The Sun.
London, England, 1846-02-25 00:00:00

not conceive how it could be constitutional for that party of
I which the Hon. Member was a supporter, to send up here
certain Members as delegates from the protectionists.—(No,t
no.) Had it not been stated that tl.ey were pledged to support,
the agricultural interest, as it had been called ; bet then ha
rot the Right lion. Baronet opposite been bound by a higher
pledge—a pledge to legislate for the benefit of the whole
country ?—(Hear, hear.) And, if so, then, no minor pledge
could be regarded as such. He had heard a great deal about
the League ; now, he had never been a member of that body,
but he was aware that it had done a great dead of good ; and
if the Government had not introduced some such measure as
teat before the House, he should have joined it.
Mr. PACKE said that though he had for many years the
honour cf a seat in that House, yet he did not feel at all times
anxious to take a part in its debates. But the present question
was one of such importance, and, in his opinion, so ruinous
to the country, that he could not consent to give the measure a
silent vote. He was not going to follow in the course of obser-
vations of the Hon. Gentleman who sat down, but he would
confine himself to the subject-ma:ter of the debate.. It was
with very great pain he found himself obliged to differ
front an Administration, which, since he had the ho-
nour to enter the House, he cordially and invariably
had supported.—( Hear, hear.) He did not for a moment
impute to the Right Hon. Baronet at the head of her Majesty's
Government a single impure motive. He believed the Right
Hon. Gentleman was actuated by the sincerest conviction of
the necessity of the course of policy he was pursuing, but, as
he (the Hon. Member conceived that course to be ruinous to
the country, he felt himself compelled to make a few passing
observations. One of the most startling assertions which the
Right Hon. Baron tt had made, and one that struck hint par-
ticularly, was, that the course of policy then about to be pur-
sued by the Ministry was a Conservative policy.— ( Hear, hear,
from the protectionists.) The Right Ilon. Baronet then stated
that he could not charge himself with having acted incon-
sistently with true Conservative principles,
and suppliantly
inquired if to put down agitation was an act inconsistent with
true Conservative principles ? He (Mr. Packe) could not
conceive how the Right Hon. Baronet, could thus address the
House, when he must have been aware at the time
that the agitation with which the Anti-Corn-law League had
menaced the country during the seven preceding years, had in-
creased to a greater extent during the present year. If he
( Mr. Poole) rightly understood the meaning of the term " true
Conservative policy," he should say that it meant an adherence
to fixed principles. And if he understood the meaning of the
principles upon which the Hon. Member on the opposite side
acted, he should say it was an ever-varying principle.—(Pro-
tectionist cheers.) The Noble Lord the Member for the city
of London has, by the sacrifice of his principles, been enabled to
keep his party together, while the Right Hon. Baronet has
changed his principles and sacrificed his party. He had heard
men say that we should not rake up old speeches, but it was
by these, he maintained, that " true Conservative principles"
could be proved. However unpalatable it would be to some
Hon. Members, he must trespass on their attention for a short
time, while he read a few extracts from some former speeches.
When the Hon. Member for Montrose (Mr. Hume) brought
forward a motion, he said to Hon. Members on this side of the
House, "If you will leave us alone to settle this matter, I
shall be much obliged to you." He (Mr. Packe)
should like Honourable Gentlemen on the opposite side
of the House to leave him and those with whom he acted to
settle the present question with the Right Honourable Baronet.
and he had no doubt they would be able to arrange the matter
satisfactorily. The Hon. Member went on to say that all
Parliaments had been in favour of protection, and that the
Hon. Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. Villiers) had always
been the consistent advocate of the repeal of the corn-law.
In 1838 the Hon. Member (Mr. Villiers) moved for a com-
mittee to inquire into the laws relating to the importation
of foreign corn. Upon that, as well as on a subsequent occasion
in 1839, that motion was opposed' by the Right Hon. Baronet
at the head of the Government, the Noble Lord, the Mem-
ber for the city of London, and the Hon. Member for Man-
chester (Mr. Gibson). At the assembling of the Parliament in
the commencement of her Majesty's reign, the Hon. Member
for Liskeard ( Mr. C. Buller) stated that the House was at
present ignorant of the principles upon which the Right Hon.
Baronet meant to carry on his Government, if he succeeded to
office. He (Sir R. Peel) then made the following
declaration—" I would not shrink from the expresssion
of my opinions If I saw reasons for changing my
course I would do so. I have not changed my opinions, not-
withstanding
,the combination which has been formed against
the present corn-laws, either for the purpose of procuring their
total repeal or the substitution of a fixed duty in place of the
present sliding scale. Notwithstanding the present agitation
which is going forward, I do not hesitate to avow my adhesion
to the opinions exp e sed by me last year. On thesth of June
following this announcement, when 023 Members were pre-
sent, a division was taken, and a vote of want of confidence in
the Ministers was carried, by a majority of one, owing to this
declaration of the Right Hon. Baronet. At the accession of
the present Government they found themselves in a majority of
91 Members, who were pledged to support the corn-law in-
tact. The Right Hon. Baronet had said, when the Hon.
Member for Wolverhamton had brought forward his measure in
1813, " I think that any alteration in laws of this kind are to
be deprecated. I think also that the existing laws afford us a
fair adjustment of the question. He would go on to state what
the Right 1-lon. Baronet hadstated during the following year :
—" I have a strong feeling, speaking generally, that agriculture
is entitled to protection. It is entitled to protection from a
sense of justice, for the land sustains peculiar burdens. Look
at the population of Ireland, which depends entirely on its agri-
cultural produce. lam not prepared to alter the amount
of protection." He was certain there was not a
man, either in that House or out of the House, who
prior to the 2ed of January, could have been prepared for the
strange and sweeping change which the Right Hon. Baronet
had proposed in the corn-laws. He would now advert to the
reasons which had been brought forward in support of the
proposed measure. Firstly, the principal reason was the
failure in the potato crop. lie must say that that subject was
almost worn threadbare, so that it was hardly necessary to
show why a new project should overthrow a fixed principle of
200 year's standing.—( Hear.) The second reason was, that
the prosperity of the last three years was a sufficient induce-
ment for a further relaxation of duties. In his opinion, the
prosperity that now abounded under a moderate protection
was a great reason why it should be continued, and not de-
stroyed. Then, again, they had been told, that the wages of
labour were not dependent on the price of corn. As far as
he could remember, he was perfectly persuaded, that the wages
of agricultural labour depended very nearly on the price of
corn. In his own neighbourhood such was the case ; and
whenever there was a sensible rise in the price of corn, the
amount of wages were always affected by it. In the next
place, they had been told that the object of the measure was
to reconcile the differences and animosities between the dif-
ferent classes of her Majesty's subjects. Now, whether that
was an alu ion to the Anti-Corn-law League he could not say;
they were, however, only like soldiers in a theatre, that kept
marching round and round the stage, in- order to give an ap-
porent multitude to their numbers. The Hon. Member then
briefly alluded to the compensation which the proposed
measure prepared for the agriculturists, and said he
would allude to a circumstance in which the Irish Members
on his side of the House were somewhat concerned. He had
seen it reported in the public prints that the Noble Lord, the
new Secretary for Ireland, had satisfied the Noble Lord, the
Member for London, of the liberal policy which the Govern-
ment were about to adopt towards Ireland ; consequently, he
would say, if the Noble Lord, the Secretary for Ireland, bad
satisfied the Noble Lord, the Member for London, of the mea-
sures which were to be brought forward for Ireland, the Irish
Members ought to be on the look out with respect to the in-
tended policy towards that country. The Hon. Gentleman
then concluded, by thanking the House for their kind attention
to the observations which he had thought proper to address
to them.

The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER said that he
feared he must commence with the opening sentence which had
characterised the speeches of most of the Hon. Gentlemen
who had addressed the House—namely, at that protracted pe-
riod of the debate he could not be expected to offer any new
observations which could claim a right to occupy their atten-
tion. He could assure the House, that under these circum-
stances he would confine his observations to the narrowest
limits which it was possible for him to do, in the discharge of
the duty he had undertaken to perform. As to the question
itself, it would be unnecessary to enter into any argument,
after it had been so ably discussed by so many Hon. Gentle-
men, and especially after the great ability which had been dis •
played in treating of it by the Right Honourable Baronet
at the head of the Government, and by the Pre•
sident of the Board of Trade; who had left no
arguments untouched, and who had completely refuted argu-
ments which bad been brought forward on the other side.
—(Cries of " No, no. ") Yes, they had established
beyond the power of contradiction the fact, that the removal
of restrictions and the progressive development of the relaxa-
tion of protective duties, had, in every instance, been attended
with results permanently beneficial and advantageous to the
country.—( Cheers.) Before he entered upon the general
question, he considered it to be his duty to respond to the calls
which had been made upon him by many Hon. Gentlemen in
bdt hyi
sephcoio9seudrßsteiogohft supporth eo
nd. et bFhae. tieem,nedtao.s
us tr
sae totemh taeht eihigtar,
dno
bnce de
esnnoit
)11rieom u
egnh which he
thfaodrws
uawasprd-
posed that he differed from his colleagues on the measure before
the House, and that he was going to support the measure
against the convictions of his own principles. He believed
that this opinion on their part, after the statements which he
should make to the House, would be entirely disabused.—
( Hear)—and would prove as fallacious as the arguments which
they adduced against the measure itself.—(Cheers.) He
would simply state to the House the course which he had
adopted. It was known that during the middle of October a
general opinion prevailed as to the failure of the potato crop in
Ireland and in this country, and that disease had very greatly
extended itself ; and on the Ist of November the Government
deliberated as to the measures necessary to be adopted under
the circumstance of the case. He (the Chancellor
of the Exchequer) had been informed by his
Right Honourable Friend that ho had intended, either
to openo
ncorn
aports by
Legislative
tainv
eCtenrcaleetrini n Council,
e nt.o o
On
both
tt e
ho roflatxh
et h d
see u i
ques-
tionses
he had differed from his Right Hon. Friend. He thought
that in such a case the direct interposition of the Government
by an act of the kind would be an interference with the
established law of a dangerous nature, and an act which could
only be justified by an immediate and urgent necessity. He
could not avoid perceiving that the state of Ireland was not
one that required that stringent course of action. He thought
that the matter might be dealt with by legislative enactment
at a future period, and that it was not expedient to open the
ports at that time. It was impossible for him not to consider
that the Government were not called upon for a suspension of
the corn•la,vs for so long a period as that suspension was con-
sidered necessary His advice to the Government was, to look
forward to the ulterior c insequences of the step which they
were about to take. It was his opinion that to open the ports
at that period would have been to suspend the due operation of
the law. It had farther been stated that on previous occasions
the suspension of the law had not entailed any evil consequences
whatever. He knew that in antecedent periods of our history
the ports had been opened by an Order in Council,
but the effects of that measure had always been represented
to have been injurious to trade and commerce, and were
only to be justified by the emergency of the case. He had
always understood that the benefit of the sliding scale, which
was introduced in 1828, was intended to produce a sufficient
supply of corn, without having recourse to those continental
interferences on the part of the Government, which had been
found on all former occasions to be hurtful and inconvenient;
and also he could not put out of his consideration, that, on all
occasions on which recourse had been made to an Order in
Council, the benefit of the sliding scale was opposed to the fixed
duty. The great argument that had been brought forward
against a fixed duty was that when the time of trial and famine
should arrive, it would be necessary to depart from the principle
of the law, and allow of this interposition of the Government in
Council, in order to adroit corn into the country.—(Hear. )
Finding, then, that the consequences of these interpositions
must necessarily terminate in the abrogation of the law, an
additional argument of the strongest nature was furnished why
that abrogation should not be effected by an Order in Council.
Considering also the existing feelings on the part of a great
body of the community, it was necessary to leave the
power of the Government unshackled, at the meet-
ing of Parliament, to pursue any ultimate measure
which it might tie considered necessary to adopt.
For this reason therefore, he opposed the proposition to admit
foreign corn into the country through the medium of an Order
in Council. But his Right Hon. friend at the head of the
Government proposed an alternative ; he suggested the imme-
diate assembly of Parliament for the purpose of effecting the
opening of the ports by means of a legislative enactment. To
1 that proposal he equally offered an objection, although his ob-
, objeotinn rested upon different granule. The proposition