The Sun.
London, England, 1804-07-17 00:00:00

CORN IttGULATION BILL.

Two. Petitions wete presented against 'the Sill,
one from the Convention of the Royal Burghs• of
So,tland, by Lord WALSINCHAM, and 'the other
from the Chamber of Commerce at Glasgow, by the
Dukl of Mori-Rosa ; butafter a short conversation
Betweenp the Loit I.? CHANCE LLOR, Lrifd STANI-t9P
anal !he Doke of Mot/Tao:se; they were withdrawn
on the ground of informality.
, : Lord I!Awt;ssuvkY moved the Order of the Day,
for the second reading of the Bill. •
`',Y;arI.STANHOPE said, that no Bill of greater
importance than the one now before their, Lord-
ships. could, possibly claim their,; attention.; The
objeet of it seas neither more nor 'lesi than intention:
ally and artificially. to raise the price of Corn, and
thereby to create a' proportionable advance upon all
the other necessaries of life. The persons who; bad
brought forward the present measure, did not seem
to be. aware of the natural consequences that most
iesult from it. When the, priee of Corn was advarced
the price of labour would. be advanced in an equal
degree. • Our manufaClures• would coosequently be
affened, for it was not to het xprCied that the same
tiemai,d alt*tid cootinthe for thf.7tri in foreign court.
tries, when an increase so coosiderabiefshould take
pace in the price,, as to place them above the 'tnians
of those States, or. to induce them to prefer thetna.
•onfigtures of some rival power that could afford to
sell at a cheaper tate. If. he A'ai corren irirthis view
of the iubjea, then.it -.would follow that our 'corn.
merce-would.he affetitd:, •:ind through that ,the• Ship.
fing• interest, and eventually our. Navy,. tl, great
.hulwark of the Slate. Nothiog,,,in his opinion,'eould
be more monstrous and extravagant than the vowed ,
principle of lb; i3ill, which, as he•before•statedi was
to increase the price of Corn. watt
.tipthin more,
in plain lan;?,;11)?,e, than a Plan to„.csonntcraet•• the
bounty of Providence, .anal to make'ihe people 'Of
this Country pay •for the madness, folly,,andabsur-
dity of their Legislates's. • In was proposed,
.when
Corn should attain to a certain price tode—what ?
mot to keep it in the Country and .preserve it for a
moment of scarcity, but *to give a Bounty for the
EXportation ()tit to distant Countries, who were in
no want of and where it would only find a •
matket in, consequence of that Bounty.' 'lnstead of
sending that superabundance abroad, he' would te..`"
commeod
,that it should Be purchased'. by an.
vermeil', and preserved In Warehouses', as he bad
seen pradisrd in other Countries ; from which
lie utisted the wiedom, of his conntryMen 'would
not hesitate to 'adept any regulations that were
Manifestly advantageous. In Switzerland, and par-
ticularly in the little state of Geneva, before it was
'annexed to France, that pratlice had prevailed
for some .centuries, he believed.' 'ln Geneva he.
had eaten bread made from 'cern which had been
.preserved fot too yeats, and better he 'had never •
eaten in his life. The apparatus for tieing this Witt
very simple; "it consisted in nothing more than 'fonr
walls, a sloping shelf, and a pan of charcoal in the
middle of the room nto.extraa the moisture. The
moment that was accomplkbed, the destructive
ciple was annihilated, and the Corn might •be pre.
served for centuries. The Govemsnent would give,
better proof •of their-concern for the comfort 'of the
petiple; by employing those means to provide against
periods of scarcity, than by exaCting twitch from
them, and aftetwards, squandering chase. taxes in
Bounties fcr exporting the most material of the ne
t•essaries of life. Is prudent Goverrinie.nt should not
hesitate to receive lessons of precaution and provi:.
&nee from the ants and the bees, and thousands of

Other creatures in which the divine wisdom was eX-
-1 emplifietk, An .iihjeCtilin may be raised on account.
of eitpence t.f ereding.warehouse)i ; but against
slur he was prepared. [tilt advice was, convert the
barracks,:thOse expensive, antloow, thaolt.God,sise.
less erettions. into., warehouses; useless, becOse.
people were now themselves the soldiers, ills
rdij,..lions to the Bill wete so numerous that he
would not ttratit with the civility at moving that it
he icad a second time on that day 'tree months,
but that it,be altogether rejefted, it was impossi.
hie that it could go through 11:e Committee with.
wit, ape;uhrieor, in which .case it would be 'tided
out by the Comin.'llS,
,and he thought it better that
t belt Lordships should have the satisfattion of kirk.
j.i it out thernselseit." His Lordship Next went
into a ct•osiderotitm of some of she clauses. In one
them, 'frientioo, he said, was made of milt, and
a referencii was made to the schedule A. When he
came ,to examine the, schedule, not a word about
malt occurred In it. ' No, the malt was in the head,
of the prisons who brought foiward the Bill. Theft
Lot dsh I, had lately heard much of,gionts'refierhtd.-
without 'nearing to introduce any indecent ridicule,
he would say, that the deviseis of that Bill must have
been refreshed with a vengeance. His Lordship re-
ferring to the Report transmitted from the Commit.
teen the House of Commons to their Lordships,
that it appeared from that Report, that no less
a sum than thirty millions sterling, either in Specie
Lr in manufaCtures, had been scot out of king.
Le
dam in the coutse of the last 13 years, for Coro of
"V«riOttli kinds. Hi, Lordship moved, with much

ww t/1 al
gUlllcily

A V 17 ti 4 11111.11 •41.... r.•••••••••••
-

to the Bills and c.include, with moving as an
Amendm,:nt, th it, after th• word' br, the word
rejeCted should, be inserted in the room of the words
/row read.

Lord HAWKESBURY would not take up much of
their Lordships) time, but he trusted that they would
indulge him in making a few observations on what
fell from the Noble Earl. Much of what he had
addressed to their Lordships was wholly. irrelevant. .
to the Bill before them, and it would neither
per in him, or respealul to their Lordships, to follow
the Noble Earl through many of the topics that he
had so unnecessarily introduced, and the mention of
which he was'convinced was not calculated to af.
ford great eatisfaelion to many Noble Lords who
heard him. The Noble Earl had appeared disposed
to hear his sentiments on the Bill, before he had
commenced the very extraordinary speech which he
had just concluded. Ilad the measure now before .
the! Hinite.been originally introduced or recant.
mended by the Government,he would have thought it
his duty, of that of souse Of the Noble Lords around
him, his Colleagues in office, -to explain the princi:
pies and grounds upon which they proposed it. But
when it was a measure -groWing out of a common
and general :interest, which many persons of great
respOtability in another House felt upon the sub.
je6, he did nor think ghat it could with decency he
requiredofiliim to give any further support to it,
thass what WaS due tram hiin, as an individual in the
Legislature, to the principles of a measure that he-
approved. His Lordship would not,then go into an'
ex smination of what he knew some of the most re.
3peetable and enlightened men in the Country main.'
,tained, namely, that it would be ss iser in the Legis.
lature to abstain from all legislation upon the article
of'Corn, and to leave the trade respetling it as free .
•as it was in any other commodity. Ile also
knew many intelligent men who maintained the
contrary position, and insisted upon the neces.
sity of the principle of regulation. ' He would not
venture to give, at that rn,menr, any opinion upon
so diffictilt and importaht a: queetion, but content
himself with briefly stating theobjeCts of the Bill
as they appearel to him. The great Objeti of the.
Bill was firit to render the ,prices of Corn steady,
and to eounteraet, as far as Legislation could effed,
it, the dangers anti inconveniences of frequent flue
tuatton ; that was one object of the 13111. The
next was to.encourage Agriculture, by adopting such
measures as inay afford the farmer an opportunity
of obtaining a fait profit for his labottr,tted his en.
pital. T
heir. Lordships, from recent experience,
must be deeply Impressed with the great diiadvan.
rages whilst; from flutitiations,,which, in the course.
of a fe.w years,Tprevailed to the enormous dispros
portion of between 435. and t e6s. the prices of the
quarter of Corn at two periods: The best security
that the'Country could have against famine, laying,
out of consideration die aceidentS of seasone,- against
which human precaution was of no avail, was tosen_
courage the farmer to,cultivall as much of the soil
as he could. If he had nut an opportunity of dispos.
ing of that surplus produce which he drew from his
; farm itra
.year of abundance, the consequence would
be, that he would not cultivate to the'same.extent
the next yeae, and. thesout of plenty would arise
the causes of future scarcity'. To prevent threpossi.
.lire recurrence of those calamitiefewas the real °hien
of the Bill, nod
,not, as the'Noble Earl had stated, to
raise the price iof :CorO brcreating an intentional
and artificial scarcity. As 'to •the Noble Earl's idea
of ettiahlishing warehouses, 'as he' had not gone suf.
ficiently into she details of his Plan, it ivtl3 104)08.
Olt fog' him either to disagree or coincide with him.
Possibly Such a system might have been advantage.
ously employed in Geneva, in SWitierland, in lul.
land, or in other small states, but-he was appre,
hensive it would not answer in a Country possessing
the wealth anti population of England. It was pro.
posettby the Bill, that a. Bounty should be granted
on the Exportation of Corn, 'whets the average pt ice
of it should be unreasonably low; that the exporta.
don of it should be permitted, when the average
price even became higher; but That whenever it ,
should attain a certain price, which was considered
'as tending- to scarcity, • then exportation should be
absolutely prohibited. Again, whenever it should
get up to that price, importation should he permit.
(ed. By those regulations, it was to be hoped that
the priests would 1)e kept' tolerably steady that
great Ilueluat ions would he prevented ; that, the
Farmer would have a reasonable chance for a fair
profit upon his industry ; and that Agriculture would
be encouraged, which experience hati,ehea.n •to be
,the best security against •
•scarcity. The present was
not the time to disturb our whole internal system,.
anti to make innovations upon the Corti Laws ;
width, wise-thee wisely or not he would not then
d.elyite; had grown up within the last hundred years,
and were corsidered by• many as the immediate
ean,e.of the nation d prosperity. His Luidship
then entnhateil. tici.-•,.Lidolly the argument' of the.
Noble• I, that ticats try kid 1.)::en product:44 the
Wars in which Atte Country had beeteengageth and
• proved, by a IteretttiCe to the Report of the Carne'
mittee, that the avt•rage prices of Cern, the last
thirty years, were out greater in. time of War than,
in the corresponding years of Peace& Lotdship
concluded, by voting for the second reading of the
Bill, which he regarded ua a most important im•
provement upon the system of Laws fur the Regula..
tion of the'Corn Trade,
The Bishop of ST.VIS AP H could not agree with
the Secretary of State in the whole of his ob_.
nervations. must at the -same time admit, that'
it was neither a fair nor a candid mode of stating the
question, as if its only ohjecl was to inctease the
price of corn. He was one of those persons who slid
think, that too much legislation had been already.
employed 'upon the article of corn. If it were left
to find its own level, like every other article of niers
chandize ; and if it were freed from; legislative
terp. eition, the consequence, he was convinced,
would be, that the people of this country Would be
assured of a cheaper and a more certain and patinae
vent supply. His Lordship considered the ',resew
Bill as one rather of experiment, and thought it en.
titled to their Lorthhtps' consideration.
.soy el Highness the DU.KE,of CL AR EiVCE
would not detain their Lordships nue moment, He
had listened with particular attention and satisfies
tion to the Noble Secretary of State, while he de-
tailed those observations which, Ire may recolita,

"*"-7.-_"1:•7_"

once with the Noble Lord and a Noble Earl, a near
relative of his (the Earl of LIVIIRrooL), whom he
now regretted he did not see in his place. He was
proud to hear the Noble Secretary convey to their
Lordships, in so clear and impressive a manner, sen-
timents in which he concurred respefting one of the
most important Interests of the Country. Every
syllable the Noble Lord bad uttered, he fully coin-
cided in, and he was persuaded that it was only by
aiting upon those principles that the subsistence of
the People of the United Kingdom could be secured
beyond all risks, but those that may be produced
by the vicissitudes of bad seasons. His Royal High-
ness would support the Bill.
The question was then. put on the Amendment,
when the Contents were,
Earl STANH(.pg,
Non-Contents, 21

Majority,

The original question was then put and carried,
and the Biii was ordered to be committed to.mor.
TOW. •
Adjourned to to.morrow;