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

I)coorunr,wbias4aotfas°Wille high pibtric'erice, thato fm"ustr 1111aavnf
eutht ele If
elect
raising the price of labour, and of our manufactures
also, and upon that therefore must depend 011 f being
able to stand a competition in a foreign market. He
begged to make one observation before be concluded,
in justice to our great landholders in general, that he
was informed the great rises in rents had been ex-
torted, not by the great landholders, but by specula-
tors in land ; and thatoeveral of the former descrip-
tion had taken steps where- their rents had been found
tit have risen tbia high, to prevent the corn grower
from suffering. He concluded by moving the Reso-
lutions, which would be afterwards brought forward
in the shape of a Petition.
Mr. Wrier* in seconding the Resolutions, thought
it impossible that the demerits of the proposed altera-
tion, merits it had none, could escepe any one. It
wasso hideous in all its features, that it needed only
be seen to excite indignation and abhorrence. It
seemed to have for its object the destruction of the
middling classes of the community. g.lt proposed
to raise the price of grain, in older to lower the price
of bread—" To starve us now in order to feed us be-
ter afterwards." It was like the story told of a per-
son who had a horse, which he purposed teaching to
live without food : when the experiment was, he
thought, likely to succeed, the horse unfortunately
died: and so it would be with those who trusted in the
proposed measure to bring them-cheap hr., ad.
Bill would soon bring the quarter-it boat to 151 and tl
speculators would come in, and raise it greatly
high r.
He wished the Hon. Baronet, :ha reputed father of
the Bill, bad confined its benefits, as he originally in-
tended to Ireland, and let to poor silly Englishmen
to go on in our old way. The bill itself carried a lie
on the face of it, for, instead of its being called, " A.
Bill to encourage Agriculture," it should have been
entitled 6, A Bill to Destroy Trade and Manufac-
tures." •
Mr. HENRY HUNT, as being not only a cultivator
of grain himself, but also a landholder, begged the in-
dulgence of the Meeting while he made a few obser-
vations on the subject. He contended that the ~tatt-
er had hitherto been blinked, and that there were
means by which the people might once again have
the quartern loaf at sixpence. The proposed measure.
was said to be a measure of protective; from what,
however, was it to protect us ?. Was it to protect us
against a bad atmosphere Was it to proceetvus from
rooks and crows? From tythet Or from the income
tax, which was felt so severely ? Gentlemen in the
House of Commons'saiti that the subject was not ult.
derstood. ThiS he thought rather strange, consider-
ing bow long the Corn Laos had been heard of, and
that it was a subject brought practically before us
commonly three timekevery day. All the Corn ails
in his recollection were introduced fur so other pur-
pose but that of keeping up the price of grain. With-
in the List twenty years, - our national debt had been
encreased in an enormous degree, till it now amount-
ed to, lie believed, nearly, one thousand millions,
and to pay the interest of this debt was all the
land in the kingdom mortgaged. He should not as-
sert any thing wiliar lee mild not pri.ve: When the
inquisitorial tax, (the income tax,) was introduced.
Mr. Pitt estimated. that it all the land and houses isa
this kingdom were brought up to the fittlniark, (hey
would yield a rent of £30,000,000 aofear. This, he
belieeed, was an over-calculation; but take the fact
to be so, and supposing this to be sold at twenty five
years' purchase, the whole racial not produce a suns
more than equal to two-thirds of the whole of tier
national, debt. It appeared to him (Mr. Hunt) as if
it were now intended to mortgage the price of the
qUartern loaf. At the commencement of the present
war, the price of the quartern loaf used to fluctuate
from sixpence to sevenpence : it then rose, and again
returned to its former pi ice. But he would tell the
Livery at what time it rose, never without a change
of system, to get back to that price, namely, at the
period of the Bank restriction, when we began to be
inundated with a paper currency. Last year, he
could state from his own knowledge, there was pro-
duced in this country a crop equal to any two suc-
ceeding crops for the last fifteen years; and at this
moment there was twice as much grain in the coun-
try as at any period during the last fifteen years.--
Then it might be asked, why was it not brought to
the market t He would tell them the reason—the
moment Sir Henry Parnell's measure was talked of,
the farmers all knee that they were to get mord for
use corn then in their posse son than the then mar-
ket price. Whatever any other person might know
of the effects to such a measure, they knew that the
object of it was to enable them to pay their landlords
and the taxes. He hoped lie would not be thought
seditious, or to be talking inflanimat•iry matter when
he stated this. These were tact: It h 4,1 been said,
that the manufacturers and the mercantile interest
had done much for the country in the course of the
present war.- In this he agreed; but still, the farmer
had not Been without his hardships. The protection
held out by the proposed measure, however, was net
that protection ehich the farmer wanted.' He wan-
ted real protection. Let the income tube taken off,
all of which too must fall on the consumer of grain
•in the long run. Let the malt duty be takes off.—
Were it not fur the duty, the farmer could sell his
barley for 365. a quarter ; but it made into malt, the
duty to Government is 40s. instantly. It' he could
at all trust to his own taste, and were from it to
judge of the general run of the beer brewed at the
present day in London, he should say that the brewer
did not divide that quarter of malt into less than six
barrels of porter ; and, if ,he did not run his worts,
but paid fairly, the duty on this would amount to
45, being in the whole .417 of duty, or relt. los. per
quarter of malt, for which the farmer would receive
originally about SOs. The farmer asked to be pro-
tected .from the income tax. from tithes, and from
that bastard of the feudal system, the game laws.—
If protected from these, he could again afford to grow
the quartern loaf of wheaten biesd at sixpence. In
whatever part of the country you chused to go,
you would be certain to find preserves of game, and
he ventured to state this as a fact, one indeed which
he had offered to prove in a Court of Justice, that in
a particular district in which he was concerned, the
hares destroyed more corn in one year than the whole
population did in two; and he also asserted it as a
fact, that more corn was thus every year destroyed
throughout the country than had ever been imported
into this country in any one year even of the greatest
scarcity. Wherever there were preserves of game.
it was also to be expected throe would be poachers,
and it was a melancholy fact, that there were every

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