munerate the farmer, or to the terms upon which corn-the article to be taxed could be brought from abroad, secmed to him to be little less than entire mistake and error. He should, therefore, sit down with moving, "That a select committee be appointed, to inquire into the prices at which foreign corn can be shipped from different foreign ports; distinguishing the qualities of grain, and stating the quantity which might be supposed capable of being supplied for importation into this country." Earl Bathurst said, he felt himself called upon, in the first instance, to allude to an observation, which he was sure must have escaped the noble earl in the hurry of speaking, and which he would himself regret having given utterance to. The observation to which he alluded was, to the effect, that the propositions lately submitted to parliament, on the subject of the corn trade, had been forced upon his unfortunate colleague the earl of Liverpool, whilst he was lying on a bed of sickness. He was at a loss to conceive what ground the noble earl had for such an assertion. Could the noble earl-could any individual in that House-have forgotten, that before Christmas his noble colleague gave notice, that certain measures on the subject of the Corn-laws would be submitted to parliament by government immediately after the recess. Again, could it be forgotten, that his noble colleague, after the recess, gave notice that he would himself bring forward those measures in that House, although they would, at the same time, be submitted to the other House of Parliament an unusual course of proceeding, but one which his noble colleague adopted for the express purpose of showing that he took a deep interest in the measure that it was the result of mature reflection, and that upon it he would stake his political character. Such being the case, he was sure the noble earl would, upon consideration, regret that he had made the assertion, that the measures in question had been forced upon his noble colleague whilst he was on a bed of sickness an assertion for which he must be permitted to say there was not the slightest foundation. [The Earl of Lauderdale observed, across the table, that he had not stated the case so strongly as the noble earl put it] Having said thus much, he would shortly advert to the subject before the House. The noble earl, in the course of his speech, had gone into a variety of calculations of the rate at which grain could be imported from different places, for the purpose of showing, that the protecting duty proposed in the measure lately submitted to parliament by government, was not sufficient. He did not intend to follow the noble earl through those topics, for this plain reason that he did not mean to oppose the motion which had been submitted to their lordships. The price at which grain could be imported from Riga, Dantsic, Odessa, and other places, would be the subject of examination in the committee, which it was the object of the motion to appoint, and any discussion upon that point, at present, would be premature. He would therefore postpone any observations upon that subject until the report of the committee should be placed upon the table, and confine himself to saying a few words with respect to the general principle upon which the noble earl's reasoning on the subject of the trade in corn proceeded. The noble earl said, that the plan of graduated duties was totally new. [Lord Lauderdale said "No."] He certainly understood the noble earl to say, that the idea was new, and that in order to carry it into effect it was necessary to know the price at which grain could be brought from each of the various exporting ports. The noble earl must be perfectly aware, that in the reign of Charles the 2nd that very principle of a graduated scale of duties was established. At that time a duty was imposed upon the importation of corn up to the price of 55s.; and when that price was attained, a scale of duties was imposed, gradually diminishing as the price increased. Upon that occasion no examination was entered into, with respect to the price at which grain could be imported from the respective exporting ports. In 1776 a graduated scale of duties was imposed on the importation of grain, and then no previous examination, such as that which the noble earl declared to be necessary, took place. Before that bill passed, there had been no previous examination by a committee, of the price of grain in different ports of the continent. The principle upon which the plan proceeded was, that 17s. was a protecting duty when grain was at a certain price. It ought to be recollected, that the bill of 1822 was that measure with which the petitioners professed themselves completely satisfied; and the prayer of was struck, might have been far below it. He would not trouble the House with any further remarks at present, and should postpone what he might have to say on the importation price of grain until the report of the committee was upon the table. The Earl of Rosslyn said, that persons would be induced to suppose, from the manner in which the noble earl who had just addressed their lordships had spoken of the existing corn laws, they had been framed by individuals whom he held in little consideration, whilst, in fact, they were the work of himself and of his colleagues, and all the objections which he now urged against them had formerly been disregarded when forced upon his attention. With respect to the new system proposed by ministers, he was of opinion that it would produce a ruinous effect The Earl of Lauderdale denied, that he had asserted, that the new measure respecting the corn trade had been forced upon lord Liverpool whilst he was on a bed of sickness. All that he had done was to contrast the conduct of certain persons in one situation, and in another; and he left the House to draw what inference it pleased. That the noble earl had drawn the inference which he had stated was not his fault. If, however, he had rashly committed himself, he had nothing to do but to print his speech, according to a high example, and to leave out the objectionable passages. the landed interest was, that there should be no alteration of it. It was material, then, to inquire how it gave that ample protection to the farmer which afforded such unqualified satisfaction. He need hardly state, that the higher the price of wheat, the greater was the encouragement for importation, supposing the ports open; and that the design of the duty of 17s. was to limit and control that importation. If it were efficient for this object when wheat was at 70s., it must be still more sufficient when wheat was at 60s. Then, what was that protection? When the price of grain was above 70s. and under 80s., it might be imported at a duty of 17s. for the first three months, and whatever might be the market price during that interval. Supposing the market price during that period to be reduced to 50s., the ports would continue open notwith-upon agriculture. standing, and the only protection to the farmer would be, that the duty would remain 17s. over and above that market price of 50s. If, then, the foreign merchant, as the noble earl had asserted, could send wheat to England at 25s. per quarter, the duty of 17s. added would only make it 42s. per quarter, at a time when the market price of wheat was 50s., and the farmer was absolutely without protection, from the redundancy of foreign grain poured into the country. Yet this was the law of which the petitioners were so fond, and in which they wished to have no alteration. The noble earl had observed upon the facility with which the price of grain might be raised, so as to allow of importation. So it might be; but let the House look at the operation of such a system under the old law of 1815. Under that statute there was no graduated scale: it was an absolute prohibition under 80s. and unrestricted importation when that price had been attained. What was the protection then? If, on the average of the last three months, the price of wheat was 6d. below 80s. the ports continued closed, although it might happen that, for the last four weeks of that period, the quotation had been considerably above 80s. The interest of the factors undoubtedly was to raise the average, and of the farmer to keep it down, in order that the ports might be kept closed. If, on the average of three months, the quotation was 6d. above 80s. per quarter, the ports remained open; although the market price of grain for some time before the average Lord Redesdale expressed his objection to the measure now in progress for altering the existing laws. motion which had been submitted by his The Earl of Roseberry approved of the noble friend, although, if its object had been a more extended inquiry, he would have opposed it; because he thought the question, which was of vital importance, ought to be brought to a speedy settlement one way or another. If the new measures should be adopted, some alteration would, he thought, be necessary in the prices of barley and oats contained in the schedule on their lordships' table; otherwise the greatest distress would be occasioned in that part of the kingdom with which he formed, in Ireland also. If the prices in was connected, and, if he was rightly inthe schedule with respect to barley were not modified, the result would be destructive to agriculture in the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk, "That it is necessary to give protection to the growers of British corn against the importation of corn the produce of countries not cultivated by British subjects, nor liable to the payment of the same taxes, on a principle similar to that established by the law of 1822, until grainshall have reached, in this country, the price of Lord Bexley was desirous of contradict- | lutions at the end, and not in the begining the notion, that the new measures ning of speeches. He preferred, however, with regard to corn had been forced upon this mode of proceeding, and his resoluthe noble earl at the head of the Treasury. tion was, in substance, this :— He could take upon himself to declare, that it had been the perfect intention of that noble earl to propose the measures himself, and that they were founded on his own personal observation, and drawn up with great deliberation. At the same time, their lordships must be aware, that as the members of government were in constant communication with each other, it was almost impossible to state positively with whom any particular idea originated. He thought it was premature to discuss the subject at present, as it was possible the measure might come up from the other House in a very different shape from that in which it, at present stood. When, however, that measure should come properly before their lordships, he thought he should be able to satisfy them, that it was much more consonant with the wisdom and practice of their ancestors than the existing law. The motion was then agreed to, and a committee appointed. HOUSE OF COMMONS. Thursday, March 8. -(a price hereafter to be determined), in order to enable the British agriculturist to make his accustomed payments, and discharge his government and local taxes; to give to the consumer the prospect of a moderate price of grain during a number of years; and to Ireland and the Canadas a preference in respect of importation." He hoped that the House would do him the favour to observe that, in this resolution, he had carefully abstained from naming the specific price which it might be proper to assign with regard to the protection of the British grower. In the view which he took of the subject, he owned that he considered it pretty immaterial what that duty might be stated at hereafter; for he was satisfied that that was a matter which might be left, with far more CORN LAWS.] The Chancellor of the advantage, to be ascertained by his majesExchequer moved the order of the day, for ty's ministers, than by any hon. gentlemen the House to resolve itself into a Commit- not sitting on the same benches with them. tee on the Corn Trade Acts. On the mo- In the mean time, his clear conviction was, tion, that the Speaker do leave the chair, that no adequate protection could possibly Lord Clive rose, and addressed the be given, under the system at present proHouse to the following effect:-For a posed, to the British farmer. Let them period of nearly twenty years he had had but have a fair field given them, and the honour of giving his general support to Englishmen, in every station of life, the measures introduced by some of the whether as farmers, or as occupying any members of his majesty's present govern- other station, would always be found able ment; but, of all the occasions upon which to maintain themselves, and make good he had ever felt it his duty to dissent the ground upon which it was requisite from them, he remembered none more they should stand. But the situation we important than that upon which the House were at present proposing to take, was one was now called to go into a committee. in which it was manifest that the British He should take the liberty, at the very farmer had no chance of competing with commencement of the address which he others on equal ground. The result would proposed to deliver to the House, to read be, not to place him in competition with to them, with their permission, a Resolu- the foreign farmer (against whom the tion, which would, in the shortest and government, by imposing a duty on his clearest manner, express to them the senti-imported produce equal to the difference ments he entertained on the subject. This between the taxes on raising grain in was a course of proceeding, he was fully foreign countries, and the taxes on its aware, somewhat different from that usually pursued by hon. gentlemen, who were accustomed to propound their Reso production in this, might, perhaps, protect him, and so enable him to compete with this foreign grower), but to place him in competition with the greatest and most the principle of the proposed measure, he powerful rival in the world-the British objected still more to the time at which it capitalist. The British capitalist, under was brought forward. In 1815, the first the system lately suggested for the adop-experiment as to a change in the laws tion of parliament, would bring in, just in affecting the corn trade, was introduced. any quantities he might choose, foreign Subsequent to that experiment, there was grain, when the duty of that commodity effected a great alteration in the currency. was low, and keep it in his warehouses, In 1822, another experiment was made, until some season at which that duty should accompanied by an avowal, on the part of attain a higher rate. He had heard, this a noble friend of his, now, unfortunately very day, of a case in point. A person for the country, no more, that at some had made a large purchase of foreign future time there would be effected a furwheat, at 21s. the quarter; freight upon ther alteration in those laws. But at the this made it about 8s. more. Suppose time that the late lord Londonderry made that, between the present period, and the that declaration, he had obtained an enactcommencement of the next harvest, when ment, that the currency of the country grain, in the ordinary course of these mat- should remain on the same footing as it ters, would attain a higher rate of price then stood, until the period at which the than at other periods of the year, the price Bank charter would, by law, expire; of British corn should reach that desig-namely, the year 1833. Now, what was nated in the Resolution now under con- our present state? In the course of last sideration, of 60s. per quarter; for, with year, the government had made a great the right hon. the Secretary for Foreign alteration in the currency; the result of Affairs, he would take that as the medium which was to afflict and depress the agriprice, and he would suppose the duty of cultural interest, far more than the wildest 20s., now suggested, in operation. Under speculations which, for two or three prethese circumstances, the person alluded to ceding years, and about the same time, had would import his foreign wheat at 49s. the been indulged in, to the great injury of our quarter. Now, this being so, it would be commercial prosperity. In the mean time, morally impossible for the British farmer the effect of the measures to which he was to bring his own corn to market with the alluding, had proved most fatal to the least possible chance of sale, against the landed interest; and, though the bounty competition of foreign grain, brought into of Providence, had, some seasons before, it at so much lower a price than he could given us one of the most extraordinary manage to raise it. He entreated the harvests ever known, those measures had House to consider, what must be the con- prevented it from proving any great boon sequence of placing the British grower in to the agriculturists. Besides, last year, this predicament. If the farmer the grain harvest yielded from one-third to unable to maintain himself during any one-half less than that of the preceding long interval of time, the result of that year. Added to this, it should be rememinability would obviously be, that he must bered, that fodder, and winter stock of all endeavour to save himself, by diminishing descriptions, had fallen almost equally that produce for which he could not find short; so that this year the farmer had not a market. But this was not all. The only realized that produce in grain, which further consequence must be, first or last, he might have reasonably expected; but great suffering to the consumer. That he had been under the necessity of putting the farmer must be the first sufferer, he himself to a very great expense in order to did not at all intend to dispute; but in keep up a sufficient supply of the winter the next instance, the suffering occa- stock necessary for the maintenance of his sioned by the lowered price of corn, farm, or, in the alternative, to part with must fall on the consumer himself. his farm at a heavy loss. Two most untoBut, as he hoped, before he sat down, to ward circumstances had, therefore, opeenforce this point upon the House in rated, during the last year, on the agrilanguage much stronger than any which cultural interest. One was the steps he could himself employ, he trusted the which had been taken in respect of the House would allow him to call their atten- alteration of the currency; and the other, tion to the state in which the agricultural the deficiency of the corn crop, last year. interest of the kingdom now, in 1827,-He now came to the third step; and stood. For his own part, if he objected to how could the farmer be expected to make was by the successful results of a third. But very different was the case with the farmer, and, more especially, under a system like that now proposed to be introduced; for he could have only, at the best of times, a certain price for his produce; and, should ever the price of grain in the market exceed that stipulated sum, importation would immediately take place, and he must be exposed to the competition of immense stores of corn, raised at an expense infinitely short of that which he would be liable to, in growing the same quantity of grain. To him (lord Clive) it his payments, under such a system as this | computed how vast a supply there would third measure would introduce? while he be ready for the market. He would be would, at the same time, be doing so in glad, then, to know, what chance of prothe assurance, that it would be followed tection the British farmer would have up within twenty-two or twenty-three short against the foreign grower, under this state months, by a still further alteration of the of things? The farmer, at all times, stood currency ? If this measure was meant in a peculiar, and a very singular situation. equally to affect all classes of the agricul- If he failed at one season, he would scarcely tural interest, it would not answer its in-recover himself at another. The merchant, tention; for, how differently must it ope- on the contrary, had a chance of recoverrate on two distinct descriptions of farmers, ing himself from the losses he might exwith whom it was his fortune-his pro-perience in one or two unfortunate years, perty lying in very different parts of this country to have been connected. His own property was laid down nearly as much in grass as in grain. In the more distant counties the lands were appropriated principally to grain; nearer to the metropolis the reverse was the case; and, upon properties of many hundreds of acres, there would be frequently found on each not more than thirty acres of grain; so that the proportion of grain would, in those instances, be not more than one-tenth as to the grass. Honourable gentlemen might judge from this, how materially different the effect of such a measure as that pro-appeared impossible, but that, under the posed would be, upon the produce of a farm taken altogether as a grain farm, and the produce of lands comprising, in fact, altogether, a grass farm.-The House would now permit him to direct their attention to the present condition of the kingdom, so far as the growth of corn this season might be concerned. He believed he was correct in stating, that probably a greater breadth of wheat had been sown last autumn in this country, than had been sown here during a considerable number of years. A great additional quantity of land had been generally reserved for this pur-government somewhere about 1,000,0001. pose, with a view to remedy the deficiency per annum; for, supposing the importaof last year. If we should have a good tion of foreign grain was annually about harvest this year, the produce would, in all one million quarters, this would be the probability, prove far greater as to quan- product of a twenty shillings duty per tity than the produce of any former year, quarter on the importation. With the for a long time past. At the present prospect of so much benefit, then, to arise moment, it was generally understood, that from the measure suggested, some little between seven hundred thousand and eight attention should have been, at the same hundred thousand quarters of foreign grain time, paid to the case of the agriculturists, were lying in warehouse; and he believed who were so much the sufferers; and this he did not exaggerate in stating, that be- kind of relief might have been afforded, by tween this time and the next harvest there the repeal of one or more of the taxes would be from three hundred thousand to pressing mos heavily on that interest four hundred thousand quarters more im- [hear, hear.] If any such intention were ported into Great Britain. Add to this entertained by government, surely it would the probable produce of such a greatly in- be a boon perfectly well received by hon. creased breadth as had been sown last gentlemen in that House, and very grateseason at home, and it would be easilyful, at the same time, to the agriculturists, measures and the scale of duty now proposed to be adopted by his majesty's government, the British farmer must, in a limited number of years, be reduced to beggary. When the resolution in question was brought in, he had hoped that ministers would have accompanied it with some measure of protection to our own agriculturists; and such a protection, he could not help saying, they were, upon every principle, fairly entitled to. The result of the proposal, if it should be carried, would be to place in the hands of the |