The Sun.
London, England, 1842-02-17 00:00:00

I am sure, will afro :‘, with me, that in that respect the scale
..toes not afford'atie advantage which the Right Hon. Baronet
stated. Bu's, Sir, I have no hesitation in stating, that I am an
advaca!e for a fixed duty. I am not an *dui-
Celts for a fixed duty, upon the principle on Which
`Jame who have spoken support this sliding scale,
riernely, upon the principle of affording protection to agriculture.
I am adverse, on general principles, to the doctrine of protection
at all. lam sure that if you enter into a calculation for the
purpose of distributing the amount of protection according to
fair proportions between your agricultural, your manufacturing,
your shipping, and your commercial interests, you get into a
lalsyrinth of difficulties from which there is no satisfactory
escape.—( Hear, hear.) Ido not agree with the Right Hon.
Baronet the Member for Dorchester, who, in a speech which
he made recently to his constituents, held the doctrine whichig
wee somewhat repudiated by the Right Hon. Baronet this
evening, namely, that your sliding scale, or your duties, what-
everwer
they mar be, ought to be so constructed that the g
sd oorn should, in times of diminished production, obtain,re
through an increase of price, compensation for the scantiness of
his produce. Why, Sir, what is that hut saying, in other terms,
that the oonsumer is to ensure the grower of
.corn
against vicissitudes of season which are the necessaryndet ?_
tia.
tural contingencies to which the trade in corn is u
(Cheers from the Oosition.) Why, Sir, you do subject
do
that in other cases. (Dear, hear.) You do not call upon the
consumer to insure the merchant against the loss of his car-
goes by accidents at sea, or against any deterioration which
may take place in the freight of his vessel. In cases
of a scanty supply, you send to other countries to
leak up the deficienccy ; and you do not forbid
the further entrance of a commodity, in order that by
the increase in price you may compensate the merchant for the
diminution in quantity. Then, Sir, I cannot admit the just-
ne-s of applying that principle to the agricultural interest. I
sty that those who hold land and those who cultivate land,
should take into their calculation those vicisait udesofseason which
arc the necessary incidents of their trade. On the other hand
I would say that I am not an advocate for a fixed duty upon the
tsround on which the Right Hnn. Baronet rests his scale—
namely, that it would, up to a certain point, favour the producer,
and that then it would favour the consumer, My notion is,
that taxes and duties should be levied for the purpose of re-
venue, and for the purpose of revenue alone.—( Hear, hear.)
'We must have an army, we must have a navy, we must have
vivit establishments, and we must provide for their proper
:eaaintenance. For those purposes a. revenue is required ; and
I cannot see myself any reason why the importation of corn
from abroad should not be a fair subject on which to levy such
a moderate duty as would not materially interfere with the
abundance of the supply of that article.— (Hear, hear, hear. )
Now, Sir, these are the grounds on which I object to the
eliding scale ; and I must say, that in the whole of
the remarks of the Right Honourable Baronet, whether in
the speech upon the present occasion or upon this, I do not
remember to have heard any arguments either in favour of a
sliding scale as opposed to a fixed duty, or in favour
of the amended scale in opposition to that which
now exists, which to my mind were conclusive and satisfactory.
The Right Hon, Baronet has stated the reasons why the pre-
sent is not an unfit time for making a change in the present
lies. But he omitted altogether to state the reasons why such
a change was necessary—he omitted altogether to explain to
the House what are the evils arising out of the present scale,
which make it, in the opinion of the Government,
expedient to alter that scale, and to substitute another
in its stead. Was that omission accidental? I do
not believe it was. The Right lion. Baronet is too able and
experienced a leader to enter the arena of this House leaving
behind him any weapon which he could believe might be
useful to him in the fight. (Hear, hear.) But
he must have felt—he must have well known—
that every argument he could adduce against the present sys-
tem—every explanation and detail into which he might enter,
in order to show the bad working of the system, and the de-
eireableness of effecting a change in it, would be an argument
to a certain extent, at least, against the proposition he had
introduce. —( Hear, hear.) The Right Hon. Ba-onet very
prudently as I think, has abstained from giving the reasons
which induced the Government to make any change in the
pr, sent law. If he was to state that a change was desirable,
io order to conciliate public opinion, or to diminish
the present distress, he knew that such an admission would
lead him much too far. But if he did not state why the change
should be made, he stated reasons why no change was nenes-
vary. He did not admit that distress arose from the present
system of Cern-laws—he did not admit that a change
:n that system would do much good to any one, although he
:Alleged that it would not do much harm to any one. The
nearest approach to a reason for the change is that which we
have heard this night—that the agriculturists have now too
much protection, and that therefore they can afford, without
loss or inconvenience to themselves--( Hear)—to part with
a portion of it, to make a sacrifice of that suyerfluity, in
consideration of the feelings of the public at large. Now, I
say that a sliding scale, modify it as you will, contains in its
eery fundamental principles defects and evils, which render it
the far less expedient mode of laying a tax upon fo-
reign corn than a fixed and permanent duty.—(Hear.)
Let your duty be fixed, assuming always that duty to be mode-
sane. We proposed a duty of Bs. last year, but the Rightilion.
Baronet has almost convinced me to-night that the duty was
too high.—( Hear, hear.) He has taken great pains
to show that that duty would be as high as the
duty under the scale which he intends to introduce.
I do not quite admit the force of his reasoning on that
Bead ; but I say that the principle for which we contend is
Gist the duty should be fixed and low, and the principle to
which we object is that the duty should vary with the price
of the article. If the duty were fixed the trade in
corn would assume a totally different character,
It would acquire a totally different range of transactions. In-
stead of being a gambling transaction at home—instead of
being a scramble for corn in neighbouring markets—instead of
being a trade that scarcely touches the more distant markets,
it would become a steady and regular commerce by barter. The
merchants engaged in that commerce would then make their
arrangemeuts with forecast and beforehand. They would
make their arrangements to receive their corn from
the Continent, where it was best produced, and
to bring it home at the period when they thought
it could best be disposed of in this country.—(Hear, hear.)
You would then have an extension of your commerce with
countries like the United States of America. Your
commerce would not then consist of purchases of corn
fur bullion, but would become a regular commerce
consisting of an interchange of merchandise on the one hand,
and of corn on the other. Now, what is the course of your
corn trade as it at present stands ? Why no man car, toll from
year to year, or hardly from month to month, whether the trade
in corn, and the price of corn will be, such as to make it
worth his while to import any quantity from abroad. Parties
%salted, therefore, till a bad season produced a rise in prices in
the home market ; and what they did they do then ? They
ran in a hurry to the nearest market in order that they might
get an 4in:ciliate supply. But did they find
the supply papered with reference to the demands of the Eng-
lish market? No, they did not, because the foreign dealer in
corn woald act imprudently in locking up any great quantity
of corn for the English market, not knowing whether,
fur one, two, or three years, he might be able
to send it over to this country while his capital should in the
meantime lie dead upon his hands. The corn we introduced
was the corn which happened to be saleable in some great
seaport town. But corn did not grow in towns. The corn
imported was not corn grown in the neighbourhaod of byre
towns.bscause in such neighbourhoods the supply was not greater
than the consumption on thespot. Any considerable;portion of
corn must come from the interior of the country, and subject
of course to the expense of transfer, and liable to the delay
which must, take place before it is brought to any port. But
the merchant is in a hurry— he is afraid his fellow rivals may get
the start of him, and by the introduction of a large quantity
lower the price, and raise the duty. Merchants compete with
merchants—they raise the price at the port of embarka-
tion, and they are obliged to pay the foreigner perhaps
twice as much as they should have paid if the duty
was steady and regular, and of a natural character
That was all money thrown away. That money, however,
might be turned into revenue to this country, instead of being
thus left as a profit to the foreign merchant or the speculators
on the spot. Then was that the only loss ? It was clear that it
was not. You want corn horn a particular place,
but not only must you pay a higher freight, but you must pay
for we. sets to be found upon the spot ; whereas if a regular trade
was carried on, British vessels would go out in cargo,
would come back with a cargo of corn, and that profit of the
textile would go to the British instead of the foreign shipowner.
The consequence would be that they must send bullion to,pay-
for their corn ; that. would have to betaken from ;the Bask.;
that would change the currency, and d stress and bankruptcy_
would follow, I think that ,a ;due . consideration of
wrr own interest, -would lead those who are owners
ef the soil, to prefer- a system that would prevent
such prices, even if it went attended with some
ever fice of their annual income, Those were the evils by the
sliding scale. As regardert the int( rnal state of the country,
}Jerome engaged in trades felt the ill effect of such regulations,
because every foreign country, when you ask them to make
treaties of cannmerce, taunt you with the tariff. You are
gradually losing by restrictive duties, markets to
which you had access, and your manufactures and
industry are cramped and crippled. I have been told, not-
withstanding all this, a great commercial country like England
would easily surmount such evils. Supposing that it did so,
that is no answer; but by those laws you injure commerce,
which you might secure by adopting our principle. These
are the evils of the sliding scale, and to these no answer has
keen given by auy person who has spoken in the debate.
We nave been told to consider this not only in a
cummercial hut in a political point of view. We have been
told that a great country like this ought to be independent of
foreign nations for its supply of food; I would venture to
say, that althmigh the Right Hon. Baronet admitted there were
exceptions, those who voted with him would be influenced by that
principle. Those who depended upon foreign commerce for
the means by which they are to buy their bread, are, for all
practical purposes, as much dependent upon foreign nations for
their food and existence,'as if that food was grown in foreign
countries. A man may starve in the midst of plenty if he
hue not the means of purchasing the necessaries
of —( Hear. ) Such an event took place in Ireland.
In that country, while the greatest distress prevailed, and
while the people were dying for fond, cargoes of wheat left
this market because the people had not the means of purchas •
inn such costly subsistence, and, therefore, I contend that it is
fallacious to say that in a country, a large portion of whose peo-
ple eatisist by foreign commerce, and whose means of purchasing
depends on foreigners and their productions,s it is perfectly
isillecieets to say that such a nation can by any arrangement
contrivance, render itself independent of foreign nations.
Why is it that this earth which we inhabit is divided into such
nistinct climates. Why is it that different coun-
tries produce different productions while almost
every nation have similar wants? Why is it
that this earth is intersected by mighty rivers, forming high-
ys from one part of it to another, or why is it that lands
are nroughttogether by that mighty ocean which seems in-
tended to divide them? Why, it is that man may be dependent
upon malt—(Cheers.) It is, that the exchange of commodi-
ties may aceneapanied by the extension and diffusion of
knowledge. It is that the exchange of benefits may conciliate
ties may be accompanied by the extension and diffusion of
knowledge. It is that the exchange of benefits may conciliate
and strengthen the affection that
And thus will Commerce man boars to man. Cheers. )
, suing
civi isation in
one hand and leading Peace in theforth other,with render mankind
happier, wiser, better.—(po
—*en.) These are the dispen-
sations of Providence—these are the decrees of thatwer
which has (treated and disposed the universe.—( Hear. )But
then they step in with their arrogant and presumptuous folly
(Cheees)—the dealers in protective duties and sliding scales,
( Cheers ) thinking to cast puny shackles around the inborn
energies of man, and attempting to set ttp their miserable legis-
lation—(Great cheering)—in the place of the standing laws
of Nature. lam convinced, whateveranay be the result of this
those satisfied
euwtehhast
a the
dszaand hand
night's debate, that reason will prove too powerful for error
and prejudice.—(Cheery.) Ism
of truth will at last sweepaway
air.—( Cheers.) I know also, that before that consummation
shall
arrive, there will in the interval be much and d o
ookfor e
mi-
sery, but I hope, that those sufferings will ee
with much patience, and that we may.
.4 Readmit
but I trust a speedy, diffusion of more enlightheeneedn przneapdluesrinong
this subject. The seeds of truth that have
this discussion of the Corn-laws, have not been sown in
vain, but will bear their fruit. The Government has
made, one step, though a small one, in the course
asrtseirnil policy:--4-Hear; hears) • They have broken ground
and have quitted their entrenchments, as if it is now their in-
t°ntn inet to stand an assault ; I hope that having once got them
w" 4wiva from their fortress and to meet on the plain, that I