The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1847-11-30 00:00:00

HOUSE OF COMMONS.-WEDNESDAY.

On the bringing up the report on the address,
• Mr. OSBORNE entered into a general review of all the
topics alluded to in the Queen's speech, dwelling more
particularly on the condition of Ireland. As an Irish
landlord, he bore his testimony to the success of the Irish
Poor-law, and censured the conduct of many landlords
for their eager desire to get possession of the land, driving
families from their homes into bogs and drains. He ad-
mitted the necessity of some coercive measures to sup-
press outrage, but as long as the peasantry were ill-housed,
ill-clothed, and worse paid for their labour, there would
be no safety for life and property.
Lord G. BENTINCK expressed his surprise that the go-
vernment had not thought it worth while to state their
reaaons for giving the bank permission to violate their
charter. He attacked the government for their tardiness
in granting even this relief, and reviewed the pressure that
was obliged to be brought to bear on them to cause them
to yield. He then contrasted the commercial condition
of this country with that of other European nations, to
show that the misery we were now suffering was the re-
sult of free trade. While our factories were almost stand-
ing still, and our operatives famishing, other countries
were sending to our markets, and actually buying cotton
in Livernool at three halfpence per pound less than it
could be obtained in the country where it was grown.
Thus, also, was it with sugar and with tea, so that the na-
ture of our free trade commercial operations was to ena-
ble us to supply foreigners in Europe with tea, cotton,
sugar, &c., at a less price than we paid for those articles
in the-markets from whence we bought them. This was
a clear proof that other countries which adhered to pro-
tection, and which would concede nothing without an
equivalent, were in a state of great prosperity, profiting
by every loss we sustained ; while on the other hand Eng-
land, with its free trade principles, was reduced in the
eyes of Europe, to a state of shame, bankruptcy, and dis-
grace. (Cheers.) Could anything be more disgraceful
than for the government to sanction a grossly usurious
rate of interest which, they must well know, cointner„...
could not legitimately pay ? (Cheers.) They had been
and still were enabling the bank to play the part of the
usurer and the monopolist, and to say in the words of Sir
Giles Overreach, "All men must be sellers—we the only
'buyers." The noble lord then referred to the dreadful
calamity which had fallen upon our West India colonies,
-upon the Mauritius, and the East Indies, and entered his
solemn protest against proceeding in so rash a course.
How changed were the whole circumstances of the country
since the time when it enjoyed the blessing of protection !
Now the people are starving in the midst of plenty, and
at the moment of our returning thanks to Providence for
granting us an abundant harvest. The noble lord ridi-
culed the notion that the distress could be attributed to
the absorption of capital by railways—the whole amount
thus abvrhed not exceeding .£85,000,000 from 1841 to
1847 (both years inclusive), or about £12,000,000 or