The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1846-03-31 00:00:00

HOUSE OF LORDS.-THURSDAY

The Duke of WELLINGTON gave notice that he should
move the adjournment of the house from the 7th to the
21st of April, for the Easter recess.

Lord BEouGnAm gave notice that he should move, after
Easter, for the inquiry into the conduct of the Poor Law
Commissioners, in the case of Mr. Parker.

HOUSE OF COMMONS.—ThrrnsDAY.
The debate on the second reading of the Corn-law bill
was resumed.

Mr. FINCH opposed the second reading, and made an
elaborate reply to the speech of Mr. F. Baring on Tues-
day night. He declared that this bill would produce a
five-fold revolution in this country ; for it would make a
Poor-law revolution, a financial revolution, a political re-
-volution, a land and cotton revolution, and a colonial re-
volution, which would separate Ireland and the colonies
from the empire. He therefore hoped that if the
House of Commons passed this bill, the House of Lords
would reject it ; for a more pernicious measure was never
introduced into a British Parliament. The number of
country gentlemen in England was 200,000, and the
amount of the capital which they and their tenants had
vested in land amounted to £490,000,000. He showed
that this bill would destroy at least £50,000,000 of that
capital. No wonder, therefore, that it had spread great
discontent throughout the country, and was endangering
the constitution and government of the empire. Mr.
Finch proceeded for more than two hours to utter " pro-
phetic sounds so full of woe," that every member fled in
alarm from the Opposition benches, and only 29 !members
on the Government and protection benches had fortitude
enough to bear them. The hon. member considered this
conduct on the part of the Opposition as an insult to the
Protection party, and threatened to avenge it by either
speaking four hours himself on the subject, or by getting
some of bia friends to deliver themselves of the same
amount of eloquence.

Lord G. BINTINCK contended that the allegation by
the Government of the likelihood of a potato famine in
Ireland was nothing else but a gross delusion. The ac-
counts, which he had recently received from Ireland, con-
vinced him that the price of potatoes was falling rather
than rising in most of the markets of that country. He
endeavoured to prove that the alarms of the farmers re-
specting the repeal of the corn-laws were not visionary,
from the tact that in the year 1836, when corn was at a
lower price than it had ever been before in England, fo-
reign corn could have been imported into it at a profit of
10s. per quarter to the importer. He complained bit-
terly that Ministers, in introducing the present Corn Bill,
bad blown hot and cold at the same moment. First of all
the farmers were not to be alarmed, because, upon look-
ing at the results of the tariff of 1842, there was every rea-
son to believe that a free trade in corn would rather en-
hance than depress the price of the article; and yet after-
wards Ministers unblushingly proclaimed that their object
was to produce cheap bread, and that the time was gone
by wherein rents could be eked out of the sufferings of
the poor. Ile then quoted several statisical documents
to prove that the fluctuations in price under the sliding
scale of England were much less than those which oc-
curred 4 • trade was said to be

In countri
ee. Unde

more fr(

tuation in the

Enzlish market amounted to 32

per cent

whereas in

Bordeaux it amounted to no lesSthan 81 per cent
next proceeded to prove that under the r.
of IPG.. corn could now be imported into Eng.— .
ILe im rnrters of corn from foreign countries. He next
argued nat the welfare of the labouring classes in general,
ano of the agricultural classes in particular, did not de-
pend on the low price of wheat, but on a profitable price
of wheat to the farmer. Referring to the question of Mr.
F. Baring on a former night, he declared that he was pre-
pared to give him a comprehensive answer to his very
vague and indefinite question about the future policy of

fisting duty
land by all