The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-06-22 00:00:00

acter to pretend to offer to the people of this country.
(Loud cheers.) I see here that these warm conservatiee
feelings are not to be extingUished for one moment ; that
what may be called their death-bed repentance and their con-
vulsive struggles in the throes of extinction will not wipe out
of your recollection those many arid deep delinquencies which
earned for them not only the mistrust, but I am bold to say
the contempt of the people of this country. (Cheers.) I
Lee that the Brazilian is not to be tempted by the offer of the
admission of his sugars ; thnt the warehouse keeper is not to
be tempted by the bribery of increased burdens for his were-
houses, that the people of Liverpool are not to be bribed
wholesale by offers, the solidity of whirl) maybe well doubted,
but which at any rate would be a poor exchange for the loss
of their liberty and their religion. Cheers.) Gentlemen,
you are not inclined to sell, the people of Liverpool arc not
inclined to sell, the birthright of their liberties and their re-
ligion for the mess of pottage which they have offered. (Hear)
In an assembly like this it is difficult to go into the question
of free trade, into the question of the cortuegluaii
wrsn.g
a It
detlisaia
question too abstract, and too complicated,
of too many figures, and. reference to:too many facts, to be
properly fitted for discussion in a numerous assembly like
this ; but, at the same time, as it is made the'stalkine e Jnors,
and is to be the only stalking-horse of this election, fthinic-I
should not be entitled to pass it by without at least some lit-
tle notice. (Cheers.) I might shelter myself simplya under
authority upon this queetion. I might shelter my
have done in the addre: which I have put upon the walls,sl
upon this question under the great name of
no monopolist,
that of your great representative, Mr. Huskisson ; I might
shelter myself under the name of Lord John It ressier the ell himself
(hear, and cheers) ; I might shelter myself under
shelter
m myself
au-
thority of Lord Melbourne (groans) ; I
ilt under the authority of Sir Henry Panic,' • might shelter
myself myself under the authority of a very large
who art now crying down as ignorant bigots n*
ilg)otrr tkn of t
thoseaii) who
er
do not defer to their present opinioes
un-
willing
(to trespass upon you with readingLl e
yatrh-i)ng! am
but per-
haps you will allow me, and particularly
in Liverpool, if for a moment 1 read you it will be excused
a passage or two
from the sentiments of your former representative, Mr. Hus-
kisson (hear) :

" The history of the country " he says, and no man was
a better judge upon this question, or less favourable to the
landed interest. " for the last seventy years clearly proves
on the one hand that cheapness
is the sure forerunner of scar.city7anudcedonb ythteh foreign importth at
a
steady home supply is the only safe foundation of steady and
moderate prices."
He then goes on to say that—
" During upwards of one hundred years. up to the year
1765, the import of foreign corn was restrained by very
high
duties. What was the state of the country during these one
hundred years ? That in ordinary seasons our own growth
supplied a stock of corn fully ample for our own consump-
tion ; that in abundant season.sove had some to spare, which
we exported ; that in bad seasons we felt no want, and were
under no apprehensions ; that the price of corn seldom vari-
ed snore than a few shillings per quarter ; that we had no
years of inordinate gain to the farmer end starvation to the
consumer ; that prices instead of rising from year to year,
were gradually diminishing, so that at the end of this long
period of a century, during which \KC never imported fo-
reign corn, they were actually one-fifth lower than at the
beginning of it." (Cheers.)
I will not go through the whole of his statements, but I will
just add one cr two points of peculiar application to this
occasion. He says,
" The country which depends on enemies or rivals for the
food of its people, is never safe in war."
They talk of war as if it was an impossible contingency.
Let those who say so look at the experience of the past year,
when the whole trade of the country was paralysed by the
apprehension of oar, and when the trade of this town was
peculiarly paralysed by the possibility of war with the
United States. (Hear.) We are told that one of our argu-
menta is mere clap-trap, namely, that wages arc not in any
way dependent upon the price of corn. It is possible we
may be wronst —at any rate, we have authority for our opini-
ons in Mr. Huskisson, who says, " Wages would fall even
snore rapidly than the price of bread." (Loud cheers.) I
will not trouble you with more than one short extract from
the opinions of Mr. Huskisson ; but I think we have a right
to say, if we are mistaken—and 1 do not mean to say it is
not possible we should be mistaken upon this question, for
it is one which men of the largest minds and of the most
enlightened views have differed, and 1 do not think we
have a right to dogmatise—at the same time, no person
is entitled to treat us as ignorant bigots when we can
quote such opinions as those I have quoted. (Hear, hear.)
I may, too, surely quote within the walls of Liverpool
the opinions of the president of the United States, who,
only two years ago, said in his message to congress that
that country was indeed wretched which depended for its
food upon foreign supply." (Hear, and cheers.) But, how-
ever, I do not come here to fight the battle of a sliding scale
of duty. It is possible we may be wrong, and that a fixed
duty will be better. The opinions of the ablest men have
varied upon this point from time to time, and I am not pre-
pared to dogmatise. (Hear.) But I may nevertheless be
allowed to quote the opinions of Mr. Huekisson upon this
subject. In 1828, when the very law which is now in force
was under discussion, these were his opinions :
" An hon. gentleman had spoken in favour of a fixed duty.
Abstractedly, that might look well enough ; but when they
regarded the circumstances of the country and the wants of
the people, they would see the impossibility of adopting such
a principle. If a high permanent duty were imposed, then
in periods of scarcity the poor would be exposed to sufferings
and miseries, the infliction of which, no claims for protection
on the part of the home corn-grower could ever justify.
For the advantages then which the grower foregoes, when
corn is high, by the admission of foreign grain, he receives
compensation by the imposition of a !deli rate of duties,
when corn is at a low price, he receives, in fact, only that re-
muneration to which lie is justly entitled. When legislating
on this subject, they were bound to look to the different and
varying circumstances of the country, and the wants and ne-
cessities of its inhabitants. A permanent fixed duty was
therefore out of the question."
I do not say upon this question that it is not possible Mr.
Huskisson and others who supported his opinions single, eat
be wrong ; but at any rate we do not err in bad company,
when we have such opinions to warrant us in considering a
fixed duty not the best. (Hear.) Gentlemen, how is it possi-
ble, that without protection of souse sort or other, in some
shape or another, the grower of this country can compete
with the Polish or the Prussian peasant? (Hear.) You
have seen it stated upon the walls of your town, what are the
wages of that peasantry. You have seen it asserted, and the
assertion is perfectly correct, for I have read it myself in the
documents returned to the House of Commons by our con-
suls in those countries, that in the town of Dantaic the
wages of labour are one shilling a day, and in the interior of
the city not one half of that sum. (Hear, hear.) Now.
gentlemen, are you prepared upon this statement to cry out
cheap bread? (Cries of " No. ') Are you prepared to em-
bark in this crusade against your own domestic interests,
against the interests of your own brethren, against the inter-
ests of the inhabitants of the same soil, against the Interests
of those who are of the came blood, of the same feelings, and
of the same religion, merely because a big loaf is hung upon
a pole instead of a little one ? (Cheers, and cries of
" No.")
We are told that if you will only admit foreign corn an
unlimited prosperity is to be the result, that your workshops
are to be full, your spinners are to be employed, and that
you are to have nothing but the glad voice of prosperity
around you. (Hear, hear.) I have taken the trouble of
looking at the report of the commissioners sent to inquire
into the condition of that most depressed and suffering class
of our fellow countrymen, the hand-loom weavers. This
report is drawn up by strong anti-corn law parties—by
men who were determined to draw an argument in favour of
repeal whithersoever they could find it; but at the same
time they candidly and frankly admit that with regard to the
hand-loom weavers, let the corn laws be altered or not, their
circumstances will in no way be improved. Here are the
expressions they use :
.4 The nature of their employment has created their po-
verty, and it would keep them poor if the market of the
whole world were open to thesis."—Page 66.
Now, at the same time that these very same authorities are no
doubt paraded in the streets of Bolton, Ashton, and all the
weaving towns of this county and Yorkshire, andindeed every
where, proclaiming cheap bread and prosperity if they would
only support persons who will vote against the corn laws,
there are upon the records of parliament the opinions of these
commissioners, who were sent to look minutely into the
question, and who were strong advocates for repeal, but who
were obliged by the force of facts to confess that no altera-
tion would benefit their condition,—that their poverty had
arisen from the peculiar circumstances of their trade, carry-
ing on an unsuccessful competition with power-looms and
machinery, and which, so long as it existed, no alteration in
the corn laws would enable them to benefit by. (Hear.)
Now, gentlemen, let me ask you, have the corn-laws really
been the cause of the present distressed state of trade ?
(Cries of No.) Nobody can dispute that trade is distressed
in an uncommon degree who is acquainted with the circum-
stances of the great manufacturing districts of the empire ;
but are the corn-laws the cause of that distress ? (Hear.)
The Chamber of Commerce at Manchester, who seem to
think that they are entitled to dictate to the whole empire
what is best for their own interests ; who invade you by rail-
way, and employ lecturers to speak in your public places,
and even endanger the peace of the town, by exci-
ting agitation upon a matter which must deeply interest
the feelings and passions of the people—(cheers)—these
very same Manchester gentlemen only in the year 1839
assigned a totally different cause for the distress which now,
for the moment, they wish to impute to the corn laws.
(Cheers.) It was only in the year 1839 that the Chamber of
Commerce at Manchester drew up a report attributing the
whole or nearly the whole of the distress which then existed
and which has continued too long, to the action of the
Bank of England upon the currency—to the alternate
stimulus given by the cheapness of money, and the contrac-
tions which the bank caused when its own bullion was in
danger. (Hear, hear.) The same circumstances cannot be
attributable to two different causes. Either they were wrong
then or they are wrong now. (Hear, hear.) The fact is,
that when they want to make out a case against any particu-
lar law, they attribute all the evils of the country to that
law, and here they have unscrupulously made the same facts
to bear upon two such different objects as these. (Cheers.)
I believe that the real cause of the distress of the country, to
a great extent, is the rapidly-increasing fictitious capital—
(hear, hear)—which has been created in the manufacturing
districts. (Hear, hear.) There has been too much artificial
capital created in the country ; and these very spinners who
would ruin every interest but their own, have become share-
holders in banks; the joint stock banks have furnished them
with capital; in time they have become debtors to the banks;
thus they have been enabled to build mill after mill, and
ever-stock every market in the world. They have gone on
producing more than the whole market of the world could
absorb, and then they say, " the whole country must be
thrown into confusion that we may find markets to carry off
the result of our own over-production." (Hear, and great
applause.) With regard to this very cotton manufacture,
which is the most important branch of the whole trade of
the country and of Liverpool, what are the facts? Has the
cotton trade been falling off or not? It has not : it has beers
continually increasing up to the present time. (Hear, hear.)
I have got the facts here, and it is most desirable that you
should not lose sight of them ; they are these:—
Quantity of Cotton Wool taken for Home Consumption
during the last ten years, reduced to bags of one uniform
weight of 300 lbs per bag—say per week—
1n.... 1831 ]832 1833 1834 1835
Bags.. 16,513 17,138 18,330 18,756 20,088
1n.... 1836 1837 1838 1839 1840
Bags.. 22,239 23,47 S 27,438 23,008 30,089
Making an increase of 82 per cent. within ten years—(bear,
hear) ;—sad because these gentlemen, within ten years, have
not far from doubled the production of cottons from their
mills, they think they are entitled to quarrel with all the
world because all the world will not take all that they think
proper to manufacture! (Loud cheers.) I wish heartily
that all the world would take it, that they might go on from
year to year in mole rapid progression ; but, at the same
time, I think they cannot say the country is ruined, and our
commerce fettered, because they do not find the wants of
consumers quite keep pace with the rapidity with which the
.cotton manufacturers of Manchester and the neighbourhood
are able to supply the markets. (Hear, hear.) We are told
by them, We .clo not keep pace with the rest of the world.
'Tree, we do manufacture a great deal ; but other countries
are gaining upon us." Well, just let us see if the fact be so.
'The noble lord then read the following document
-Statement showing the Consamption of Cotton Wool, or
rather the relative proportions, compared wite Great Bri-
tain, taken is averages of three years, and assuming in each
. average the consumption of Great Britain at 100.
1826 to 1829 to 1832 to 1835 to 1838 to
1828 1831 1834 1837 1840
-Great Britain lOO 100 100 IGO 100
France.................... 49 311 32 331- 32
Continent of Europe 2O 21 21 234 21
ranee and Continent