our opposition is likely to be attended with success, I shall not allow myself to be betrayed into a different tone than that which I have always endeavoured to adhere to. If the consequences anticipated from this debate be well founded-if it be true that the fortunes of the country, so far as the Government is concerned, are to be committed to other hands, those who, apparently in public opinion, are called to the exercise of power, ought to survey the position of public affairs with feelings far more elevated than those connected with mere party conflicts. I hope I contemplate-if the anticipation of hon. Gentlemen be correct, and that it is likely that I am to be called to any concern with public affairs-I hope I contemplate those difficulties and dangers which hon. Gentlemen have adverted to, and which may, in some degree, account for the want of confidence in the present Administration-I hope, I say, I contemplate them with no unmanly fear or shrinking from the responsibility that belongs to public station. But at the same time it is perfectly consistent with that feeling to entertain an awful sense of the obligations which high office imposes, and of the responsibility which public duty involves. It is in the spirit of that contemplation, rather than that of party rancour or party exultation, that I proceed to give my opinions on the topics adverted to in the course of this debate. Let me first briefly notice two or three points of the Address, on which no great difference of opinion exists. The first is that in which we express our satisfaction:—

Tory party, it falls infinitely short of he bas lavished upon his own beloved igs. The hon. and learned Gentleman in fact reduced himself to a condition which his praise and censure are equally able. If these are men who have been good to Ireland-if these are men who ten years have preserved that country happiness and tranquillity, what could tify the hon. and learned Gentleman's ding them with every species of canny? Are these "the brutal and bloody higs?" And when the hon. and learned ember accounted for the cause of their fficulty and embarrassment in the goernment of Ireland, did he not bear in ind that there is not a distinguished Tember of that party who has not been onoured with his vituperation. For ten ears, too, this Government had ruled over Ireland and secured to her tranquility and order. For four of those ten years my noble Friend near me was Secretary for Ireland-for four out of those ten years the man whom you deprecate was the immediate agent of the Whig policy with regard to Ireland. I ask, is it the fact that these men had acted in a way to deserve so well of Ireland? and if so, what has been the object and motive of the hon. and learned Member in coming down night after night increasing the difficulties and embarrassment of this Government, and denouncing them to the country by every calumnious expression which an imagination fertile in calumny could invent. I am sorry if I have been betrayed into a single expression of irrita tion on the present occasion, but I think I have received sufficient provocation from the hon. and learned Gentleman. It is my earnest wish to discuss this question now before the House in the spirit and temper becoming the gravity of the occasion, and the magnitude of the interest involved. 1 have been in opposition to the hon. Gentlemen who sit on the other side of the House for a period, with only a brief exception, of ten years. I have always endeavoured to conduct this oppo- Sir, no man who hears me feels a more sition, in way reconciling at the same sincere satisfaction than I do that that time the practical exposition of my own" separation" has ceased. No man who opinions, and my direct condemnation, hears me feels a more cordial satisfaction when necessary, of the measures of her than I do that France has been enabled Majesty's Government, with the absence consistently with her honour to enter of every expression of acrimonious or per- again into the councils of Europe. I do sonal hostility; and, certainly, on the pre- hope, however, that that re-union will sent occasion, when, according to the ap- not be nominal, but will be accompanied parently prevailing feeling of the House, with the restoration of those feelings of

"That we learn with much contentment that the objects for which the treaty of July, 1840, was concluded between her Majesty, the Emperor of Austria, the King of Prussia, the Emperor of Russia, and the Sultan, have been fully accomplished; and that we share in the bled to state that the temporary separation gratification with which her Majesty is enawhich the measures taken in execution of that treaty created between the contracting Powers and France, has now ceased."

Even if it were

duce wheat in their own way if it so suited | nufacturing districts.
them to do it? Therefore it was that he
looked for a total repeal of the Corn-laws.
He supported the proposition of her Ma-
jesty's Ministers for a fixed duty only as a
step, and to enable him the sooner to send
the 8s. duty after the rest. As he said
before, he did not wish to tax particular
classes with being influenced by their own
peculiar interests, as he did not think this
was the right mode of debating a question
of this kind, or, indeed, any public matter.
It was, however, an unfortunate circum-
stance that the peculiar interests in that
House were so closely allied with the pre-
servation of those monopolies. With the
public, this was a peculiar source of sus-
picion. This, to say the least of it, was
an unfortunate coincidence, for people
were apt to consider that these Corn-laws
were enacted by a Parliament of landlords
for their own benefit. He was far from
saying that they were not perfectly sin
cere in their support of those laws, and
that their object in supporting them
was patriotic and just, and that they
imagined they

"Did good for nought; and blushed to

find it fame !"

found that the Corn-laws afforded ample employment for the agricultural portion of the population of the country, what advantage could possibly arise in thus keep ing in employment one class of the com munity, by keeping another class out of employment? He contended that every freeman had necessarily a natural right to the freedom of exchange for the produce of his labour. But this principle was sacrificed by the Corn-laws, which, at the same time, kept numbers out of employ, and from obtaining a just remuneration for their labour, while they did not find means of employ for the agricultural population. No doubt Gentlemen opposite were fully justified in discussing the question of confidence, but he trusted that they would not so far overlook the great interests of the country as to pass by altogether the consideration of the Corn-laws. If the debate was allowed to close as it had proceeded, the country would say that it was a planned proceed. ing, and that the right hon. Baronet had given directions to his party not to say one word on the subject. It would be inferred that these were the directions given at the great political divan which, according to the Times newspaper, assembled at the house of the right bon, Baronet the Member for Tamworth last

In point of fact, they would have it be lieved that the benefit fell to the landlords without their seeking it. The first great object in view should be to present Eng-Sunday, probably daring the hours of di lish industry to foreign countries in ex- vine service. It would be said that it was change for food, and thus to procure and then and there resolved, that steps should preserve a permanent demand for labour be taken to keep the people in the greatest for the increasing population of the coun-state of ignorance as to the course that try. They were told that the Corn-laws the probable future administration intended procured permanent labour for a large to pursue. He did not speak as a party portion of the population; but the fact man, for he was not one. He repeated, was, that the Corn-laws did not even he was no party man, and he wished that afford the means of giving employment for there were many more like him; and he the agricultural population. If they re- had proved that he was not one by his ferred to the state of the population be- conduct. If he had sat on the other side tween 1821 and 1831, the ten years in- of the House he should have used precluded in the last census, it would be cisely the same language on the subject of found that while the population of the the Corn-laws, as he had addressed to the whole country had greatly increased, the House from the place where he stood; number of persons engaged in agricultural and be should have said that it showed a pursuits had diminished to no less an ex- want of respect, not to allude to the questent than 17,000 families. This was a tion of the Corn-laws which pressed sa very remarkable fact, if they looked to heavily upon the great interests of the the circumstance that the population of country. When he looked at gentlethe whole country had greatly increased. mag opposite-many of whom he knew, It should also be recollected that the Poor-; and for whom he entertained the greatest law commissioners in their reports stated, personal regard-be was satisfied that that pauperism existed in a much greater many of them were perfectly mocere in extent in the agricultural than in the ma- | their opposition to any change in the Corn

the subject of the Corn-laws throughout the community. If this was done on an extensive scale, he was satisfied that a feeling of enthusiasm against the Cornlaws (or, as they were most properly designated by the hon. Member for Stockport, the bread-tax) would be excited to so great an extent as the feeling against slavery. It was formerly said by the ad vocates for the continuance of slavery in the colonies, that that system was bene ficial to the slaves themselves; so they were now seriously told that the laws which produced a scarcity of food were advantageous to the consumers. He was satisfied that the time was not distant when the agitation on the subject of the Cornlaws would be as great as that spread from Exeter-hall throughout the country for the abolition of slavery; and that a flame of enthusiasm would be excited throughout the land, such as would not be extinguished by the right hon. Baronet and the noble Lord opposite. He said, emphatically, they must be repealed. They were inconsistent with the first principles of justice, and therefore they must fall. The noble Lord, the Member for Liverpool must forgive him for making another allusion with reference to what had fallen from him respecting the proposed alteration of the sugar duties. The noble lord had referred to the Brazilian trade. Was he aware that the treaty with the Brazils was near coming to a conclusion? Under the present treaty, the Brazilian government only imposed a duty of 20 per cent. on the importation of our manufactures, while this country imposed a duty of 375 per cent on Brazilian sugar. Did the noble Lord

laws; but he was astonished at the sneers | [Hear, hear.] He repeated education, they manifested at many of the impressive and the spreading such works as the statements of the hon. Member for Salford valuable publication of the Rev. Dr. respecting the distressed state of the popu-Chalmers, and the Rev. Baptist Noel on lation. When that hon. Gentleman alluded to a quotation from the scriptures in reference to this subject, he was surprised at the ill-suppressed sneers of Genilemen opposite. But the quotation of scripture, in reference to the Corn-laws, did not originate with that side of the House, but with Gentleman opposite. For his own part, he did not think that it should be made a practice to quote the scriptures on one side or the other on commercial or financial questions. He, however, could not forget that the practice did not originate with his hon. Friend, but with the right hon. Baronet the Member for Dorchester, who, in a speech to his constituents, quoted a passage from scripture in defence of the Corn-laws, and told his auditory that he had no doubt but that it had been written for their instruction. He believed that the right hon. Baronet made the quotation with a view to show that the sliding scale was alluded to. Hon. Gentlemen opposite found fault with the agitation of the Corn-laws, but they forgot that they were equally agitators with his side of the House. All that he had to find fault with was, that they had been more successful agitators on the present question than those who sat on the Ministerial side of the House. Did hon. Gentlemen forget the agitation that had been carried on at Exeter Hall-the agitation against the Government education plan, and the agitation of his hon. Friend, the Member for the University of Oxford in favour of church extension? All these came equally within the category of agitation as that against the Corn-laws, and he only regretted that the agitation on his side of the House for commercial reform had not been successful. The hon. Mem-recollect that a considerable portion of the ber for Shrewsbury said that the result of the appeal to the people had been, that the party of the right hon. Baronet had increased, while that of the noble Lord, the Secretary for the Colonies had diminished. Now he contended that the result of the dissolution had been an increase in the number of anti-Corn-law Members, and that many more hon. Gentlemen had been sent to that Parliament prepared to sup-ceive but sugar, and they could not afford port repeal than frad been returned to any previous Parliament. All that they wanted to attain success was time and education.

public revenue of this country arose from sugar, and that the consumption per head, was not so great as it was forty years ago? Was he also aware that, in consequence of the large quantities of Brazilian sugar in bond at Liverpool, many persons who were accustomed to manufacture for the Brazilian market intended to cease to do so, as there was nothing for them to re

to keep it in bond? At the present time the value of this sugar was 2d. a pound, while the protecting duty was 7d. a

were the persons who should, in the name of her Majesty, propose these questions to the House with any chance of bringing them to a practical issue. Were they to grant a lengthened and full consideration then to those questions, the result would be, that the Government would propose them seriatim to the House, and after

pound: you thus prevent your merchants selling it here. The merchants are compelled to refine it in bond, and send it to the blacks in Jamaica, and to Italy and other places, and you will not let the population of this country derive any benefit from it. What advantage or good could possibly be gained by such a proceeding? If the cultivation of sugar altogether ceas-wards should fail in carrying them out. ed in Jamaica, there would be no great disadvantage to the population there. At the same time he did not wish or desire to resort to any steps that would have that effect. But what possible reason could the noble Lord have for supporting a course which was injurious to the revenue, which deprived a large portion of the population of this country of a most important market for the sale of their produce, and also the people of the means of obtaining a necessary article at a moderate price? The noble Lord said that the population of the West-Indian islands were in a very strange condition in consequence of the emancipation of the slaves; but all that the noble Lord really showed was, that in consequence of the emancipation the cost of producing sugar had increased. He seemed to forget that the proposition of her Majesty's Ministers gave to the WestIndians a protecting duty much more than equivalent to the difference of the cost of producing sugar before and since emancicipation. He did not admit this, however, to be a sound reason for rejecting the proposition. In conclusion, he had only to thank the House for the patience with which they had listened to him.

Mr. Borthwick would not follow the example of the hon. Gentleman, and of others on the same side of the House, in introducing merely speculative questions which could, in the situation in which parties stood, be attended with no practical result. The greater the importance of the questions which it had pleased her Majesty to call the attention of Parliament to, the more eventful the issues that depended on their decision, the more necessary was it that any discussion of them in that House should be followed by practical results, and not end merely in a display of field-day oratory. With great deference to the hon. Gentleman who last sat down, he should take leave to consider the question before the House not one concerning the sugar duties, timber duties, or the Corn-laws, or any other financial or fiscal measure, but the question of who

He would not, then, be provoked by the able, though fallacious, arguments used on the other side to argue whether the distress which had been admitted to exist had anything to do with the Corn-laws or not, though he was prepared, when the time for discussion should come, to prove that no connection between them existed at all. He would not say whether these laws required revision, nor whether a sliding scale or a fixed duty were the better, but he was prepared to prove, that the protection itself had no more to do with the distress complained of than any proposition of Euclid, which hon. Gentle men opposite might choose to demonstrate. The hon. and learned Member for Bath had said the other evening, that Ministers had grown unpopular, not be. cause they advanced, but because they lagged towards reform principles, that they had become distasteful to the people in proportion as they receded from the ballot and the other extreme measures which he advocated. But the hon. and learned Gentleman admitted, that the subtraction taken from the Ministerial ranks had been added to the Conservative, and not to his section of the House. Again, the hon. and learned Gentleman admitted, that if credit was due to the Government for anything it was for their foreign policy and the adjustment of the great eastern question But was that a policy tending towards liberal opinions? How did it come to pass that the proudest of their triumphs was formed by treading in the footsteps of Pitt and Castlereagh; that, in fact, it was a Tory and not a Radical triumph? The question before the House appeared to him to be, not whether they should discuss the Corn-laws or not, but how they were to arrive at the discussion? The present Ministry were obstacles to that discussion; they must be removed before the subject could be fully and fairly dealt with. He was of opinion, that this coun try had a right to lock to the House for a stable Government. For five years the