Star.
London, England, 1814-05-28 00:00:00

COMMON NAL.

Yesterday, agreeably to two several Requisitions,
signed by a number of the Livery of the City of
London, a Common Hall was held at Guildhall, Ist;
For the purpose of considering the propriety of pre.
seating a petition to both Houses of Parliament,
against the proposed alterations in the Laws relating
to the Importation of Corn, and to devise such mea-
sures as may be thought most effectual for prevent-
ing such.a calamity falling upon the mass of the peo-
ple of these realms : and, afterwards, To take into
consideration sundry Resolutions in relation to tile
Order of Council for the Blockade of the Ports of
Norway.
The Loan MAYOR having stated the objects for
which the Hall was summoned, and having recom-
mended temper and moderation, -as the only means,
in any important discussion, of giving a sa.nctica, and
a due dignity and effect, to their deliberations, or-
dered that the two several Requisitious should be read.

CORN LAWS.
The Requisition relative to thecorn laws being read,
Mr. Walrus' AN came forward. He observed, that
the present Hall had been called, in a case, as he con-
ceived it, of very great emergency in every respect.—
A Bill had been brought into Parliament, which
would have the effect of making a great alteration in
the laws respecting grain. On account of she ur-
gency of the case, a much shorter notice than usual
could only be given, and therefore he was aware that
the Hall could not be expected to be so fully atten-,
ded, as it inevitably must have been on subject or,
-such vital importance to the middling classes of the
community, had the notice been more ample. Be.
sides being a question of the highest importance, the
present was also one of extreme delicacy, and on
which the prejudices and passions of men were likely,
to be open to every impression. He should, how-
ever, carefully avoid overy appeal of this kind, con-
scious that the present was not a subject which ought
to be so treated ; and feeling, as he did, that the ob-
jections against the measure proposed were in them-
selves so strong and forcible, that they needed not the
aid of such appeals. It had been said in Parliament,
that the object of the Bills introduced there was not
to raise the price of grain. If that was not their ob-
ject, he begged to know what was the object thereby
intended ? To him it appeared, that the object of the
measures pending in Parliament, was neither more
nor less than to raise the price of grain, and to keep
up the rents of lands to that exorbitant pitch to which
they had been raised, in consequence of the long con-
tinuance of the war in which we had been engaged.
If this was not the intention of the proposed altera-
tion in the Corn Laws, this would, at least, be the
effect produced brit—the natural consequence of the
measure being to continue and entail upon the people
of this country almost all the evils which had been
brought upon us in consequence of the war. It WAS
not his intention to say any thing against the landed
interest of the country. Though his pursuits had led
him to be more particularly attached to the manufac-
turing and trading interests, yet he must say, that the
great landed interest of the country was one which be.
had always looked up to, rather with veneration
because if there was any one class of the community,
,on whom peculiarly the support_ of our liberties lay,,
and by whom they had been asserted, this was the
class. But it must be obvious to every one, that,
during the Whole of the long war in which we had
been engaged, and more particularly of late years, the
burden of supporting the war had fallen much mont
heavily on all other classes than on the landholders.
Since the exclusion of of our manufactures from the,
Continental markets, the price of them had been d..
precia:ed in an unprecedented degree ; our merchants
had been reduced to ruin ; our manufacturers bad
hear thrown out of employment, and driven into the,
wurkhoest while, on the other hand, during the
whole of this period land had continued to rise sn'
valve, and rents to increase in an astonishing propor-
tion. When he looked to the great rise that had taken
place in rents of lands of all descriptions, and the
high price of grain, and compared them with the dis-
tress which had fallen on our manufacturing and
commercial classes, he could not help expressing his
astonishment at the clamour that had been raised the
moment a trifling depreciation had shewn itself in the"l
price of grain. We had heard often during the pre-
sent long war of the ruin of all other classes of fuel
community, but not of the rum of the proprietor of
land, and he saw no reason why this particular class,
should have an extraordinary measure to protect it at
present. A great de-1 had been said of protecting
duties ; but when he saw that there was a duty of
l7a per cent. upon land tram the Property Tax
.dune, a tax which we were not to regard as per-
manent—were we to have no relief from the falling
in of that and of othe? burdens ? Were Peace
and Plenty now for the first time to be disjoined?
—And were we to have Peace and no Plenty ?
Were we to look to no retrenchment---to no cur-
tailments in our expenditure—to no repeal of
Income Tax, the most odious and disgraceful im-
position that had ever prevailed in any country.—
This, it might be said, could not be expected to
take place, all at once. Be it so ; but when it did
take place would not the landed interest have relief
from this repeal ? When we saw the landed interest
so strong in one House of Parliament, and that in-
terest wholly prevailed in the other, it became high
time for the Livery, and for the country in general, to
look about them, and to consider what would be the
probable effect of this measure. If the landed proprie-
tors were able, by an increase of their rents, to pro-
tect themselves against the effects of the war, were we
to expect that they would be equally anxious, as they
would otherwise be, to relieve the burdens of the peo-
ple ?—or was it not more natural to expect that they
would be more inclined to alleviate those burthens, by
being allowed themselves to feel a little of the hard-
ships which the people suffer t This, however, was
not the only evil which was to be dreaded from the
proposed alteration. Its operation was likely to be
attended with tremendous consequences to our trade
and manufactures. - If corn could not be procured in
this country at as cheap a rate as in foreign countries,
at least at as 'cheap a rate as foreign corn might be
imported into this country, it would be impossible for
rival
notprocure nationsturicorn
in iathaifsocreo*unntry market.atas
it we
cheap a rate as our rivals in trade and manufactures
could, we must be undersold in every foreign market.
Upon the price of corn must depend the price of

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