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stances. The important point which the right honourable Gentleman omitted to notice, was the power of the population to whom the cheap food was offered to obtain a greater quantity of it and of other necessaries of life. No doubt, if the demand for labour exceeded the supply, the labourer would, if the price of food were reduced, be able to obtain a greater amount of the necessaries and comforts of life: but was that the case with the population of this country? If the price of food were to be at this moment reduced by the importation of foreign corn, the labouring manufacturers would derive no benefit from it-it would go into the pockets of other persons. This must be the case, and for the simple reason that at the present moment there was a great superabundance of labour.

Mr. Wakley argued, that what was called "protection to agriculture" was practically no protection to those engaged in the lower operations of that interest. He dwelt on the actual misery and destitution of the class of agricultural labourers. Could the duty on corn be any protection to him in his miserable mud hovel, or relief to his misfortunes or destitution? The agricultural labourer of England was in a most miserable condition -in a most deplorable condition. He had lately been in the West of England, and he found that the wages of the agricultural labourer in that part of the country were 6s. or 78. a week-he had no more. They had heard the state of the workmen in the factories alluded to in that House; they had heard that they were in want of employment, and that they were in a state of destitution: now, what remedy had they proposed?

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had they any remedy ?-None; not a single remedy had been proposed for the alleviation of that distress and destitution under which the people of this country had for some time suffered. What had been the course of their legislation? They had reduced or taken away protection from the manufacturers; and the only objection he had to this was, that they had commenced at the wrong end; they ought to have begun with the food of the people. What was their Poor-law of 1834 that law they said, "If you become poor and destitute, we will put you in gaol, on gaol-allowance." ("No, no!") It was true. Then, what did they say to them by the Corn-laws?" We won't give you the best opportunity to procure bread." That had been the course of their legislation; a course so fraught with folly and danger, that now every institution in the country was in a state of insecurity. He thus stated the demands and the feelings of the majority of his constituents of Finsbury. He had been sent to that House by a large constituency, and he was speaking in behalf of 260,000 inhabitants of the northern part of the metropolis, who had sent him there to demand justice for them in return for their allegiance to the Crown. They told him they would employ passive resistance to the course which Government proposed to adopt; they told him that they would no longer yield a passive obedience so long as the House of Commons continued to be constituted as it was. They demanded for the people the right of representation; they denied that the people were represented under the present system, and they demanded the reform of the Reform Act.

He thought they were wise in making such a demand: he hesitated not to tell them from that place, that he believed every attempt to remedy the evils complained of would be utterly useless unless they applied the axe to the tree of corruption. His belief was, that there was no remedy for the national grievances so long as the House of Commons was constituted as it was, for it did not at all represent the feelings of the mass of the community.

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Mr. Wykeham Martin, with the view of showing, in answer to Mr. Roebuck, that the landed interest was subject to peculiar burthens, instanced their liability to poorrates. Those rates did not fall equally on every description of Where there was landed proprietor of 5,000l. a year, the poor-rate was levied upon every fraction he possessed; every tenant paying a poor-rate, in making a bargain with his landlord, always deducting the amount of the rate out of the landlord's share. The landlord of 5,000l. a year would have to pay 750l. poor-rates. Let them take the fundholder to the same amount, residing in a house on the largest scale the rating on his house of 3001. a year would not be more than 451. Thus the fundholder would contribute but 457., while the landholder contributed 750l. Both paid poor-rates, but the impost pressed unequally on them. The same would be found with respect to manufacturers, mortgagees, and annuitants. Let stock in trade, property in the funds, and manufactures be equally rated, and the land would be relieved of half the amount of the poor-rate now imposed upon it.

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Sir Robert Peel referred to the

increased exports to which he had before alluded, not as an absolute test of corresponding prosperity, but as showing at least that the price of food in this country did not prevent us from overpowering the competition of foreign manufacturers. He then turned to the question of home and foreign consumption, borrowing his figures from Mr. Greg's recent pamphlet. He instituted a comparison of periods of four consecutive years. He showed that in the four years ending with 1836, which, by the admission of the manufacturers themselves, were distinguished by an unusual prosperity of trade, there was a less amount of imported corn than in any other. True, they were years of cheap corn at home, but then, what became of the argument that foreign corn was necessary to manufacturing prosperity? Compare the proportion of cotton goods consumed at home in those cheap years with the consumption of the four dear years ending with 1841. In the cheap years the home consumption had averaged 119,000,000 lbs. of cotton goods; in the dear years it had averaged no less than 142,000,000 lbs. There had, indeed, been a diminution in the last year, but then it must be remembered that in the year preceding, the consumption had been extraordinary and unusual, reaching to 195,000,000 lbs. Still he deeply sympathised in the distress of the labourers, and that sympathy for them was not lessened by their having burnt him in effigy. But he knew that a country circumstanced like England must be liable to partial distress, concurrent perhaps, with great manufacturing prosperity. He did not believe that machinery, in its

permanent results, diminished the demand for human labour, but still there might be the severest partial suffering. Thus there had been the severest distress among the hand-loom weavers in 1835, one of the seasons when the general prosperity was greatest, and corn cheaper than it had been for thirty years. He was therefore without expectation of being able, by any legislation, to prevent distress in particular employments; but his measure, he hoped, would produce these benefits; that sudden inundations of grain would be prevented, and that supply would be rendered steadier. There would, in fact, be no such long intervals as had been supposed likely to elapse between the order for American corn, and the arrival of it in England. Seven weeks would suffice for the purpose. Mr. Macaulay had described himself as the representative of the most enlightened constituency in Great Britain, and yet that Gentleman had not only contributed nothing to the solution of the present difficulties, but even wanted the manliness to say "No" to a motion he disapproved. That motion was for the instantaneous repeal of the Cornlaws, but those who thought with Lord John Russell, or Lord Palmerston, could hardly vote for such a proposition. Indeed, it followed from Lord Palmerston's theory of taxing corn for revenue alone, that it would be fitting to tax the domestic, as well as the foreign corn. Nor could this motion be supported by those who were anxious for the well-being of Ireland, nor yet by those who thought that the abolition of duty ought to be gradual, for this motion went to the immediate abolition of all duty. Even Mr. Ricardo, no especial friend of VOL. LXXXIV.

the landed interest, had proposed no more than that a duty should be enacted, beginning with 20s, diminishing by 1s. per annum for ten years, and remaining permanent at 10s. Sir Robert Peel, in conclusion, expressed his anxious hope that the House, if the pending division should be a decisive one, would proceed to pass the measure into law with no more delay than due deliberation required.

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Mr. Cobden delivered a vehement speech against the principle of the Corn-laws. He contended that it was a complete delusion to suppose that the price of food regulated the price of wages; the last three years had fully demonstrated the fallacy of this principle. Bread had not been so high in price for twenty years, while wages had suffered a greater decline than in any three years before. Then it was said, that it was necessary to maintain the Corn-laws in order to prevent wages from falling to the Continental level. "I deny that labour in this country is higher paid than on the Continent. On the contrary, I am prepared to prove, from documents on the table of your own House, that the price of labour is cheaper here than in any part of the globe. ("Oh, oh!") I hear an expression of dissent from the other side; but I say to honourable Gentlemen, when they measure the labour of an Englishman against the labour of the foreigner, they measure day's labour indeed with a day's labour, but they forget the relative quality of the labour. I maintain that if quality is to be the test, the labour of England is the cheapest in the world. The Committee which sat on Machinery in the last session but one, demon

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strated by their report that labour on the Continent is dearer than in England. You have proof of it. Were it not so, do you think you would find in Germany, France, or Belgium, so many English workmen? Go into any city from Calais to Vienna, containing a population of more than 10,000 inhabitants, and will you not find numbers of English artisans working side by side with the natives of the place, and earning twice as much as they do, or even more? Yet the masters who employ them declare, notwithstanding the pay is higher, that the English labour is cheaper to them than the native labour."

The manufacturers, he said, were too enlightened to seek benefit from deteriorating the condition of the people. He could not help expressing his astonishment, that a Prime Minister should now be found to come down to Parliament, to advocate the interposition of the Legislature to fix the price at which articles should be sold.

Sir Robert Peel explained that he had said that it was impossible to fix the price of food by any legislative enactment.

Mr. Cobden said, then he could not see what they were then employed in legislating for. He considered that the House was now openly avowing that it was met to legislate for a class against the people. He did not then marvel, although he had seen it with the deepest regret as well as indignation, that they had been surrounded during the course of the debates of the last week by an immense body of police. (Laughter, and cries of "Order.") The question, he continued, had now been resolved into such narrow limits, as to depend on these two points: "Are you,

the landed interests able to show, that you are subjected to exclusive burthens? If so, then the way to relieve you is not to put taxes on the rest of the community, but to remove your burthens. Secondly, are you prepared to carry out even-handed justice towards the people? If not, your law will not stand; nay, your House itself, if based upon injustice, will not stand."

He was followed by Mr. Busfield Ferrand, whose former allegations, impeaching the conduct of some of the leading manufacturers, had drawn down upon him some very severe observations from several Members who had supported that interest in the debate. He now retorted with further disclosures concerning the proceedings of the same parties. He had said before that Mr. Cobden worked his mills day and night, and had been answered by Mr. Brotherton, who said that Mr. Cobden never had a mill in his life. "Now I instantly gave the honourable Member my authority for the statement I had made. (Cries of "No, no.") I placed my authority in the hands of the House, and said, if it demanded the name I would give it. I was met by loud cries of No,' by the Gentlemen on this side of the House, and also by a generous response from the opposite side; but scarcely five minutes elapsed before the honourable Member for Salford left the House; I followed him out of it, and said, Now then, in private, 1 will give you the name of my authority, the date of his letter, and the place of his abode.' I did so; I read to him in private what I had stated publicly in the House. He laughingly turned away and said, Ah, but we call them print

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works in Lancashire.'" (Loud and protracted Ministerial cheering.)

Not one of the representatives of the Anti-Corn-law League had denied the accuracy of his statements, which had destroyed the League, so that they were com pelled to coalesce with the Chartists.

Mr. Ferrand read a letter from Leeds to confirm his assertion, that signatures to Anti-Corn-law petitions were paid for, and that the distress was caused not by the Corn-laws, but by the oppression of masters; and he then described the continuance of the truck-system: "But before I read to the House a statement which will make it stand aghast, which will freeze its blood with horror, I wish particularly to re-assert, in the presence of the House, that I do not charge the whole of the manufacturers of England with being parties to this nefarious system; I positively declare that I charge only the Anti-Corn-law League manufacturers."

Mr. Ferrand then, in spite of the continued interruption of the House, read a number of letters from parties whose names he did not mention, in which particular manufacturing houses in particular districts were pointed out as evading the laws enacted to suppress the truck-system, and as paying their wages in goods instead of money. The manner in which the law was evaded was thus described: "On Saturday the people went into a room to receive their wages; they were paid at the time in money; but, instead of retiring by the door through which they entered, they had to pass into another room, in which sat a person who kept the books of the truck-shop, and to whom the

workmen had to pay every farthing that they had expended during the previous week in buying goods and clothing; and if it were proved that any one of the men had purchased one single farthing's worth of goods from any other shop than that which belonged to his master, he was, without one word of explanation, discharged. "Now this," continued Mr. Ferrand, "is your freetrade system! It is a notorious fact, that the master-manufacturers clear 25 per cent. by the goods they sell to their workmen, and 10 per cent. by the cottages in which they are compelled to reside."

He charged the Anti-Corn-law League with having enhanced the price of corn: "Were honourable Gentlemen aware, that no less than 100,000 quarters of wheat were annually used by these men? (Cries of How?) "How!" by daubing their calicoes with flour-paste." (Much laughter.)

Mr. Ferrand then read extracts of letters describing the way in which the manufacturers applied the flourpaste to their calicoes, in order to give them the appearance of strength and durability. He also read a letter from an English merchant, descriptive of the frauds practised by certain manufacturers in the making of cloth. According to that letter, it appeared they were in the habit of collecting all the old and tainted rags they could obtain, grinding them to dust, and mixing this with the wool. This dust, made from diseased rags, was so detested by the working people employed in the manufacture of the cloth, that they could find no more suitable name for it than Devil's dust, and by the name of Devil's dust it was accordingly known. (Great laughter.) Many

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