The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1846-02-03 00:00:00

with agriculture on which import duties were levied. He
proposed to reduce the duty on all seeds to ss. per cwt.

the fattening en /le proposed in future to introduce
duty free. In removing that duty he was not depriving
agriculture of any protection, but absolutely conferring a
benefit upon it. He also proposed that buck wheat, and
maize, and buckwheat flour, should be admitted duty
free. If any gentleman would ascertain tha price which
had been recently paid by farmers for linseed cake and

apecake, they would agree with him that the removal of

the duty on maize was not a disservice to the agricultural
interest. The right hon. baronet then described the re-
duction of duty which he intended to propose o❑ the im-
portation of foreign butter, cheese, hops, and cured fish,
stating that in each case the duty would be reduced to
half its present amount. On all articles of agricultural
produce which constituted meat as distict from corn he

Proposed

getable and

anima

food wou

be admitted at once

All animals from foreign countries would also be
introduced on the same terms. He then proceeded to de-
scribe the nature of his proposal with rrspect to the im-
portation of foreign corn. He had already stated that he
intended to exempt some articles now included in the
corn-laws, as maize, from duty altogether. It might,
therefore, be as well fur him to inform the house at once,
that though he did not intend to propose the immediate
repeal of the corn-laws, yet, in the hope of making a final
adjustment of :tile question, and for the sake of giving
time for adjustment to the agricultural interest, he did in-
tend to propose that their continuance should only be
temporary. The bill which he should therefore introduce
on this subject would contain an enactment that after a
certain date grain of all kiwis should come in duty free.
He proposed, however, that a considerable reduction
should be made at once in the existing amount of duty,
and that the duty so reduced should be limited to the con-
tinuance of three years. His bill would contain a provi-
sion that at a period, when the change would be least felt
—namely, on the Ist of February,lBl9—oats, barley, rye,
and wheat, should be only liable to that mere nominal
duty wiich he intended to apply to maize, for the purpose
of procuring statistical returns of the quantity imported.
The main question, then, for the house to consider wa
this—what is to be the intermediate state of the law ? He
proposed that there should be an enactment for three
years, to this effect,—that till the Ist of February, 1849,
the following duties should be levied on all wheat im-
ported into this country from foreign putts. Whenever
the average price of wheat should be under 48s. a quarter
in this country, the duty should be 10s. a quarter ; that
above 48s, and under 495. it should be 9.5. a quarter; that
above 495. and under 50s , it -hould be Bi. a quarter, and
so on till the price reached 545. a quarter, when he in-
tended to impose an invariable duty of 4s. a quarter. The
enactments which he proposed for all other descriptions of
grain would follow the scale of duties upon wheat ; but he
referred the house for the details of them to certain pa-
pers, which he would have printed next day. There
would, therefore, be levied on wheat at its present price a
duty of 4s. instead of the present duty of 16s. a quarter,
and every other grain taken out of bond for home con-
sumption in the home market would be liable to little
mote than a nominal duty. Such was the arrangement for
the adjustment of this great question which her Majesty's
government now offered to the house. He intended to
accompany that arrangement with other provisions, cal-
culated, he would not say to give compensation to, but to
advance the interest of that portion of the community
which would be called upon to relinquish protection, with
which he was himself more particularly connected, and in
the welfare of which the prosperity of England was deeply
involved. He then reviewed some of the burdens which
fell on the land, and which he thought capable of allevia-
tion by useful reforms, and not by transferring them to
other parties. First among these burdens he placed the
highway rates. They were administered by 16,000 local
authorities distributed throughout the cousitry. Nothing
could be more defective than that a highway which united
several distinct parishes should not be under the control
of every distinct parish through which it ran. In each pa-
rish there was a different surveyor of the high roads. The
system led of necessity to a lax expenditure, and to a very
bad reparation of the roads. He proposed to compel pa-
rishes to unite themselves into districts for the repair of
the roads. Those districts would be generally the same
with the Poor-law Unions ' • and thus the high roads would
be under the control of 600 instead of 16,000 different au-
thorities. Another of the burdens grievously, and he
thought justly, complained of by the agricultural interest
arose out of the law of settlement. Under that law, du-
ring manufacturing prosperity, the rural population was
encouraged to migrate to the manufacturing towns. The
peasant thus migrating consumed the prime of his life,
and gave all the advantage of his strength to the manufac-
turers. A revulsion took place in trade, and manufactures
Ceased to prosper. The individual was then sent back to
the rural district, and is thus transferred to a new home,
where he is not able to obtain a livelihood, from being
unused to rural employments. For the purpose of not
merely relieving the land from a burden, but of also pro-
tecting an indigent man from injustice, government in-
tended to propose that the power of removability should
be taken away in the case of every labouring man who
had had a five years' industrial residence in any manufac-
turing town. He likewise proposed that the children of
any person, or the children of his wife, legitimate or
timate, under 16, residing with the father or mother, and
the wife of any person, should not be removed where the
removal of th. 3 person himself was prohibited. Further
he proposed that no widow residing with her husband at
the time of his death should be removable for 12 months'
after his death from the parish in which he resided at the
time ; and, lastly, that no order of removal should be ta-
ken out on the ground of chargeability shown to have been
occasioned by accident or sickness, unless the removing
magistrates should be satisfied that the effects of the acci-
dent or sickness are such as to be permanent and incura-
ble. Here, again, by alteration of the law a great social
advantage would be obtained, and the agricultural interest
would be relieved from a great burden. He then ap-
proached another matter, in which he advised, without
any loss to any other interest, a great advantage to the
agricultural interest. There was a natural dread in that
interest of a very formidable competition on the cessation
of its present protection. It was impossible to deny that
agricultural science was yet in its infancy; and be
therefore, proposed that the state should give facilities to
the improvement of agricultural skiff and industry. The
Duke of Richmond had collected a mass of interesting
evidence to show the great capability of improvement
which was inherent to all kinds of land. Much benefit
might be effected by increased drainage. Mr. Pusey had
proposed several schemes for the improvement of land ;
but great difficulties occurred, especially among the ow-
ners of entailed estates, in raising the funds to carry them
into execution. Government proposed that the credit of
the state should be employed in enabling those improve-
ments to be made. An advance of Exchequer-bills
should be made by way of loan for the purpose of age icul-
tural improvement, security being of course taken to pro-
tect the country against loss. The right hon. baronet,
after describing at some length the mode in which these
advances were to be made and repaid, concluded by stat-
ing that that was another plan by which he hoped to ena-
ble the agricultural interest to meet competition with the
foreign grower. With respect to the local burdens press-
ing on the agriculturist, he must declere at once that he

could not advise any alteration in the mode of the assess-
ment of the poor-rates. It had been said that they were
a charge upon the land, and that there should be an alter-
ation in the mode of the levy. In point of fact they were
not s charge upon the land. The opposition was between
real and personal property. It was real property upon which
the poor-rate was levied,as on mines, houses,lands,and ma-
nufactories. If the poor-rates were a charge for general

TIDE LIVERPO(

objects, it would he just to make personal property contri-
bute ; bit they were a local charge, and personal property

could not be called on for contribir ion without establishing
an inquisition into every man's affiirs, which, for the minute
objects of a poor-rate raised to relieve local distress, would
not be tolerated. The rate on personal property had been
abandoned because it could not be levied, and therefore

be was not prepared to propose any alteration in the mode
of assessment. He would, however, relieve the agricul-
tural interest of the charge of maintaining the prisoners
in the county gaols, and would provide for that charge by
an annual vote of that house. He also proposed that that
portion of the charge for prosecuting felons which was
now defrayed in England and Wales out of local rates
imposed upon the Lind, should likewise be transferred to
the state. The relief in point of money would not be
large; but if it enabled you to exercise an increased con-
trol over prosecutions, it would be a great social advan-
.

tage. In Ireland the relief would amount to £17,000,
and in England to £lOO,OOO a-year. He then proceeded
to contend that if there was any part of the United King-
dom likely to suffer from the withdrawal of protection, it
was Ireland ; for Ireland had not, as England had, the
means of finding employment for her agricultural popula-
tion in her manufacturing districts. Here, again, he
would propose no relief from local burdens which was
not accompanied by social advantages. In Ireland the
Police was paid partly by the land and partly by the
Treasury. He believed that it would be for the general
advantage to place the police entirely under the Treasury,
and to vest the control of it in the executive government.
Such was the recommendation of Lord Devon's commis-
sion ; and he, therefore, proposed that all the charge for
the rural police in Ireland should hereafter be borne by
the public Treasury. Sir Robert then adverted to the
subject of the medical relief of the poor in this country.
He believed that there was no part of the poor-law which
had given greater or more just dissatisfaction. He pro-
posed to relieve the unions of half of the charge on
this score by taking it upon the Government. He
estimated that the total amount of charge iq that
case would be £lOO,OOO for England and £15.000 for
Scotland. The subject of medical relief in Ireland was
under a different system, and would shortly occupy the
attention of the other House of Parliament. He next
proceeded to intimate his belief, that in the parish work-
houses of England the provision for purposes of education
was very inadequate. He did not propose in any way to
interfere with the right now vested in the board of guar-
dians to appoint a schoolmaster or schoolmistress to su-
perintend the education of the pauper children ; that
right of appointment would remain where it now was;
but Government, in undertaking to provide £3o,ooo'a
year for the salaries of schoolmasters and schoolmistresses
for the children of the destitute, would reserve to itself
power to inquire into the qualifications of those instruc-
tors, and a power of inspecting, and to a certain extent
controlling, the schools. Then, again, as to the auditors
of the unions, he proposed that their salaries, like those
of the commissioners and sub-commissioners, should be
defrayed at the public expense. 'He called upon the
house to recollect that in every compensation which he
had proposed for the land, be had also proposed to give to
the community great social relief. He, therefore, hoped
that, before this law was rejected, both parties, if their
immediate views were not accomplished by it, would
recollect that it proposed great benefits for society at
large. %1 hether those benefits would be sufficient to
induce both parties to give their assent to h s proposi-
tion, he could not as yet tell; but he wished them to con-
sider it calmly and temperately, and to reflect upon the
consequences which might accrue from its rejection. He
concluded with two observatirms—one connected with our

with our domestic rilicy. In making these great reduc-
tions on the importation of articles the produce or manu-
facture of foreign countries, he could give the Muse no
guarantee that foreign countries would follow our exam-
ple. He had resolved to consult our own interests alone,
and not to punish other countries and ourselves by conti-
nuing high duties, and the necessary concomitant of high
duties, smuggling. He could not promise them that fo-
reign countries would exhibit any gratitude for what we
were now doing. On the contrary he might be told that
many countries which had benefitted by the relaxation of
our duties on their commodities had applied a higher rate
of duties to our goods. He relied on that fact as an en-
couragement to proceed in our past course. What had
been the result of those increased duties on our export
trade ? Why, that it had flourished in spite of them, be-
cause the smuggler of foreign countries had been called in

by the inhabitants to our aid. lie was convinced t

hat our

example would ultimately be followed by foreign coun-
tries, and that reason and the common interest of the peo-
ple and the government in those countries would induce
a relaxation of hostile tariffs. lle instanced this by re-
ference to recent publications in the United States, Na-
ples, Norway. Sweden, Austria, and Hanover. With re-
spect to our domestic policy, he had been asked why he
had determined to disturb the prosperity which had now
lasted for nearly three years. "It had co-existed with
the corn-law of 1812—what reason was there to disturb
it ?" His answer was, that up to October last all those
indications of prosperity did exist; ut since that time
there had been indications of sympathy in the manufactu-
ring districts between employment and the price of provi-
sions. What had occurred since October, 1845, was one
of the grounds on which he had determined to bring for-
ward his present proposition. Such were the proposals he
had to offer for the ultimate adjustment of this great
question. He believed that there was at present between
the master manufacturers and the operatives a sympathy
which did not prevail in 1842, and which led both of them
to the conclusion that these laws ought to be altered. But
although that was the case, there was nothing but gene: al
content, loyalty, and confidence on their part in the wis-
dom of the legislature. But because there was calm and
no coercion, he entreated the hon. members to bear in
mind that the aspect of affairs might be changed. They
might have worse harvests, and therefore they ought to
avail themselves of an adjustment on this question which
must ultimately be made, and which could not belong de-
layed without endangering the peace and security of the
empire. He recommended his proposition to the calm
consideration of the house, in the hope that it would, in
the language of her Majesty's speech, promote friendly
feelings between different classes, provide additional secu-
rity for the continuance of peace, and maintain content-
ment and happiness at home by increasing the comforts
and bettering the condition of the great body of the peo-
ple. Sir R. Peel concluded his address at five minutes
past eight o'clock, amid loud cheers.
Sir R. PEEL rose again to suggest that the discussion
on this resolution should be taken on that d ry week. His
measure involved a great 'emission of taxation, and, there-
fore, a defalcation of the revenue. Besides, it incurred en
annual charge amounting at least to £600,000.
The debate on the Premier's propositions was adjourned
to Monday, Mr. Liddell and Lord Ingestre having stated
that though they had stood firmly by Sir Robert Peel hi-
therto they could do so no longer.
In answer to some questions respecting the means by
which he proposed to replenish the revenue after his pro-
posed reductions, Sir R. Peel stated that he did not anti-
cipate any great reduction of revenue from the reduced
duties; and certainly that he had no proposal to make
for increasing the Income Tax. -

Mr. WAKLEY decried any " agitation" out of doors
during the period given for consideration of the measure.
Mr. NEWDEGATE said he could not pass over the ob-
servations of the right hon. member for Finsbury with-
out addressing a few words to the house. For the first
time had that hon. member deprecated an appeal to his
countrymen. Why, did he fear agitation ? Else why did
he make that long and powerful appeal to the feelings of
his countrymen against the danger of inflaming the pas-
sions of the working classes ? Had he known the gentle-
men on that (the ministerial) side of the house to excite
angry feelings? Had he forgotten 1812? (Cheers from
the agricultural members.) Had he forgotten that it was
the gentlemen and yeomanry of England who mainly con-
tributed to restore and preserve the peace which had been
disturbed by the agitation of a party in connection with
the Anti. Corn Law League ? Had he forgotten that he
(Mr. Newdegate) was attacked in this house for making
the statement, and that he produced evidence which
showed that the Anti Corn Law League was liable to the
imputation of excitin, the people at that time? Did the
hon. member forget the fact that it was the agriculturists
who then saved the country from the consequences of
such excitement ? Whilst he (Mr. Newdegate) was upon
his legs, and this question was mooted, he would call to
the recollection of her Majesty's government, that, per-
chance with the best intentions, but with no distinct view
as the right hon. baronet had admitted, of the consequen-
ces, of the proposed measure, as it might affect the pro-
perty of the agricultural interest hereafter, they might not
meet with that cordial support when danger threatened
them which they had hitherto received, and that, per-
chance, those men who now furnished themselves for the
defence of the country might not be able to do so again.
When they considered the present measure they could
not forget that it had been mainly promoted by agitation.
They could not forget that the right hon. baronet said he
had carefully prepared the mind of the country for the in-
troduction of the measure of 1842 ; but who bad prepared
the mind of the country for the introduction of the mea-
sure of 1845? Was the agitation to be employed against
the agriculturists alone? They might be told that they
did not understand the interests they defended ; but were
they really so dense that they could not read the volumes
produced for the information of the house? Were they so
utterlyincompetent that they could not form an indepen-
dent judgment of their own ? He contended that the mea-
sure had been introduced suddenly, and that the secrecy
with which it had been concocted gave the agriculturists
good reason to say " We will have a full consideration of
it before it passes." The demand which the hon. morn-
ber for Somersetshire made for time was a most reasona-
ble anctfair one. He was certain the right bon. gentle-
man at the head of the government could not luve refused
it. He remembered that the right hon. baronet's previ-
ous financial measures were never allowed less than a
month for consideration; and-if the proposed measure
was in accordance with the feelings of the country why
was it not to have time to consider it? He was surprised
to hear the hon. member for Finsbury and the right hon.
member for Montrose pressing this great measure, which
involved so many interests, through the house, as though
they feared the country would express an opinimn against
it. His own experience was, that when a Minister bad
cast aside the experience of a long life, and was prepared
to act on a four years' experience, during which, as he
himself stated, the policy he advocated had not been acted
upon, then that minister would better consult the inter.
ests of the country, his own character, and the character
of this house, as well as serve his sovereign better, if he
allowed the full expres.ion of public opinion upon the
question. The noble lord opposite, by producing letters
before the house in evidence, had paid the first instalment

. .
of the grat;tude which he felt towards his sovereign by at
once vindicating her position in the-eyes of the country
and the house. The imputation of the hon. member for
Finsbury, that the gentlemen with whom he (Mr. Newde.
gate) ached wets about to stir the passions of the people,
did not come with ,a good grace from that hon. gentlema❑
—and he now told the hon. member, as lie had before
stated in this house, that if the people were exposed to