The Sun.
London, England, 1851-02-04 00:00:00

they attributed that long-continued distress? It was a

tributable to that system of legislation which, be it right
or wrong, had been introduced during the last few
years, and as that distress had been produced by legis-
lation, so he asked that by legislation they should seek
to relieve it. During successive years they had had
different causes assigned for this distress. The year
before last it was the over-importation consequent upon
the famine of the year before; last year it was the
aboundant harvest, and last 'ear it was proved theoreti-
cally that the trade was ruinous to the foreign importer,
and that this year they would see a great rise. The
425. of last year had dwindled down to 375. 2d.
now, and yet at that price they had poured into
this country four millions and a half quarters of
wheat and wheat flour alone, and still it continued
to come, and he knew that the expectations of many
who had consented to a repeal of the
corn-laws had been completely falsified by the
results. The Noble Lord who seconded the Address
had thrown out a hint that we might expect an Encum-
bered Estates Bill for this country. He said that those
estates in Ireland hai sold as well as could have
been expected under the circumstances, but these cir-

cumstances were the general depreciation of the value of
land. But with regard to the working cf
the Encumbered Estates Act, it might be true
that it might have worked well for landlords
who were encumbered up to sixty years' pur-
chases, or for creditors who wished to take estates
for a bad debt, but ho could not admit that a
measure under which estates had been sold for to 9
years' purchase had worked satisfactorily. But they had
been told that this Act was to produc., a flow cf Eng-
lish capital into Ireland, but instead the Noble Lord
told them that no English capital had been poured
into Ireland, there had been merely a change of
proprietary, and ho,bAiev(d it was not for the public
benefit that such a change of proprietary should take
. .

place. Ile would not like to aid in passing any mea-
su-e which should break up the old proprietary of the
country, thus breaking up the ties which connected the
o'd proprietary with their tenantry. It was impossible
teat the owners and the occupiers should have their
resources reduced, and at the same time that the condi-
tion of the labourers should be improved.
The increased labour given to the labourers had been
occasioned by the efforts of the landowners to
improve their estates, although they might be
recovered by their efforts. (Loud cheers). He
regretted he could not concur in the hope expressed that
the prosperity of other interests would diminish the
distress and suffering of the agricultural classes. Ile
did not deny the prosperous condition of the menu-
fecturing classes, and he admitted that that prosperity
conduced to the prosperity of that portion of the agri-
cultural classes which was net dependent upon the
growing of corn crop, t`ley of course
derived an immediate benefit from the con-
sum' tion of the manufacturing classes, this in-
creased c3asumption migh,, as regards corn, to
good for the agriculture of France, of Poland, or
of America, but net of the corn grower of England.
Ho maintained unaltered his opinion as to the imp: licy
ti f tee measure of 1816, at least so far as it went;
he believed the present pi lees were perma-
nent, and that at these prices the production
of this country must he materially diminished, tied with
i', the ability to bear the enormous weight of taxation
and of debt, and which this country could not have
borne but for the wise policy-of economising our ossn
productions.—(Hear, hear.) Ho now approached the
important subject of what was celled the Papal
aggression.—(Hear.) It was impossible not to feel
that there had been by the recent acts of the heads of
the Roman Catholic Church an aggression—he
would not say insidious, but most insolent, on
the supremacy of the Crown. The Noble Lord
at the head of the Government had, in his letter
to the Bishop of Durham, charactet iced the aggres-
sion as inconsistent with the Queen's supremacy,
with the independence of the country, and with the
rights cf the Church. The Noble Lord when he wrote
that sentence must have been aware of the amount of
genuine spontaneous Protestant feeling of the country to
which he appealed against this assumption of power on
the part of a Foreign Prelate, but when the
Noble Lord made that appeal, and called forth
that fervent Protestant feeling, and obtained for himself
that popularity which will always attend every one who
stands up for the Protestant liberties of this
country as that Noble Lord had done, he
could hardly imagine that the Noble Lord had not
decided what measures he intended to adopt.
This was no question of religion. God forbid
that, on account of their religions principles,
they should attempt to strip the Roman Catho-
lics of one jot of the civil privileges which had been
conferred upon them. The question was, should
the heads of the Roman Catholic Church be permitted
to exercise a mischievous interference with the Govern-
ment of this country. If the Noble Lord's letter meant
anything it meant that.—(Hear, hear.) He
did not object to the feelings which
after the passing of the Relief Act of 1829 led suc-
cessive Governments to shut their eyes to breaches of
the law, he regretted it now because these encroach-
ments had in consequence become great and
more resolute until the Prime Minister was
obliged to declare that their continuance was incom-
patible with the supremacy of the Crown and the in-
dependence of the country. If they meant by the rasa
sure they were about to introduce merely to prevent
the Bishop of Nottingham from assuming
his title, and leaving to him his power, then
they would have done nothing. He would remind
them, moreover, of this, that what they did
with regard to England, they must do with regard to
Ireland.—(Hear hear.) They could not separate that
Church from Ireland.—(Hear;
which was indissolubly united
with it at the Union.—(gear, hear.) If they concluded
by some " lame and impotent conclusion" some mea-
sure which should attack the shadow, leaving the
substance untouched, then would they have been
guilty of having gratuitously excited the religious feel-
ings of the country. Lie knew not what the mea-
sures to be proposed might be; but he hoped
that while it abated from infringing upon the
civil rights of their Roman Catholic fellow-subjects
it would vindicate the supremacy of the Crown against
Bishop and Priest, against Pope and Cardinal, and from
such mischievous meddling as had taken place in Ireland
of a Foreign Prelate, whose infallibility had been as they
were told, deceived by the misrepresentations of inte-
rested persons. Unless the Government intro-
duced an efficient measure, there would rest upon
them the responsibility of having excited and
denied the holiest of feelings, a feeling of religion.
and of having disappointed the expectations and hopes
of the Protestants—ay, of the greater number of the
liberal Roman Catholics too —of these realms.—
Hear, hear, and cheers). If there were were any
cases in which the law of 1829 intended to
be effectual, had fallen short of this object it would be
no violating of religious liberty to render those
securi-
ties effectual. They must not content the sev
I eswith trifling legislature, but it must be effectual,i
and if it were so no considerations should
preclude
himself and the great body with which he
acted for giving the Government toeir support,
ort3.bwutitihf
they did not intend to deal broadly and m
the whole case, far better would it be for them not
to deal with the question at all. They Should not
deal with a power by merely ignoring its exercise
they should deal with it boldly, and that when that ap-
peal of the opponents and of the community at large ;
but if they did not so deal with it they would be worthy
even the contempt of the country. He waited, in the
anxious hope that the measures to be proposed would
be efficient.— (Hear.)
The Duke of RICILNIOND was anxious to
draw the attention of their Lordships to the
lamentable state of distress by the agricultural
interest. The heavily taxed and overburthened Brit-
ish farmer never could compete with the foreigner.
The farmers were loyal now, but he declared to heaven
he could not hope that they would much longer con-
tinue to bo so. They
would not wait until the mann-
factoring prosperity Should react upon them. Many
cf the small landowners had gone to live on
the Continent, and
ninny of the labourers had
emigrated, and it was to this that the decrease in the
number of paupers Iva) owing. They ruined the pro-
prietors, they crushed the tenantry, and forced the la-
bourers to
_emigrate, in order to give way to the

cotton spinners of Manchester, who to get
money would violate every law, human and divine.
If they did not devote the surplus to the relief of the
agriculturists, they would raise such a cry as they would
not easily stop. If the agriculturists took his advice,
they never would rest satisfied until they got protection
for British industry. With respect to Papal aggres-
sion, he had always opposed Catholic emancipation,
and now they were beginning to reap the fruits of it,
He was not surprised at what the Bishop of Rome had
done. He had seen her bishops treated in Ireland as
Nobles, and he had seen the House of Commons giving
way to Roman Catholics, and he no doubt considered
the House of Commons represented the people,
of England while everybody in England knew that it
did no such thing.—(Hear, hear.) He denied that the
House of Commons represented the British people.
With regard to Lord J. Russell's letter, as it had never
been repudiated by any member of the Cabinet, he
considered that it represented the sentiments of the
whole Cabinet. As far as the improvement of the land
went, he would never, until protection were restored,
spend one shilling in improvements; it would be sending
good money after bad.
The Earl of WINCHELSEA considered that the
dangers which this country run during war was as no,
thing compared with the perils in which we now stand.
At that time the King, the Legislature, and the people
were Protestant, but since 1829 we have ceased to be a
Protestant country. It we.s true the great body of our
people was Protestant, as had been evinced by their re-
cent indignant protest against the recent aggression of
the Church of Rome.

THE SUN,