earl of Wicklow). He had
seldom seen the rule observed. With respect to the
pamphlet of Lord John Russell, the Noble Lord had
quoted that to show how little reliance was to be placed
upon political economists. The Noble Lord had, a few
years ago, complimented the Government for establishing
a professorship of political economy:—(Hear, hear.) The
Noble Lord had changed his opinion since that period.
In the Report of the Commission on Handloom Weavers,
wages were shown to depend upon the demand for labour,
not upon the price of corn.
The Earl of RIPON said the Noble Earl was en-
tirely mistaken in supposing that he had denied
the existence of distress in the manufacturing dis-
tricts, as well as in assuming that he had omitted
all reference to the declared value of the manu-
factures exported in the last year. What he had stated
was, that in considering the distress which existed. they
should take into account all the causes which could combine
to produce it ; that the distress was such that any rea-
sonable and prudent man would pause before he come to
the positive conclusion that the whole of it was to be at-
tributed to the Corn-laws. The Noble Lord had repre-
sented him (Lord Ripon) as referring to the declared
value of the last year, as not being considerably less than
that of the antecedent year ; and, as leaving the House
underthe impression that the declared value had increased
in the same proportion with the official value. That
would have been an absurdity of which he did not think
the House would be willing to accuse him. He had not
only.not so represented, but he had specifically mentioned,
it as less thaii the antecedent year, and that the only proper
way to judge was by the average of several years. He
said there was not a correspondent increase in the price as
compared with the official value, and there never was. The
only reasonable way to judge was to take the average of se-
veral years. There was no analogy or proportion whatever
between the real and official value. The farmer was affected
by the laying on, or reduction of, duties, the improvement
of machinery, and the consequent reduction of the cost of
production, and the variation in the price of the raw ma-
terial. All these formed important elements in the price
of the article, and, added to these, they were to take
into -consideration the state of the currency. He
would seriously and earnestly implore the attention
of their Lordships to these matters before they
came to that House with a proposition which
would unsettle one particular branch of indus-
try, and produce distress which it was impossible
to foresee. The more he looked at the subject the more
the difficulties with which it was beset presented them-
selves. He thought any system of Corn-laws was pro-
ductive of difficulty ; but then it was only a choice of
evils. He had been charged with the. introduction of a
law to fix the price of corn at 80s., and to grind down
the poor man. But he always had maintained, and he
did maintain, that it was to make 80s. the maximum and
not the minimum price. What was the fact ? That the
average for the seven years following was 695. 1 ld.—
(Hear, hear.) In 1822 the law was altered, and 70s.
substituted, and the average price for eleven years after
that period was 58s. 9d., and since the adoption of the
present law the average price, instead of being, as was
'anticipated, 635. or 655., was only 575. 7d. He had
given his consent to the alteration because he thought
it would be beneficial to the working classes. He would
add that, so far as. he was concerned in the management
of his own property, from the date of that Act he had
always proceeded upon the presumption that corn could
never reach 80s.—(Hear, hear.)
Lord ASHBURTON thought the speech of the Noble
Earl had been so ably answered that he would not have
said a word had it not been for some personal allusions.
He did not mean now to defend a life of twenty-six
years, but he would refer the Noble Earl to those Noble
Lords around him, whose change had been much more
recent than his own. Even the Noble Earl below him
(Earl Fitzwilliam) was then a high protector of corn.—
(" No, no," from Earl Fitzwilliam.) He might be .wrong,
but the conversion of the Noble Lord at the head of the
Government was of only a few weeks.—(Hear.) He denied
that the distress in the manufacturing districts was
attributable to the existence of the Corn-laws, and re-
ferred to Mr. Fielden's intended-to-be-spoken, but
printed, speech, to bear him out. In 1815 the consump-
tion of cotton was 80,000,0001b5., it was now
480;000,0001bs., while the wages of the labourer had
fallen 75 per cent., but this was attributable- to' the
greatly extended use of machinery. He never for a
moment thought or said we could ever be independent of
foreign countries, but he said we should be so, as far as
we reasonably could, by giving such protection to the
producer of food as would enable him to supply, the
country so far as possible, not for his own advantage,
but in order to protect the masses from periodical star-
vation. The laws of the country ought not to tumbled
about upon every trivial or temporary distress.
The Marquis of LANSDOWNE, having been
.intrusted
with many petitions on the subject of the Corn-laws,
would take that opportunity of saying that he trusted
the question would be calmly and fully discussed at one
period or another. He must deny that the increased
exports showed that the manufacturing interest was flou-
rishing. Machinery was greatly employed, and it must
be kept at work, although the goods had long ceased to
be profitable ; the true criterion to be taken was the
value of mills. Their Lordships were deeply interested
in the success of the manufacturing interest, therefore it
was right for them to know that during the last eight
years the exportation of machinery had been steadily in-
creasing. Our neighbours were taking our machinery
for the purpose of rivalling us in manufactures.; it was
right that their Lordships should know that during the
last two years the amount of machinery exported was
2,100,000/. Their Lordships might say, why allow the
machinery to be exported ? The answer was, if it was
prevented, the men who made it would export them-
selves.—(Hear, hear.) It had long been said that we
were so rich in iron and coal, and other minerals, that
we must always have the advantage over other coun-
tries ; but we had all those advantages during the
last few years, when foreign countries had made
such rapid strides towards rivalry with us.
We had great advantages in that respect ; other coun-
tries had less ; and without saying to what cause it was
attributable, there was a loss of power on the part of the
manufacture of this country in the general markets of
the world. No person who knew the Noble Earl (Ripon)
could doubt the purity of the motives which actuated
him in proposing the system of' 1815, but the fact that
experience had led to the modification of his system, and
the effects produced by the present system, might have
induced him to re-consider the whole subject. He im-
puted the bad workingof the present law to no man as a
reproach, but he contended that a greater fluctuation„to
the amount of 40 or 50 per cent., had existed under that
Corn-law than in countries where no Corn-law existed.
The systeni of averages had had the effect of putting the
power of the Legislature into the hands of other and in-
terested parties, the worst persons in whose hands it
could be placed. Noble Lords talked of a fixed duty as
a delusion ; there could be no greater delusion than to
call the present sliding scale a protection to agriculture,
Samples of corn in 1839 had been brought into the market
a few days before the averages were struck, for the pur-
pose of controlling the averages, and parties, by sacrific-
ing 60,0001. or 70,000/., had made 200,0001. or 300,0001.
at the expense of the revenue.--(Hear, hear.) The-evil
was not only inflicted on the farmer of having foreign
corn thrown into the market, but much derangement
had been occasionedin the currency which had reacted on
the bank, in consequence of the export of the precious
metals to pay for the corn thus suddenly thrown into the
market. This would have been innoxious had it taken
place gradually and regularly, as it would do under the
operation of a fixed duty. But under the present system
it came like an inundation, and deranged not the corn
market only, but the whole system of our commerce.
The same thing had occurred in 1840. At that period
persons friendly to the Corn-laws, millers having stocks
of corn on hand, had come to the Board of Trade and
had represented what was taking place ; and the Board
of Trade had convinced them that such was the state of
the law,. so inoperative was it, that it was im-
possible to afford them any redress, the duty of
that Board being merely to administer the law,
and these bein€, evils inherent in the law itself. He
thought then that a case had been made out against the
operation of the law, and calling for the interference Of
Parliament to protect the interests of the whole com-
munity, and he believed that this subject ought not to
be discussed except as one affecting the interests of the
whole community, and that the landed proprietor, manu-
facturer, the farmer, and the - labourer were all equally
interested in having the question settled upon its proper
basis, and that any error would be attended with great
mischief to the whole. In 1829 the system had been
altered because it had failed through over-protection,
which hid proved so mischievous to the farmer by its un-
due stimulus, and the consequent over-production, that it
had reduced Fria s t such an extent as to be
ruinous to the fer.ner himself. His Noble Friend
had last night alluded to the return of Mr. Cunin Gri-
daine relative to the supply of Paris with food, and had
spoken of the inadequacy of that supply, and of the mise-
rable lean state of the oxen on which the inhabitants of
that 'city were compelled to feed ; but those lean oxen
were the creatures of protection. It had been stated in
the French Chambers that it was a duty they owed the
graziers of France to prevent the people of Paris ob-
taining fat oxen from other countries, and they were
told to eat on, in the confidence that the ultimate result
must be that after an indefinite number of years the
graziers so encouraged would produce fat • oxen.—
(A laugh.) It was a fact worthy of notice that those
countries which were dependent on a foreign supply
had never suffered from scarcity. Such had been the
case with Holland for the last two hundred years, under
every political vicissitude. Such was the case with
Switzerland, where there were no Corn-laws, and which
contained a greater proportion of poor land than any
other country in Europe, and in which not only manu-
factures but agriculture was increasing. He could not,
in supporting the present measure, take to' himself the
, virtue of making any sacrifice, although the whole of his
property was in land, for it was his sincere opinion that
the proposed measure of a fixed duty would have the
effect of increasing the prosperity of the landed interest.
The present system had been tried during three experi-
ments, and had failed in each, and he thought they were
justified in abandoning it.
The Duke of WELLINGTON agreed with the
Noble Marquis that it would be most desirable to
confine the discussion of this subject to the effect it
would be likely to produce on the general prosperity
of the country, and to avoid those irritating and ex-
citing topics which were brought forward every night
on the presentation of petitions, apparently merely for
the purpose of still further exciting that state of hostility
which it appeared to be the intention to excite on
that subject throughout the country, and he hoped the
Noble Marquis would recollect the sentiments he had
uttered that night, and discuss the subject not as
it related to one class only, but to the whole
country.--(Hear.) With regard to the frauds in
tie averages, he hoped the .Noble Marquis would take