sional committee men upon it, but that they had resisted the temptation to sudden gain. On the other hand, if the passing of this measure would add to the happiness of the many, and advance the welfare of the community, none would more rejoice at it than the party who had given it so strenuous an opposition (hear).

The MARQUIS OF WORCESTER had been called upon to oppose this measure by his constituents, both agricultural and manufacturing. It was idle to suppose that the repeal of these laws would not increase importation. Why, 700 beasts and 590 sheep had been recently received at one port alone from Germany and Prusson The Right Hon. Baronet the Home Secretary, had told thend however, that this country could no longer be considered an agri cultural country. At all events they seemed determined to do their best to prevent it, and to realise the assertion of the Hon. Member for Stockport, that the population of the towns ought to rule the country. There were a number of gentlemen on the Treasury bench who said that they looked upon this measure as mischievous, but that, such was their confidence in the Right Hon. Baronet (Sir. R. Peel), that they would give it their support. This was a singular principle to act upon; as well might one who had seen a jockey pull up his horse say he put confidence in that jockey, and would like to try him again. The Right Hon. Baronet had pulled his horse up and ridden for Free Trade.

MR. M. GORE wished to make a few remarks before this matter was finally settled by the House. He differed from many Hon. Gentlemen who had spoken as to the apprehensions they entertained of the effect of this measure on the interests of agriculture. He should first allude to some remarks which had been made by a tenant. farmer who had gone to Russia, a very great protectionist, and labouring under the impression that Russia and Prussia possessed an unlimited supply of corn. But after he had acquired experience he became satisfied that the people possessed neither knowledge nor means to enable them so to conduct their agricultural operations as to inflict injury, by their competition, on the British farmer. He stated a variety of circumstances in corroboration. Agricultural operations he described as being in a very primitive state, and the agricultural implements in use were of a very rude structure. "The consequence is," he observes, “that the lands, for want of strength to till them, look poverty stricken and neglected, and must under any circumstances require an immense outlay of capital to improve them, independently of the energy and skill required to overcome the difficulties as regards the shortness of the season during which anything connected with the improvement of the soil can be carried The earth is closed against all cultivation for seven months of continued and severe winter. One month of the year may be divided into spring and autumn, and four months into extreme heat of summer." As to the chance of extensive pastures being taken into cultivation, he stated that they were so exposed to snow storms that the greatest possible obstacles existed to the successful adoption of such a course. He says "It may be thought that these pastures may be cultivated in case of a market for corn in England. But this

on.

cannot take place, since they are subject to violent snow storms which drive everything before them. Such is the power of these hurricanes of wind and snow, that cattle, when these are approaching, if not prevented by the herdsmen, take fright and run into ravines, where they are smothered. Besides, these lands are subject to the visitation of locusts, and the effects of severe drought in the summer, increased by the continuous wet to which they are subject in the winter." He mentioned various other details, and stated, that in some parts of Prussia the wages of agricultural labourers were greater than those of the same class in England. Those were the remarks of a tenant-farmer who went abroad with very different opinions, and who altered his views in consequence of what came under his own personal observations. As to America, he (Mr. M. Gore) was also of opinion that the production of grain had been greatly overrated, and that there was no reason to anticipate any influx for many years, such as would prove prejudicial to the agricultural interest of this country. As to grain in America, it appeared from official returns in 1840, ascertained by the persons appointed to take the sixth census, that the total produce of the Union was,

He had received a communication from a gentleman in the city on the same point; it was as follows:

:-

"In reply to your inquiry, the exportation of flour from New Orleans is about 400,000 barrels in good years, and 200,000 barrels in ordinary years. No wheat is exported from the United States worth mention. The total average exportation per annum does not amount to 45,000 quarters for the last 13 years, 1831 to 1843, both inclusive, and this is principally sent to Canada, and is a trade likely to increase in that quarter; but experience has proved that flour is the form in which the cereal product of America must be conveyed to Europe. The average exportation of flour for 13 years does not quite reach 1,000,000 of barrels annually from all the states of the American Union collectively; it is 997,771 barrels exactly (1831 to 1843 inclusively). Of this quantity 225,000 barrels went on the average annually to Great Britain; 175,000 to British America, Canada, and Newfoundland; 135,000 to the British West Indies; 80,000 to Cuba; 170,000 to Brazil; being 785,000 barrels; and 215,000 barrels went to other places on the American continent. But it is quite apparent that the average exportation from America into Europe does not exceed 400,000 barrels annually; each barrel contains 1961b. net weight of flour. For six consecutive years the export of flour from the United States to Great Britain did not amount altogether to 55,000 barrels, or an average of 9,000 barrels per annum, and they were the years 1833 to 1838 inclusive. In the year 1813 there were Q Q

only 14,000 barrels shipped from the United States to Great Britain. Nothing is more difficult to answer with satisfaction than the American part of the corn question; but my impression is, that experience being better than prophecy, we may take the export of the past as a guide for the future, and say that America may furnish to Europe about 500,000 barrels of flour from the United States, and the same quantity from Canada to Europe. All the rest is absorbed by American wants, the West Indies, Newfoundland, the Brazils, Cuba, St. Domingo, and all the hot countries where wheat will not grow, and also to supply her mercantile marine all over the world. The price at which flour could be furnished I cannot possibly say, but it has hitherto cost over 30s. per barrel in Europe. When the price is under this rate we find supplies fall off."

He (Mr. M. Gore) might be permitted to say for his own part, with the view he took of the question, that if he thought any very great inconvenience was likely to result from the importation of corn either from America, or from the continent of Europe, he should hesitate very much before he gave his consent to the bill (hear, hear). He, for one, did not believe that it was to make bread wonderfully cheap, or to ruinously depress the home agriculture. As in the case of all great changes, some inconveniences must probably at first result; but he conceived that the measure would ultimately tend to increase the comfort, and promote the happiness, and advance the prosperity of the great mass of the inhabitants of this mighty kingdom, and that it would contribute very much, coupled with the resources of modern science, to stimulate and foster agriculture (hear). He believed that there existed in this country a spirit, energy, and activity, that would in future make it as superior to the rest of the world in agriculture and manufactures as it hitherto had been; and that the native zeal and enterprize of Englishmen would advance the science of agriculture to greater perfection than ever. He, therefore, trusted that whatever might be the fate of this measure there still might be found a Government powerful and strong; able to uphold the interests of the country at home, to enforce them abroad, and determined, amid whatever storms and tempests might rage, to maintain the majesty, the dignity, and the greatness of England (hear, hear).

MR. LAWSON Contended that the interests of the agriculturists and manufacturers were common, and stated that in the part of the country with which he was connected, the people all concurred in the sentiment of protection to native industry. He had presented petitions from fifty or sixty townships in his neighbourhood, signed by persons of all political opinions, praying the House not to pass the present measure. However other Gentlemen-some, he was sorry to say, high in office-might change their opinions, he could not, though but an humble individual, throw overboard the sentiments of his whole life, or alter them at the beck or invitation of any individual. Until the House had a statement of the probable price of corn under the new system, it was legislating in the dark. The dependence on foreign nations would be sensibly felt if war should occur. The measure also ought not to be passed by a Parliament elected on opposite principles; there ought to have been an appeal to the constituency. The effect of the measure would probably be,

that after a short time, prices would rise to a famine height, but not till the small farmers were ruined; corn would so get into the hands of factors and speculators (hear, hear) that they would withhold the supplies from the markets till the price was high, just as there was a monopoly of the London potato market, so that though he (Mr. Lawson) paid but 28. a bushel for potatoes in Yorkshire, in London he was paying 15s. a sack. This giving way by the Government to the League would lead to other demands; there was a league already for the repeal of the Union, and he (Mr. Lawson) had no confidence in his own mind that the Right Hon. Baronet (Sir R. Peel) would not declare in favour of that repeal some day (" hear, hear," from Mr. O'Connell).

MR. R. V. SMITH thought that the country, convinced that the change must arrive, felt satiety, and almost sickness, with regard to the discussion, and hence the want of excitement to which the Hon. Member for Sunderland (Mr. Hudson) had alluded. The present debate, however, had been somewhat free from acrimonious charges by the manufacturing and agricultural interests against one another. The concurrent measures of Government were stated not to be compensation for Corn Law repeal, though by the way, they were announced in the same speech; but a considerable portion of the local taxation of the country might have been taken off the landed interest with propriety (hear, hear). It pressed hard upon them, when stock in trade was relieved from rates, because it was difficult to levy them, and the investigation was embarrassing (hear, hear). Upon the principal question, he thought the Right Hon. Baronet (Sir R. Peel) was most unnecessarily risking revenue; he might have carried a low fixed duty ("no, no," from the League bench), and it would have been paid almost entirely by the foreigner, and not by the consumer. No doubt this view was become unfashionable in the House (hear, hear). There was now no choice between a sliding scale and Free Trade, and he accordingly voted for the latter. The Right Hon. Baronet had unnecessarily risked a considerable portion of the revenue in refusing a small duty. The grounds upon which the Right Hon. Baronet had based his measure might probably cause its rejection in the House of Lords, and cause a collision between the two branches of the Legislature, which he for one should be sorry to see.

MR. DISRAELI-Sir, the Secretary of State, in his speech on the first night of the discussion, reminded gentlemen sitting on these benches, and professing opinions favourable to the protection of native industry, that in the varied and prolonged discussions of this question, which have taken place of late years, we had abandoned many of the opinions we formerly professed, and given up many of the dogmas by which we were formerly actuated. I acknowledge that fact. I believe that to be the necessary result of all discussion if, whatever the termination of it-whatever the changes in public opinion upon the matter discussed-both parties take refuge in the pride that they have not changed their opinion with reference to any single topic that had been under debate (hear, hear). I do not claim for myself, nor I believe need I claim for those around me, such a power of argument, such a force of conviction, that we have not felt

it our duty to listen with attention to the arguments addressed to thu. House; and, if we have found that arguments have been introduced that we could not satisfy ourselves we could answer, and of which we felt the force, we have not attempted to maintain the opinions that we could not preserve. But if this rule applies to us-if it applies to one party in the discussion --I think I can show the Secretary ae State that it is not peculiar to us. I fancy that some opinions haebeen held by leading advocates of this measure, and have been ma St. tained by Hon. Gentlemen opposite-I speak now of Hon. Genind men opposite, because I wish that we may all remember who are the originators of these ideas, --I think that opinions have been at t it ferent times ably maintained by gentlemen opposite which are is longer insisted on, and which are in that category of abandonme to which the Secretary of State referred. I might begin with the cr of cheap bread (cheers from the Protectionists). We had a Minister of the Crown-a member of the Cabinet-even in the important sessions when we might expect that the opinions of Ministers would be well matured and considered, seeing that we have at least four Cabinets a-week-a Cabinet Minister told us that the clap-trap of cheap bread was universally abandoned by all parties. It seemed to be "the fugitive cry of a dying faction." The Hon. Member for Stockport has also announced that the cry of "cheap bread" was never one of his. That, then, has been given up; and I believe, also, other points with it. It is no longer maintained that the present Corn Law has been the cause of producing great fluctuations in price (cheers). Yet that opinion had once great authority in the country has been brought into the discussion in this House-and if it had been alluded to as the existing opinion twelve months ago, it would have been admitted, and would certainly have been cheered. Yet it is now admitted that neither the present nor the late Corn Law, which is a stronger instance, has been productive of any great alteration in price. Now, what are we to do with those opinions, those exhausted arguments, those "exploded fallacies ?" Our great national poet conceived the existence of a limbo for exploded systems. I think we should invent a limbo for political economists, where we should bind up all those arguments that have turned out to be sophistries (a laugh). Yes, sophistries; but these called arguments are the things that have agitated nations and converted a ministry (hear, hear). It is all very well to say, that after six or seven years of discussion, we have found them to be fallacies; still they are the agencies by which a certain amount of public opinion has been brought to bear on a great economical question. That public opinion has changed the policy of a Government, and, according to our belief, is perilling the destiny of a great kingdom (cheers). And now I must say a word in vindication of the Right Honourable Baronet (laughter). I think that great injustice has been done to him throughout the debate; that a justifiable misconception has universally prevailed respecting the Right Hon. Gentleman. He has been accused of a long meditated deception, of a desire worthy of a great statesman-even of an unprincipled one-to give up all the opinions by which he rose to power. I acquit the Right Hon. Gentleman of any such intention, and I do so for this reason, that