Annual Register

wheat at 67s. per quarter. Such was the extent of pilfering and crime in the agricultural districts, that landowners were obliged to wink at it, or they would not be able to carry out their own plans. ("No, no!") He had heard it both in Wiltshire and Somersetshire. The capital of the farmer was wasting away, because the money which should go to pay labour was spent in paying landowners' rents. ["Your rents," said Mr. Cobden, addressing the agricultural Members opposite to him.] What benefit had the farmer derived from the Corn-laws? The Corn-law of 1815 undertook to maintain wheat at 80s. per quarter seven years after, it was sold at 42s.; yet "your agents" valued farms on the calculation of 80s.; farmers were ruined by hundreds of thousands, and one newspaper in Norwich contained 120 advertisements of the sale of stock in one day. There was " agricul. tural distress" and inquiry: the law of 1828 promised to maintain corn at 648.; seven years after it was selling at 36s. Then came general distress: the law of 1841 promised to keep wheat about 56s.; it is now selling at 45s. or 46s. Sir Robert Peel now said that he never intended to maintain the price, and that he did not maintain it what then was all this legislation for? Whatever its motives, the fact was that there had been one continued juggle of the farmer, enabling landowners to keep up rents. Let the fact go forth, however, that Sir Robert Peel could not by Act of Parliament guarantee to the farmers even 30s. a quarter. But new grounds had been taken, and we were now told that the law was to compensate

landowners, being in absolute possession of the legislation of the country, had, with a disinterestedness truly angelie, laid exclusive burthens on their own shoulders: and they had, to reimburse themselves, passed a law which was now confessed to be inoperative? But there was another view of the subject: Mr. Benett said, that the law was to keep down mortgages, Sir Edward Knatchbull, to pay settlements and dowries; but "you" are obliged to confess that you cannot insure its operation in securing the farmer's price, and who then pays the settlements and dowries?-why, in that case, they must be paid out of the pockets of the farmers. (Loud cheering.) He contended, then, that if the law created a profit at all, that profit passed into rent in further proof of which, he cited the evidence of agriculturists.-Mr. Gladstone, of Fasque, (father of the Vice-President of the Board of Trade,) who replied to an application to reduce his rents, that the new Corn-law was not calculated to lower prices, and therefore he did not feel bound to lower his rents; and the Duke of Richmond, who had told his Scotch tenants the other day, that he would not hold them to a bargain under altered circumstances, and that if they wished they might throw up their leases: what did that amount to, if not to the admission that the Corn-law influ. ences rent? Mr. Cobden did not wish to deprive landowners of their rents, but let them not come down to the House to raise them by legislative enactment. He went on to quote returns showing the increase of rental in Scotland since 1793 to be threefold, in Lincoln

He combated Sir Robert Peel's assertion, that if the Corn-laws be repealed the whole system of revenue must be cut down: he had carefully gone over all the revenue returns, and he found that the protecting duties only amounted to 2,000,000l. He concluded by declaring, that the Anti Coru-law League would persist in their agitation until the attainment of their object.

On a division the Motion was lost, there being, for the Motion 125; against it 381; majority against the Motion 256.

Another general debate on the same well-exhausted subject occupied the House of Commons on the 13th of June, when Lord John Russell, who sought a more favour able opportunity for developing his views in favour of a fixed duty, than Mr. Villiers's motion had afforded, again proposed the consideration of the Corn-laws in a committee of the whole House, but without embodying in his resolution the precise nature of the change which he sought to effect. It will be sufficient to give a brief summary of the two leading speeches on either side in this night's debate, the recent discussions of the subject having completely forestalled the interest of the House in the debate, and precluded all novelty in the views brought forward by the speakers.

Lord John Russell commenced his speech by congratulating Sir Edward Knatchbull, that the state of the weather on a late occasion had prevented the Kentishmen from assembling in any very great numbers on Penenden-heath to petition Parliament on the subject of these duties, inasmuch as a very numerous assemblage might have

magistracy. He then proposed to consider his subject in three respects-first, with regard to the case set up by the agriculturists; secondly, with regard to the arguments which might be anticipated from the Government; and, thirdly, with regard to the question whether the principle of free-trade required a total exemption from duty. The agriculturists insisted upon the necessity of protecting native industry, which was a total fallacy

and upon the injury sustained by the farmers from the diminution in price occasioned by the late tariff, which he positively denied to have been the cause of that diminution. They complained also of fluctuations in the prices of corn; and he thought it could not be too distinctly made known to them that the Legislature could not secure, and would not attempt to secure, any certain price for their corn. Other articles might be kept at high duties; but that was impracticable as to corn: the people must have it, and if prices were high, duties must come down. The law of 1815, and the law of 1828, had been imposed in order to keep up the price of wheat by high duties; but under those very laws there had been various periods at which the agriculturists had come to Parliament with complaints of low prices. He would

next advert to the Corn-law of the present Ministers. The operation of the sliding scale, which it established, was to let in a deluge of corn in one or two months of each year; while the effect of a fixed duty was to bring a steady and equable supply. There was a great outcry against "the reckless speculator;" he hoped the speculator would always be found

was no good argument for a Corn law in 1843, that you had a Cornlaw under Charles II. or William III. the whole policy of those times, on all other articles as well as on corn, was to maintain prohibitory duties, but at the present day that policy had, in respect of all other articles, undergone a complete reversal; and yet we now kept up a higher rate of duty upon corn than had existed when prohibition was the general and established rule: we were actually applying a system of increased restriction to an increased population. But what he chiefly complained of was the present uncertainty, so injurious to the agricultural classes; he would quote Mr. Webster, and say, 'do one thing or the other, let us either be warm or cool,' which transatlantic doctrine would find many sympa. thisers here. He now arrived at his third point-the principle on which a duty should be imposed. If a duty was imposed on any article for revenue, it was not only not unreasonable, but it was simply just, that the foreign as well as the home producer of that article should pay that duty; otherwise you would be violating the principle of free-trade, in favour of the foreigner against the home trader. So, too, if the agriculturists could make out their allegation of burdens peculiar to the land, a countervailing protection to protection to them

pugnant, to the principle of freetrade. He was, therefore, disinclined to lay down the broad principle of total abolition; he would prefer a moderate fixed duty; but if the House would consent to go into committee, the mode of compromise might best be considered there. He had seen and read enough of the history of great questions to be satisfied that it was often wisest to avoid, by some fair compromise, the enforcement of extreme opinions-witness the cases of the slave-trade and of the Roman Catholic disabilities. He admitted that when prices should rise to 80s. or even 70s., you must remit your duty; but such a case would be very rare; for the importers would generally bring in their grain at an earlier period, and so as to prevent that extreme rise.

He was not solicitous to claim reputation for his party as the founders of the free-trade principle; the legislation of the country showed that they already had titles enough to the people's confidence, from the days of the Habeas Corpus and the Bill of Rights to those of the Reform Act, and the Act for the Abolition of Slavery. He was quite content, therefore, to see the principles of free-trade carried to their fit extent by a Ministry in which he and his friends had no share.

Mr. W. E. Gladstone rose to answer Lord J. Russell's Speech, and oppose the Motion. Adverting to the noble Lord's division of his subject, he said that on the first of his topics, the case of the agriculturists, there was no necessity for any present occupation of the time of the House, as no proposal was before it for returning to the state of law which the agri

Nor would he quarrel with the general propositions contained in the third division of Lord J. Russell's speech; but to the application which he had made of those propositions he did object. Lord J. Russell had been very shy of stating what particular plan he had in view; he had kept his scheme involved in a good deal of mystery. On his own principles, he ought not to have caused by this Motion a new disturbance of a question so often agitated. Under the existing Corn-law, provisions were extremely cheap, and speculation had been materially checked. He entered into some statements of figures, showing that the importation had been much less unequal in the last year than it had been in the years preceding. Nor could the new law be complained of as having operated unfavourably with reference to revenue. Then, if the law had not failed in any of these respects, the case stood, as between that law and the proposal of a fixed duty, just where it had stood last year, when the noble Lord's motion for a fixed duty was rejected by the House. He spoke with indignation of the vulgar and violent cry that this was a question of rents a question caused by the cupidity of the landlords. Surely that highly honourable and generous class were as well entitled to be spared from such an imputation as the manufacturers from the charge that they agitate against the Corn-laws only to lower the wages of their workmen. He protested against the constant renewal of uneasiness in the country, by successive motions of this kind in Parliament. It was unjust not to give a fair trial to the existing

suppose that experience would lay any ground for departing from it. He believed that the agriculturists in general, though dissatisfied with present prices, were not dissatisfied with the present law. Considering the course of former legislation, and the necessity of maintaining a due protection to invested capital and existing labour, he trusted that the House would resist this Motion.

The principal speakers who followed were Mr. Labouchere, Sir W. Clay and Mr. Aglionby, advocating a moderate fixed duty. Mr. Hume, Mr. Ewart, and Mr. C. Villiers standing out for total repeal. Sir R. Peel brought up the rear of opponents to the Motion. He sarcastically approved of Lord John Russell's concealment of his details until going into Committee, as a disclosure might produce a sudden explosion, that the mover would find very inconvenient. His fixed duty was to be removable by the Crown in bad seasons. To apply his Regentstreet simile, Lord J. Russell admitted that his own structure would not bear rain, and if he got into Committee he would find that it would not bear criticism. Sir Robert Peel made much of the conflict of opinion on the opposite side; and, repeating some of Mr. Gladstone's arguments, he averred that if wheat had fallen from 61s. to 52s., chiefly in consequence of the abundant harvest, the price of oats had varied less in the last six months than at any former period. He did not propose the present law as one absolutely final, but as one to be maintained until experience, facts and evidence, proved that it ought to be relin

this country; but as far as he was a "reckless" speculator, he was made so by the law. When Regent-street was first built, somebody said "It may be a very fine street; but there are two things it won't bear-bad weather and criticism." That was just the case with the sliding-scale.

was no good argument for a Cornlaw in 1843, that you had a Cornlaw under Charles II. or William III. the whole policy of those times, on all other articles as well as on corn, was to maintain prohibitory duties, but at the present day that policy had, in respect of all other articles, undergone a complete reversal; and yet we now kept up a higher rate of duty upon corn than had existed when prohibition was the general and established rule: we were actually applying a system of increased restriction to an increased population. But what he chiefly complained of was the present uncertainty, so injurious to the agricultural classes; he would quote Mr. Webster, and say, do one thing or the other, let us either be warm or cool,' which transatlantic doctrine would find many sympa. thisers here. He now arrived at his third point-the principle on which a duty should be imposed. If a duty was imposed on any article for revenue, it was not only not unreasonable, but it was simply just, that the foreign as well as the home producer of that article should pay that duty; otherwise you would be violating the principle of free-trade, in favour of the foreigner against the home trader. So, too, if the agriculturists could make out their allegation of burdens peculiar to the land, a countervailing protection to them

pugnant, to the principle of freetrade.

He was, therefore, disinclined to lay down the broad principle of total abolition; he would prefer a moderate fixed duty; but if the House would consent to go into committee, the mode of compromise might best be considered there. He had seen and read enough of the history of great questions to be satisfied that it was often wisest to avoid, by some fair compromise, the enforcement of extreme opinions-witness the cases of the slave-trade and of the Roman Catholic disabilities. He admitted that when prices should rise to 80s. or even 70s., you must remit your duty; but such a case would be very rare; for the importers would generally bring in their grain at an earlier period, and so as to prevent that extreme rise.

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Annual Register, Volum 85