The Sun.
London, England, 1842-02-16 00:00:00

He would not trouble the House with any arguments upon this
letter. He (Mr. Ormsby Gore) had risen in consequence of
the challenge given by the Hon. Member opposite, ant in con-
sequence of his (Mr. 0. Gore) having in the year 1840 gone
at considerable length into the question of the Corn-laws, and
therefore he thought he ought not to remain perfectly silent.
The questioa had been properly divided by the Hon. and Gal-
lant Member for Westminster into three parts, a fixed duty
one, a sliding scale, and no duty at all the other. What he
(Mr. 0. Gore) stated two years ago, he was prepared to carry
out at that moment. He was strengthened in that opinion
very considerably by what he had seen and heard since the
commencement of the debate, and from what had
fallen from the Noble Lord the Member for Lon-
don, and the Honourable Member for Bolton. He
(Mr. Ormsby Gore) gave credit to the Hon. Member for
Wolverhampton for his honest, straightforward, and English-
manlike conduct in coming forward for a total repeal of these
laws.—(Cheers from the Opposition.) He (Mr. Villiers) felt
that it was to the interest of the country, and therefore he had
brought it forward in a manly and straightforward manner.
But when he (Mr. Ormsby Gore) heard the Noble Lord com-
ing forward for a fixed duty, he could not give him credit for
the same motives, feeling convinced, as he did, that it was im-
praLticable. He, therefore, should denounce the measure
of a fixed duty, as not being that straightforward, honest, and
open system upon which legislation should be founded. He be-
lieved the system was founded on deceit, and he should have
thought that the division of last year would have set it to
rest in the tomb of its ancestors; and he hoped that a division
on this motion would be such, that it would put it to rest for
ever. He was certain that if it was passed into a law, those
clamorous for an alteration in the present system, would then
become clamorous for a total repeal. With regard to a repeal
of the duty altogether, he should rather support that than a
fixed duty. But they must recollect that the home trade took
two-thirds of the manufactures of the kingdom, and if they
stroved the agriculturists, they must then be dependent upon
foreigners for the sale of their manufactures. He did not
believe that the labouring classes of this country were
quite so stultified, as to give up their ready money prices
at home for what they might get elsewhere. He would have
another opportunity of entering into the subject when the
Hon. Member brought forward his amendment, and he should
therefore not trouble the House further.

Mr. WARD said they were very much indebted to the Hon.
Member who had just addressed the House for setting at rest a
question upon which there was very great difference o opinion,
both in that House and in the country; namely, the precise
amount of protection the gentlemen for whose benefit the Corn-
laws were instituted, received. The Hon. Member had said
that he had risen to address the House in answer to a challenge
from the Hon. Member for Coventry. He had told them
that the question of the Corn-laws and the duty they
imposed upon the community were things not worth con-
sidering, and that the amount of consumption of each indivi-
dual was. He ( Mr. Ward) did not understand the Hon.
Member in his first statement, although he was perfectly in-
telligible afterwards. He stated that the consumption for each
individual was eight bushels per annum, and that the amount of
duty was ss. 9d. per head per annum, which, in a family of
five individuals, was 335. for the family, making for the whole
population, proved to be about 25,000,000, something like
5,000,000!. per annum, which were the taxes levied and sus-
tained by the sliding scale upon the working people. For
this admission the country could not but be grateful, but he
(Mr. Ward) dared say that the Right Hon. Baronet would
not be obliged to him at all for the admission, but the admission
was in his own figures.
Mr. ORMSBY GORE—No, no. I said ss. 9d. a head.

Mr. W A RD—Five shillings and ninepence was for a family
of five or six, about 335. while for the whole population it
amounted to somewhere about 5,000,000/. in good round num-
bers. He (Mr. Ward) was not responsible for the Hon.
Gentleman figures, but they were his own admissions, and
therefore he (Mr. Ward) was entitled to suppose that the
Hon. Gentleman meant a poll-tax to be levied on every
person not a landowner, and which, when levied, the Hon.
Member told them was not worth contending for. The Hon.
Member said that that agitation, was a popularity cry and a
mere party question, amongst 3 -4ths of the population ; and
then he brought in a letter from a workingman who said he
did not consider that the depression arose from the
Corr.. laws, but was mainly owing to the mischiefs produced
by machinery. Now upon that matter, lie was as much at
issue with the Right Hon. Baronet, as he was with them. He
had heard several gentlemen, and particularly a Noble
Lord eppetsite cheering the most violent passages
in that speech with which the debate had been
closed the night before. He alluded to the speech of the
I-lon. Member for Knaresborough—a speech replete with pas-
sion, and devoid of all that calmness which should attend dis.
cussion. In that speech all the rules of Parliament had been
transgressed, a speech in which the question was changed to
one of mere personality. The attack was made from that (the
Ministerial side of the House), and not from those who were
agitating. The charges in that speech were of a most marked
character. But to return ; the Hon. Gentleman . who had
spoken last bad said that there were three questions before the
House, or that there were three divisions of one question—a
fixed (fury ; the sliding scale; and no duty at all. Now he
( Mr. Ward) denied that that was a correct statement of the
questioe. There were a great many opinions upon this sub-
ject., and he (Mr. Ward) must confess that there had been a
',emit-deal "Of'thisrepresentatioli de 'to the question the Noble
Lord had submitted to the House. They were not assembled
to decide a fixed duty or a sliding scale. They were not
called upon to give an opinion upon the Bs. duty or a sliding
scale. The Noble Lord near him had never mentioned an Bs.
duty as part of his proposition.—( Laughter from the Ministe-
rial benches.) He hadnever mentioned an Bs. duty in any
oart of the proposition which he had submitted to the House.
'What the Noble Lord had stated was plainly this, that what.
ever peculiar burthens the agriculturist sustained, for these
burthens he was willinglto give compensation. They were
not called upon to name any extent of protection. He (Mr.
Ward) had taken the liberty of giving notice last session, and
he should take an early opportunity of doing so again, of his
intention to move for a Committee to inquire what were the
peculiar burthens agriculturists were subject to in this country.
—(4' Hear, hear," and cheers)—and whether there were any
peculiar burthens at all.—(Loud cheers.) He did not intend
to enter into the question of those burthens till after that 'no-
tion. (Lord Stanley made some remarks across the table,
which were inaudible.) The Noble Lord would admit with him
(Mr. Ward) that it was laudable to endeavour to remove any
buithens upon trade; and with respect to the trade in
corn, they must all acknowledge the endeavours of the Noble
Lord (J. Russell). He (Lord J. Russell) had acquitted
himself with peculiar credit last night, in recommending a
iixed duty in preference to a sliding scale. His (Mr. Ward's)
conviction was, that the time for a fixed duty was rapidly pass-
ing away. It was passing away in the way in which every-
thing passed away, when put into the balance of great party
questions. In these great questions great mistakes wet e fre•
quently committed, and the public were benefited by it. It
was thus that you gave us the Reform Bill. Had a consti-
tuency been given to Birmingham when it was first demanded.
most likely the Reform Bill would never have been carried.
It was a great mistake of the Right Honourable Ba-
ronet, in proposing his scale ; for, as in 1331, it would
most likely be the means of giving the people of this
country a total repeal of all laws restricting the
free importation of food, because the landowners, when the)
had the opportunity, did not choose to accept the plan which
I would have given them an adequate protection. Ile (Mr.
Ward) was very well aware that after the discussion of this
subject they should have Birmingham over again. He was
sorry to see this agitation on that great question.—(Laughter
from the Ministerial Benches.) Hon. Gentlemen seemed to
think that he had an interest in every species of agitation
when he had not, for he did not like agitation. He came
1 down to that House on Wednesday, he admitted, with a very
foolish faith in the Right Hon. Gentleman opposite, for he
thought it was probable that he was going to make a proposi-
tion to that House which would settle the question for years
to come.—( Hear.) It was not his (Mr. Ward's) fault
if the Right Honourable Baronet had disappointed him.
He (Mr. Ward) was not pledged to extreme measures by his
constituents. His constituents had sent up a petition to that
House, which had been presented that day, bearing a large
number of signatures, but he was perfectly free to take any
course he pleased, and his hope had been that the Right Hon.
Baronet would have made a proposition which he (Mr. Ward)
might have thought would have proved an alleviation of the dis-
treses of the country. When. they talked of having the pri•
vilege of protection enjoyed by one particular class in the coun-
try, they must have some very strong p iblic grounds to go
upon. They were not to say, as had been said by the Vice
President of the Board of Trade yesterday, that because
protection existed 140 y ears, that they were to give
a protection of 20s. per quarter on wheat. He
(the Vice-President of the Board of Trade) went
to show that the sliding scale was a great security against
fluctuation of prices, and tried to prove it by the example of
Prussia, where be said the prices of corn frequently ranged
higher than in this country. He (Mr. Ward) had referred
to the work of Mr. Wilson, an authority quoted by the Right
Hors. Vice-President of the Board of Trade, from which he
had learned much, and he went along with him entirely in his
argument. He (Mr. Ward) thought that the Corn-laws, if
not the sole cause, had been the principal cause of fluctuation.
He thought the Legislature held out to the farmers of Eng-
land hopes which were perfectly impossible the Legislature
could realize. He thought the farmer had gone on upon falla-
cious suppositions; they had brought into cultivation land which
never should have been cultivated ; they had sown guineas
and reaped shillings, and, mainly, to their success of competi-
tion, and bad legislation, was to be attributed the excessive
produce of certain years, and this was the opinion of Mr.
Wilson. He would read a few extracts from the work of Mr.
Wilson. The Hon. Gentleman then read an extract from the
work which stated the opinion of the writer, that the farmers
)ver -cultivated their land from the fallacious hopes
held out by the Legislature of high prices. These
high prices immediately led to large importations of
Foreign corn ; and thus the foreigner took almost the entire
oenefit of the rise in our prices. Now, he (Me. Ward) went
along with Mr. Wilson, in the whole of that argument. There
%v.'s a false stimulus to the farmer. and no modification of the
sliding scale could remedy the evil, though hopes were held out
to the farmers which never could be expected to be realised;
for, as the Right Hon. Baronet had justly observed, his plan of
the Corn-laws was not for the purpose of preventing prices
rom ranging from 735. to 365. The Right Hon. Baronet
adopted a well-known principle in mechanics; he did not
waste his power.—(Laughter) He had found now, after the
experience of 1815, a great deal of power was wasted in the
former Bill—that 38s. was like putting a steam engine of forty-
horse power where a steam engine of five-horse power was
sufficient. Thirty-eight shillings, it was well known, never
could be realised. The Right Hon. Baronet had said it was
luite useless to ask more than 205., which was a perfectly na-
tural feeling, for he knew very well that it was useless to
waste power.—( Cries of " Hear, hear," cheers, and laughter. )
Two millions quarters of corn was the very utmost that could
be got from the whole of Europe; for instance, upon a calcu-
lation of the exports of the three principal exporting towns
upon the continent—namely, Hamburgh, Stettin, and Dant zic—
It would be found that Hamburgh exported three hundred and
fifty thousand quarters of corn last year. Stetin, 250,000
quarters, and Dantzic, 315,000 quarters, all at an average
price of 40s. per quarter ; then, if the freight were added, it
would increase it by four or five shillings, so that it was per-
fectly obvious it could not be had, at the very lowest rate, at less
than 45s a quarter ; that was according to Mr. Meek's calcula-
tions, and it should be recollected that Mr. Meek was the
Right Hon. Gentleman's own agent, and that the Right Hon.
Gentleman relied upon those calculations.
Lord STANLEY—Oh, no, no I _ _

Mr. WARD had given the figures as they were in Mr.
Meek's report, and he believed they were correct, they
showed clearly that no quantity of foreign wheat, to any consi-
derable amount, could be introduced into the English markets
if a high duty was imposed. The fact was, that the moment
the corn in the home markets arrived at a certain price, the
els. duty of last year would just have done what the Right Hon.
Baronet now professed to do.—( Hear, hear.) A duty of 103.
would bring the price of foreign wheat up to 555. a quarter ;
but, instead of that, the duty upon wheat, whenever the ave-
rage price was 545. a quarter (the present price which it was
proposed to maintain), was 183. ; when it was 60s. a quarter,
then the duty was 12s. ; so that it must get beyond 515., be-
for the miserable advantage of Is. could be had upon the quar-
ter. The Right Hon. Gentleman jenied that he (Mr.ward)
had quoted Mr. Meek's figures correctly.—( Hear, hear, from
Sir R. Peel). lie believed the average price of 40s. a quit.-
ter in the foreign markets, which was stated by Mr.
Meek, was only when there was stagnation in the
maric.etp the first indication of a bad season or a bad market
in this country always had thp effect of raising the average
prices of the foreign markets.—(Heir; hear.) After tbi; eight
;killing point was attained, there was in his (Mr. Ward's) opi-
nion an improvement in the proposed scheme.—(Cheers from