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

I

repeal of the corn-laws, and that in increasing the price of food
you diminish the amount of employment, and that it becomes
bucden-onie to all. In an examination c,nducted before Mr.
Fle•ch-r, in the West of Yorkshire, Andrew 1-Zeman
iw aske4, " Have you given any reason fix the C3.11:,e of your
rip-tress?" lie says, " 1 have, and I as, ibe it to the operation
of the corn-iaws." "In what wlv do you consider that they
affect the c tu-e of yo-.lr d,stre,s?' " preventing the ex •
ier.sion of c:nntn,rce with other countries,-and the consequent
dintini,bect empi.yrnent at home." Ant th,r weaver. James
Crowley, gave simil,r evidence as to the depreciati-.g effect
of the con—laws in the wages and emp;oyment of weavers.
The Hen. Member fo" Itutiaudsinre proposed, in jitstice to
the working 6,s ,r, that there oug',r to be a slidnig-scale
for wages, to assimilate them with the slichog-Ecaie of the corn-

laws ; aed not only a sieline-scale fur wages, but that they
' should aico be fixed at a minimum price. lan bound to s ate,
that this atipears a most impra ticable and cumbersome mode,
and impassible to be entertained wiih any hope of living car-
ried into effect. I cannot overlook the fact, that the Gi'verne
meta of the country is practically vested in this House, and
that the 1 ndesl interest proponderete in the other House. I
cannot take it upon me to recominsnd the pursuit of any
course which is m nifestly 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, tie great number, and the enormous proportion
of the manufacturing population, and that this opinion is
deeply routed in their nitride—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 poeulatien, of the necessity of the corn-laws;
neither can any government be justified in enforcing such an
impost in opposition to their mest emphatic disavowal of
the nece-sity of its continuance. You may reason as you
will, but on this point they will not be otherwise
cony i nced---( 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
w-iges, 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 evioenee to show you that the increase and
diminution of crime, was influenced in proportion to the high
or low price of foo I. I could also show you distinctly that the
amount of mortality was influenced in a similar proportion to
the price of f sod. I have now endeavoured to substantiate
all the positions which I have advanced, and I am bound to
state, that looking at the matter with the most favourable die.
' position to elicit the truth, and with the wish to avert conse-
quences which threaten the peace of the country, I have no he-
citation in giving my mist unqualified support to the Bill now
before the House.—( Hear, hear.) lam also of opinion that
our for inn relations will be greatly improved and satisfied by
this measure.. N snonal dependance is a preservative of public
peace. The commercial community at large are loud in their
demands for public peace, and, after all, the best means for
preserving the tranquillity o; the world, still be found in the
benefits which the extension of commerce will confer
Lookir'e forward, as I do, to the happy day when London shall,
indeed be the emporium of the world, in consequence of the
widespread influence of her commerce with foreign nations,
when peace in all enuntrioa 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, ear, estly 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 lion. Gentle-
man for the honesty of his convictions.—( Hear, hear.)
fie heard with the deepest regret the motives which were im-
puted by the Right Hon. Baronet to an Honourable Gentle-
man who spoke on the question ; but nothing would induce
him to iedulge in that kind of imputation. He, however, should
exercise his own judgment, and not be led away by the in
fluence of any authority, no matter how great. He re-
• timbered what the Honourable Meitsber for Stockport, whom
he saw in his place, had said in that House and elsewhere.
That Honourable Genileman stated that the Government of
the country w re overridden by the landed interest.—( Hear,
hear. ) He did not quarrel with that Honourable Gentleman's
opinions, but when lie heard the R ght Honourable Beronet
stating that the time had come when the landed
proprietors bad an undue interest in that
House. —[Sir James Graham—" I did rot say undue "]
Well, nut 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 11.ght 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. filet I-1 'use was the fair representative of all inte-
rests—commercial as well as aericultural ; but if they were
to he 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 cotters mills and the
large manutactories 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 pus upon the Right Hon. Baronet's speeches,
that Right Hon. Gentleman rated 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.) He 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 not 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 'nobles, who did not knew the river St. Lawrence from
the Ohio. Now such statements were always met with the
exultw len 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 Hon.
Member for Durham, were at public meetings, they invariably
used language which, if esed in that Honse, would be sufficient
to deprive them of a hearing.—( Hear, hear.) Yet these were
the men whore principles were adopted by the Right Hon.
Baronet. Why a Government should allow themselves to be
so miserably deceived he eon'd 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 lion. Member for Wolverhampton.—(Hear.) On
that evening they had an able speech from the Right Hon.
Baronet the secretary for the Home Department, bit it was
not such a one as would convince him of the necessity of the
repeal of the corn-laws. The El oneurable Members
of :free trade principles, had signalised themselves by
,roetr
arguments out of doors, and even in that House, now that
her Majesty's Ministers bad taken up 'hen.
question, all argu-
ment seemed to have forsaken th,
Hear, hear.) It might
be that they con idered their
..nterests in safer han.:s, and there-
fore they thouAt it
.netter to keep quiet, and not spoil their
posit ion.—l►
drighter.) With respect to the letter put forth by
the d the Member for the City of Londe's, he (Mr.
Stewart ) had nit d iubt That the Noble Lord felt the result to
have been a successful poi tical stratagem.—(ll ar, hear. ) lie
had no doubt the Mile Lord intentied it as a political feeler.
1 he Right Hon. liar net said he could net venture to predict
what the nature of the wea` her would be in a year hence. He
agreed with him; but the real question was, what would lb-
effect he upon the price of co n to 160, if the crop to 1'46
should be a failure ?—.( Laughter.) It had been said by a Noble
Duke, whn thought this measure unwise, that it would be wed
for the public to wait wail they had heard what the opinion of
the Right Hon. Baronet. would he; but what vt e•e they to
think, now that the Right Hon. Baronet had charged his
opinion ?—( Hear, hear.) This had been called a great and
comerehensive measure, but he denied tnat 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 pron ction was to be taken away !roes 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 mmulaci ures, we would call that a fallieg 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 Gevernmen ,
brought ab .ut by their yielding to mob terror. If those mobs
should meet again in Lincoln's Inn. fields,and threaten that House,
the tlovernment should prevent such meetings and threats, and
if it did not, it did not deserve to be continued as a Government

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. •
BOUVERIE said the Hots. Member opposite was in-
dignant with him because he smiled at an observation he
made ; but he smiled at hearing 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 upl,olding that preponderance.
The landed interest assumed that those laws had been produc-
tive of great goad to the country ; 3et the Let was, that this
country had been more and more deeennent every year since
the passing of those laws, upon foreign countries fer a supply
of corn. For instance, for nine years after the year 1815, the
quantity of foreign corn imported was 390,0.10 quarters ; for the
next nine years it increased to 800,000 quarters; and during
the next nine years it had increased to 1,400,0.)0 quarters. But
Honourable Members opposite who opposed this mea-
sure did not appear to take into consideration the like-
libootl of a war with some uf those countries, which would
have the effect of preverving 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 Depar: ment, to
show that those corn-laws had only the effect of encouraging
the continuance of crime and pauperism, and that no system
of policy could he ievented 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 farms had been ruined by the operation of the law in
the first measure, and could not be more injured in the pre-
sent iustance.—( Hear, hear.) He would next come to 'he
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
.li,e, they were strangers to him.—( Hear. )
Mr. Arthur Young, an eminent authority en aericultural
fact, bad reeote,ed various instances of the co.-Oitiori of the
lahoerer in 1776 as comaared with his present ,state. At that
time the wages of an ordinary labourer did_ not exceed • ss. 6d.
or 6s. a wee. and though the wages at present amounted to
Bs., yet, in consequence the increase in the prices
of bread, meat, butter, &c., the wages were
not in reality more than in 1776.—( Hear, hear.)
He believed that the Right • on. Baronet at the head of the
Government was actua eci by the finest and nsost philanthropic
feelings in introducing the measure; and though his party had
in a great measure thrown him overboard, because, in his