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

of buying dearly?—(Hear, hear.) How could it be
said that a foreign trade was carried en, end that the home
trade was not commensurate with it. He would now refer
to some documents relative to the import of cotton
from the United States, in support of the propo-
sition for which he contended, viz., that they had laid the
foundation for an entire revolution in, and reformation
of, the social and economical system of the country, that they
had strengthened the foundation of their own manufactures,
and that they were in a situation to make encroachments on
the manufactures of foreign countries. The first document
was a trade circular which he had received from the north,
and which stated that the imports of cotton from the United
States were greater than there was any reason to expect,
owing to the diminished consumption there, and the dispro-
portionate shipment to France and the continent of Europe.
The prospects of the manufacture were of a satisfactory cha-
racter, there being nothing to check it unless it was an insuf-
ficient supply of the raw material. Means were within the
reach of all, and they might look for a steady and improving
home trade. That was what the first circular told them.
The second was from a gentleman whose authority they
would recognise immediately—Mr. Littledale, of Liverpool.
—(Hear, hear.) He said that there had lately been a re-
markable revolution in heavy goods and low yarns, both
for home use and export, the present stocks of which were
inadequate to supply the demand. On the whole, perhaps,
there was never a greater feeling of security. Another year
of prosperity had closed, and the formidable losses of 1847
and 1848 might be considered as fairly cancelled by the gains
of 1849 and 1850. —( Hear, hear.) Now. after reading those
extracts, might they not say that the manufacturing classes
had gone through as severe trials, or perhaps even severer
ones, than their agricultural brethren? - (Hear, hear.) If,
by virtue of their own strength and energy, and not by the
aid of Parliament, they had been carried through their own
crisis, might they not hope that the same happy issue was
awaiting the agricultural interest. (Loud cries of
" Hear, hear.") Our Exchequer was prosperous now, and
its prosperity, notwithstanding the remission of duties,
was one of the most extraordinary circumstances of the
time. They were once told that when the railways were
finished, the labourers would be thrown upon the rates who
had worked upon them. Well, the railways were finished,
and what had become of the thousands of labourers they
had employed? Would any one tell him? There was no
especial reference to them in official documents. He re-
ferred to the Poor-law Board for information, but it
seemed that that was not a matter falling within their
province. They themselves had given the answer when
they said that these men had been employed' by the deter-
mination of the landed interest to keep them and the land.
A stranger passing through the country would form no
despairing idea of the prosperity of the landowners—for,
he would ask, were there ever seen so many draining tiles,
so many heaps of lime, and on the moor lands such large
tracts in process of conversion? Well, now, Parliament
laid aside a sum of money for the improvement of the land.
Had there been any remissness in taking up that loan ?
Had it not been greedily taken up? The rate of interest
was 6i per cent., which was a high rate, and he should like
to know in how many cases in Ireland and Scotland had
the tenant agreed to take it up, and in how many cases to
take up the largest portion ; and, also, whether landed
gentlemen would borrow the money, and spend it in agri-
culture, if they considered that the landed interest
was a ruined interest, and that there was no
hope .or prospect for it? With those questions to be an-
swered, he could arrive at no other conclusion than that
the agricultural interest, by dint of its own energy, would
survive the difficulties that had threatened it ; and let them
reflect on the tenure by which they held their possessions.
On the 10th of April did they not thank God that a great
cause of dissatisfaction did not prevail? Did they now
think they could carry a Corn Bill, or if they carried it,
did they think they could maintain it ?—(Hear.) Would
they not rather think they were sitting upon a
tornado, and that they could not invest their money in land
with any feeling of security? Now, the Hon. Member for
Yorkshire thought that protection was the remedy which
Parliament ought to apply to the grievances of the landed
interest. His views, perhaps, amounted to this, that when
they had settled the question of malt and spirits, when they
transferred the local burdens, when they had repealed the
Bank Charter Aet, then, in the next Parliament, by the ad-
dition of a protection of 10s., some moderate compensation
might be given. (Great laughter.). Now, what would be
the effect of adding 10s. to the price of wheat ? A great
authority on this point, Mr. Young, was good enough to send
him a copy of his speech with reference to it. Mr. Young
there estimated the total annual value of the produce of the
country at 210,000,0001. Taking wheat as the standard,
and that was sufficiently near for the purpose, and that its
price was raised P.'s. per' quarter, that would give one-
fourth part of 220,000,0001., or 55,000,1t0e, to put into the
pockets of the agricultural community. Now, that looked
something like relief.—.(Laughter.) Considering that that
was very nearly the whole revenue of the country, and that
it in fact called upon them to impose upoa their constituents
a tax nearly equal to the whole revenue of the country,
which was not intended to go into the Exchequer, it be-
came them to be careful how they made any such rule the
basis of practice. If they estimated the average wages
of the hand-loom weavers at 10s. a week, as the report
showed, the number of persons in a family, on the average,
to be four, and the price of wheat to be 605 a quarter, then
55. a week, as one-half of the income over expenditure,
must be expended iu bread. Now, if by a corn-law the
price of corn were raised 20 per cent., it was obvious that
such a measure, as against the hand-loom weavers, must
operate as an income-tax to the extent of 10 per cent.
Why should that be done? With regard to the question
of the burdens on land, the Honourable Gentleman
who preceded him had in fact established his
own case, and, therefore, relieved him from the necessity of
following him. But he might be permitted to remind him
of this, that during the last five years, two Committees of
the House of Lords had sat upon this very subject, had gone
into it deeply, had pointed out all the burdens which they
conceive injurious and injudicious, and the remedies which
they were prepared to recommend. Neither in the report of
1846 nor in that of 1850, did he find any suggestion to adopt
the course which, by the present measure, they were invited
to pursue.—(Hear, hear.) He trusted that, under any cir-
cumstances, he should not prove a traitor to principles which
he sincerely believed had enabled them to pass—not without
suffering, but with mitigated suffering—through the greatest
crisis of their history—principles, he believed, which had
served them as a security, and not least to hailed property,
which had been their healing portion, and which had
strengthened the foundations of the Crown and Government.
Colonel DTJNNE sail he had had some hope that the
agricultural districts of the country would have obtained
some measure of relief from the Government, and that Ire-
land might then have come in for her own share of it. The
savings banks, which afforded a fair criterion of the social
condition of the people, exhibited a melancholy picture. It
appeared from the returns that the sums lodged in savings
banks in Ireland had diminished from 2,920,0001. in 1845, to
1,810,0001. in the present year. The cereal crops were no•
toriously becoming more insufficient to assist the population
from the want of capital and skill. Under the Bill for the
sale of encumbere i estates lan i in vast quantities was
brought to the hammer and disposed of by persons who
united the functions of judges and auctioneers. As an ex-
ample of the operation of this system, he had the return of the
sale of an estate which, in 1845, could have been sold for 18i
years' purchase, but which had been sold the other day for
25,0001., leaving a deficiency to creditors of 65,0001. If be
looked tothe return from the Poor-law Board, there was the
same dejected aspect of the condition of the country. The
state of the returns showed that Ireland was going down.
The land was getting into the hands of the lower class. He
was prepared to show that tobacco could be grown in Ireland
with profit. That would open up a much more profitable
market for cultivation than flax, to which the Hon. Baronet
(Sir James Graham) had adverted. The advances, many
of which had been forced upon Ireland, had been misspent.
The local taxation was much larger in Ireland than in this
country. The poor-law was thrown upon the owners and
occupiers of land, in addition to mortgages and other charges.
He objected to centralization, he repudiated the bad Govern-
ment of the country, and should support the motion of the
Hon. Member for Buckinghamshire, and be cared not whe-
ther he sac on that (the Ministerial) or the opposite side of
the House.—( Hear, hear.)
Lord JOCELYN said he would occupy the House but a
very few moments. He was anxious to have followed the
Hon. Member for Liverpool (Mr. Cardwell), because he bad
said that he was a traitor t, the policy of 1845, it he voted
for the motion before the House. The Hon. Member's
speech did n. t seem to touch the question. It w nt to show
the general prosperity of the country, in which he concurred.
—( Hear.) He regretted to differ from his Right lion. Friend
(Sir James Graham), whose speech went to prove most
clearly the general state of prosperity of all interests except
one.—(Hear.) He distinctly admitted the depression of one
clasp—the agriculturists.—( Hear. hear ) Ile distinctly
admitted the depression of that class. That was also
adniftted in the speech of her olajesty from the Tnrone.
Up to 1815 he supported the general policy of protection.
Then a change came over the views of the country con-
cerning that policy, and when many of its ablest protectors
had lett it, the support of its policy became hopeless. It
was upon that view that he supported the Government, but
he believed that it must naturally depress the agricultural
interest. At the time he supported the change he was pre-
pared to do justice to their claims.-- (Cheers.) His comes
then was not inconsistent with the course he was now about
to take. The motion before the House called for Govern-
ment to come to a fair consi•leration of the claims of the
agriculturists. He could not concur in the construction put
upon the motion before the House by the Right Hon. Baronet
(Sir James Graham), but would vote for it as he read it.
Mr. B. COCHRANE would vote for this motion because
her Majesty's Speech contained these facts—that the general
prosperity in the country had been the consequence of the
measure which he had supported, but at the same time
there was also in consequence of that measure great distress
to one class, and therefore they were the more bound to re-
lieve that distress. He should therefore most heartily and
sincerely support the motion.
Mr. GOBJEN said, that during the course of the debate
much doubt had been expressed as to the nature of the mo-
tion before them. Some Hon. Members said that it was not
for protection ; others, on the contrary, viewed it as a Pro-
tectionist motion. To the eye of common sense there could
be no doubt, either in the House or out of it, as to the real
object of the motion. Whether it was meant as a motion for
a return to a duty on corn, or for compensation for loss sus-
tained by the repeal of the corn-laws, he apprehended the
object gained by it would be protection.—(" No, no" from the
Protectionists.) He should not, after the exhaustive speech
of the Right Hon. Gentleman the Member for Ripon, have
troubled the House with one remark, if it had not been thatte
the Hon. Member for Buckinghamshire, in introduc.iengvotbes
motion, seemed to ground the whole of his claimn
for
the corn-
of his supporters on the assumption, that in
laws it had been agreed that certain uoted the
be obtained for corn. The Hon. Gentleraann
the Treasury
prices should thereafter
speech of a Right Honourable Gentlemyßn_en who in the
bench, and of some other Honourable Genii M
course of the discussion on the corn- , and subsequent to
their repeal, had expressed anhad not been so
opinionlaw that prices would
range
to a certain level, and be
ecausie they
aundceerrtsatainndicnogmphaacdt
, high as predicted, the Honours!) a Member for Buck-
inghamshire has assume:
cetrhwatin
had been broken—that
and then came forward with a claim
not been realised,A he (Mr. Cobden) had some share in
for compensation.
the long and wearisome discussion on the corn-laws, he
must enter bis protest against any such doctrine.—( Hear,
hear.)
He would warn them from proceeding to grant coin-
pensation for the repeal of the corn-laws, on such an
assumption, because he was prepared to assert that in the
whole course of his arguments on the corn-law question he
had never so much as offered an opinion as to what the price
of corn would be.—(Cries of " Oh, oh.") It Hon. Gentlemen
who cried " Oh, oh," would take the trouble to look
through the iecord of their proceedings, he was sure they
would not—indeed he challenged them to bring an instance
of his ever saying what the price of corn would be.— (Hoar,
hear.) He hag always argued the question on totally diffe-
rent principles. Again and again he feed stated that he d:d
not care what prices w 're under free trode so long as they
had corn at the natural price of the world's market.--
(Cheers.) They h‘id it now at that natural price, and he
was content. The country was content—(tlear, luar)--and
the clumsy would be content even if the natural price should
be 50s. instead of 40s. It was quite possible that it would be
nigh to 50s. by that time two years.—(Oh, oh.) It had
b. en 89s. since the repeal of the com-laws.—(—Rear, hear.)
He could grant no compensation, therefore, under that plea.
klayieg poteated against each au agaumptial he aekectwhat