tery of the Dead Weight, and persuaded parliament to agree to his proposition. He hoped that this mystery would be got rid of on the first opportunity. It would be no great exertion of the present parliament to grant ministers that indemnity they asked for; namely, allowing the importation of that grain which had been described as food for man in Scotland, and for horses in England, and the importation of other corn that was fit to be eaten by other animals. But he hoped the present parliament would do more than this. Parliament was, however, the slowest learner, the most backward and perverse scholar, he ever knew. It took ten years to teach it some few of the truths of political economy, of which some gentlemen even yet entertained so much dread. For two years it was drilled into, and then seemed scarcely to comprehend, the doctrine of transition from war to peace, which was frequently and forcibly inculcated on it, that it might not insist on reducing the expenditure, and that it might not suppose excessive taxation was the cause of the distress, at that time. A whole year and more it was taught without ever learning, he believed, the great truth of over-production. For a long time it listened with surprise to the great merit of digging holes and filling them up again, and then again digging holes and then refilling them. But the most difficult lesson of all, was the Canada Corn-bill, the doctrines of which many persons still refused to assent to. Then there was that other Corn-bill, which the other parliament had never comprehended, and which he hoped this parliament would. Much was said about the bad system of Eton and Westminster, where people passed ten years of their lives learning two languages; but these two languages were effectually taught; the boys did not learn much, but they did learn to read an old song. Homer and Virgil were good old songs. But the parliament, with all the teaching it got, did not learn an old song. Their lordships had heard what the last parliament had done; and he would now turn to what ministers were doing. They were learning too-they were taking lessons of the noble and learn ed lord on the woolsack, and had not done any thing. They were taking a lesson of doubting and pausing. If in riding through the country one saw an estate falling to ruin, the fences broken

down, the land over-run with weeds, the house falling to decay, there was hardly any occasion to ask the reason-that estate was in Chancery. In like manner, when the country was in a state of distress, that was because the ministers were doubting and pausing. An estate was ruined because it was in Chancery [That was when lord King was chancellor, from the lord chancellor-hear! and a laugh], and the country was involved in distress because ministers were doubting. If our intelligent artizans were emigrating, and carrying with them that knowledge which would establish manufactories in other countries, it was because ministers were pausing. If capital was driven out of the country-if profits were low-if our manufacturers could no longer compete with those of other countries-it was also because ministers were doubting and pausing. They were the most extraordinary doubters and pausers, excepting lord chancellors - whether lord chancellor King or lord chancellor Eldon-he had ever witnessed. He must say, however, in favour of the noble earl, that his delays only ruined the suitors in his court, while nothing less than the ruin of the country was caused by the doubts and pausings of ministers. It was yet doubtful whether the Corn-bill was to be a cabinet question or not; and, like the Catholic question, he believed it was not, because no measure of importance was made a cabinet question. The famous Corn-bill of 1815 was not a cabinet measure; it was got up by Irish jobbers, well seconded, indeed, by the jobbers both of England and Scotland. They fixed the importation price at eighty shillings; at which sum they, in their great mercy, would allow the people to get bread. They had not, indeed, always obtained this sum, but they intended to wring it from the people. If parliament wished to see in what light its conduct was received, let members look at the different public meetings. Their lordships and the other house of parliament were considered as a body of landlords, who had the power to make what laws they pleased, and made use of that power to levy a tax on the people. Of the other House it was said, that the country gentlemen had entered into an implied contract with ministers to support extravagant establishments, if ministers would secure them high prices. It was in this manner the parliament was spoken and thought of

in the country. In this way was the extraordinary expenditure of the government accounted for. The country gentlemen sanctioned a taxation of upwards of fifty millions a year. This was the cause why, in the twelfth year of peace, there was no reduction of the national debt; and why the peace, or rather war, establishments still cost upwards of twenty millions sterling per annum. It seemed as if the object of government was to try by experiment, not how cheaply, but how dearly and costly, government could be carried on. We enjoyed the bad preeminence of being the most taxed people, and having the most expensive government, in the world. His Majesty, though it was so generally allowed that this enormous taxation was a cause of distress, said nothing in his Speech about reducing it. The estimates were to be framed with a consideration to the exigencies of the public service, but not with any regard to the distress of the people. Under this view of the matter, he had drawn up an Amendment, which he should move should be added to the Address.-His lordship sat down with moving, that the following Amendment be added to the Address:

"We trust that a steady adherence to just and liberal principles of policy will prevent a repetition of those distresses which, in the course of the last ten years, have repeatedly and severely afflicted all classes of your Majesty's subjects.

"We have observed, with the utmost anxiety, those vicissitudes in the state and condition of the landed, commercial, and manufacturing, interests, those alternate seasons of prosperity and adversity, of a short and fallacious prosperity followed by wide-spread calamity and ruin, so unusual and so unnatural in a period of profound peace. We cannot avoid comparing the condition of all the great leading interests of the country during the last ten years of peace, and contrasting it with the uninterrupted prosperity and comfort enjoyed by all classes of our fellow-subjects during the ten years which followed the conclusion of the American war. At that period the civil and military establishments were fixed on the most economical scale of expense; the advantages of our insular situation were duly appreciated; a state of peace was then a state also of repose from unnecessary taxation; the wise economy which afforded ease to the subject, prepared, at the same time, for the government the

means of those astonishing exertions which were called forth in the course of the last war. At the present time, with a taxation exceeding fifty millions, little if any progress has been made in the reduction of the national debt; and, with a peace establishment of twenty millions, nearly quadruple that of the former peace, we fear that, from the state of our finances, this kingdom is very ill prepared to resist the aggressions of foreign states.

"During the former peace, the prohibitory system did not apply in practice to the most important article of produce-to the trade in corn. The ports of Great Britain were then constantly open to the admission of foreign wheat at a low and almost nominal duty, and at no period of our history did the landed interest, as well as the whole community, enjoy greater security and prosperity.

"The existing laws, which prohibit the importation of foreign corn, except when the price of grain shall have risen to an extravagant height in the home market, are found to be highly detrimental to the public prosperity. They cause an unnecessary waste of labour in the cultivation of poor lands; they enhance the cost of food; they diminish the profits of stock; they have a strong tendency to drive capital abroad; they are most injurious to trade, by limiting the beneficial exchange of foreign raw produce with the manufactured produce of British industry; they encourage the establishment of rival manufactures in foreign countries; and, lastly, they are unjust, inasmuch as they prevent the people from obtaining a supply of the first necessary of life at the cheapest mar ket.

"During the former peace, and until the unfortunate era of 1797, the currency of the country was in a fixed and perfect state, being composed, in a large proportion, of the lawful gold coin of the realm, in its nature not liable to excessive issues and sudden contractions. We have since endured all the evils arising from a large, and, in many instances, from an insecure circulation of paper, creating at one time, by an undue extension, an artificial and delusive prosperity, and producing at another time, most sudden and severe reverses, destructive alike to property and industry.

"In the course of ten years of uninterrupted peace, we have observed, with the utinost pain, the frequent recurrence of a

extent, and such a character, that if any administration had embodied their opinions upon them, in a Speech from the Throne, they would have justly subjected themselves to the censure of the House, for having proposed them in so exceptionable a shape, on the first day of the session, without any previous notice. With respect to the observations which had fallen from the noble earl, he could only say, that the Address did not pledge the House to any opinion of the propriety of the Order in Council, but merely to an early consideration of the propriety of that measure. It had not been the usual course to move an Address upon the Order in Council. The Order must be followed by an act of indemnity, in some degree conveying an approbation of the measure; and when that bill came regularly before the House, it would be the fit time to discuss the propriety of the measure. He admitted, however, that as soon as the Order should be laid upon the table of the House, it would be open to any member, either to move an Address upon it, or to make any other motion he might think proper. It was not necessary to say anything more on this subject, but he would remind their lordships of one fact, which ought not to be forgotten--though facts of this kind were apt to be forgotten, when a time of difficulty and danger was past-that there was about one fortnight in the course of the last summer, as alarming with respect to the produce of the earth, as any period that had ever been remembered. He did not mean to rest the propriety of the Order in Council upon that fact alone, but he begged to call to the recollection of the House what was the state of this country with respect to the crops towards the end of August, and the beginning of September, and what change took place, fortunately for this country, and still more fortunately for Ireland, in the course of the ensuing weeks. Having said thus much, it was not his intention to make any observations on what had been thrown out by the noble duke, with respect to the important subjects of the currency and the Corn-laws. From the noble duke's opinions with respect to the currency, he had the misfortune entirely to differ. This, however, was not the moment for entering into the diseussion of that subject; neither was it the time for discussing another important subject, which would require the most serious consideration of parliament; namely, the

Corn-laws. Looking to the peculiar circumstances under which parliament was assembled, and to the attendance which was to be expected at that period of the year, it certainly would not be consistent with what the government owed to the country, if, in a parliament convened in the month of November for a specific object, they were to bring forward so extensive and important a measure. He now gave notice, and he wished it to be distinctly understood, that at the earliest convenient day after the recess, it was his intention to call the attention of that House to the important subject of the Corn-laws.

The Address was then agreed to nem.

The Earl of Liverpool moved, that the noble earl who had so long acted as Chairman of their committees, with so much honour to himself, and benefit to the country, should continue to take the Chair in all committees of that House.

The Lord Chancellor said, the House fully appreciated the services of the noble earl, and no man was more sensible than himself of the able manner in which he had discharged the duties of the office.

The Earl of Shaftesbury expressed his high sense of the approbation which his endeavours to discharge faithfully the duties of the office had received from their lordships, and relied upon the indulgence and assistance of the House to enable him to deserve a continuance of that approbation.

The motion was agreed to.