The Sun.
London, England, 1846-02-18 00:00:00

House. They were very much mistaken if they supposed
that the great body of the people cared anything about
the quarrels of the Conservative party. He had listened
to nearly every speech on that side of the House that had
been made in support of protection, and he, instead
of entering into their party disputes, would direct his attention
to the arguments that had been brought forward in its favour.
The Hon. and Learned Member for the University of Dublin's
(Mr. Shaw's) speech was entirely directed to the party quarrel
at issue, and therefore he (Mr. Bright) did not intend to
answer it, —( Ironical cheers from the Conservative benches.)
Hies was not mistaken, the question of protection was the real
question before the House, and therefore he would pass on to the
speeches of those who attempted to grapple with it. The
Hon. Member for Bristol ( Mr. P. Miles), who introduced
the question, said that the farmers would not les content to
sell cheap corn and buy dear sugar ; and the Hon. Member
for Wiltshire declared that it would be unfair for the colonies
to be protected at a heavy expense to British agri-
culture. The Hon. Member said he could not interfere to
give protection to the planter or the colonist, if Parliament
withdrew protection from British grain. In that principle he
(Mr. Bright) agreed. He admitted its truth, and he sincerely
hoped that the same principle would he extended to ail.—( Hear,
hear.) He would say it was not just to protect sugar, if it was
withdrawn from corn; and on the same grounds he hoped that
Hon. Gentlemen would see that if any interest or trade in the
country was unprotected, while corn was protected, it was
equally unjust to that particular trade or interest. Hon. Mem-
bers could not deny that. He must say this as the represen-
tative, if so he might term himself, of one of the largest trades
in the country, to which no Member proposed the protection of
the House, and a trade that did not require it. Since he came
into that House a proposition had been made to remove all
impediments in the way of exporting machinery, and he was
tOad to say that every Member in that House, as well, be be-
'eyed, a; every one connected with that trade out of the
House, supported that motion. Last year the 10 per cent. im-
posed on the exportation of cotton yarns was repeated, and
every one connected with the trade in the House voted for
the proposition. Not only the Members in the House con-
nected with the cotton trade gave their votes in support of the
repeal, but out of the House it was supported by nearly all in-
terested in that pursuit. Nut he would not take cotton, or
woollen, or silk, but he would come at once to the real
question to. be considered—the policy of a protective
duty on corn—(Cries of " Hear, hear ")--and on which
Hon. Members on the Opposition side had talked as if they
knew so much. He was walking past the oces of the protec-
tionffi
party in Bond-street the other day, and he must say the
place seemed seedy and forlorn.—(Loud laughter.) There
was not the slightest appearance of business there. He saw a
large brass plate on the door, on which was engraved in large
letters " The Central Society for the Protection of Agricul-
culture and Native Industry." And what, he would ask, was
that industry which it was proposed to protect ? He recol-
lected in 1842, when his Hon. Friend the Member for Stock-
port (Mr. Cobden) proposed that if the protection of the
landed interest was agreed to, that it should also
be to raise and keep permanent the rate of
wages.—(Hear, hear.) W hat answer was given to that
proposition? Honourable Members said that they could not
understand how that proposition could be agreed to on princi-
ples of political economy. If wages could not be
settled by Act of Parliament, was it not equally opposed
to the laws of political economy, and equally absurd to pass a
law to raise the produce of the landlord's estates ? He would
beg the Hon. Member to give a clear and satisfactory answer
to this point. That Hon. Member professed to understand
the question, and he (Mr. Bright) believed that. the Hon.
Gentleman was a reader of the /economist newspaper. If he
did so, and professed to know the principle which regulates
trade and commerce, he (Mr. Bright) could not understand
how he could reconcile those principles with the speech which
he had made the other night. That speech was skilfully con-
structed, but it was nothing more, and did not deal fairly and
comprehensively with the question before the House. Let him
look at the increase of population—consider the limited extent
of these two islands, with a population of '27,000,000, and
which was increasing at a great rate, a million and a half hav-
ing been added since the corn-law of 1842 was passed--
let him consider this, and see how he could
reconcile it with the principles of political economy.
They would, if they dared, shut out foreign produce altogether
from this country ; and he believed that many of their sup-.
porters sighed for a law that would do so.—( Cries of " Oh,
oh.") Well, then, they would prohibit it to the point at which
it would be safe to stop,—to the point of starvation.
What mattered it how much distress might be felt by the
labourer in Wiltshire or the weaver in Lincolnshire, if high
prices for wheat could be safely maintained ? Up to that point,
then, they wished to prohibit the importation of foreign corn,
although they well knew that, with the increasing population,
there would be a greater difficulty in supplying them with
home-grown corn. But the landlords probably argued that the
increased demand for food would involve an increased amount of
rent for the land.—(Hear, hear.) .Was this protection to the
labourer or to the farmer ? They said, yes, or they would not
thus struggle to maintain it. lie ( Mr. Bright) had heard a
clergyman of the Church of England say that the labourers'
protection was the poor-law.—( Hear, hear.) The poor-law
was as much a protection to clergymen as to the labourer, for
the reduced clergyman like the labourer could fall back upon the
workhouse. In what condition was the land under the existing
system of protection? He (Mr. Bright) would tell them it
was badly cultivated in most parts of the country. There was
scarcely a parish in which there were not snore labourers than
could find employment. They found one labourer competing
with another—they found a fierceness of competition that was
destroying them, yet that House had never passed a law regu-
lating- the wages of labour. The Honourable Member
for Wiltshire, the senior Member (Mr. Bonnet) he expected,
some time ago, at a meeting held in his own county, made a
long speech to the farmers, and made one of the most extra-
ordinary statements that ever had been made in the hearing
of his fellow men. He was reviewing the state of agriculture
in that very happy county, and he was lamenting his misfor-
tune in beieg born to the possession of some thousand
acres. He said that if he had the happiness to conic into the
world again, he knew no condition which he should choose with
so much alacrity and contentment as the condition of the agri •
cultural labourer. Well, he did feel some delicacy—( Ironical
cheers and laughter).—in saying, that this remark
might imply a doubt as to the wisdom of the Ho-
nouable Member's choice. But he certainly ought to know
the condition of the labourer ; he lived among them, and
therefore was qualified to form an opinion on the subject. Bu'
he (Mr. Bright) would rather have the opinion of the
labourer; and he would still confine the Hcn. Gentleman to
his own county of Wilts. They had heard of a meeting at
Goatacre. —( Hear.) Some Hon. Member had stated that
this meeting was got up by the League.—(Cheers, and laughter. )
Hon Gentlemen opposite were so convinced of the omnipresence
of the League, that he, perhaps, need not affirm that the League
had nothing to do with it. But they had a later meeting of
labourers at Bremhill, and a certain labourer, Job Senning,
took the chair. He did not know whether he was a prize la-
bourer or not. But Job said, " I be protected, but I be
starved." It was not in Wiltshire alone that misery existed.
An Hon. Friend bad put into his hand a paper, drawn up by a
respectable person in the town of Tiverton. The paper gave the
condition of 28 families, the number of children, and the
wages which they earned for a week. What were these wages ?
even shillings. Men with wives, and five, six, or seven
children—living in miserable huts, paying high rents, and
obliged to pay out of their scanty means a high price for
winter fuel—and all this out of seven shillings a week. Now,
he should like to ask the Hon. Member for Northamptonshire,
who boasted that the labourer could earn 125., if this was the
protection that they gave to the labourers ?—( Hear ) —and if it
was, whether it was commensurate with the benefits which the
landlords had been reaping for the last thirty years.—( Cheers.)
The Hon. Member spoke of the condition of the coachmakers.
Would the Hon. Member go down to Southampton, and ask
Mr. Andrews, the celebrated coachmaker, what the state
of trade at that time was ? He would find that he was building
coaches for all the countries of Europe. He ( Mr. Bright)
would not insult his countrymen, as Hon. Members opposite
did, by declaring that they were behind their rivals on the
Continent in anything requiring fine taste and execution.
Why even foreigners acknowledge the superiority of the English
workman in all the branches of manufacture. But these gen-
tlemen affirmed that the tradesman was behind the artizan of
France, as their labourers were behind the serfs of Poland.
Hon. Members had expressed great horror of coming evils if
these corn-laws should be abolished. There were -different
sorts of inundation. He had heard of inundation
,erwater,
but now agricultural gentlemen were alarmed
'at a threatened inundation of corn.—( Hear, hear. )
Those who had travelled abroad must know there was nothing
in the climate, nothing in the land, which was likely to com-
pete successfully with the agriculture of this country. What
could be more certain than that they grew for every acre of
land in England a larger quantity of corn than was grown
upon an acre in any other country in the world. Mr. Web-
ster, in a speech in the United States, gave a statement of the
number of acres growe in this country, and the number of
quarters per acre, and he pointed to England as exceeding
America, and he exhorted his countrymen to ens
deavour to equal this country. If they grew more
acres than any other country in the world, another
thing was just as sure, and that was that the labourer got a
smaller portion for his share than in any other country in the
world.—( Cries of " No, no.") Why if the prices were so much
higher in this country, as they said they were, and if wages
were seven shillings per week in some of the countries, and if
their acres of land grew nearly twice as much as any
other acres in the world, he would ask how was it . possible
for them to come to any other conclusion than that the
labourer reaped their fields, but got a smaller portion
produce for his subsistence than in any other country of the
ntry in_ the
World Let them look to their advantages. They bad a
larger suppl/ of manure than was found in any other country
they ha far better agricultural implements they
had them at a much cheaper rate they had far
better roads than they found anywhere else —and
they bad markets so much better that hardly any com-
parison could be drawn. True it was that protection had da-
maged them. It was not foreign competition that they need
fear. They had protected the termer into a state of dceripi-
tude, and now, when a stimulus was offered to them, they
trembled for the consequences that might ensue.—( hear. )
Let them take the county of Cheshire. There was
a high aristocracy there and a very poor tenantry. There was
land of at least an average quality most wretchedly cultivated,
and there would beg mass of pauperism in Cheshire equalling
the south-western counties, if it were net for the proximity to
Lancashire, in which county the labourer found refuge. It
was not the soil of Cheshire that made the fanner poor—
it was not the climate—it was the Legislature.
of that House which destroyed the vitality of agriculture.
In the course of this debate, nothing had been said upon the
subject of mortgages. The Hon. Member for Berkshire said,
that he did not ask for protection—if the law was not a good
law, let it be abolished, and if the principle were unsound lot
it be abandoned. The late Paymaster of
the Forces it was
who first talked about mortgages, and they need
not be surprised if the people in the country
used that argument which had been put into their mouths.
But he would discuss this question solely with reference to the
peculiar interest to the landowner. The Hon. Member for
Berkshire spoke of burdens—he spoke of poor-rates. Now
he (Mr. Bright) thought he could show that Hon, Gentleman
that the capital of the tenant.farmer of this country
paid no poor-rates whatever.—( Hear, hear.) They
complained that he (Mr. Bright) did not pay rates upon ma-
chinery in his mills. They said that stock in trade should be
rated to the poor-rate. But if that argument were applied to
him, it must be applied to the agriculturist also. flow did
this work? The Hon. Member for Berkshire, he would say,
had some thousands with which to cultivate his land. He paid
nothing in the shape of poor-rate upon his household furniture,
or the produce in his barns—his growing crops—upon his ma-
nure, upon his cattle, or upon any kind of stock or implement
he might have. He did not pay a single farthing for poor-
rates until the time when a permanent improvement in the soil
had taken place, and some portion of the tenant's capital had
become incorporated with the land. Now if he (Mr. Bright)
was to pay upon his machinery and his cotton, it was quite
clear that the tenant most pay poor-rates upon the stock he
had mentioned. They had better say nothing, therefore,
about the poor-rates,
Mr. PALMER—) did not allude to the poor-rates.
Mr. BRIGHT—I think the Hon. Gentleman did.
Hon.
Baronet.
PALMER—I quoted from a speech of the Right
Baronet.
Mr. BRIGHT—WeII then there was anotheeburden
fa which
me
had not been mentioned, and that was the burden
•
There were two sons of the Duke of Rutland in that Hovuestee,
t
who had 'spoken in the debate,
G_er
,novdw.hgenartere about
18 .44,
to
against the proposition of thf
r game damage on 3hat
09
Noble Duke paid
acres of land.
9151. askedu
how Honourable Members
could come to
when for their ova amuse-
. that Sow he
Houser

7 - - • ' .-...:'-..4.
meet the produce of the land was being devoured
He was of opinion after all that Hon. Members opposite were
not in earnest in this debate. He believed there was tio fear
of the repeal of the cons-laws amongst them. They were
angry with the Government, but they were not afraid of the
abolition of protection. In that House, however, they
had stated that if the corn-laws was abolished, the
land would be thrown out of cultivation, and there would
be no rents paid: they had told their tenants that if the corn-
law was abolished they would be ruined, and he would promise
them that before twelve mouths bad passed over their heath
that statement would be brought up in judgment against them.
They said that such a step would involve the country in ruin,
for there would be no revenue; and the aristocracy of the country
would be abolished ; and that the Church, and consequently
Christianity, would -be injured, and that the sun of
England (he did not know what that meant), would
be set for ever; which Hon. Members opposite had prediete‘t
would result from the abolition of the corn laws ; but did they
new adhere to these statements and were they anxious to repu-
diate them? Why there was no alarm in the country ,although
!hese inevitable calamities were said to be fast corning
upon them. There was no resistance to the measure of any im-
portance, there was no insurrection, notwithstanding it wad
said that seven-ninths of the country were connected with
agriculture, and the majority of them in favour of protection.
All these calamities were fast coming upon them. and yet there
was not the smallest alarm of insurrection. —(Cries of " Oh,
oh.") The Right Honourable Baronet the Secretary
for the Horne Department had told them that there
. .

5 was not the remotest sign of irrurreetion in the country,
r .Liiti .lid they suppose that the country would be in this quiet
state while these great calamities were impending over theta?
Why the fart was the public did not believe what they said, and
the majority of the people were in favour of the Government
proem:lion. When were the meetings of the Hon. Gentlemen
opposite? where had they 'tern held? Why one of them
hail been held in Dorsetshire, aed it, was trumpeted
ferilt to the country as the great meeting of the county, and
yet it was only attended by 1,509 persons. Now let them
look at. the eentlast. Why he himself addressed 3,400 per-
sons in the very same field, and he had presented peti.
thins to that House which were unaninmously agreed to
by those persons, and prayed for the immediate,
total, and unconditional repeal of the corn-laws. Where
else hail they held their meetings? Why he
could not find any that was worthy the attention of that
House. But let them look on the other hand, and they would
find petitions had been presented from all parts of the country
against the corn-laws.—(Year, hear.) Look at the petition
that was presented from Manchester—it was signed by 300,e00.
Look again at the petition which were presented by the Me-
tropolitan Members, with 400,000 signatures attached to it.
Compare these with the petitions presented by Hon. Mem-
bers opposite, with about 12 or 18 signatures to each. Why
One Noble Lord, who sat upon the opposite benches, presented
a 'Lumber of petitions in favour of protection, and he stated
the number of signatures which would be found
attached to it. Taking the whole, on an average.
there was not more than 30 signatures to each
petition Did this prove that public opinion was in favour of
protection ? No, it proved quite the contrary ; look again at
the public press, and they would find that the majority of the
largest circulating papers of the country were in favour of the
Government proposition. He had heard of men going to the
field of battle with light and merry hearts, and he had
heard too of men who had mounted the scaffold with
a bold and resolute step ; but he declared that in the whole
course. of his existence he had never seen a number of men sliding
down to ruin with faces so jovial and so complacent as 'hose of
Honourah!e Members opeosite. Honourable Members
apposite had accused the Right Honourable Baronet
at the head of the Government with being a
traitor, but it would ill become him to attempt the
defence of that Right Honourable Baronet after the speech be
delivered last night ; that speech, he would venture to say, vise
more powerful and more to be admired than any speech which
had been delivered in that Hou=e within the memory of any
Honourable Member present ; he watched the Right Ho-
nourable Baronet home last night, and for the first time
in his life he envied the Right Ilon. Baronet the feelings he
must have felt on that occasion. That speech had been gent
into every part of the kingdom, and it would be read by those
who had been trampled upon, and it would infuse renewed
hope in the hearts of those whose rights had long
been treated with scorn and contempt.—(Hear, hear. )
He did not say that all the mills in Lancashire would be shut
up in a week if Hon. Members on the other side of the Honse
had taken office, but lie was quite sure that there would have
been the utmost consternation in the conntry. The Noble
Lord who lately represented the county of Lancaster—Lord
Stanley—must have been a man at the head of that Goveru-
inent.—( Protectionist cheers.) Now let them just recollect
the remarkable knee-ledge of geography—( Opposition cheers.)
—which that Noble Lord once displayed in that House
with respect to a Russian province._( Renewed cheers. )
Let them look at the Hon. Member for Norfolk who sit at the.
table, and who was deputed, as he (Mr. Bright) supposed, by
the Great Central Protection Society, to have, in the phraseo-
logy of that body, a shindy—(Laughter)—with his Honour-
able Friend the Member for Stockport, (Mr. Cobden) in St.
Andrew's Hall, in -Norfolk. That lion. Member for Norfolk
had said that he advocated certain principles which he said
were supported by the Hon. Henry Clay, who, he believed was
once President of the United States of America. Now, if one man
did not know more of geography, and another man of history,
than those two did, he confessed he did not think they would
make a very brilliant Cabinet in managing the concerns of this
country.—( Hear, hear.) But no doubt the Duke of Rich•
mond must have been held a Member of that Cabinet,.....
( Hear, hear.) Why he heard the Noble Duke speak in
another place—he heard him say that Mr. Cobden got thirty
thousand pounds by his business.—( Hear. hear.) And, more-
over, he heard him say in another place th at one of hit
tenants paid more poor's rates than all the Leaguers
put together. That might be quite true —he (Mr. Bright)
,licl not. doubt it; but if it did, it spoke very badly for protee-
tion, when lie said that one of his tenants was obliged to nay
inure than the whore amount paid by the Leaguers altogether.
( Cheers.) Now what sort, of Cabinet would they have had
if Lord Stanley, and the Hon. Member for Norfolk, and
the Duke of Richmond, had been Members of it. Why, he
was quite sure that in all the public speaking in which he had
ever been engaged, he had never done anything so disastrous,
to the aristocracy of this country, and especially to the order
nt things, as had been done by that Nob's Duke within .the
last three or four months.—(Cries of " Oh, oh," from the
protectionists,: followed by cheers from the Opposition.) Such
charges upon men who differed from him in opinion—such
statements as those which he had made in another place, to
the effect that it were en easy matter to send itinerant agi-
tators to the north, and to say that corn could burn as well
flex.—(Loudas Opposition cheers.) Now really was that
the man that they professed themselves anxious to place
at the head of the Government ? They knew very well that the
country would not tolerate such a Cabinet for a week.—(op-
position cheers ) But it was not to place a Protectionist Go-
vernment in office that they carried on this violent opposition
to the Government, but he believed it to he that they might he
avenged of those who had forsaken the obligations of party.
that they might obey the call of a great country, which was
calling upon them to work out its commercial deliverance.
Ile would make one observation on the speech of the Hon.
Member for Oxford (Sir H. Inglis). lie confessed that he
could not: participate in the lamentation which he made on the
breaking up of his party. He considered that the country
always gained when parties lost.—(Cries of " Hear, hear.")
The Honourable Member says be is going to vote
against the proposed measure.—( Hear, hear.) If be
did so, he (Mr. Bright) must confess that for the future he
would always doubt his orthodoxy, for he had been given to
understand that the whole bench of bishops intended to vote
in favour of the measure.-- (Hear.) Knowing the intense suf.
tering in the country—knowing that famine with all its attendant
horrors is fast approaching the people of Ireland, who is the per-
son, or dignitary of a Christian church, who in this state would
refuse to give his sanction to a measure for the opening of
the ports, and thereby afford a supply of food to the suffering
people of Ireland ?—.( Hear, hear.) 'The Hon. Member need
he in no fear for the dissolution of the Tory part ; he may be
certain that so long as there are any abuses in the country,
any imposition, whether civil or ecclesiastical, that party wilt
still continue to have the power of throwing their shield
around thew.—( Hear, hear.) And as regards the University
which the Hon. Member represents, from the time of their
passing the famous Oxford Decree, in the year 1683, to the
present time, there has ever been die greatest spirit of perses
cut ion associated with the most profound ignorance.--( Hear.)
But the question which we have now to consider is, " shall
the measure be passed in its present state, or shall the repeat
of the corn-laws be total and immediate? He considered
that the measure of the Government was a great and a noble
tocasure—( Hear, hear)—and not all the Shibboleth of the
Anti-Corn-law League would make him deny that state-
ment. It was a measure which reflected great credit
on the Minister.—( Hear, hear.) But greelfectn
ter
and
like great pictures, are tarnished by
he thought that the, defect in this measure was
was not immediate.—( Hear, hear.) An
pangolin'
had
consulted
stated that a friend of his holding large thmatemthbeerrepheead
Hoasantneset thtoe repeat
leases, and they, consented
sixty-three of his tenants
to
have4l'er their leases as
agreements for ag
fresh leases alt
.nhowr:di,drhtehyeysigrnaeidse
ot etyh eweeorrer:
the very time when the present measure was brought forward
in this House ; and there is one Noble Lord who is a large
landholder, who states that he he has obtained higher rents
than before, although the measure is on the table of the House.
Hon. Members opposite have tried to frighten these farmers.
and with some few they have succeeded. Now, he thought
that the exertions of the League had, to some extent, prevented
this panic. He asked for an immediate and total repeal of the
corn-laws, because they were in opposition to the laws of heaven.
It was a great wrong upon many. So grievous was the injure
that it was impossible for them to remain where they now
were. II there was famine in Ireland—and of that there was
no sane person, he believed, who now entertained a doubt.
—he thought that the Government would not. advocate a
measure which would retain a duty of four shillings
on food, but would proceed to the immediate and total repeal
of the corn-laws. They knew there were emergencies, and
emergencies that could not be overrated. He hoped that it
would be remembered there was a famine, although there
were some who would not admit it until it reached the
dwellers of rich Belgrave-square.—(Cheering.) The Anti
Corn-law League had, he believed, some influence ea
that subject, and they it was well known were advocating a
total repeal. The country, more now than ever, were anxious
that the repeal should be immediate ; and unless it was, be
promised the House that before the close of the session there
would be another discussion—(Cheer)—in order that the corn.
laws may be repealed. The Hon. Gentleman the Member for
Warwickshire, who he (Mr. Bright) was sorry he did not see
in his place, Made an attack on the League, and said its acts
were illegal, but he would recommend the Hen. Gentleman to
read when he had leisure the decision of the Chief Justice of the
Common Pleas on that question.—( Cheers.) That Chief
Justice declared it was not only legal, but it was highly honour.
able for the League to pursue the course they had adopted.
It was to some a matter of rejoicing that there was a mode dis-
covered b} which they could bring together the constituencies
of that kingdom. He told the Hon. Gentleman that the for-
bearaneeof the League was a quality not generally observed by
other bodies on such occasions. They (the League) have
asked those who held free-trade principles to becomegnalifimed
for their counties and he could assure the Hon. Gentleman
opposite opposite that the Leauee was a powerful weapon. T'eirAD
Lord called on the Government to put a stop tof in
would the Noble
pro-
ceedings, which were carried on for the purpose
the aboltion of the corn-laws. But Nt se
had Utaken place, the
Rrocuring
Lord that when a repeal of those lawst...
If there be
League would be dissolved, and not till then.
the documents read
in the statements of
truth in the Minister—if
at their table—if there be
otrrut t
Cork
(Mr. O'Connell)
the Honourable Member f
newspapers— there wag
—if there be truth
there be truth in
fog which somebody must
a calamity impending,
be resnons
late The Government have refused to be so; they
have risked everything to remove it from them, and they come
do, and which necessity would render it impera.
forward to ask the 11.ouse to
do.—(Cheers.)
tha whieuheinw::::
a()
snk lattice
they ought to
tive that they mos,.
would posterity or the country hold them guiltlessthfeoirrtyhseair
present
...
conduct, because, forsooth, they succeeded in
game against the Minister ?—( Cheers, and counter cheers.)
If famine be in Ireland, and pestilence treading on its heels
bsehotuoldt‘sh'eamstehtotecolannsidd,erw
thhaattt
a tleoyr oh
had
s
w
triufeerfinnemdPitneheneeeallnliditn itieura sl
doeu tof office, and obtained a majority On this question—recollecting, at the same time, that they bad
been accessories to the want and miseries of the nation by
their factious opposition.—(Loud cheers.)
Mr. HUDSON said, that in rising to speak on the pee-
sent occasion, he was quite prepared to bespeak the indulgence