occasions, in the last three years, and which had been so eminently successful; but he had not been prepared to expect that Sir Robert Peel would propose a total abolition of the Corn Laws after a period of three years, during which we were to have a diminished sliding scale, accompanied by certain compulsory propositions. He thought that, in propounding such a scheme, Sir Robert Peel had committed a mistake, which many now regretted, and which he hoped that Sir Robert Peel would never live to regret himself. Though he should oppose to the uttermost that scheme, he hoped that, if it were made law, it would promote the public interests in the way which Sir Robert Peel expected. If he (Mr. Beckett Denison) could be convinced that by this scheme the health, the comfort, the morality, and the happiness of the working classes would be promoted, he should instantly become a Corn Law repealer; but, until that conviction was produced in his mind, he must stand by the existing Corn Laws. He then called attention to the state of things for the last few years, for the purpose of showing that protection to agriculture had been of benefit to all classes in the country. Even if this measure for the repeal of that protection were right in itself, still the time for bringing it forward was most improperly chosen. Ministers had taken the country by surprise. They had placed 300 gentlemen in that House in the painful situation of voting either against a leader whom they wished to support, or against their consciences, and in some cases against their constituents, if they supported him. For himself, he had been selected by

his constituents to oppose two of the most popular men in the kingdom-Lord Morpeth and Lord Milton-on the sole ground of his advocacy of the principle of protection to agriculture; and he felt himself as much bound to redeem the promises which he had given to his constituents, as if he had given them a bond to that effect. If he were to vote in 1846 for the abolition of the Corn Laws, without having heard one single satisfactory reason urged for it, even by Sir Robert Peel himself, how could he justify to himself the opposition which he had headed against those two noble Lords, whose names he had mentioned, in 1841 ? He could not say that he had changed his mind on the subject, for if he had, he should have felt himself bound in honour to resign his seat, and would have disposed in that way of all the speeches which he had made in defence of protection. In conclusion, he warned Lord Morpeth against believing that his return for the West Riding was a proof that the opinions of the electors of that district were changed on the subject of the Corn Laws, and by advertising him that at the next general election the extent of the change would, probably, be brought to a test.

Mr. Villiers believed that the farmers of England were a loyal set of men, as the last speaker represented them to be; but he was almost surprised at it after the temptations to which they had been exposed by the violent and inflammatory language of their landlords against Her Majesty's Government. He called attention to the different manner in which this law was originally passed, and in which it was now proposed to repeal it. The law was passed through the House

as quickly as law could be; but the proposition for the repeal of it had been delayed, unprecedently, for more than three weeks, by a fierce party opposed to the public good. That delay, too, had been persevered in after they had received full information of the mischief inflicted on commerce and manufactures by the protracted length to which they had spun out this discussion, for which nobody cared a straw, except so far as regarded its result. He expressed his joy and satisfaction at the concession made to wisdom, truth, and justice, in the proposals and avowals of Her Majesty's Government. That concession, he was bound to say, had not been made by the members of that Government at any sacrifice of private honour or of public principle, but had been extorted from them by a conviction of the great danger in which the country was placed from an apprehended deficiency in. the supply of food. He knew that this measure was not complete; and he had been asked whether he would recommend it as such to his constituents. Before that question was put to him, he had placed on record the opinions of his constituents, who, in a petition, had declared that they gladly received this measure as a great instalment of the debt due to them. Even if it were more imperfect than it actually was, the country would be of opinion that there was a sufficient apology for Sir Robert Peel's not proposing a more perfect measure, in the fierce opposition of the noisy party on the Protection benches. Mr. Villiers then commented on several of the speeches made by the Protectionists in that House and elsewhere, and more particularly on a speech made by Lord VOL. LXXXVIII.

Stanley some years ago, in Lancashire, when he admitted that the Corn Laws raised rents, and raised the price of food, but did not raise the rate of wages. Such was the system for which the landowners of England were fighting; and that was the system which rendered the prosperous farmer" SO rare a bird, that he ought to be stuffed and sent as a curiosity to the British Museum, and the labourer so demoralized, that his wretched condition had passed into a by-word. Yes; the complaint of the agriculturists was low prices, and their object in supporting the Corn Laws was high prices. In bringing forward this measure, the Government was protecting the agriculturists from themselves, and he hoped that they would have good sense enough to see that, and to consent to the abolition of a law which was an evidence of their past selfishness and present shame.

Mr. Cobden complained, that extraneous matter had been introduced into this discussion to a greater extent than it had ever been introduced previously into any Corn Law debate. The two main topics on which it had turned were the conduct of Ministers, and the propriety of an appeal to the country. The people of England believed that the discussion on the first topic was a quarrel got up for no other purpose than to evade the real question, and to conceal from public notice that there was no justification for the Corn Laws. assured the party opposite that the more they covered the Ministers with obloquy and odium the more would the people of England sympathize with them. In point of fact, they were making the Ministers the most po[F]

He

sult of the late county elections. Did they recollect that the county representation, under the 50%. clause, was not the old constitution of England? Fifty years ago requisitions were not got up by the tenants-at-will, but by freeholders. The League intended to fight the modern innovation of the 501. clause with the 40s. freehold, an institution in use five centuries ago.

Had the opposite party ever reflected that half the money in the Savings Banks, if invested in small freeholds would produce a better interest, and would swamp the 501. tenants-at-will, who had no independent suffrages? If the contest should unfortunately be protracted any longer, the free-trade party will meet monopoly in that way, and in that way will overcome it. He had now given them some idea of the position in which monopoly was placed in the country. The mischief of it might be averted if they would take these facts home with them, and would study them for their own advantage at leisure. So much had been said on the merits of the question, that there was no occasion for him to dwell on that topic. Though he had not heard, he had read all the speeches made in that discussion; and when he saw all the fallacies, which he had been knocking on the head for the last seven years, again brought forward as arguments, he could not help thinking what fun it would occasion for the working men in fustian jackets in the north of England. Since the Government measure had been propounded, he had inquired whether land had suffered any depreciation in value; and he had ascertained this very remarkable fact, that though silk was unsaleable, land was selling and letting at higher prices.

than ever. The house might affect the value of cotton, silk, and woollen manufactures; but there

was a love for land inherent in the human race, and especially in the minds of Englishmen; and it was monstrous to suppose that the value of land could be diminished, whilst a process was going forward which must inevitably increase the number of customers for its produce, and augment the number of shoulders which had to bear its burdens. He, therefore, called upon the Protectionists to consider whether they could not do something better than prolong these angry conflicts with the advocates of free trade, and tax each other for the separate benefit of their respective classes. There was honour and fame to be gained in the adjustment of the question. Our nation was the aristocracy of the human kind. We had given the world the example of a free press

of a representative government

of civil and religious libertyand we were now going, he trusted, to give them an example more glorious than all, that of making industry free-of giving it the advantage of every clime and latitude under heaven, and of enabling our population to buy in the cheapest and to sell in the dearest market. The honourable member concluded amid long-continued cheers by giving his support to the measures of Government.

Lord Geo. Bentinck condemned the proposition of the Government as vicious in principle, and likely to be deeply injurious, not only to agriculture, but to all the great interests of the country. Certainly it could not be carried in what he emphatically called a Protection Parliament without a loss of honour to public men. The alleged

change of circumstances in the state of the country, combined with the experience of the last three years, formed no justification for Sir R. Peel in abandoning the whole course of policy he had pursued for the last thirty years. Accepting the challenge that had been thrown out to name any articles on which the repeal of prohibitory or protective duties had operated injuriously either to the consumer or producer, the noble lord adduced a variety of statistical details connected with the silk, woollen, spelter, and timber trades, for the purpose of showing that a relaxation of the protective system had, in these instances, signally failed. In fact, the free trade doctrine was an absolute delusion. The price of wheat was now actually lower than the average of three years before 1842. He

contended that the rate of wages would fall with the price of corn, and the working classes would be better off with undiminished wages and wheat at 70s. per quarter, than with corn at 45s. and reduced means of procuring it. The apprehension of famine, at present, was altogether a mistake. The crop was

more than an average one, and in some parts of the country, in Scotland particularly, there was positive repletion. The potato murrain was by no means so extensive as it had been represented; indeed, he complained that only one side of the question had been stated to the House. He had himself made some inquiries on the subject, and he found that in Roscommon there was no disease at all, while in Tipperary and Queen's County

it prevailed but very partially. According to his noble friend, the Marquis of Clanricarde, onehalf of the evil was attributable to the conduct of the Government in sending commissioners to Ireland and creating an alarm. The potatoes were dug up before they were ripe, and they rotted. The cry of famine was a mere pretence for a party object. The Duke of Wellington had admitted that there was no scarcity of food in Ireland; and Lord Cloncurry declared that there was a sufficiency of oats now in that country to feed the whole population. Never was there a change of so extensive a character proposed on so slender a basis, and with so little just cause shown. He should not have objected to open the ports had that been necessary; but he could not see how the necessity alleged by Government could be met by free trade in corn three years hence. Much greater benefit would be derived by the public from a remission of the duties on tea and sugar, two of the main necessaries of life, produced by countries favourable to commercial intercourse with England, and which came into no rivalship with our domestic produce.

The House divided at twenty minutes to three. The numbers