The Sun.
London, England, 1846-03-28 00:00:00

repeal of the corn-laws, and that in increasing the price of food
you diminish the amount of employment, and that it becomes
burdensome to all. In an examination csmducted before Mr.

Fletcher, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, Andrew Heman
is asked, " Have you given any reason for the cause of your
distress?" lie says, " I have, and I ascribe it to the operation
of the corn-laws." " In what way do vou consider that they
affect the cause of your distress?' "By preventing the ex-
tension of commerce with other countries, and the consequent
diminished employment at home." Another weaver, James
Crowley, gave similar evidence as to the depreciating effect
of the corn-laws in the wages and employment of weavers.
The Hon. Member for Rutlandshire proposed, in justice to
the working classes, that there ought to be a sliding-scale
for wages, to assimilate them with the sliding-scale of the eorn-
laws ; and not only a sliding-scale for wages, but that they
should also be fixed at a minimum price. lam bound to state,
that this appears a most impracticable and cumbersome mode,
and impossible to be entertained with .any hope of being car-
ried into effect. I cannot overlook the fact, that the Govern-
ment of the country is practically vested in this House, and
that the landed interest proponderate in the other House. I
cannot take it upon me to recommend the pursuit of any
course which is manifestly in opposition to the public feeling.
A government to be sustained, must be impartial in its enact-
ments., When you consider the concentration, the union, the
intelligence, the great number, and the enormous proportion
' of the manufacturing population, and that this opinion is
deeply rooted in their minds—that the corn-laws have the
effect of causing low wages, and compel them to pay the more
while they receive the less depend upon it you cannot
convince that population, of the necessity of the corn-laws;
neither can any government be justified in enforcing such an
impost in opposition toll their 'nest emphatic disavowal of
the necessity of its continuance. You may reason as you
will, but on this point they will not be otherwise
convinced--( Cries of " Hear, hear.") They cannot be
cajolled by fallacies.—(Loud cheers.) I am satisfied that they
are right in their opinion, that high prices do produce low
wages, and that the effect of the corn-law is to place them in a
most unfair position as compared with the agricultural interests.
I could produce evidence to show you that the increase and
diminution of crime, was influenced in proportion to the high
or low price of food. 1 could also sliest., you distinctly that the
amount of mortality was influeneed in a similar proportion to
the price of hod. I have now endeavoured to substantiate
all the positions which I have advanced, and I am bound to
I state, that looking at the matter with the most favourable dis-
position to elicit the truth, and with the wish to avert conse-
quences which threaten the peace of the country, I have no he-
sitation in giving my most unqualified support to the Bill now
before the House.—( Hear, hear.) lam also of opinion that
our foreign relations will be greatly improved- and satisfied by
this measure. National dependance is a preservative of public
peace. The commercial community at large are loud ip their
demands for public peace, and, after all, the best means for
preserving the tranquillity of the world, will be found in the
benefits which the extension of commerce will confer
Looking forward, as I do, to the happy day when London shall,
indeed be the emporium of the world, in consequence of the
wide-spread influence of her commerce with foreign nations,
when peace in all countries shall prevail and be preserved ; in
the words of the poet, who has so emphatically and beautifully
described such a condition, I feel satisfied that,
" The time shall come, when, free as seas or wind,
Unbounded Thames shall flow for all mank nd,
Whole nations enter with each flawing tide,
And seas but join the region they divide ;
Earth's distant ends our glory shall behold,
And the new world launch forth to seek the old."
That is the real description of the effects of the measure which
we are now discussing; and again, I say, that in rejecting it,
you are inflicting an injury on the country at large. I, there-
fore, earnestly entreat that you will not oppose the second
reading of this Bill.
Mr. STEWART claimed the indulgence of the House
while he offered a few observations on the great measure
before it. He gave every credit to the Right Hon. Gentle-
man for the honesty of his convictions.—( Hear, hear.)
He heard with the deepest regret the motives which were im-
puted by the Right lion. Baronet to an Honourable Gentle-
man who spoke on the question ; but nothing would induce
him to indulge in that kind of imputation. He, however, should
exercise his own judgment, and not be led away by the in
licence of any authority, no matter how great. He re-
.a embered what the Honourable Member for Stockport, whom
he saw in his place, had said in that House and elsewhere.
That Honourable Gentleman stated that the Government of
the country were overridden by the landed interest.—( Hear,
hear.) He did not quarrel with that Honourable Gentleman's
opinions, but when he heard the Right Honourable Baronet
stating that the time had come when the landed
proprietors had ,an undue interest in that
House.—[Sir James Graham—" I did not say undue. I
Well, not undue, but a preponderating influence. He con-
sidered that the two gentlemen very nearly coincided in their
views, and he would ask, then, what had become of the Re-
form Bill? When he heard the Right. Hon. Baronet state
that they were to look to public opinion, he (Mr. S.) con-
sidered that they could not appeal to a more revolutionary tri-
bunal. That House was the fair representative of all inte-
rests—commercial as well as agricultural ; but if they were
to be told that they were to look to the public opinion of the
manufacturing districts alone, he asserted that there never was
a more dangerous doctrine propounded. He would not enter
into the question of free trade, but he contended that the very
existence of the manufacturing and mercantile interest was
entirely dependent on agriculture. The cotton mills and the
large manufactories owed their origin and their stability to the
fertile fields and broad acres of England.—( Hear, hear.) And
he believed, that when the -cotton mills and factories would
moulder into decay, the fertile fields would remain and per-
petuate the glory and the prosperity of the country. The
system under which they were now acting was protection to
all—protection to manufactures • and protection to agri-
culture. By this measure, however, all protec-
tion to agriculture was at an end, while it was continued
to manufactures. The arguments, as regarded free trade,
were strong, he confessed, in theory ; but, from the best con-
struction he could put upon the Right Hon. Baronet's speeches,
that Right Hon. Gentleman stated that it was overpowering
necessity, not principle, that induced him to take the course
he new pursued. If the Right Hon. Gentleman was sup-
ported on that ground by his followers, he contended that this
overpowering nece city should be proved. He denied, how-
ever, that suck was the case ; and even if it did exist, the re-
medy was not surely to be found in the ruin of the landed
interest.—( Hear, hear.) He would ask if the disease and
fever of Ireland would be removed by the abolition of protec-
tion ?—( Hear, hear.) tie did not attach much credit to the
reports of the gentlemen who were sent to Ireland, for he believed
they drew them up with a view to the purpose for which
they were employed to make them, He did net mean to
throw any discredit on the gentlemen, but i' was difficult to com-
mand clear and undoubted evidence under such circumstances.
The Hon. Member then read an extract from a speech made
by the Hon. Member for Stockport at a public meeting, when
he stated the agricultural gentlemen and the landed proprietors
were tmobies, who did not know the river St. Lawrence from
the Ohio. Now such statements were always met with the
.exultation of 'the idle and dissolute.—( Hear, hear.) It had
been so from the time •of Jack Cade downwards. When the
Hon. Member for Stockport, and his colleague, the lion.
Member for Durham, were at public meetings, they invariably
used language which, if used in that House, would be sufficient
to deprive them of a hearing.—( Hear, hear.) Yet these were
the men whose principles were adopted by the Right Hon.
Baronet. Why a Government should allow themselves to be
so miserably deceived he could not for the life of him imagine.
—( Hear, hear.) What were the arguments in favour of the
present measure? Why, till that night they had had but one
argument in favour of the Government measure. The former
was by the. Hon. Member for Wolverhampton.—(Hear.) On
that evening they had an able speech from the Right Hon.
Baronet the Secretary for the Home Department, but it was
not such a one as would convince him of the necessity of the
repeal of the corn-laws. The Honourable Members
of :free trade principles, had signalised themselves by. their
arguments out of doors, and even in that House, bet now that
her Majesty's Ministers had taken up their question, all argu-
ment seemed to have forsaken them.—( Hear, hear.) It might
be that they con.idered their interests in safer hands, and there-
fore they thought it better to keep quiet, and not spoil their
position.—(Laughter.) With respect to the letter put forth by
the Noble Lord the Member for the City of London, he (Mr.
Stewart) had no doubt that the Noble Lord felt the result to
have been a successful political stratagem.—( Hear, hear.) He
had no doubt the Noble Lord intended it as a political feeler.
The Right Hon. Baronet said he could not venture to predict
what the nature of the weather would be in a year hence. He
agreed with him; but the real question was, what would the
effect be upon the price of coin in 1850, if the crop in 1846
should be a failure ?—.( Laughter.) It had been said by a Noble
Duke, who thought this measure unwise, that it would be well
for the public to wait until they had heard what the opinion of
the Right Hon. Baronet would be; but what were they to
think, now that the Right Hon. Baronet had charged his
opinion ?—( Hear, hear.) This had been called a great and
comprehensive measure, but he denied that it was such ; on the
contrary, he looked upon it as a partial measure, affecting a
class. If it was a fair and just measure, he would like to hear
proof that it was such; but he had heard no such proof
as yet. All that he -had heard went only to prove
that all protection was to be taken away from agriculture, and
preserved to manufactures.—( Hear, hear.) If it was come to
this, that her Majesty's Government threatened the country
with a change of opinion in reference to the protection now
afforded to manufactures, we would call that a falling Govern-
ment, and it should be got rid of, for nothing could be more
deplorable than such a Government, or such a state of things,
as would compel men to vote against their own feelings and
conviction. This he would look upon as the very worst state
of degradation; and was, on the part of the Government,
brought about by their yielding to mob terror. If those mobs
should meet again in Lincoln'slnn-fields,and threaten that House,
the Government should prevent such meetings and threats, and
if it did not, it did not deserve to be continued as a Government. j
The doctrine of the mobs appeared to be that the volumes
of Hansard should be thrown aside, and that the law hence-
forth should be taken from their mouths, for that was what
had been said by Jack Cade.— (Laughter.) He thanked the
House for the patience with which he had been heard, and
begged to apologise if he had spoken at greater length than he
had intended.
Mr. BOUVERIE said the Hon. Member opposite was in-
dignant with him because he smiled at an observation he
made ; but he smiled at bearing the argument used in
defence of protection. The Hon. Member appeared to be
displeased at the idea that other Hon. Members were
of opinion that the preponderance of the landed in-
terest should not be allowed to continue; but the
Honourable Member might rely on it that that
preponderance could less be supported by such laws
as protective laws, than by the system of coercion
resorted to in other times for upholding that preponderance.
The landed interest assumed that those laws had been produc-
tive of great good to the country; yet the fact was, that this
country had been more and more dependent every year since
the passing of those laws, upon foreign countries fur a supply
of corn. For instance, for nine years after the year 1815, the
quantity of foreign corn imported was 300,000 quarters; for the
next nine years it increased to 800,000 quarters ; and during
the next nine years it had increased to 1,400,000 quarters. But
Honourable Members opposite who opposed this mea-
sure did not appear to take into consideration the like-
lihocd of a war with some of those countries, which would
have the effect of preventing the continuance of this supply.
In fact, he had only to refer to statements of the Right lion.
Baronet the Secretary of State for the Home Department, to
show that those corn-laws bad only the effect of encouraging
the continuance of crime and pauperism, and that no system
of policy could he invented which would be more productive
of a general pernicious result than that system which would
advocate the permanency. of those laws. He maintained, that
the farmer had been reined by the operation of the law in
the first measure, and could not be more injured in the pre-
sent instance.—( Hear, hear.) He would next come to the
case of the labourer. At present, instead of being well fed,
and clothed, and housed, the labourer, in many districts of
the country, was in a condition quite the contrary. The ne-
cessaries of life he had not in sufficient abundance, and as to
the luxuries of life, they were strangers to him.—( Hear. )
Mr. Arthur Young, an eminent authority on agricultural
facts, had recorded various instances of the condition of the
labourer in 1776 as compared with his present state. At that
time the wages of an ordinary labourer did not exceed ss. 6d.
or 6s. a week, and though the wages at present amounted to
Bs., yet, in consequence of the increase in the prices
of bread, meat, butter, &c., the wages were I
not in reality more than in 1776.—( Hear, hear. )
He believed that the Right Hon. Baronet at the head of the
Government was actuated by the finest and most philanthropic
feelings in introducing the measure ; and though his party had
in a great measure thrown him overboard, because, in his