The Sun.
London, England, 1846-03-27 00:00:00

my tenantry. I can, however, assure the Hon. Member and
the House, that I have never, either directly or indirectly, in-
terfered with the expression of the opinions of my
tenantry upon this question—( Hear, hear ) but on the
contrary, 1 have invariably left them to the full and free exer-
cise of their own opinions and judgment upon a question in
which I conceive they kad as deep an interest as myself.—
( Hear.) With thi 'urief explanation upon this point, I shall
now proceed ,with the permission of this House, to make some
allusion to ch 'speech of the Noble Lord the Member
for Lynn. Isbell first dispose of his peroration, and which I
must say was, like many of the other speeches delivered by
Hon. Members in opposition to her Majesty's Ministers frcm
this side the House, characterised almost entirely by a continual
outpouring of personal invective.—( Hear, hear.) I shall not,
in the course of my observations, indulge in a like strain of
severity upon the language in which their opinions were, I
believe, sincerely and honestly made. Neither shall I say—
for I could not say so with truth—that I do not
appreciate the grounds upon which other Hon. Members on
this side of the House differ from the Government, for amongst
them are several lion. Members upon whom I have many
times relied, and never relied in vain.—(Hear, hear.) In
considering the public necessity which I, as a Minister of the
Crown, conceived existed for this measure, I do say it was
with pain I felt that necessity urged upon the Government.
Sir, I was prepared, and I am prepared, on public grounds,
regardless of all taunts and obloquy that may be attempted to
be heaped on me--I repeat, lam preeared, ;from a sense of
public duty, to meet the present emergency by the main-
tenance of this measure, which, in my conscience, I be-
lieve to be necessary.—(Cheers.) Althoegh, Sir, I may
be taunted with inconsistency, yet steadily, firmly and fearlessly,
I hope to be able to discharge my duty ; and in persevering in
that course, I am consoled by this single reflection, that the
time is not far distant when the country gentlemen of
England will be satisfied that her Majesty's Minis-
tees now in office have not betrayed their interests,
but that, on the contrary, they will be reconciled to the fact,
that the interests of the great body of the community, whose
prosperity is more immediately the object of this measure, will
be materially benefited by this House giving its sanction to the
measure.—(Cheers.) 1 hope, Sir, to be allowed to advert to
some of the arguments of the Noble Lord the Member for Lynn.
The arguments adduced by the Noble Lord were the most
stringent and unanswerable of those urged by the opponents
of the sliding scale ; and I will, Sir, with the permission of
the House, advert to the first position taken up by the Noble
Lord. Speculating on the price of wheat, the Noble Lord,
with a view of forming an estimate of the prices of wheat
in this country and France, went through a most ex-
traordinary process of argument.—(Cries of " Hear, hear.")
Now, Sir, it appears to me that the great argument in favour
of the:free importation of corn is, that in the present circum-
stances of this country it will supply a large number of the
population, who would otherwise find a difficulty in obtaining
from the land an adequate supply, especially as their number
is increasing. The effect of the measure will be to lower the
prices in this country, and to raise the prices on the Con-
tinent of Europe ; and it will therefore equalise the prices
both here and abroad. We shall then obtain the object so
desirable; for the people of England will have a security
against the uncertain and extravagant rise of prices, and the
commercial interest will not only have free trade, but they
will have an opportunity of an interchange of commodities.
The prices of corn will rise in Europe, and the raising
of prices is no less an object to the manufacturer
than an increased price for his own produce.
The Noble Lord, on proceeding to argue with reference to the
steadiness of prices, produced a table, which illustrates in a
more clear manner than any other table I have hitherto seen,
a fact which the enemies of the sliding scale regard
as inherent in our present system of corn-laws.
He has demonstrate d very clearly in the table
which he has produced that the great fluctuations
of prices on the continent depended mainly on the demand
from England. He adduced the table of fluctuations which
chews that the rise or fall of prices on the continent is in exact
proportion to the demand from England. It would appear from
that document that the places most affected by these fluctua-
tions, are Hamburgh, Amsterdam, Datttzic, and Odessa—
in fact from those places from which we are accustomed to
draw most largely. The Noble Lord also declares that the
trade from Bordeaux and from New York is inferior, because
the distance is considerable, and the parties who
held corn were liable to serious interruptions in their trade.
This had a material effect upon the foreign market; for what
had we done ? So far as our present experience goes, we had
been, in fact, preventing the production of those crops of corn
which are necessary for the keeping up of a constant and steady
supply ; and the effect is, that we are tending to con-
vert these corn-growing countries not only into com-
mercial rivals, but into actual enemies. This cannot
but act in preventing our obtaining those supplies which are
necessary to preserve an equality in the corn-market. la con-
sequence of the uncertainty which prevails among the agricul-
turists abroad, t hey never knew at what rate their corn would
sell in the British market, and the supplies therefore are un-
certain and irregular. On the whole the conclusion is strong
that they can place no reliance whatever on the state of the
British market, and they therefore impose higher rates of duty on
our manufactures in order to realise the advantages which they
ought to reap from their corn trade, and thus despairing of
ever obtaining the advantage to which I allude, they are led
to measures which have the effect of depressing the whole in-
terests of the country. This then is one of the reasons which
indicate the cause of those fluctuations to which the Noble Lord
has alluded, and which have rendered the British markets so
uncertain that the supplies have been irregular, and, apart from
other considerations, offers me one of the greatest reasons why
the corn-laws should be altered. The Noble Lord has said,
and has laid great stress upon the point, that thsre has been
great evenness of price since the alteration of the law in 1828.
Why I have said repeatedly in this House, that I have always
considered that evenness and steadiness of price neither more
nor less than a nuisance, and so it is considered by the grow-
ers abroad. The Noble Lord considers that this evenness has
been a benefit, hut what have been the real effects ? It is well
known, and I appeal to the oldest farmer for a confirmation of the
opinion that during the present year there has been no such
effect created. I believe that during the present year the
price of the best wheat in the home market has
varied from 58s. to 725. a quarter, and that this
state of things is a constant stress upon the trade,
and a continued nuisance, and it is on account of this
imperfection in a portion of the sliding-scale that I believe it
ought to be altered. Then the Noble Lord has another ob-
jection which he says is cccationed in the importation
of foreign corn, in foreign instead of British ships.
Why, it is this very uncertainty of the sliding- scale which
prevented the merchants and the foreign growers from knowing
what the condition of the market would be on the arrival of
the cargo, and what the price would be at the
moment of its import which lost to British ships their charter-
age. The Noble Lord had stated that the corn trade should
he rendered as certain as possible, in order that when th
' importation does take place, the British ,ships should
bring the foreign corn. The circumstances which I
have stated are the very reasons why foreign ships
obtain the cargoes, instead of British ships.—( Hear, hear. )
But, Sir, the Noble Lord then proceeded to state- that the
farmers looked with dread and consternation at this measure.
The petition presented by the Hon. Gentleman the Member
for Stockport (Mr. Cobden) clearly shows that all the farmers
do not entertain such a dread. But the Hon. Member for
Huntingdon said that if this protective law were removed a
great deal of land must be thrown out of cultivation, and the Hon.
Gentleman, the Member for Cambridgeshire, said, as 1 undei-
stood, that the panic in Cambridgeshire is so great that drainage
was suspended, and-that agriculturvl improvement had suddenly
ceased. Now, Sir, I must beg to observe, that to the best of
my knowledge, the panic to which the Hon. Member for Cam-
bridge has referred, prevails much more within these wolls than
amongst the farmers of this country. My inquiries do not
lead me to believe that either the landlords or the tenants, whe
are not ;exposed to the dangerous atmosphere of this House,
are affected by the panic to which those Hon. Gentlemen have
referred.—( Hear, hear.) Now, I Ihink that some Hon.
Gentleman stated in the course of this debate, that
a certain landlord in Sonnersetshire had offered to his tenants
to release them from their engagements, and sixty of those
tenants had refused that railer. Now, Sir, lat once admit that
that refusal on the part of the tenents is no sure criterion that
they are satisfied with the present measure—(Protectionist
cheers)—beause the tenants having a large capital em-
barked in the land—( Hear, hear)—cannot suddenly with.-
draw that capital without an immense' sacrifice. But
having made that admission, I must contend, on the
other hand, that at the present moment we have no conclu-
sive euidence to show that the farmers generally are dissatis-
fied with this measure. Now, Sir, perhaps as this matter is of
great importance, and as I am sincerely of opinion that there is
no ground for the alarm entertained by any of the Hon.
Gentlemen of this side of the House; who sit below
the gangway, the House will allow me to state
some facts that have come within my own knowledge.
I allude, Sir, to the farmers of East Lothian in Scotland. I
have a letter in my hands from a Noble Friend of mine (Lord
Glenelg). The letter is dated February 21. He says, " I
have had an opportanity of learning the opinions of the farmers
of East Lothian and Berwickshire to a considerable extent. One
of the factors to a large proprietor in this neighbourhood
tells me that there is not a farm in the country now to be let
but for which there are more and higher offers than have ever
been made, and that too by men of capital and skill. I
asked them (he says) how they accounted for that mecum-
stance, his answer was that the corn question is now considered
to be settled, and that the prospects held out by Government
of getting their lands drained by a grant from the Treasury, in-
stead of having themselves to advance the money, has created a
general feelingof confidence throughout the country. A gentleman
who is a trustee of some property in the neighbourhood, has also
informed see that offers have been made for some of his farms
ten per cent. above the prices for which they at present let,
These are (he continues) facts which are worth more
than all the arguments adduced in favour of an altera-
tion of the corn-laws, coming as they do from
one of the greatest corn growers in this part of
the country." Now, Sir, allusion has been made to the
county of Gloucestershire. I will inform the House with re-
ference to the prevailing opinion upon the subject of the corn-
laws, that Mr. Charteris has every chance of being returned as a
Member for that county upon the principle of an alteration
in the corn-laws. Then, .Sir, I will allude to the Isle of Ely
in Cambridgeshire. It has been said that if the corn-
laws are repealed, the land will be thrown out
of cultivation, and the fens will revert to their primitive wild- i
ness. Now, Sir, I hold in my hand a letter from a very large
proprietor of land in that county, dated the first week of March,