MR. S. O'BRIEN was reminded by the petition now presented by the Noble Lord, of the statement put forth last night by the Noble Lord the member for the City of London, that the farmers of this country were now in favour of an immediate repeal of the duties on corn, if they had not previously made up their minds to that extent; and that the Noble Lord pressed upon Her Majesty's Government to take the propriety of immediate repeal into their serious consideration, now that the Government measure had been laid before the farmers and the country, and that a general opinion had been expressed in its favour. Now, whether there was a general opinion among those farmers to whom the Noble Lord referred in favour of that measure he would not take upon him to say, nor would he pronounce any opinion on the matter; but he would only say that the parties to whom the Noble Lord referred did not express the opinion of the farmers generally upon this question (hear). He had some hope of directing the attention of the House and the country to a full explanation of their views on this subject. He had not changed his opinions upon this matter. His Hon. Friend (Mr. S. Herbert), who spoke last night, had not only felt it his duty to announce the change of his opinions in reference to this great question, but had uttered a sentiment the end of which was drowned by the cheers from that side of the House, that the law of 1815 was the greatest error this country ever saw (hear, hear). That law might be the greatest error ever perpetrated in this country; but he looked to that side of the House and asked, if it was the greatest error, who were those who had been hitherto conjuring the landed interest of this country not to revoke the error, but to persevere in it and maintain it? (hear, hear). The Right Hon. Gentleman said that now he gave them an opportunity of revoking that error. Obliged as they were by the courtesy of the Right Hon. Gentleman, he must say, however, that this was not the first opportunity given to the country gentlemen to repair that error, if error it was. The Hon. Member for Wolverhampton had often afforded them that opportunity, but they had always refused to avail themselves of it; and the most powerful and skilful reasons why they would not avail themselves of it were the reasons that had been given by the Right Hon. Gentleman (hear). It had hitherto been the custom in this country to uphold by the discussion of questions of party principles the distinct enunciation of those principles; having always before them the expectation that they were in this way best eliciting the truth and conducing to sound legislation (hear, hear). It might be observed, that not only had the Government changed the principles upon which they came into office, but they had taught the lesson that protection, as a distinct principle, should henceforth cease to be a bond of party altogether (hear, hear). The Right Hon. Gentleman (Mr. S. Herbert) had said the preceding night, and he really thought that was the sum and substance of his speech, that inasmuch as the law of 1842 had failed, therefore he was prepared to abandon entirely those protective principles upon which he came into office. The Right Hon. Gentleman had said that the law of 1842 had failed; but the word "failure" might be understood in two ways, and when he remembered what the Right Hon. Gentle

distress in that county was not attributable to the Right Hon. Gentleman (near, hear). But he (Mr. O'Brien) must say, on the other hand, that if the Right Hon. Gentleman brought forward the cause of distress in Ireland, as a reason for the proposed change, he had totally failed, inasmuch as he had failed to show how the repeal of the Corn Laws would remedy the evil. The Noble Lord the member for London (Lord John Russell) in his speech last night had laid down three propositions which he assumed to be incontrovertible, the long and short of which was that protection to British industry was no longer tenable, and that the Legislature ought in future to foster neither agriculture nor manufactures, but leave them to "flourish or to fade" according to the energy and skill of the people of this country. Now, he (Mr. O'Brien) thought he was not quoting the Noble Lord unfairly, neither did he think he was quoting the Right Hon. Baronet at the head of the Government unfairly, if he assumed that the principle so laid down was in future to be acted upon by the Legislature of this country. The Noble Lord assumed that the propositions were true because all political economists had agreed upon them. Now, notwithstanding that he might thereby expose himself to the charge of bigotry and old-fashioned prejudice, and "clay intellect," he ventured to dissent from the Noble Lord's propositions, and to say, that even if political economists had agreed upon them, there were other considerations which would require to enter into a statement of the question before he could give his unqualified assent. Writers on political economy, he (Mr. O'Brien) thought, were too apt to confound the science of political economy with that of legislation. His notion of political economy was, that it was a science referring to the accumulation and the distribution of wealth, which he held to be only one among many elements which entered into the science of legislation. But he would proceed to notice the question of protection to British industry-a question which the Noble Lord the member for London said had recently been interwoven with the question of agriculture-not recently, however, he would have the Noble Lord to know, for it had been interwoven before the existence of the protection societies. But it was said that labour was the property of the poor man. Very well -assuming this definition to be true-the parties making it must not, unless they wished to be misunderstood, stop there. They must, while they were meeting there every day for six months, for the protection of their own property, they must tell the poor man that his property, his labour, would not be protected, but that it must protect itself; that they must be left to fight it out with foreign competition; and that they (the Legislature) were to sit quietly above, and watch whether they triumphed or not. The axiom of buying in the cheapest market and selling in the dearest, and that the property of the poor man needed no protection, was a very plausible one; but see how it operated. Suppose an individual to buy his paper-hangings in Paris, his carriages in Brussels, and his hardware in Germany; and suppose, while he was looking out of the window of his smart house, or his elegant carriage, he saw the labourers all idle because of the new law which had passed in favour of the introduction of these articles;

and suppose he said to them, "My good fellows, I have done my best to make you poor and wretched, but I have not done so from any selfish motive. On the 27th of January, 1846, it was propounded by the head of the Government that the property of the poor needed no protection, and that in future we should all buy in the cheapest market and sell in the dearest, and I have only a wish to promote my own interest by acting upon those principles." What poor consolation this would be to the poor workman! He begged the House also to think not only of the amount of poverty which these proposals, if carried out, would occasion, but of the amount of alienation and disaffection which they would occasion (hear). The amount of the duties was not the question. That which was protection ten years ago might be more than protection now; to continue it at the same amount might be unjust-it might be fatal to the producer himself. He (Mr. S. O'Brien) protested against any change such as was proposed in a complex state of society like that which existed in this country; and he agreed with the Noble Lord the Member for London (Lord John Russell) in thinking that it would have been better had a single change taken place in 1842, instead of one then and another now; the transition would have been thereby rendered easier-the shock would have been broken. He had not been careless in studying the operation of the Corn Law during the last four years. If he could not agree with those who now thought the protection excessive, he must acknowledge a change of opinion produced by so studying the operation of the law. He had believed that this was a landlord's question, that a sudden repeal would throw a large quantity of land into the market with the effect of deteriorating the price. But, from what he had read and seen, he doubted very much whether such would be the result. If it were a landlord's question, it was only a question of the small landed proprietor (cheers), who, on the faith of previous legislation, might have charged his estate to an extent beyond the means which an altered state of the law would leave available for his extrication. But he (Mr. S. O'Brien) looked on this as a tenant-farmer's question, and so far from abandoning his opposition because he so believed, on that ground he took his stand, and refused to assent to the proposed alteration. He might take the opportunity of applying the new philosophy to this tenantfarmer's question. The tenant-farmer came to the landlord and said "You see the change that has taken place; you know its effects, and I hope you will allow an abatement of rent. My family has held under your family. We have weathered the storm in difficult times. I have worn your colours; and I shall be very sorry to go anywhere else" (cheers). The landlord would reply" My good fellow, I am very sorry for you. You have invested your capital in those drains; I too have invested my capital. You invested yours on the faith of legislative enactments; but so did I. We are told to buy in cheap and sell in dear markets. A gentleman from the manufacturing districts is largely interested in your farm. We talk

of feudal times, of days long gone by, of your wearing my old colours. Those are old exploded notions; but as to colours, I tell you, my good fellow, there is no true blue now" (great cheering from the protectionists). So, unless the landlord acted towards the tenant

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with better faith and kindlier feeling than the agricultural interest had experienced, the tenant-farmer must go forth on the world. A few months ago a farmer came to him and said "I have got a fortune left me." "Take your good land, then," was the reply, "and farm it for yourself." "Why," said the farmer, "there are the gravestones of four generations of my race in the church-yardfather, grandfather, great-grandfather, and great-great-grandfather. I will not invest my money anywhere else; I shall stick to the old farm." To his mind, the heart of that old fellow was worth a very heavy volume of political economy (cheers). And (continued the Hon. Gentleman) it is hundreds of thousands of men like that-of men, not with such fortunes in their pockets, but with such hearts in their bosoms, whom you are driving forth by your legislation with broken hearts and ruined families (cheers). Neither is it too much to say that when-feeling the effect of your policy-they take a retrospect of the past, their keenest associations, their bitterest recollections of the period from which they will date their blighted hopes and broken fortunes, will not be with the name of Cobden (loud cheers). We will not aid you in your triumph over those old men. We do not envy a triumph which we do not participate; and small in numbers, yet it may not be without some influence, we will raise our voices against the injustice you are about to perpetrate. You may exult in your triumph over a body of men who are loading that table with petitions and who see ruin staring them in the face. Moderation in prosperity and patience in adversity were their virtues, and their greatest fault was that they trusted you, and you are prepared to triumph over them (I can give it no milder term), in strange coalition with men who, true to their principles (cheers from the protectionists), can neither welcome you as friends nor respect you as opponents (renewed cheers); of whom I must say, in conclusion, that the best and most patriotic of them will least rejoice to witness the ruin and downfall of a great constitutional party, and will most deplore the loss of public confidence in public men (great cheering from the protectionists).

MR. S. CRAWFORD considered that the eloquence of the last speaker was much greater than the power of his arguments; for though he professedly took great interest in the welfare of the working man, he showed the value of his professions by refusing to give to that working man cheap food. Nothing would promote the prosperity of the country so much as cheap corn, and therefore it was that he wished to repeal every tax which was imposed on its importation from foreign countries. He then entered into a discussion upon the social and domestic condition of Ireland, and upon the bearing of the changes now proposed upon the labouring population of that country; and after warning the House that the danger of famine in Ireland was not visionary, but actual and substantial, concluded by declaring his intention of giving his cordial support to the proposition of her Majesty's Government on this occasion.

MR. H. BAILLIE lamented that this question should have been made the war-cry of a party, as it rendered it more difficult to discuss with calmness and without acrimony one of the most difficult questions within the whole range of political economy. After pointing

out the fatal results produced by free trade in India, where the free importation of British manufactures had destroyed the native manufactures, and had caused greater numbers to perish by famine than had ever perished under the sword of any conqueror, he asked whether we could be surprised that foreign Governments, witnessing such results, should refuse to try the experiment of free trade upon their own people, and should impose barriers against the free introduction of our goods into their dominions? He did not, however, conceive that this determination on their part ought to induce us to try that experiment upon our own countrymen. It was an old axiom, that there was an intimate connexion between agriculture and commerce, and that any measure which injured or benefited the one must also injure or benefit the other. As our master manufacturers had made greater profits during the last year than during any year previously, it would not be irrelevant to inquire into the causes of that prosperity. Were those causes to be found exclusively in the new tariff? No; they were also to be found in three good harvests which had successively followed each other. Then it was clear that the prosperity of agriculture had been most conducive to the prosperity of commerce; and such being the case, the question arose how could we best promote our agriculture? Was it by affording to it a moderate protection, or by permitting it to meet unmitigated competition with countries which, from their climate and fertility, enjoyed advantages over our own country for the growth of corn? He thought that if we adopted the latter course, a portion of our wheatland must be thrown out of cultivation, and we must become dependent on foreign countries for a large portion of our supply. It was his opinion that free trade would increase our population on the one hand, and would decrease our natural means of subsistence on the other. This question, however, could not be decided on its own merits; for before we come to a conclusion upon it we must take into our consideration all the circumstances of the country, and, above all, the mischief of the continuance of that struggle in which the interests of the great masses of the people were arrayed against the interests of a few. We must also take into consideration that besides the two classes in the country now pitted against each other, the leading men of all parties in that House were united in the doctrine that some great alteration in the Corn Laws was necessary, and that those who opposed that alteration were themselves unable to form a Government. We have, therefore, only the choice of two alternatives-we must either accept the compromise now offered to us, or throw out the present Administration to make room for another equally pledged to the abolition of all duties on the impor tation of foreign corn. Under such circumstances, he should support the proposition of the Government from a conviction that in so doing he was supporting the best interests of the British empire.

MR. LEFROY commented on the speech of Mr. S. Crawford on the wretched condition of the population of Ireland, and asked how this measure was calculated to improve it, or to raise the capital of the landlords and farmers of Ireland, who were the employers of labour? He declared himself compelled, as an Irish Member, to oppose the proposition of the Government, which he denounced as a most rash and hazardous experiment.