The Sun.
London, England, 1851-02-14 00:00:00

prof had they that the two classes—landowners and
tanners —had suffered such grievous losses in consequence of
the repeal of the corn-laws? One large landed pro-
prietor in that House told them that he preferred
no claim for compensation on that score. Would
Honourable Gentlemen tell him that landlords had
suffered great loss since the repeal of the corn-laws?
Would any Hon. Gentleman tell hint that, taking the average
of landlords. there had been a reduction of 10 per cent. on
rents? (Hear, hear.) He had hed information obtruded
upon him, which showed that in many instances there had
been no reduction at all.--(Cries of "Name.") But sup-
posing the landlords had suffered a reduction of 10 percent.
ot their rents, did they imagine that they were the only
class in the community who hade buffered losses during the
last four or five years? Had persons who bad invested
their money in mines or in railroads, or even in the iron
trade, suffered no losses? Even one branch of the cotton
trade had not been so very prosperous during that time.
Were the agriculturists, therefore, to be the only par-
ties who were to be compensated for their losses? The
state of the farmer bad been different in different
localities. In some cases, in heavy clay lands, he had ex-
perienced great difficulty and distress, but in lighter soils
which supplied potatoes, and other kinds of food for large, towns, farming had been no unprofitable business.—(Hear,
hear.) But what was asked for now, was a general compen-
sation to all farmers, and to all landowners.—(Hear, hear.)
They were asked to ignore the sufferings of the shopkeepers,
manufacturers, and professional persons, and to legislate
merely for the interests of landowners and farmers.—(Hear,
hear.) He objected to that attempt of the Hon. Member for
Buckinghamshire on another ground. The Hon. Member
had told them that he sought rather to transfer a certain
amount of taxation from the landowners and farmers to the
shoulders of the other classes in the country. He had not
told them how that was to he done, and it was there that his
speech was so defective. Did the Hon. Gentleman intend to
increase the property-tax, or the tax on articles of consump-
tion ? Did the Hon. Gentleman propose that ? Nobody could
say what Hon. Gentlemen opposite intended.—(Hear.) They
were all mute. How were they going to take five millions
or six millions of taxation from the shoulders of one class
and transfer it to another? Let them be assured that nobody
could bear an increase of taxation. If any one thing was
more settled than another it was, that no Government could
shift taxation to any considerable amount.—(Hear, hear.)
Last year the Chancellor of the Exchequer tried an ad
valorem stamp duty; but the alteration was opposed, and no
increase in the higher rate was obtained. If any one axiom
was better known than another, it was, that no modification
of a tax, could be obtained by merely transferring it from
the shoulders of one class to those of another, for there was
more resistance from those upon whom even au additional
feather-weight of taxation was to be imposed, than there
was help from those whom the transfer was intended to re-
lieve.— (Hear.) If this resolution were passed, it would be
the merest chimera to say that it would relieve the farmer,
when no one could tell upon whose shoulders was to be
placed the burden of taxation intended to be relieved.
The only way to mitigate taxation on the landowners and
farmers was by large reductions in the expenditure. No
Hon. Gentleman opposite had proposed any reduction in the
expenditure of the Government. Not one word had the
Hon. Member for Buekirghamshire said about that. He
(Mr. Cobden) wished to renews landowners and farmers, but
not them alone, by a general reduction of expenditure. Let
them look at the cost of the colonies, and at the wasteful ex-
penditure, not useful even to the colonists themselves.—
(Hear.) There was there an ample margin for reduction.
The lion. Member for Buckinghamshire had cited numerous
cases in which he proposed to benefit the landlords. He
should not refer to them, because they had been ably dis-
posed of by the Right Hon. Baronet the Member for Ripon
(Sir James Graham). There were a great many things to
which the Hon. Gentleman had not referred, but which
might benefit the landowners and farmers. He found
fault with discussions like the present, because they pre-
vented landlords and tenants from understanding each other,
and coming to some arrangement.—(Hear, hear.) Hon.
Gentlemen opposite were again leading the farmers on a
wrong scent. For three years they had deluded the
farmers with hopes of protection, but now they said they did
not seek protection.—(Hear, hear.) Even the Hon. Mem-
ber for Hereford, the last elected Protectionist, applauded
the speech of the Hon. Member for Buckinghamshire, and
instead of saying one word about protection, plunged into
a boundless sea of statistics without a rudder or compass,
but said not a word about protection. - (Hear, bear.) He
he had stated he found fault with these discus ions, be-
cause they prevented landlords and tenants coming to an
arrangement, Nine-tenths of their difficulties might be
got over by the landlords and tenants themselves, without
the interposition of the Parliament. At present the land-
lord told the farmer to wait, and he would get protection,
and the farmer felt if protection failed him that that would
give him a plea for compensation. But what was now pro-
fessed? Another plea to modify taxation--a vague, indefi-
nite, unfathomable proposal.—(Hear, hear.) He defied any
farmer, if he did not fall asleep before he got through the
seven columns of the speech of the Hon. Member for Bucks,
to make out what the Hon. Member meant. He would have
them leave landlords and tenants to adjust their difficulties
themselves. He could point out something that would help
them. Did they not think that leases might be advan-
tageously a,lopted?—(No, and laughter.) What would
Scotcbmen say when the mention of leases as a necessary
condition of good farming was received with a roar of laugh-
ter from the Protectionists?—(Renewed laughter, and cries
of " No, no.") Could anything more completely justify
what he had been saying, that they had not selected the
proper means of remedying their difficulties? Did they
not think that their condition would be improved by a
diminution of the game ?—(Cries of " Oh," and laughter.) Ho
did not think Hon. Gentlemen opposite understood the wants
of the farmers after all, for they (the farmers) were laughed
at when game was spoken of.—(Hear, hear.) It was stated
in evidence before the Committee which sat on the subject of
game, that on a farm on which game was preserves in the
ordinary way, the cost of the game to the tenant was as much
as the whole of his local and government rates.—( Laughter. )
He (Mr. Cobden) begged to say that it was so stated. There
was another law which, in his opinion, was injurious to the
farmers—he meant the law of distraint, which gave the
landlord a preferable and a prior claim over the tenant's
goods. He believed if that law were altered the tenant
would be disposed to lay out a much greater amount of
capital in the cultivation of the soil. Was there nothing
which the landlord might not himself do to improve their
condition? Would not a change in the law of transfer be
beneficial? Would not facilities of transfer raise the
value of estates, increase the number of proprietors call
into existence more labour and diminish the poor rates?--
(Hear, hear.) All these were things necessary to be done;
but could be done only by the landlords themselves. But
none of these things would be done so long as the farmers'
attention was kept fixed on motions like the present. The
Hon. Gentleman had talked of the ten millions or twelve
millions paid by the agricultural producers. It was well
known that the tax on beer, tobacco, and gin was a
tax paid by the consumers; but he believed there was not a
coalheaver on the Thames who did not pay more malt duty
than any farmer in the kingdom. It was the consumer, and
not the producer of an article that paid the tax.—(Hear.
hear.) He was surprised, at the present advanced
period of economical knowledge, that anybody should
have ventured so far on the credulity of the farmer
as to put forth such a proposal as that which had emanated
from the other side.—(Hear, hear.) Honourable Gentlemen
opposite, as a party, were strong—numbers of them were
landlords representing a great many farmers, but they were
bound in justice to a large portion of the community not so
powerfully represented to pause before agreeing to the
resolution before the House. They might, by carrying the
resolution, reverse the policy of the last few years, or they
might attempt to compensate themselves for the repeal of
the corn-laws, but they might depend on it they were but
leading the agriculturists into another difficulty—into
another struggle with all the trades, occupations, and
professions in the kingdom.—( Hear.) But they would be
eaten again as before. They had now avowed that all
which they bad been telling the House for the last ten
years was unfounded.—(Cries of " No.") It was so, because
their leader had admitted that the great mass of the people
were in a state of comparative prosperity. The Hon.
Gentleman told them that the case of the landowners and
the farmers was an exceptional one, but that the prosperity
of all other classes gave him a strong case for the present
motion. [lad they well con,idered what the motion in-
volved? It iiivoive.l the consequence, that for the thirty
year , during which the corn-laws were maintained, the
landowners were doing great injustice to the masses of the
people—tbat they were suffering privation and misery at the
hands of the landlords. If it was adatitted that the re-
peal of the corn-laws benefited the masses, it was impossi-
ble to deny that the existence of those laws injured them.—
(Hear, hear.) He advised them, therefore, not to say a
word about compensation, or again to stir the question.
He hoped the Hon. Members for Ireland would not follow
the example ot tie lion. .:ember for l'ortarlington. He
hved no temporary excitement against the Government
on other questions would induce them to vote against the
interests ot the masses in this country. Frey knew that
the bulk of the taxation was raised from the consumers,
those who are not represented, and surely they would
pause before they would inilict such injustice on those who
were not represented, by supporting the motion of the Hon.
Gentleman.

Mr. BIOORE said he should support the motion for two
, reasons, both of them resting on a strictly Irish view of the
question.- (Laughter and cheers.) This was the view
which, either from extreme tact, or extreme ignorance, bad
been excluded from the observations of the Right Hon.
Gentleman, the Member for Ripon. The Hon. Gentleman
who had just sat down had addressed reproaches to his
friend the Member for Porterlington, for his picture of the
state of Ireland. What was that state ?
iTa lethargy
dismaler
in the market, and there was no one to purchase it. The
Why its land wit.,
A nominal
letters of the land were either in the workhouse ort drafted
off to foreign shores.—( Hear.)
; e nTt ehde
a nominal tenantry were waging war against
fighting for nothing—for
of despair and the rage of comp
antithesis unparalleled in the history of the odd.--
nothikeitwtnthepirsre
(Cheers.) What had been the remedial measure presented
f them was a Bi t
Lord? One o o prevent the
by the Noble Lo .
as a means
y__ 434 of Preventing agrarian
removal of crops to mi-
ss a specimen of the insufficient outrage. That w nature of
measures. His second
their remedial reason for support-
ingotion was that the whole populationof the ''n • lreland
determined to show the Noble Lord and
werethe occupants
of the Treasury bench, that they should not retain possession
of them except upon the principle on which the I
y came.Into
religious Dower, namely, as friends of civil and ' •
ous liberty.
For years the Irish Members had supported the present
Cabinet, notwithstanding its many deficiencies.
They had
shut their eyes to its weakness • -
and incompetency.—
(Laughter
(Laughter and cheers.) They had voted with the yd'o-
vernment on the Greek question, or rather on the larger
question moved by the Honourable' r on
Member for Sheffield,
who saved the Ministry on that occasion.—(Hear,
hear.)
There were many things is the policy of the Noble Lord
at the head of the Foreign-office with which they did
not agree, but they had supported him in order to show
that their religion did not, as had been asserted, either
enslave the intellect or degrade the soul. They had
heretofore placed a staff in the hands of the Noble Lord, and
he had only used it to smite them on the teeth.-(Hear,
hear.) On the Treasury benches he was the supporter of a
policy suited to the middle ages, on the opposite benches, he
religions liberty,
ho again become the friend of civil and
ho would again become the friend of Ireland, if the Irish
Members would vote to put him out.- (Laugh. ter.) He
cheated atgiving a vote,
i hoped that none of them would he ch . .
which would show the people of Ireland that they resented
, a policy which was an insult to. their religion, and were ad-
' verse to a Minister who had excited the rancour of the whole
, 'nst it.-(Oh, oh.) N
:es, the Noble
people of England against
Lord had brought in a measure which would bit by bit in-
He
tioduce a system of persecution. hoped the Irish
Members would no longer; support a Illinister who for four
years had made use of them for his own purposes, and who
now on y waned to make me of them for more discreditable
purposes --(Hear, hear. )
Lord J. RUSSELL—I can as-ure the House that if I
were not persuaded that much more than the embarrassment
or fate of the 'l. i't
..) in sry was involved in the discussion to-
..

_ ..... .._ .._ __
night, I should hardly think it neczssary t 0... trouble them at
any length upon this occasion. Indeed, had the House been
as full as it now is when the Right Hon. Gentleman th%
Member for Ripon delivered his addre-Ss, I should him.
bees ready to dtcluo that I otild 04 wthin to the

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