said, that a petition had been put into his hands from a freeholder of the county of Surrey, and one of his own constituents, which he felt it his duty to present to the House, as he conceived that it was the duty of a member of that House to present the petition of any freeholder that might be intrusted to him, provided it was properly and respectfully worded. At the same time that he had intimated to the individual from whom this petition came, that he would present it, in conformity with that duty, he had stated most distinctly that he could not agree in its prayer? The petition came from celebrated political writer, Mr. William Cobbett; and it was dated from Barn Elms, in the country of Surrey. The petition was long, and it prayed the House to repeal the Irish Church Establishment. It went into a history of establishment, and it concluded by praying the House to repeal it. After bringing up the petition he should move to have it printed, that honourable members might, see what it was.

The petition was then brought up, and was as follows:

"To the Honourable the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in Parliament assembled;

"The Petition of William Cobbett, of Barnes in the county of Surrey,

"Most humbly Sheweth,

"That your Petitioner prays your Honourable House, that the Protestant Church of Ireland, as by law established, may be, by law, repealed and utterly abrogated and abolished, and that this prayer he founds on the facts which he, with the greatest respect, will now proceed to submit to your Honourable House:

"That, until the year 1547, the Catholic religion was the only religion known in Ireland; that after the Protestant religion was introduced into England, it was, by law, made to be the religion taught in the Churches in Ireland; that a Protestant clergy were made to supplant the clergy of the ancient religion; that the latter were turned out of the livings, and the churches; that the altars were pulled down, and the mass abolished, and the Protestant Table and Common Prayer forcibly introduced in their stead:

"That the people of Ireland saw, with great indignation, this attempt to force upon them a new and strange religion, and to compel them to abandon and to become apostates to that religion in which they had been born and bred—that religion which had been the religion of their fathers for many centuries, and the truth, purity, and wisdom of which were so clearly proved by its happy effects:

"That, therefore, the people rejected this new religion, of the origin of which, or the authority by which it was imposed on them, they had, and could have, no idea. But the government of England persisted in compelling the Irish to submit to an abandonment of the ancient, and an adoption of the new, religion:

"That, in order to effect this purpose, clergymen, to officiate in the churches of Ireland, were sent from England; and that to these the tithes and other church revenues were all transferred, leaving the Catholic clergy to beg or starve. But that such was the abhorrence which the Irish people entertained, at the thought of apostatising from their religion, that they shunned, as they would have shunned deposits of deadly pestilence, those churches to which they had before resorted with punctuality and zeal, surpassed by the people of no nation on the earth. And that, still clinging to faithful pastors, they secretly sought, in houses, in barns, in woods, in caves, amongst rocks, or in fastnesses of some sort, the comforts of that communion, to which they no longer dared to resort in open day:

"That government, irritated at this contumely, as it was called, but fidelity as it ought to have been called, resorted to means the most tyrannical, the most cruel, and even the most ferocious, in order to subdue this pious fidelity; that it in-flicked fine, imprisonment, torture, death, and sometimes two or three or all of those on the same person; it confiscated, not only innumerable estates belonging to Catholics, but whole counties at once, on the plea that this was necessary in order to plant the Protestant religion; that the lands thus confiscated were given to Protestants; and that, in reality, the former owners were extirpated, or made little better than slaves to the intruders:

"That, however, in spite of acts of tyranny, at the thought of which Nero and Caligula would have startled with horror, which acts continued to be enforced with unabated rigour for more than two hundred years; that, in spite of those acts of fining, confiscating, plundering, racking, and killing, all having in view one single object, that of compelling the people to conform to the Church as by law established; that, in spite of all theses atrocious acts, these matchless barbarities of two hundred years, the people of Ireland; though their country was frequently almost literally strewed with mangled bodies and made red with blood, adhered with unshaken fidelity to the religion of their and of our fathers; that in spite of death continually looking them in the face; in spite of prisons, racks, halters, axes and the bowel-ripping knife; in spite of all these, their faithful priests have never deserted them; and that the priests now in Ireland are the successors of thousands of heroic martyrs, many of whom were actually ripped up and cut into quarters:

"That, nevertheless, the new Church, by law established, got safely into her possession all the property that had belonged to the ancient church; that it took all the tithes, all the parsonage houses, all the glebes, all the landed estates, which in Ireland are of immense extent and value; so that Ireland exhibited, has for nearly three hundred years continue to exhibit, and still exhibits, the strange sight of an enormous rich established church nearly without flocks, and, on the other hand, an almost mendicant priesthood with flocks comprising the main part of the people; it exhibits a religious system, which takes the use of the churches from the millions, and gives it to the thousands; that takes the churches from that religion by the followers a which they were founded and endowed, and gives them to that religion, the followers of which protest against the faith of the founders and endorsers, and brand their religion as idolatrous and damnable:

"That your petitioner can form an idea of no being short of a fiend, in point of malignity and cruelty, capable of viewing such a scene without feelings of horror: and therefore he is confident that your honourable House, still, as he hopes, animated with the benevolent spirit which led to the recent enactment in favour of the persecuted Catholics will hasten to put an end to a scene so disgraceful and to injustice so flagrantly outrageous:

"That it must be manifest to every one that there could be, for giving the vast revenues of the Church of Ireland to the Protestant clergy, no ground other than that those revenues might be applied in such a manner as to cause the main body of the people to become and remain Protestants, and that, too, of the communion established by law; that those revenues, on the most moderate estimate, amount to three millions of pounds sterling a year; that several of the Irish bishops have, of late years, left, at their death, personal property exceeding; for each, two hundred thousand pounds; that the deaneries and pretends and other benefices in the church of Ireland, as by law established, are of great value; and that, your humble petitioner is sure that your honourable House will not deem him presumptuous, if he take it for granted, that your honourable House will allow, that it is impossible that any government in its senses, that any but tyrants, and mad tyrants too, would have given these immense revenues to the Protestant clergy, unless with a view and in the confident expectation of seeing the people, or a large part of them at any rate converted to the Protestant faith, and joining in the Protestant communion; for that, otherwise, it must have been evident that those immense revenues could only serve to create division, and to perpetuate all the passions hostile to the peace and prosperity of the country:

"That, however, at the end of two hundred and seventy-six years there are, in Ireland, even a less number of church Protestants than, as your humble petitioner finds good historical reason for believing, there were an hundred and eighty years ago; that it is a fact generally admitted, that the church Protestants in that country have long been, and still are, decreasing in number, compared with that of the Catholics, and also as compared with that of those Protestant sects who stand aloof from her Common Prayer and Communion; that it is an undoubted fact, that in many parishes there are scarcely any Protestants at all; that in some parishes there is not one; that throughput the whole country there is not, on an average, more than one Church Protestant to every six Catholics or Dissenters; and that, while the Catholics are shut out of the churches founded and endowed by their forefathers of the same faith, and while these churches are empty, or at best echo to the solitary voices of the stipendiary agent of the opulent and luxurious incumbent, the Catholics are compelled, either to abandon the public practice of their worship, to build chapels at their own expense, or, which they are frequently compelled to do, kneel down on the ground, and in the open air:

"That, if your honourable House will hardly be able to refrain from expressing deep indignation at the thought of a scene like this (existing apparently with your approbation), it would be presumption indeed in your humble Petitioner to attempt to estimate the feelings with which you must contemplate the present state of the Irish church, as by law established, and the present application of its prodigious revenues:

"That there are in Ireland, three thousand four hundred and three parishes: that these are moulded into five hundred and fifteen livings, and that, therefore, each parson has, on an average, the tithes and glebes of more than nine parishes; that this is not the worst, however, for that many of the livings are united, and that the whole, three thousand four hundred and three parishes are divided amongst less than three hundred and fifty parsons; that of the three thousand four hundred and three parishes, there are only one hundred and thirty-nine that have parsonage-houses, so that there is now remaining only one parsonage-house to every twenty-four parishes, and only four hundred and sixty-five that have any churches, or one church to seven parishes; and that even in these, residence of the incumbent, or even a curate, seldom takes place for many length of time; that the Church, as by law established, would seem to be merely the means of making, out of the public resources, provision for certain families and persons; that of the four archbishops and eighteen bishops of the Irish Church, as by law established, there are as your Petitioner believe, fourteen who are, by blood or marriage, related to peers; that a similar principle appears to your humble Petitioner to prevail in the filling of the other dignities and the livings; and that, therefore, the Irish Church, as by law established, really does seem to your humble Petitioner to exist for no purpose other than that off furnishing the government with the means of bestowing largesses on the aristocracy:

"That, thought this must, as your Petitioner presumes your honourable House will believe, be a great evil, it is attended with evils still greater than itself; that to expect in such a state of things, a willing payment of tithes and clerical dues would be next to a trait of madness; that the tithes are often collected by the aid of a military force: and that bloodshed is not unfrequently a circumstance in the enterprise; that, it is manifest that, if there were no military force kept up, there could be no tithes collected: and that, therefore, to the evil of the present application of the Irish Church revenues are to be added the cost and all the other evils arising from the keeping up of a great standing army in Ireland; that, besides this army, there is kept on foot an armed, and sometimes mounted, police establishment, costing immense sum annually; that it is clear, that neither army nor police would be wanted in Ireland, were it not for the existence of the Church establishment, which the Catholics and Dissenters, who from six parts out of seven of the people, must naturally, and notoriously do, detest and abhor; that, therefore, while the Irish Church, as by law established, appears to your humble Petitioner to be kept up as a source for supplying the government with the means of bestowing largesses on the aristocracy, the army and police appear to him to be required solely for the purpose of giving efficiency and permanence to that supply:

"That, hence, as your humble Petitioner firmly believes, all the discontents, all the troubles, all the poverty, nakedness, hunger, all the human degradation in Ireland; and this belief he founds upon facts which are incontrovertible:

"That, when the Reformation laid its merciless hand on Ireland, that country, blessed with a soil and climate as good as any in the world, had six hundred and forty-nine monasteries and other foundations of that nature; that it had a church in every parish, instead of having, as now, one church, on an average, to every seven parishes: that it had then a priest in every parish, who relieved the poor and repaired the church out of the tithes: that it had in the monasteries and in the bishops' palaces, so many points whence the poor the widow, the orphan, and the stranger, received relief; and that it had (greater than all the rest) unity of faith, glory to God with one voice, peace on earth, and goodwill towards men:

"That, alas! your humble petitioner need not tell your honourable House, that those have all, yea all, been swept away by the means made use of to introduce, establish, and uphold the Protestant hierarchy; that these means age still in practice, and are, in productiveness of turmoil and misery, as active and efficient as ever; and that, as long as that hierarchy shall continue to exist, the same means must, your petitioner is convinced, be employed constantly and with unabated rigour:

"That, therefore, your humble petitioner prays that your honourable House, proceeding upon the clear precedents set by former parliaments, will be pleased to pass a law to repeal, abrogate, abolish and render utterly frustrate and of no effect, the Protestant church now established by law in Ireland; that you will be pleased to cause a just distribution, in future, of the tithes and other revenues now received by that church; that, in this distribution, you will be pleased to cause to be made effectual provision for the relief of the poor; and that you will be pleased to adopt, relative to the premises, such other measures as, in your wisdom, you shall deem to be meet.—And your petitioner will ever pray."

Ordered to lie on the table and be printed.

said, he had a question to put to the right hon. Secretary for the Colonies, relative to the new settlement at the Swan River, to which he hoped to obtain a satisfactory answer, for the advantage of those who were disposed to emigrate to that Settlement. It had been stated in the public papers, that the whole of the fertile land at the Swan Rivet was granted to one person, so as to preclude the hope of those who were disposed to emigrate to that Settlement, of their being able to obtain any good land unless they obtained it by purchase from this individual. He hoped the right hon. Secretary would give such an explanation on the subject as would satisfy the House that the statements which had been made respecting this colony, as to the disposal of the land in the manner he had mentioned, were unfounded.

said, he was glad of the opportunity afforded him to give an explanation—he trusted a satisfactory one—on the subject referred to by the hon. member. The first proposal made to the government; relative to the Swan River Settlement, originated with two gentlemen who applied for a charter, and for power and liberty to form a colony, after the manner in which the formation of other colonies had taken place. This proposal, however, did not meet the approval of government, as it was deemed desirable to exercise a more immediate control over the Settlement by government, than by such an arrangement it would possess. The second proposal came from four persons of great respectability and considerable capital. They proposed to take out ten thousand persons as emigrants from this country, on government allotting them a district of the country to the extent of two millions of acres. This, however, was a larger portion of the country than government were disposed to place out of their hands, on the terms proposed to them. He (sir George Murray) did propose, however; to accept of the proposal in a modified form, and to accede to the wishes of those four individuals on limited plan. Of the four proposes, there subsequently withdrew; one, however, continued to express his willingness to abide by the offer made. That offer consisted of the allotment of two hundred and fifty thousand acres of land; and a condition was made with this person, that the grant should be situated at a considerable distance from the mouth of the Swan River, so as to leave a great extent of fertile territory for the advantage of future settlers, and as an inducement to them to emigrate thither. The statements referred to by the hon. member, which had found their way into the newspapers, were wholly unfounded. They were statements, he feared, got up by artful persons, for the purpose of preventing others from making proposals to the Colonial Department, in the hope that their own might meet with an undue preference. He was glad of the opportunity of making this explanation. At the Colonial Office the fullest information would be given, as to the circumstances in which that colony was situated, and the facilities held out to emigrants intending to settle at the Swan River.

wished to know, if any conditions were imposed on the individual to whom the grant of two hundred and fifty thousand acres was made, as to the number of emigrants who were to be taken out to it, or as to the time in which the land granted to him was to be settled?

said, that the individual who had obtained the grant had engaged to take out four hundred persons, to settle in the colony, before the 1st of November. He had also engaged, that the land granted to him should be settled within twenty-one years after the date of the grant. The usual time allowed for settling was ten years; but in the present instance, on account of the peculiar circumstances of the case, the time was extended to twenty-one years.

said, that having, formerly addressed the House at considerable length upon this subject, he should not intrude upon them for any time on the present occasion. He trusted, however, that he might be allowed to take the opportunity of re-stating a few of the objections to which the measure was obnoxious—a mea- sure, the inevitable tendency of which was, in his opinion, to destroy the Silk Trade of this country. Nor was this his single opinion: it was the general and universal feeling among the manufacturers, in all the branches of the Silk Trade. He had never been very sanguine in expecting a measure by which the difficulties under which that trade laboured would be removed; but, he confessed, that he could never have anticipated that, at the very moment when the trade was in a state of distress unparalleled, so serious a reduction of the duties by which it was protected would ever have been contemplated by government. He should not attempt to portray the dismay and consternation which pervaded all the parts of the country connected with the Silk Trade, as soon as information was received of the measure proposed by the right hon. the president of the Board of Trade. The first fruits of that measure had manifested themselves in the city which he had the honour to represent. He had already stated, that there were in that city four thousand looms out of employ. By a letter which he had received, he was informed, that one individual had declared that two hundred looms, now working for him, should cease, if the proposed measure were carried into effect. Nor would the effects of the measure be confined to Coventry; they would extend over the whole country; many masters would give up the manufactory if the bill should pass into a law. The right hon. gentleman had stated, that the causes which led to the distress of the Silk Trade were extension of the manufacture and over-trading. As to the extension of the manufacture, it was to the introduction of the new system that that extension was attributable. He adverted to the drawbacks, to an immense amount, which were allowed on manufactured goods, in consequence of which a large portion of capital was necessarily employed in the extension of this trade. As to over-trading, the French goods were brought into this country at so reduced a rate, that our manufacturers had been compelled to compete with them, by throwing an additional quantity of goods, at a low rate, into the market. But though the manufacturer might do this to a certain extent, how would the operative be enabled to exist, when he was obliged to labour fourteen hours a-day in order to produce that which formerly only required the exertion of six hours? The right hon. gentleman had observed, that the trade of Coventry had been greatly extended. He admitted that the trade was, in some degree, enlarged; but that, he believed, arose from an improvement of the machinery. Although competition might, to a certain extent, have contributed to the improvement of the Silk Trade, yet, when those gentlemen who supported the new system had deprived the country of the home-market, which these measures undoubtedly would do, it was for them to show where the manufacturer was to dispose of his commodity in its improved state. But it did surprise him very much, if an extension of the trade and over-trading were the causes of all this mischief, that the right hon. gentleman had taken such a very extraordinary remedy to cure the evil. What did he propose to do? Why, to reduce the duty on India silks to twenty per cent. This subject was discussed at the end of the last session, and it was then stated, that ship-loads of silk goods were ready to be exported to this country, the moment the duty was lowered. The other remedy was, to reduce the duty on French goods to thirty per cent. Now, he admitted that there might be considerable distress amongst the silk-manufacturers of France, but they would have the means of sending their goods to this country, and he was convinced that the influx of silk articles from India and France would plunged the trade in still greater distress, aid aggravate those evils which now raged uncontrolled. He denied that the plan now proposed would afford any relief to the manufacturers. Those who now wished to lower the duties on French silks ought to recollect, that France had never shown herself inclined to follow those principles which were laid down by the advocates of free trade. She refused to take our cutlery or woollens in exchange for her wines; and with peculiar vigilance and jealousy she prevented the raw silk of her own production, and which was better than that of Italy, to be exported here.—There was another point in the bill to which he entertained a great objection; he meant the option given to the Custom-house officer to charge either an ad valorem duty, or a duty by rate. It was too large a discretionary power with which to invest those persons; and he hoped the right hon. gentleman would reconsider it. And what was given to the silk-manufacturer in return for all the evil which the bill inflicted upon him? He was told, that the duty on thrown silk would be reduced to 3s. 6d.; making a difference of about two and a half per cent on the whole manufacture. This would ruin the throwster, while it would afford little advantage to the other manufacturer. There was another part of the bill to which he had less objection; and, indeed, he thought that, in some respects, it might be beneficial; he meant that which related to the limitation of the ports. As far as it went, that, in his opinion, would do good. But the good would be much more than counterbalanced by the great reduction of the duty. Whether an influx of foreign goods were poured in either by smuggling, or in consequence of the reduction of the duty, was the same thing to the manufacturer. There was another part of the bill on which the right hon. proposer of it had dwelt, as calculated to be of great benefit. He alluded to the drawbacks on the exportation of silk goods. But if the right hon. gentleman would consult his figures, he would see, that it was utterly impossible to expect, that, under existing circumstances, the silk manufacturer of this country could export to any amount. And what was the mighty benefit? Deducting the drawback of 3s. 6d. on thrown silk, from the 11s. which was the amount of the protection, there would still be a balance of 7s. 6d. against the silk goods of this country when exported to a foreign market.—In the course of the recent debates on this subject, some observations had fallen from several hon. members, respecting which he begged leave to say a few words. The hon. member for Dover, especially, had been very eager to lash those who differed from him on the subject. That hon. gentleman had maintained, that if the quantity of raw material imported was the same as formerly, the quantity of labour must remain the same; and he had asked, if that was the case, how the manufacturer could be said to suffer? But the hon. gentleman had forgotten, that the finer kinds of manufacture did not bear the same proportion which they formerly did to the coarser; that the coarser required a quantity of silk, which, in proportion to the quantity required for the finer, was as three to one; and that the most lucrative branch of the trade had almost entirely left us. The hon. member for Montrose had declared, that not an ounce of the raw silk could come to this country for which an equal quantity of our own manufacture was not exported. The hon. member never considered the large quantity of silk wasted in the manufacture; nor did he seem to have taken into his account the large amount of stock that was left in the hands of the merchant at the end of the year. Last year that amount was very considerable. He allowed, that there were many persons at present employed in the trade; but it was incumbent for those who insisted on that fact, to show that that employment was profitable. He believed it to be the fact, that the throwsters, seeing the situation in which they were, and having embarked large capitals in business, had worked at a rate so low as to be wholly unproductive. Many hon. members present were more acquainted than he was with that part of the trade, who would bear him out in that statement. He might go on to state still further the objections which occurred to him on the subject, but he was apprehensive of exceeding the bounds which he had prescribed to himself; and would therefore content himself with earnestly urging the right hon. gentleman to reflect on the consequences of passing this bill. He had that morning received a letter from one of the directors of the poor in the city which he had the honour to represent, stating, that the poor rates, which at the end of the last year were 4d. and 6d. in the pound, were in April 1s. He cautioned the right hon. gentleman not to reject the representations on this subject of one of the most influential and candid men in the trade. The right hon. gentleman was well aware of the character of the intelligent individual to whom he alluded, Mr. Doxat.—He had had a communication with that gentleman, who had declared to him, that the effect of the measure, if it should pass; would be the ruin of every branch of the Silk Trade. It might be prudent to consider what might be the consequence of driving so large a class of the community to desperation. There was not a more loyal, patient, and long-suffering class of persons in the country than the silk weavers had proved themselves to be. He held in his hand, however, a letler, the writer of which informed him that it had been found necessary to call in the aid of the military at Macclesfield.

The letter stated, that five thousand weavers had assembled on two successive days, that Macclesfield was no longer the same Macclesfield that it was, that the windows of the houses had been broken, and many other outrages committed, and that it had been necessary to send to Manchester for both horse and foot soldiers, in order to restore tranquility. He warned the right hon. gentleman, therefore, to ponder well before he went on with this measure. If it were pressed, it would seal the doom of thousands, who were already fallen, but who, if they saw "in the lowest depth, a lower deep, still threatening to devour them, opening wide," might be driven into a course of conduct destructive to all parties. He felt it his duty to oppose this bill, therefore, in every stage, to protest most strongly against it, and to take the sense of the House upon it; and in pursuance of that determination, he would move, as an amendment, "That this House will, upon this day six months, resolve itself into the said committee."

rose to second the amendment. The hon. member said, that if he was not deeply impressed with the importance of the subject, he should not obtrude himself upon the House after the result of the debate which had taken plebe upon this subject the other evening. The measures now proposed by his majesty's ministers would, he was convinced, be so far from affording relief to the Silk Trade, that they would aggravate all the evils under which it at present laboured. He would not trouble the House by entering into details, both because he was not competent to do so, and because all that he could state in that way had been anticipated. But he would endeavour to show, that some mistakes had found their way into the argument of the right hon. the president of the Board of Trade, and some errors into his statements. He would also endeavour to show, that the silk manufacturers and those who advocated their cause had been misunderstood and misrepresented, when it was supposed that they sought exclusive protection for themselves; protection enjoyed by no other branches of trade. In the first plate, he begged to remind the right hon. gentleman of the protection afforded to that most important branch of our trader—the agricultural. The principle had been recognized with reference to that trade, and the House had proceeded to legislate upon it. He would not then enter into any discussion on the Corn-laws, because such a discussion would be irrelevant, and because it was likely that the subject would soon come under the consideration of the House on a specific motion. His only object was, to show, that the corn of the country had received a large, positive, and bonâ fide protection by the scale of duties adopted for the purpose of preventing a large quantity of foreign corn from being brought in. The distinction between silk and agriculture was this—that, although the legislature, by the act of 1826, provided for the latter an adequate protection, that very circumstance threw the former into a state of distress; which distress the distress the proposed measure would much increase. The right hon. gentleman asserted, that one of the grounds on which he brought forward this measure was, to protect manufacturer against the smuggler. As he found that the smuggler could introduce foreign goods with a charge upon them of twenty-six per cent, the right hon. gentleman proposed, that the duty should be lowered to twenty-five per cent; that was, one per cent less than the charge under which the smuggler now ran the goods. But must it not be evident to the right hon. gentleman, that that could afford no protection to the home manufacturer? On the contrary, the argument of the right hon. gentleman went to this, "I cannot protect you against the smuggler, and, therefore, I will let the legal trader also in upon you." The right hon. gentleman was, however, quite mistaken, if he supposed this measure would prevent smuggling. The right hon. gentleman had truly stated, that there was a set of smugglers who paid insurances of twenty-six per cent to cover all the risks of their illicit trade. But there was another class of smugglers who never insured, and whose ventures, though small, in every separate transaction, amounted to a large aggregate. He (Mr. Robinson) was apprehensible, therefore, that the amount of foreign goods which had been poured into the country during the last three years, though increasing annually 120,000l., would be most destructively augmented by that bill. He contended, that there was nothing unfair or unreasonable on the part of those engaged in the Silk Trade, to ask for a prohibition of foreign goods, unpalatable as that word might sound. The manufacture of silk goods, portable and valua- able as it was; admitted of most extensive smuggling; and that circumstance, added to the right of the silk manufacturer to say, that as parliament had recognised the principle of protection in the corn trade, they were entitled to adequate protection in their trade. It was true that prohibition would not put an end to smuggling; but the facilities for smuggling were greatly increased by the difficulty of recognising and distinguishing smuggled goods, occasioned by the admission of goods legally. The right gentleman had instituted a comparison between the quantity of raw and thrown silk, imported in the five years before 1824, and the quantity imported in the five years after 1824. But that was not a fair mode of comparison, the last two years of the former of those periods being years of prohibition. The comparison ought to have been between the years 1823, 1824, and 1825, and the years 1826, 1827, and 1828. The right hon. gentleman ought also to have taken into consideration the stock of raw and thrown silk in the hands of the silk manufacturer, not manufactured, amounting to 800,000lbs. Much stress had been laid upon the number of additional spindles that had been employed. His answer to the argument was this—that the number of spindles must not be viewed as a proof of increased prosperity. Owing to the depression that had fallen upon their trade, the manufacturers found that they could not continue to employ the same number of hands constantly but aware that, if any were absolutely discharged, they must become burthensome to their parishes, the masters deemed it more advisable not to reduce the number of their workmen, but to divide the reduced quantity of employment along them, by giving to each three or four days work in the week. But the distress and suffering of those poor people did not end there; for, although their number of days' work was diminished, their hours of labour per day were increased to fourteen, and, in some instances, to sixteen, without enabling them at the same time to earn enough to support their families. The subject was one of importance, not merely as related to the silk-weavers, but as it involved the case of every labourer, of every description, in the country; and it would soon become absolutely necessary for the government to devise means for employing them. When he took that extended view of the question, he confessed he looked forward with alarm amounting almost to dismay. Here was however, in the case before the House, a specimen of that which would, he feared, very soon become general. Here were five or six hundred thousand parsons, who had contributed by their industry to the maintenance of the state, now reduced to deplorable distress, and who must be utterly ruined unless the measure proposed to be adopted should be revised. That sad conviction it was, which had induced him to enter into the subject so warmly; for he need hardly state, that he was not herself connected with the Silk Trade: but, knowing that distress almost as extreme and originating in similar causes, was experienced by his own constituents, the glove-makers of Worcester, he felt that his best mode of advancing the interests of the latter would be by discussing the principle on the question which professed to relate only to the Silk Trade.—He did not mean to enter into the subject of free trade in general. He had given to the consideration of that subject all the attention of which he was capable, and was, notwithstanding the lecture that had been read to him and others equally unskilled in the science of political economy, by the hon. member for Montrose, still of opinion that the application of that principle had been productive of, and was still calculated to produce, consequences the most deplorable. The hon. member for Montrose had attributed to him an expression which he had not used; for he had never said, as was imputed to him "thank God, I am no political economist!" He had certainly not become a master in the abstruse science of political economy; but he would assert that, to attempt to carry the principle of free trade into effect in this country, without at the same time taking into consideration the state of foreign nations, and the bearing of their condition upon the question, would be doing that which would reduce this country to a situation of distress and difficulty, for which it might be impossible to find an adequate remedy. Reference had exultingly been made to our exports, as proved by the Custom-house returns. As a man connected with trade, he felt gratified at every new proof of the extension of our commerce to every quarter of the globe; but, if hon. members mho were not equally conversant with those matters were to form their ideas of our trade and commerce by the Customhouse returns, they would be guilty of a very great mistake. After a war of long duration we were met by the competition of all the trading countries in the world. The advantages they enjoyed over us, and the consequent progress they made, were not very striking at first, but they were daily supplanting us in other foreign markets, and meant to exclude us from their own. Was it not, therefore, important to know whether it was intended by government to abandon those of our own fellow-subjects and countrymen, who had embarked large capitals in manufacture to the almost unlimited competition of foreigners, who in their own country possessed advantages from which the British manufacturer was excluded? Had government, he would ask, any measure to bring forward in addition to the present for providing occupation for the capital, the machinery, and the hands that would be thrown out of employment; or were the manufacturers to be left only to the protection of a duty, which would enable an importer to bring foreign goods into this country, at a price a mere shade higher than the smuggler? thus leaving the supply of the home market to those two classes—importers and smugglers. It had been said, by hon. members who took a view of the question differently from his, that other manufactures had suffered as well as the Silk Trade, and that therefore it might be argued, that it was the measure of 1826 that had produced all that distress. He had never said that it had; but he had always said, and would still assert, that that measure had greatly increased that distress. The reason why those concerned in the cotton, woollen, and iron trades, had not come forward to complain of the act of 1826, was, that they had not been exposed to foreign competition, and were therefore suffering from causes beyond the reach of government, and were content to wait the occurrence of something in the chapter of accidents for their benefit. The silk manufacturers would, he was sure, have done the same were they similarly circumstanced. It was truly said, that over-trading had taken place; and the remedy for existing distress was a recommendation to cease from manufacturing; but he would say, cease at the same time from foreign importation; for if that were not done the foreigner, and not the home manufacturer, would derive benefit from a cessation of production. The foreigner had over-traded as well as the British manufacturer, and would, immediately, upon our refraining from work, send over the stocks which had so largely accumulated at Lyons and elsewhere. To cease from manufacturing would, therefore, while it enriched the foreigner, be of no benefit to the British manufacturer and throwster, nor to any of the distressed persons wholly employed by them. He thought that the great degree to which distress had reached since 1826 was a circumstance sufficiently strong to induce the House to take the subject into consideration. We were told, when the measure of 1826 was brought forward, that it would be productive of relief to the country, then very much distressed. The right hon. gentleman, the member for Inverness, stated, at the same time, that if the distress should continue then there would be a fair case for coming to parliament for relief; but he could prove that that distress had not only continued, but that manufacturing property all over the country was nearly annihilated, and that the weavers of the metropolis and elsewhere were reduced to a state of suffering, the description of which would harrow up the soul. He would not attempt to enter upon the melancholy detail, for he believed that his majesty's government were aware of it, although they took a different view of the cause. It was material that the House should bear in mind the delusive hopes that had been held, when the measure of 1826 was brought forward. Now, we were told, that the reciprocity, then so much relied on by anticipation, was of no consequence; and the hon. member for Montrose had even said, "Buy as much foreign produce and manufactures, and as cheaply as you can, and you will be a gainer by it." He denied the correctness of that conclusion, for he was convinced, that both the importers and consumers would, by and by, place the country in a most dangerous position. If the hon. members who so strenuously supported the principle of free trade in every thing but corn—if they, protected as they were by the act of last session, imagined that the other interests would continue to struggle with difficulty and distress without any effort at relief, they were much mistaken; for it was quite impossible that the country could go on, unless an equal degree of protection were extended to all classes. A proposition had been made to establish a minimum price for labour. A very unreasonable proposition certainly; and only to be defended by reference to the minimum that had been fixed in the price of corn. He should lament the downfall of the agricultural interests; but he thought there was no reason why the other great interests of the country should be sacrificed to them, until distress and pauperism should go on increasing to a point that would compel the landed interest to come forward to their relief; but the landed interest might not be able to give such relief, and then another party—the chancellor of the Exchequer—might come down to the House also and say, that he was unable to raise the revenue necessary to meet the expenses of the country.—He was not inclined to take an unfavorable view of our position; on the contrary, he thought the resources of the empire were almost inexhaustible; but he feared that, if foreign competition were unshackled, our resources would not prove to be unbounded. The most gloomy reports respecting the situation of the country were in circulation. The trade of the country was, on the other hand, represented as not having greatly fallen off; but every man knew that the amount of our exports did not prove prosperity; for it was well known that when demand had ceased at home—when our warehouses were overstocked—that large quantities of goods were shipped for other markets, and in many instances, from the failure of purchasers and the low prices, the articles bought caused the ruin of the exporters. To contend that exportation of that nature proved prosperity was as absurd as to argue that because a man spent a great deal of money he must therefore have a large fortune.—The hon. member here read an extract from a speech delivered by lord Goderich in 1824, in which the principle of free trade was advocated, principally on the ground of anticipated reciprocity. He believed that in his anticipations and predictions lord Goderich had been sincere; but like the predictions of many other well-meaning men, those of the noble lord had been completely falsified. The hon. member here briefly recapitulated the leading points of his speech, hoping that he had convinced the House of the necessity for considering the question with a view to retrace their steps. An hon. baronet opposite had, on a former occasion, asked his reason for objecting to the prin- ciple of free trade. He replied that, as one instance of its mischievous tendency, it would, by allowing the importation of foreign gloves, drive those made at home out of the market. "No matter," said the hon. baronet, "for if the persons who now made gloves cannot find employment in that line, they will turn their hands to something else." But, from the redundancy of labourers in every branch, no such resource now offered itself. Where was the unfortunate silk manufacturer, for example, to find employment? His only chance was the poor-house; and probably many of them would be driven to depredation and crime. The sufferings, the patience, and the endurance of those parties entitled them to the consideration of the House. If permitted to sink, it would be never to rise again. He should conclude his appeal on their behalf by recalling to the recollection of honourable members the well-known lines of the poet:—

"Princes and lords may flourish and may fade,

A breath can make them as a breath has made;

But a bold peasantry, a country's pride,

When once destroyed can never be supplied."

said, that the House had not to meet merely the necessity of the day, but a great and growing evil. The country had witnessed Finance Committee, and every variety of scheme, and yet not one of the advocates of free trade had been able to point out a remedy for the evil which all acknowledged to exist. The manufacturers had had a very severe and cruel experiment tried on them, and the government had taken the very worst direction, by beginning with the Silk Trade. They had been told, that the silk traders were not only to compete with foreigners, but were to run the brightest career of success. Had these predictions been realized? The petitioners had told the House, that the markets were glutted, that their men were out of employ, and that their machines were ruined. What had the House said in reply? "Your want protection—have you not got it to the extent of thirty per cent?—we will reduce it to twenty five." Another large body of silk manufacturers had told the House, that they could not even proceed with the protection of 5s., and the House had immediately cut them down to 3s. 6d. When the House was convinced of over-trading and over-stocked markets, they had introduced the competition of East India goods on a reduction from fifty or sixty per cent to twenty. The measure would not prevent smuggling. The present system established what was equivalent to a system of bounties and drawbacks which would be subject to frauds and litigations. It was buying a free trade with one hand and ruining it with the other. Persons had said, that, but for the present system the distress would have been greater. He knew that the cotton trade had felt equal depression. Formerly he had given 6s. 8s. or 10s. a yard for fine cotton manufactures, not weighing, perhaps, a few ounces, and now he could buy a yard of such goods for a shilling. In 1826, he and other traders had lost more, than they had accumulated in the seven preceding years. He maintained that, within the period to which he alluded, there had been a fall of twenty-five per cent in the trade, which in the whole, made a reduction of six millions. This was what had been termed a "revulsion" in the trade. It was indeed a revulsion, of the effects, of which the trade had not got rid up to the present hour. There was no member of that House, who was not fully aware of the distress to which this great branch of the trade of the country had been reduced. He had been in business in 1792, and was old enough to remember that men, who were then worth from 50,000l. to 60,000l. have been ruined by the present system of "free trade" in silk. It might be said, that this arose from over speculation. It was true that there always had been speculation and it was wholesome and good for trade that it should be so. Such speculations were as necessary and productive to trade, as hurricanes and storms were to the purification of the atmosphere. But this was not a measure to cure the evil complained of. Was it then, he would ask, fair for hon. gentlemen to come down to that House, and tell them, that from 1816 to 1828, the Silk Trade had been increasing? He would tell the House the manner in which that apparent increase had been made out. There had been for some time a transfer from the fine fancy muslins to the Silk Trade, the hands formerly employed at the muslins, were engaged upon the manufacture of coarser silks, such as Bandanas. He himself had never been engaged in the Silk Trade, but he knew enough of it, through persons engaged in it, to say that it had been most unfairly and cruelly treated in that House. Hon. members must be aware, that if a shop for the sale of English silks were opened, and a shop for the sale of French silks were to be opened close to it, the latter, though selling twenty per cent higher, would be surrounded with carriages, while the former would, remain neglected. He maintained, then, that it was not fair thus to throw open the trade in silk, without considering the interests of those who had large capitals at stake, as well as the thousands of more humble individuals who lived by their labour in it. He had never before heard of a statesman who proposed the free admission of foreign goods into this country without restriction, while our own manufacturers were unemployed and pining in want and that without the slightest equivalent. It had been truly observed, that labour was property, and, according to Mr. Pitt, three-fifths of the labour of each individual found its way into the Exchequer. Were we, then, to allow foreigners to partake of such portion of our labours, as would otherwise conduce to the service of the state? Upon former discussions of this question it was usual to find the House crowded; but he was sorry that upon the present occasion, they were called upon to discuss a bill respecting it, he might say, to empty benches. It was a question which affected alike the agriculturist and the manufactures. The word "prohibition" seemed to affright hon. members on the other side of the House; they pronounced it so softly, that one would imagine they shrunk from the sound and had a horror of it. But he would boldly and fearlessly say, that there must be a prohibition, or else taxation could not go on. He would take one instance, in which the value and consumption had decreased. A duty of 3½d. per yard was imposed upon printed calicoes. Formerly that article sold at 3s. per yard, now they sold at 1s. per yard; so that a servant girl who paid 6s. or 7s. for her garment, paid to government a tax of 2s. According to the statement of the right hon. gentleman over the way, there had been a rise of twenty per cent in woollens. Now if a tradesman obtained five per cent profit, he made 10l. upon the sale of 200l. worth of goods; but if that 200l. worth of goods were reduced in value to 100l., then, instead of 5 per cent, he only received 2½ per cent; and thus he must work twice as hard, and force his goods down people's throats, in order to gain a livelihood. He was, as much as any man, a friend to free trade, such as he understood it to be. He considered free trade to be the export of the surplus of this country, in order to obtain the surplus of another country, of which we stood in need. This interchange of commodities he considered for the benefit, of both. But if France, or any other country, would not agree to act upon the same system why should England determine to do so? They had been told, that a free trade ought to exist; and that if those persons now engaged in the Silk Trade could not carry it on with profit, they must turn their capital into some other channel. This might do very well when the trade was first introduced, but it was rather too late, after the fostering care and protection which had been extended to it, to turn round and tell the parties, that they should no longer be protected or encouraged but must shift for themselves. He contended, that the average of imports as referred to in 1826, was most unfair, as the greater part of the silk imported from Bengal came without being thrown. The right hon. gentlemen over the way had told the House that the best criterion prosperity was consumption; but in his calculation he had omitted some material articles in which consumption had decreased—they were the fallowing:—In 1824 and 1825 the increase in the consumption of beer was seven hundred, and ninety thousand barrels. In 1826 and 1827 there was a decrease of seven hundred and twenty-nine thousand one hundred and seventy-eight barrels. In 1827 a decrease in British spirits of two and a half millions of gallons. In rum of a million gallons. In brandy one hundred and eighty thousand gallons. In sugar of about two and fifty thousand cwt., there had been this year an increase of about one hundred thousand barrels of beer; an increase in coffee, owing to a fall in price from 100s. to 40s.; in cotton wool, to a fall of fifty per cent; and an increase in sugar.

There had been a fall of sixty pre cent in sheep's wool. The right hon. gentleman had told them, that there had been an increase of exports to the amount of twelve millions within the last year; but how did he make good that statement? Why, he did so by stating the official value of the articles, whereas in fact the real value was sixteen millions less. The House might not, perhaps, understand the difference between the official and the declared value of merchandise [hear! and laugh]. In the year 1814, both were alike; nay, there were some instances in which the declared value of articles was double the official value; and others, in which it exceeded it by more than one half. In 1816, the export of cotton was sixteen millions; in 1817, twelve millions; but during the five before 1828, it was ten millions; and in the last year it was under that sum. In 1816, the official value of cotton exported was 21,000,000l.; the declared value was 16,000,000l.; In 1826, the official value of exports was 26,000,000l.; the declared value was 16,000,000l. In 1827, the official value of exports was 21,000,000l.; the declared value was 10,000,000l. In 1828, the official value of exports was 29,000,000l.; the declared value was 13,000,000l. After this statement, taken from official documents, what must the House think, were they to let the unfortunate persons, engaged to be allowed to perish? No; they must supported, either by trade or by the country, even though they should be employed to dig holes and fill them up again.—But they had been told that a free trade would benefit the shipping interest, inasmuch as if we imported 2,000,000l. of merchandize, we should in turn, export 2,000,000l. of our own produce. But was such the fact? He defied the right hon. gentleman to prove it. Again, they had been told, that there had been an increase of exports of our manufactures within the last four years. But how stood the fact? The exports of the manufactures and produce of the United Kingdom, with the official and declared or real value, for the last four years, were as follow:—

So that it appeared, by the above statement, that the real value of the goods exported was about sixteen millions below the official value; that the exports of 1826 were to a less amount than those of 1825 by nearly seven and a half millions; those of 1827 more than a million and half less than those of 1825; and those of 1828 more than two millions less than those of 1825; making together a falling off in our export trade for the last three years of more than eleven millions; when a very large increase ought to have been expected, in consequence of our large importations of corn and foreign silks, wines, and other articles. The fact was, that in making such regulations, we must yield to circumstances—we must be regulated by the conduct of other states towards us. He would, with the leave of the House, read an extract or two from the speeches of some of our greatest statesmen upon this subject. The late marquis of Lansdowne, in speaking upon the subject, said—"Our manufactures are transitory and fleeting. The productions of France positive and eternal; they remained as long as the earth continued. Ought we not, therefore, to receive something in exchange? Theirs are luxuries, ours are necessaries, and we have a right to expect an equivalent." The late Mr. Fox, speaking on the same subject, said,—"With respect to the equivalent which we were to have for the reduction of the duties on French wines, so as to admit them more freely into our ports, he wished to know what article had we the privilege of exporting into France? He knew of none. It appeared to him, therefore, an advantage given to France without an equivalent." In his opinion, the principle of free trade ought to be acted upon by our neighbours as well as ourselves; that there ought, in fact, to be a complete reciprocity before we established it as the rule for the foreign commerce of this country. Even the most speculative writers on political economy had not said, that we ought to take from other countries without their taking our manufactures in return; and yet ministers said now, that they would allow free importation, though they acknowledged the market to be over-stocked. Our manufactories would stand still. Disguise the matter as they would, "to that complexion it would come at last." Adam Smith had said. "The silk, perhaps, is the only manufacture which would suffer the most by this freedom of trade. Humanity may require that the freedom of trade should be restored only by slow gradations, and with a good deal of reserve, and circumspection. Were those high duties and prohibitions taken away all at once, cheaper foreign goods might be poured so fast into the home market as to deprive all at once many thousands of our people of their ordinary employment and means of subsistence. Changes should be made slowly, gra- dually, and after a very long warning." Another remark here presented itself, and that was, the view taken by foreigners of our free-trade system; and to show what that view was, he would quote the words used by the director of the French customs to the British minister, on his application for a reduction of duties, pari passu with that of Great Britain; the French director of the customs, Monsieur de St. Criq, sagaciously replied "the system adopted by England is admirable, because it endangers none of her manufactures; and we, when we are as forward as England, will be as liberal; but until then we must stand fast by our prohibitory system."—He would now beg the attention of the House to a few observations made by Mr. Pitt, who seemed to him to have taken a very correct view of the subject: "He conceived they were empowered to preserve all the prohibitions which they might think it wise to continue: he knew not of any possibility of sending the wool, the fuller's earth, or the tools of the manufacturers, out of the kingdom. It was ridiculous to imagine France would consent to yield advantages without an idea of return. She gained for her wines and other produce an opulent market; we did the same to a greater degree. France gained a market for her produce, which employed, in preparation, but few hands, gave little encouragement to its navigation, and produced but little to the state: we gained a market for our manufactures, which employed many hundreds of thousands in collecting materials from every corner of the world, advanced out maritime strength, and which, in all its combinations, and every, article and stage of its progress, contributed largely to the state. The high price of labour in England arose chiefly from the Excise and three-fifths of the price of labour were said to come into the Exchequer. It was the nature and essence of an agreement between a manufacturing country, and a country blessed with peculiar productions, that the advantages must terminate in favour of the former; but it was peculiarly fitted for both connexions. France was, by the peculiar dispensation of Providence, gifted, perhaps, more than any other country upon earth, in what made life desirable in point of soil, climate, and natural productions. It had most fertile vineyards, and the richest harvests. The greatest luxuries of man were produced at little cost, and at moderate labour. Britain was not thus blest by nature; but, on the contrary, it possessed, through the happy freedom of its constitution, and equal energy of its laws, an energy in its enterprises, and a stability in its exertions, which had gradually raised it to a state of commercial grandeur; and not being so bountifully gifted by Heaven, it had recourse to labour and art, by which it had acquired the ability of supplying its neighbour with all the necessary embellishments of life, in exchange for her natural luxuries." He grounded himself upon the authority of Mr. Pitt, when he described the majority of the Excise as coming from the lower class of the people. Had he said so of his own authority, he might have been accused of being a Jacobin or a Radical; but, of course, upon such authority he should pass uncontra-dicted. He urged the House to pause before they determined on adhering to a system that would go to destroy the home trade—a trade which was of much more importance than the foreign trade to this country. He had no personal motive in his present opposition to the government; but he trusted that, unless they were convinced, beyond the possibility of doubt, of the necessity of this measure, they would not obstinately go through with it. He did not wish to see any thing done by the present ministry that would provoke opposition to them; but he must say, that he thought the course they were now pursuing was not one calculated to benefit the country.

rose and said: before I proceed, Sir, to make any observations upon what has been said by the hon. members who have spoken in this debate, I wish to express the great satisfaction I derived from hearing it announced by his majesty's ministers, that it was their intention to pursue that course of commercial policy which was recommended to parliament in the year 1824 and 1825, as being, in my opinion, absolutely necessary to prevent the most serious evils to our trade and revenue. What was said by the Vice President of the Board of Trade, about a sheet of white paper, was certainly sufficient to occasion some apprehension of a recurrence to exploded and ruinous prohibitions and monopolies; although I could not bring myself to believe, from the acquaintance I had with the knowledge of my right hon. friend the President of the Board of Trade, on these subjects, that he would take any other course than that which he has on this occasion adopted. I cannot help feeling that the silk manufacturers treat my right hon. friend and his majesty's ministers very unfairly, and take a very incorrect view of the question, in always assuming that there is no other party to it but themselves and the government, and in blaming government alone for the reduction of the protecting duties. The House of Commons and the public are also parties to it, and responsible for the charges which are made, and, in point of fact, it is evident from the late division, that ministers are doing no more than following the opinion of an immense majority of this House, and, I may add, of all intelligent persons out of it, in proposing a further relaxation in the restrictions upon the use of foreign silk goods.

With respect to the changes which were made in our commercial system about the years 1824 and 1825, I believe they had become absolutely necessary, in order to enable us to maintain our situation in competition with other commercial countries; and that unless we had relaxed the numerous restrictions, on trade there would have existed a most injurious obstruction in the way of the employment of capital, and of the future accumulation of national wealth. It was for these reasons that what is commonly, but incorrectly, called free trade, was adopted, and not, as the hon. member for Worcester seems to suppose, as a matter of fancy or fashion, or from some sort of unintelligible predilection for legislating on an abstract principle of trade. In point of fact, great difficulties existed in the way of finding employment for capital, and it became necessary to remove restrictions, in order to extend the means of investing it in industrious occupations.

With respect to this so much abused and so misnamed free trade, nothing can be more groundless than the charges which are so profusely brought against the authors of it; because, in point of fact, no such thing exists as free trade. The whole of the alterations which have been made in our laws concerning trade and manufactures, are no more than a very slight modification of the old system, and merely the first steps towards a freer system. When the right hon. member for Liverpool brought forward his measures in, 1825, I felt it my duty to state in this House, that the whole amount of the change was little more than substituting prohibitory duties in the stead of absolute prohibition; and I have been able to establish the general accuracy of this statement, by moving for accounts, shewing the quantities of foreign goods imported in the year preceding 1825, and in each of the years which have followed it: these accounts shew, that in almost every case, the quantities imported since the change have been very small. In point of fact, the Statute-book is still full of every kind of legislative restriction on trade; there are not only the almost prohibitory duties on foreign goods of every kind where there is a possibility of competition with our own; but there still remains much of restriction in our new navigation and colonial laws, and there is the East India Company's monopoly, the Bank monopoly, and the Usury laws. The hon. member for Newark has attempted to decry the change in our commercial system, by calling it the work of the theorists, but in doing so, he has shewn himself but little acquainted with the facts of the case; for if ever there were legislative measures that originated wholly with practical men, the measures which were adopted between 1821 and 1825 are those measures. They originated with the petitions of the merchants of London and Glasgow, and with the reports of committees of both Houses of Parliament, founded upon the evidence of merchants and manufacturers, and drawn up after the most cautious and deliberate consideration.

The noble lord who was Chairman of the Foreign Trade Committee, and who has so large a share of merit in reforming our commercial system, was, I know, led to recommend the relaxation of our restrictive system, wholly by a conviction arising from the facts which were brought before the committee, of the necessity of seeking to relieve the country from the difficulties of finding employment for its abundant and increasing capital; and therefore, in whatever way this question of free trade is examined, whether as to its origin, or as to the extent to which it has been carried, it is manifest how utterly groundless all that declamation is with which the hon. member for Newark, and other hon. members, load their speeches, with the view of holding it up as the cause of universal distress and ruin. The worthy alderman has discovered, that the country has been in a state of continually increasing distress since 1816, and says nothing has yet been done to apply a remedy. But he has assumed as a principle that all commercial prosperity and distress depend wholly on government and legislation, and in no degree on the individuals who are carrying on trade. But nothing can be more mistaken than such a notion; for the more the real facts connected with the trade of this country are examined into since 1816, the more clear it will appear, that every case of commercial distress has been the result of the erroneous speculations and over-trading of persons in trade. The evils the worthy alderman complains of have been wholly of their own creating; and this is the reason why it has been utterly impossible for government or for parliament to provide a remedy for them. As to the continually increasing distress of the country since 1816, as stated by the worthy alderman, there has been no such state of things. There have been occasional instances of very great distress, but intervening periods of great prosperity have occurred; and, as the result of the whole, it is impossible to deny, that the country has made a great progress in improvement, and in wealth; a fact testified, on every side, by all those indications which serve to denote a flourishing and improving country. The admission made by hon. members, that the consumption of the country has greatly increased, is alone sufficient to prove that, however great the distress of some branches of trade now is, there is nothing of a permanent character belonging to it; because, as the prosperity of all trades depends on the extent of demand, when this is great and established, all that is wanting to remove distress, is such an adjustment of the proportion of the supply of commodities to the demand for them, as it is in the power of the producers of them to bring about, by diminishing the extent of their operations. With respect to the silk-manufacturer, there can be no doubt that this proportion will soon be established.

After giving the best attention in my power to the arguments which hon. members have advanced, with the view of attempting to shew that the silk manufacture must be destroyed and lost to this country, it appears to me that they have wholly failed in making out their case. The debate of the two former evenings seems to me to have demonstrated, in the most conclusive manner, first, that the distress of the Silk Trade is not in any degree owing to the redaction of the duties; secondly, that it is owing to the over-trading of the manufacturers themselves. These conclusions seem to me to be so completely established by the fact of the greatly-increased importation of raw silk, as to make it unnecessary to say any thing more about them. But there remains a question of very great importance to be examined, and that is, what has been the cause of this over-trading? for, unless we form an accurate opinion upon this point, we shall inevitably commit some great error in framing the provisions of the bill for imposing a new scale of duties. It is by referring to the facts connected with the Silk Trade of 1824, that we shall be able to discover what this cause was. In that year the duty on thrown silk was reduced to 7s. 6d. per pound, and a duty of thirty per cent was imposed on foreign silk goods; but at the moment that these changes were making, the manufacturers increased their business by importing, in that year, upwards of a million and a half pounds of thrown and raw silk more than they imported in 1823; and they have gone on continuing this increased rate of importation up to the present time. The proper and only inference to be drawn from these facts is, in my opinion, that they were induced to enter into this speculation of increased importation by the high protection which was afforded them by the duty of thirty per cent. They knew very well that this duty, together with the charges on the carriage of foreign goods, would effectually protect them from a competition of any extent with foreign manufacturers; and, trusting to this protection, they felt no doubt that their speculations; in so greatly increasing their trade, would be followed with great advantage to them. Hence it would appear that the great error of giving so high a protection in 1824, is what has led to that over-trading which has been going on ever since that year, and to the distress which exists at the present moment. If, therefore, we now continue high duties in the new bill, we shall certainly prolong the evil, and lay the grounds for renewed over-trading and renewed distress, even though the present distress should be, for a time, removed. The fact is, that the manufacturers have committed a great error in imagining that all they had to fear was foreign competition, and in failing to take into considera- tion the home competition among themselves; and have in this instance displayed, as practical men are in the constant habit of doing, their little acquaintance with the principles which govern their own particular trades.

The accuracy of the reasoning I have now employed, will strike every member who hears me, when I ask whether it is not quite certain, that, if it had been provided, instead of the permanent duties of 1824, that they should be temporary, so that the duty on thrown silk should cease, and the duty on goods be reduced to ten per cent in 1829, no such increase in the importation of thrown and raw silk would have taken place, as has taken place? Such a provision would, unquestionably, have checked speculation, and the distress which now exists would not have occurred. The facts of the case so entirely justify this conclusion, that I think no demonstration of a proposition can be more complete than this is, and I call on those gentlemen, who are so ready to cry down those members who attempt to throw light on subjects of this kind, with the aid of strict reasoning from facts, to point out, if they can, in what particular this reasoning, and the conclusion arrived at, are incorrect. But if they cannot refute it, I have, then, not only explained what the cause of over-trading and distress has been, but I have established a proof which shews, that the proper course of legislation, at this moment, is to do away with all protection. I do not, however, wish to carry this reasoning so far as to require all protection to be immediately taken off; on the contrary, I think the scale of reduction of duties, which the President of the Board of Trade has proposed, is a good plan to begin with; but I am at the same time prepared to say, that if he has proposed it as a permanent scale, the House ought not to agree to it. What we ought to do is, to introduce a clause into the bill, to provide that at an early period the duty on thrown silk shall cease, and the duty on foreign goods be reduced to ten or twelve per cent, and this duty to be kept up without any view to protection, but merely as a tax for the sake of obtaining revenue. Nothing can be a fairer subject of taxation than foreign silk goods; but the duty, in order to be productive, should be so fixed, as not much to obstruct the importation of them. Without such a clause as I have now proposed, the manufacturers will still be induced to embark in erroneous speculations, under the confidence of being protected from foreign competition, and the trade will be again exposed to a glut, and distress.

My right hon. friend, when explaining the principle on which he proposed a duty of twenty-five per cent, said, that the protection which ought to be given was, the highest duty that could be collected without the risk of encouraging smuggling. If he meant to say, that this was to be the duty for the moment, and not a fixed duty founded on the supposed advantages of protection, I have no fault to find with his principle. But if he meant to assume, that protection was a sound measure under any circumstances, then I entirely differ with him; because I am ready to show, that protection can in no case be given without injury, not only to the public at large, but to the particular trade in favour of which it is granted. This is the opinion which the House ought to avow and act upon, for until it does so, our trade and manufactures never will be in a sound state; and we shall be perpetually subject to be appealed to to relieve commercial distress, arising from those derangements which protection inevitably produces.

The worthy alderman has quoted the work of Adam Smith, to shew that he advocated protection; but he has not understood the paragraphs which he read to the House. What Adam Smith says, with regard to the silk manufacture is, that as that manufacture has been the most protected, it ought to be one of the last to be deprived of protection; and that when protection is taken off, it ought to be done cautiously and gradually. So far from being the advocate of protection, there is no part in his whole work so ably demonstrated as the impolicy of all protection; and instead of being an authority in favour of the opinions of the worthy alderman, his whole weight is directly contrary to them.

As the full explanation of the injurious effects of protection to the public interests would require a detailed inquiry into the employment of capital, the nature of profits, of productions, and of the accumulation of national wealth, it is a matter almost impossible to be entered upon in a debate in this House, because a speech on those subjects would be what many members would not be disposed to listen to, and too much like a lecture on political economy. But, before hon. members pronounce such decided opinions in favour of the absolute necessity of protection, to save our manufactures from ruin, they ought to make themselves better acquainted with those authors who have expounded the evils that result from it.

With respect to the silk manufacture, there can be no doubt, in the mind of any man at all acquainted with sound principles of trade, that if the legislature had never meddled with it, either in giving protection to it, or in taxing it, it would have taken root in this country, and been carried to a much greater extent than now exists. The demand on the part of the public for silk goods would have been greater than it has been, because they would have been cheaper and better; and this would have set in motion the capital, skill, and machinery of the country, much more effectually in carrying on this trade, if it had been left alone, than they have been under the system of high prices and bad goods, which has been the consequence of protection.

In point of fact, all that is now wanting to secure the future prosperity of this trade is the complete freedom of it. There does not exist, in reality, any grounds for fearing the most unlimited competition with foreigners, whether with respect to the raw material, to machinery, or even to the price of labour. Honourable members are carried away from forming correct opinions on these matters by the statements of the manufacturers; but these are greatly exaggerated, and, in many instances, I can say, from my own knowledge, false; and, as they come from interested parties, they ought always to be received with suspicion. How little reliance ought to be placed on such statements is proved by the fact, that when, in 1824, the manufacturers were telling the House their trade would be ruined under a duty of thirty per cent, they were occupied in increasing the importation of raw materials in order to extend it.

With respect to the price of labour, it is not true that France has any advantage over this country; all experience proves that low-priced labour is, in the end, dear labour to those who pay for it. Let the money paid in England to a workman, the number of hours he works, the constancy of his working, and the skill with which he works,—be compared with the money paid in France to a workman, and to the hours he works, his constancy at work, and his skill,—and the result will be a clear demonstration that the labour of the English workman comes, in the end, cheapest to the employer of it. It is not, however, a correct way of arguing this point to look only to the price of labour, in contrasting the cost of it in England and France; other circumstances, such as capital and machinery, ought to be brought into the account; and as we have the advantages in these respects, they serve to counteract the effects of high wages. The extent of our capital directly leads to that division of labour, which makes it so much more productive than it is where, for want of capital, this principle is of little avail. It is also necessary to bear in mind, that high wages do not add to the price of productions, but lower profits in capital.

The superiority of our cotton manufacture over that of all other nations, is a case conclusive against the notion of the advantage of low-priced labour. On more occasions than one, witnesses of great practical authority have stated in evidence, before committees of this House, that if the trade between England and Ireland was made free, the manufactures of England would be transplanted to Ireland; but no such consequence has followed the measures passed a few years ago, for the making, of this trade free. The worthy alderman has discovered, that the Excise is the cause of the high price of labour; but a better acquaintance with those principles he is so ready to decry, would have taught him, that great national wealth is the true and only cause of high wages; that high wages lead to those habits of living among the labouring class, that the smaller luxuries become necessaries, and that this wealth which occasions high wages, affords the means to a country to contend successfully against those countries which have low-priced labour. As, therefore, all the facts belonging to this important branch of trade establish a demonstration, which cannot be shaken, that it would not be injured by the freest foreign competition; and as the House has given so decided a support to the measures, which my right hon. friend has recommended to it to adopt, I hope he will be induced to continue to act with the same courage and sincerity he has begun with, and with full confidence in his own opinions and views concerning our com- mercial affairs; and that, with respect to the present question, he will not stop till he has wholly removed all the protecting duties. For, after the experience we have had of their effects on the Silk Trade, we may feel assured, that, so long as they remain, we shall have the master manufacturers, from time to time, embarking in erroneous speculations, and involving their workmen in similar distress and misery to that which now overwhelms them.

rose and said:—I listen, Sir, in this House, at all times, with distrust and suspicion, when gentlemen indulge themselves in dissertations, such as the House has just heard from the hon. baronet (sir H. Parnell) upon the folly, mistakes, and speculations, of manufacturers and merchants. In my mind, those classes of persons are as well informed respecting their own interests, as the hon. baronet is likely to be; and I think he would have occupied the time of the House much more advantageously than he has now done, if he had directed our attention to a review of the character of our own recent proceedings, instead of giving us a lecture on the ignorance and incompetence of the trading community, as displayed in the conduct of their own affairs. According to the hon. baronet, the Silk Trade has been ruined by the ignorance of those whose fortunes are embarked in carrying it on. I ascribe that ruin, to the ignorance of those who have been occupied in making laws for its regulation. The Silk Trade (says the hon. baronet) has been ruined by over-trading. It has been ruined by over-legislation. Not by too much silk made, but by too many laws. An over-production of acts of parliament has been going on. Too much activity, too great a briskness in that mischievous description of manufacture. I will show the hon. baronet in what manner it was, that the excess in the manufacture of silk, that instance of over-trading to which he imputes such ruinous consequences, was founded on, and was called out by, previous acts of the legislature, necessarily leading to the result of which he complains. The increased manufacture of silk, of which he speaks, took place in 1824 and in 1825. Early in the year 1824, an act of parliament relieved the raw material of the silk manufacture from a heavy duty, with which it was previously burthened. The natural consequence of this was, a reduction in the price of manufactured silks to the consumer; an increased consumption of silks, and a demand on the manufacturer for additional supplies. It is in the nature of trade to enlarge its operations and to increase its productions under such circumstances. So it has always been, and must always be. Parliament having thus applied, at this particular juncture, a stimulus to the operations of the Silk Trade, went further. It resolved to give back to the manufacturer, a part of the duty on raw silk, which had been already paid. The sum which the government thus repaid, in the shape of duty, returned on stocks of silk in the hands of the dealers, was about 500,000l.; an additional capital suddenly placed in 1824 at the command of this branch of trade, a bounty, and a gift, which afforded supplies for erecting new machinery, and enlarging the power of production, at that precise time when the increased consumption of silk, occasioned as I have explained, called for greater activity in every department of the trade. Here is the origin of the enormous increase of the silk manufacture in 1824 and 1825; of those advertisement, for building one thousand new houses in Macclesfield, and calling for five thousand additional labourers to fill the houses; which the right hon. member for Liverpool (Mr. Huskisson) on a former occasion described as evidence of the insane spirit of speculation, with which the Silk Trade was conducted. What but ruin, said the right hon. member, could be expected to follow over-trading and rashness such as this? But as it was by acts of the legislature, that the undertakings thus described were brought into existence, so it was by other acts of the legislature, that they were rendered ruinous. Those acts of parliament, which laid the foundation for the particular excitement and increase of the Silk Trade, were followed by other acts of parliament, which brought at the end of two years, the French manufacturer into competition with all the newly-erected machinery of England, gave him the power of supplying that consumption, to satisfy which, additional mills had been put in motion; and thence ensued the ruin, now attributed with so much complacency to the errors of the silk weavers. We called by acts of parliament a new trade into existence, which was to endure for two years, and to be then destroyed, unless, it could sustain itself against foreign competition. It has been destroyed; and we the authors of so much evil, and so great absurdities, are found employing ourselves in reading lectures to those whom we have ruined; rather than in endeavours to correct the errors of our own proceedings, or in gravely investigating a course of legislation, rash, ignorant, indiscreet and eminently destitute of all those qualities, which ought to characterize measures of the legislature, when they deal with the interests of larger bodies of men, and interfere with the concerns of commerce.

But overtrading, it appears, has not been, in the opinion of the hon. baronet, peculiar to the Silk Trade. All descriptions of traders are charged with a similar insanity. Hence the difficulties, in which the whole commercial industry of the country is now involved, and against which it vainly struggles. This is the theory, of the right hon. member for Liverpool, as well as of the hon. baronet. The general overtrading and speculation, to which effects so disastrous are ascribed, took place, it is said, in the years 1824 and 1825. Now let us call to mind that those years followed very closely the year 1822, a time, also, of distress and calamity, though not preceded by a period, to which speculation and overtrading have been imputed. In the distress of the year 1822, his majesty's government brought forward various measures of relief. I will read to the hon. baronet, the terms in which the character of one of those measures, and the consequences he expected from it, were then described by his coadjutor the right hon. member for Liverpool; now so loud in condemning the speculations of the trading community. "What is most urgent," said the right hon. gentleman, "is, to stop the progress of depression; in that once effected, speculation, which is now in a manner dormant, will revive: and it is in this view, more than by its actual amount, that this operation of the Bank seems to holdout a prospect of reviving confidence and hope." Thus that very spirit of speculation, which in 1822 the right hon. gentleman looked to, to save the country, he now charges with its ruin. These words are found, in what purports to be a speech of his in February 1822, when he was one of his majesty's ministers, on a motion upon the distressed condition of the country, and on certain financial measures proposed for its relief. Whether the right hon. gentleman now avows these words or disavows them, I know not and care not. The measures then in question, and by him supported, directly led to call out those speculations which he is here reported to have looked to, as his ground for hope and confidence, in the condition of desperate ruin which then overwhelmed the country; and it neither becomes him, nor the government, the authors of measures for calling forth a spirit of speculation: those who when that call was answered, at the period which they now describe as one of mad excitement, of speculation, of extravagant overtrading, told the country nothing of any of these; who spoke of nothing but prosperity and success; those who in February, 1825, asserted by the mouth of the king that all the great interests of the country were in "the most thriving condition;" who said nothing of a hollow system of false success, founded on folly, ignorance, and overtrading: it does not befit them to turn round on the victims whom they have ruined, and ruined by measures the whole character and bearing of which it is fit, though not now, should be explained; and to charge those victims, with mad extravagance; because they have not been able to conduct their operations with safety, under a system of blind and ruinous legislation, which has rendered prudence vain, and industry destructive.

Having said thus much on the more general question which has been introduced into this debate, I proceed to the measure immediately before the House. I am opposed to it on many grounds. At a time when the great interests engaged in the silk manufacture, suffering amidst appalling distress, bring their condition under the view of parliament in numerous petitions, and supplicate the House to institute an investigation into the causes of so great calamities: it is at such a time that his majesty's ministers deem it an adviseable course to recommend to the House—not indeed to give the petitioners at once, and frankly, as would be the wisest policy, the protection they desire;—not to grant them the investigation they solicit—not even to meet that humble request with a direct denial—but they think it advantageous, and befitting, to seize that occasion of pushing still further the system and the measures, to which the distressed petitioners ascribe all their calami- ties; and from which they anticipate then total ruin. A course like this, adopted under such circumstances, can be alone justified, either by previous experience, or by the most consistent and satisfactory demonstration of its wisdom. But it is amidst frightful disasters which have accompanied our improvements hitherto, that we are now called on to proceed with further experiments: and I am compelled to say, that after attentively listening to the elaborate speech in which the views of the ministry have been developed, the only conclusion I am able to draw from that statement, is, that his majesty's government neither possess any consistent knowledge of that new system, which under the name of the Free Trade System, they believe themselves to be proceeding upon; or any accurate acquaintance with the interests of that branch of commerce to which they purpose that it should be applied.

The particular character of the measures now proposed, if I understand them, is shortly this. The Silk Trade, in all its branches, being threatened with impending ruin; one branch of that great interest is to be sacrificed, in the hope of saving the others. This is the essential character of the first measure proposed; that for reducing the present duty on the importation of foreign thrown silk. But even the melancholy advantage which this desperate expedient holds out to the weavers of silk, an advantage which those parties with a magnanimity which does them honour, desire to reject; is not given to the silk weavers without oppressing them also with a more than corresponding disadvantage. The second measure proposed, goes virtually to lessen the protection which the weavers of silk goods at present possess, against the importation of foreign manufactured silk; and this is proposed to be done, under the fallacious pretence of giving them further protection. The protection they now have, is a duty of thirty percent on the importation of foreign manufactured silks. But the smuggler, it appears, a power who holds a species of divided empire in this realm, in affairs of taxation and finance, admits foreign goods, on a lower duty than the king, and the silk weaver in part loses his protection. From this he suffers, and presents to parliament his petitions for assistance. What is the assistance we offer him? A reduction of the legitimate, down to the scale of the illegitimate tax. A good measure it may be, Sir, in relation to the revenue; well calculated perhaps, to assist the king in his competition with the smuggler. It may assist the revenue, or it may not; I care not for that question; nor will I mingle such a consideration with that of relief to the distressed petitioners; nor put their sufferings against the balance of a Treasury warrant; nor calculate the ruin of the people in the arithmetic of the Exchequer; but I tell the right hon. gentleman, that it is not befitting the character of the House of Commons, to return this measure of his, or mockery rather, as its answer to the humble petitions of a large body of the people, when they approach us in the extremity of ruin. Far better would it have been, Sir, and in accordance with far higher principles, than any of those the right hon. gentleman thinks he is advancing, to give at once and frankly to the Silk Trade, instead of the measure now proposed on such an occasion as this, not merely the investigation they ask for, but at once the prohibition, they are supposed to aim at. A great principle, the right hon. gentleman tells us, is opposed to prohibition. He is making one approach at least, he is of opinion, towards a great principle. What principle? What is the principle does the right hon. gentleman think, that can be involved in a question, between a protecting duty of five and twenty per cent on the importation of French silk goods, and a total prohibition? It is consistency that is involved in this question, and not principle. Private and not public considerations.

The right hon. gentleman, the President of the Board of Trade, has told us, that the present measures are proposed in furtherance of the system of free trade; but it could scarcely have, escaped the House, that some of his arguments were directly in opposition to what is called the free-trade system. Doubtless it would have been desirable that he should have given an explanation of the views which his majesty's government entertain of, and what they understand and mean by, that new theory which under the title of a system of free trade purposes to deal according to new and untried maxims, with our manufacturing commercial, and agricultural interests. Great uncertainty and obscurity exist on this head, and no trifling grounds for presuming, that the promoters of this system are many of them deficient in a clear comprehension of its character; whilst others perhaps think they see danger in bringing that character fully under the view of the House and the country. A system which could properly be designated by the terms applied to this, would, of necessity, be simple and intelligible. Such a system would be one having for its object to introduce the productions of different nations, mutually, into the home consumption of each other; without prohibition, without restraint, without duties intended to act for the encouragement of domestic, or the discouragement of foreign, production. A system of commerce, such as this, prevails between the different provinces of most nations, always, and wherever adopted, with advantage to the nation at large, though not always with advantage to every part of that nation: and if such a system were adopted as the general commercial law of Europe, it could not fail to be highly conducive to the general prosperity of Europe. But even a liberal system of commerce like this, advantageous as it would be to Europe generally, would not of necessity be advantageous to every part of Europe. To particular nations it might be greatly injurious; nor would the complicated interests of this empire admit of even this system being safely adopted to govern her commercial intercourse with Europe, except with an extreme caution, a wise circumspection, and a slow gradation: and except it were introduced, under the guidance of discretion and of judgment; necessary indeed to guide the introduction of national improvements and changes of every kind, but of the existence of which I see but little evidence in the conduct of those, whose schemes of commercial and internal reform are now in progress in this country. The commercial system, however, which now passes current, under the title of the Free Trade System, differs most essentially as far as I can understand it, from the one I have described; or rather it carries the principles of freedom in commercial intercourse to so great a pitch of extravagance, as to change altogether their character. For an explanation of the real character of this system, I am obliged to go back to a document, called the Free Trade Petition, presented to this House in 1820; and read at length in a speech he made in 1826 by the right hon. member for Liverpool, then the minister for trade; and avowed by him as embracing the commercial principles which the government desired to introduce into practice. In this document thus avowed, it is distinctly maintained and held out, that it would be to the advantage of this country, to break down all restraints on the importation of foreign commodities, even in favour of those nations who should maintain their restrictions on our commerce: that it would conduce to our advantage to admit the productions of any, or of every, nation into our home-market of consumption, without protection, prohibition, or restraint; though such, or though every nation, prohibited our productions from admission into their markets; and this is maintained without any exception in favour of those branches of British production, whether manufacturing or agricultural, which would be destroyed by foreign competition. I am not astonished that even such a system as this, extravagant as it is, should find advocates; for there is no system too absurd, speculative, or extravagant, to find for a time advocates in this country, to become popular, to sway for a time the public mind, and influence the public councils. But whence comes it that maxims such as these, have been designated as a system of free trade? This system is one under which one half of our trade would be fettered, and that the better half—it would invite restraint—and hold out a premium on restrictions, provided those restrictions are applied only to our own productive industry. It is better to state, Sir, the precise terms in which this doctrine is laid down, in the document to which I have referred. It appears, then, "that although, as a mere matter of diplomacy, it may sometimes answer to hold out"—as a matter of diplomacy to hold out! These gentlemen, it may be remarked, have no objection to mingling something rather of an overreaching character with their liberality. They forget the severe virtue of their great master, who told his disciples, that of all animals none was so crafty, insidious, and mean as a statesman, or rather perhaps diplomatist; and who warned them not to contaminate their pure philosophy by his practices. But although it may answer, it seems, as a matter of mere diplomacy, sometimes to hold out "the removal of particular prohibitions or high duties, as depending on corresponding concessions by other states in our favour; it does not follow that we should maintain our restrictions in cases where the desired concessions on their part cannot be obtained; our restrictions would not be less prejudicial to our own capital and industry, because other governments persisted in pursuing impolitic regulations."

Here is explained the nature of that system, which has been publicly avowed by the government, as embracing the principles of its commercial policy, and has been made known throughout Europe,—There is not a language of Europe, probably, into which this document has not been translated. And how, but from hence, is to be explained that fact—explicable in no other way—that during the period which has found us engaged in furthering this system, in removing restrictions, duties, obstructions, and prohibitions, in our ports and markets, from the industry of foreign nations, and in allowing that industry more direct competition with our own productions, there has not been any restriction removed, or any duty reduced, in any port of Europe, on British commerce, or on any article of British production. This fact I state to be undeniable, though I cannot rest it on official documents. In the main it is correct; and I am persuaded with trivial only, if with any exceptions. Whence, then, is it, that, in return for so many advantages given to the commerce of so many nations, we have obtained no one advantage to our own foreign commerce? The answer is, that the government of no country in Europe acts on our new system of political economy. That system is new in practice here, it is rejected by all foreign governments: those governments consider it advantageous to give their home market to the encouragement of their own productions; they desire indeed to give those productions also the advantage of our markets; and, being able to effect the one object without sacrificing the other, the result of the new system is a constantly increasing freedom and encouragement to all foreign industry, and a constantly increasing system of restraint and embarrassment upon our own. Thus is the new system calculated to work upon our commerce with Europe. And with regard to America, year by year we hear of her new restraints and additional restriction on the productions of British industry. We find a difficulty in explaining the motives on which the statesmen of America are induced to pursue a policy which we consider so injurious. Observe the absurdities to which we have had recourse in attempt- ing to assign motives for the conduct of America. Here is the explanation given by the right hon. member for Liverpool; taken from his speech on the American Tariff, in July, 1828: he said, "It appeared to him that the people of the United States had been led into an error, and induced to believe that we should have regarded all this with comparative apathy, as coming from themselves; because this country had been so uniformly moderate and forbearing with an infant and rising state, connected with us so intimately, by community of language and a common origin." I do not undertake to say that our conduct towards America has not been of the forbearing and indulgent description here described. But can any man in his senses believe, that America entertains any such opinions, or is swayed in her motives by a belief in our forbearance towards her as an infant and rising state? America is guided by no such opinions, policy, or motives; she holds the key of our commercial policy in her hands, makes her calculations on what she knows to be our views of our own interest, and profits by our folly. My belief is, Sir, that if any diplomatist of ours shall be instructed to demand from America, the removal of her recent obstructions to our commerce; and to threaten, in case of a refusal, that we will impose correspondent restrictions on American productions in British markets; the citizen-rulers of America, will not answer, in my opinion, by any appeal to our forbearance, or by representations, that America is an infant, and only a rising state, and Britain an empire of matured greatness; or that they are connected with us by a community of language and origin. They will inform our diplomatist, that they have imposed their restrictions on British productions, because such restrictions are advantageous to the interests of their own manufacturers; which their system of political economy identifies with the common interests of America at large; and that, as regards the retaliatory restrictions which we threaten in return, they leave their interests, in that respect, in the hands of our own philosophers and manufacturers. Such are the practical operations of our new system of commercial policy; and its principles correspond with its practice. They would send forth our productive population to foreign competition, burthened, restrained, and fettered, in all their enterprises, and in all markets; whilst the authors of this policy tell them they are to look on their trade and their competition as free; because we have been occupied, and are still daily occupied, the present measures are examples, in removing all restraints and all burthens from the enterprise and the industry of their rivals and opponents.

Had this system been proposed, as an experiment of liberality and concession on our part, in the expectation of its being followed by reciprocal liberality from other governments, it would then have rested on grounds at least plausible; and nothing would now remain to be said, further, than that the experiment had been made, and that it had failed. But the free-trade policy is not supported by its advocates on these grounds: nor would it be, perhaps, just towards them, to refrain from explaining the reasons why they think that the commercial policy, which I have described, would prove advantageous to England, though not reciprocally adopted by other nations. It appears, then, according to this system, (and all the systems of our present economists despise exceptions) that it is to the advantage of a nation, as of an individual, always to purchase in the cheapest market and to sell in the dearest. This maxim adopted, it next plainly follows that, if English consumers can buy in France, for four millions and a half as much silk, and as good as the Spitalfields weavers can only afford them for five millions, there is a clear gain to the consumers of silk of half a million in transferring their purchases from London to Lyons. The same holds good of corn. If as much corn can be got from Russia for four millions and a half, as the British farmer cannot sell for less than five millions, the consumers of corn would gain half a million by dealing with Russia. The hon. member for Montrose says "hear!" I am glad he agrees with me so far. The calculation is indeed easily made, but we approach some difficulty. Whilst the consumer of corn is saving his half million, there are five millions of money less than before paid to the English farmer. Now these five millions, thus withdrawn from the English farmer, did, when paid to him, constitute profit, and rent, and wages, and also taxation to the government, which takes the lion's share of the whole. But the government is a part of the nation, and so is the landlord; and the farmer and the labourer form other parts; how then is the nation to gain on the balance of an operation, by which one part of the community gains 500,000l., and another part loses 5,000,000l.? We are not left without a solution to that difficulty. It appears by the document which I have quoted, that as fast as we thus destroy one branch of British production, another will arise in its place of equal importance, and greater advantage; "affording, at least, an equal, and probably a greater, and certainly, a more beneficial, employment to our own capital and labour." Thus it is set down in the bond. But where is the security? What security have we, or reason for believing, that when we shall have ruined and destroyed the silk manufacture, for example, or the trade and production of the farmer, the nation will be indemnified by the substitution of some other branch of production, and by a more beneficial employment of its capital and labour. The destruction of one trade seems to carry no necessary consequence of the creation of another. The interests of different branches of industry are greatly dependent for their prosperity on one another; and the ruin of one has a powerful tendency to reduce instead of to extend other branches of production. It is the explanation of this difficulty which brings us to the main foundation on which the whole of the new system of free trade rests. It has been discovered "that no importation can be long continued without a corresponding exportation direct or indirect." Thus, then, if we ruin the English silk weaver, by driving him out of the home market, through means of foreign competition, or in other words, by means of an increased importation of foreign silk goods; this increased importation must be met by a corresponding enlargement of our exports; and as goods must be made before they can be sent abroad, we, in this manner, pave the way for the necessity of increased productions of some kind or other: and thus we may safely and advantageously destroy any or every description of British industry, which is unable to maintain itself against unrestrained foreign competition: expecting that some other description of production will arise in the place of that which we ruin: for all which we have the assurance of the proposition which I have just quoted. On this proposition it is, or principle as it has been called, false as I shall presently show in fact, (and if it were true, not warranting the inference drawn from it) that the whole theory is founded. Let it be admitted, then, "that no import can be long continued without a corresponding export." Does it thence of necessity follow that exportation must follow importation? Another consequence may take place, and that too the most probable, though entirely lost sight of—the importation itself may cease from the poverty, beggary, and pecuniary embarrassment, which unbalanced importations, are calculated to occasion. That result, though it never appears to have entered into the view of its authors, is the natural consequence of this system: the almost necessary consequence of a commercial policy, which should give increased facilities to importation, without, at the same time, providing and securing previously, enlarged means of exportation, would be to involve the nation, adopting such a policy, in pecuniary distress. Our own recent experience in this respect may guide us with much greater security than any reliance on an extravagant speculative maxim. We have recently witnessed an importation of a new character. Corn was imported in the year 1828, for the first time during the last ten years, speaking of considerable quantities. The manufacturers of Lancashire and other districts, instructed by the new system, looked to this event as one which was to be followed by a corresponding export of British productions. This expectation was held out at public meetings, in speeches, pamphlets, newspapers; there were cotton goods in stock in Lancashire, corn in Russia; nothing was wanting, but the bringing in of the corn, to carry out the cottons: import produces necessarily export. Have those expectations been verified? The distress of our manufacturers answers that question. The Russians, have taken none of our goods—their corn has been paid for in gold—and pecuniary embarrassments have been the consequence. But this is only the first effect of importation, this, it may be said, is not continued importation. It cannot be continued. I hazard little in predicting, no intelligent merchant will differ from me, that if the coming harvest break down the obstacles which at this moment our Corn-laws oppose to foreign grain, and a continued importation follows, the result will not be prosperity to manufac- turers, or an exportation of their goods, but, more probably, what is called a derangement of the currency, distress, panic, and a scene of difficulty, which, if not met by a Bank restriction, will put at risk the credit of the government. In 1818 also, the nation imported grain, for the last time until 1828, and to a great extent. That was a period of prosperity. Did that importation force for itself a corresponding export? It was followed by the manufacturing distress of 1819, the period of the Manchester riots; and, as the best evidence of its occasioning pecuniary difficulties, it was followed by a Bank Restriction act, a circumstance now little adverted to, but not less certain, which became a law in May 1819. But these were importations of grain, it may be said, not of merchandize. In 1824 and 1825, however, we witnessed new and unusually large importations of commercial articles. The mercantile over-trading, as it was called, of that time, was mainly confined to excessive importation. The examples, by which the first minister gave evidence of the over-trading of that period, were confined to importations; hemp, flax, tallow, wool, all foreign productions, were imported almost without limit, and those importations were, for some time, continued. Did a corresponding export follow? The panic followed. The goods which had been imported, so far from forcing out a corresponding exportation of British productions in return, were themselves, in many instances, sent back to whence they came, in payment of the debt which their purchase had contracted. I do not maintain that the difficulties and calamities of these periods had their first origin in the importations I have described. I well know that those calamities, great and almost fatal as they have been, were the result of other measures, with which the government is chargeable, though not of these measures. False measures, for the regulation of our currency, produced those disasters; they occasioned, indeed, a part of this disordered importation of foreign goods. But I enter no farther into that question now, than to say, that we have here irrefragable evidence of the falsehood of the maxim on which the free-trade system tests; and above all is it manifest that the free-trade principles, and those by which our currency has been regulated, are totally irreconcileable in practice with each other.

But it is not true, in fact, that "no importation can be long continued without a corresponding exportation." Nothing but great ignorance of the history of commerce could have led to that statement. The commerce of the eastern with the western world—of Asia with Europe—was, for ages, a commerce precisely of that character which these economists maintain cannot exist. It was a commerce of export without a corresponding import on the one part; and of import without a corresponding export on the other. No fact is better attested in history. Neither did Europe derive the precious metals, by which she supported this commerce, by an export of her productions to others quarters of the world. No other commercial part of the world existed. Africa was uncivilized; America was unknown. The demands of this commerce were supplied, in part, by a constant drain on the stock of the precious metals in Europe; and the period when this commerce existed, was distinguished by a continually increasing value of the precious metals, and a continually diminishing value of commodities estimated against the precious metals, in every state in Europe and in every state of Europe this period was marked by alterations in the value of the coins; produced by advancing their denomination, or reducing their value; measures which adjusted the value of the coins to the altered value of the materials composing them; measures of compensation—so described by Adam Smith—meeting an increased value by a reduced quantity.

One of the main errors into which the modern economists have fallen—and it is an error entitled to consideration, for it is sanctioned in a great degree by the authority of Dr. Smith—consists id their opinion, that capital and industry can be with facility, transferred from one branch of industry to another. No such facility exists in practice. Capital may be sacrificed in a trade abandoned to ruinous foreign competition, the labourer may be destroyed, but it is rarely that either can be removed. Recent experience has exhibited to us somewhat of the character of this process. In the agricultural distress of 1821 and 1822, we were told that it was advantageous to abandon some part of our land, and to remove the capital and labour employed on that land to more beneficial occupations. The economists mapped the land of England in their schemes, and marked it with their numbers—No. 1, No. 2, No. 3, No. 4; in this way they were then proceeding to deal with the landed interest: the soil marked No. 3 and No. 4, they told us must be abandoned, and that the capital and labour which were employed upon it must be removed. One hundred and seventy-five advertisements of the sale of farming stock, which appeared at that time in one provincial newspaper, explained how much of his capital the farmer could carry to other employments; whilst the deep distress of the agricultural labourers, given in evidence before repeated Committees, informed us, in language which it was impossible to misunderstand, that we might, indeed, doom the labourer to perish, but we could not compel him to remove. Is the capital and the labour of the manufacturer then, more easy of removal than that of the farmer? Let us see in what the capital employed in this silk manufacture consists. It is invested in machinery; in buildings, and dwellings of various descriptions, adapted, by their construction and locality, to the purposes of the trade. In stock, in every stage of manufacture, from the rude material to the perfect fabric—the only part of his capital which admits of removal, and of that but a small part. What may be called another capital exists. It is the experience and knowledge which the trader has acquired in all the branches of his trade; the result of years of application, purchased at the cost of all those losses attendant on original inexperience. This is of no value in another occupation: the trader knows it, though you do not. He will not abandon a station in which he has so many advantages, because you condemn it. No law will convince him, that a fortune and prospects, to him so valuable, can be sacrificed without appeal, without reconsideration, by a stroke of uninformed and reckless legislation. You accuse traders of an undue aptitude to dangerous speculations. This man will not embrace this most desperate of all speculations which you propose to him. He will witness, year after year, the destruction of that capital which you expect him to remove; he will cling to the last remnants of his ruined fortune and blasted expectations; and when, at length, he seeks in despair a new pursuit, little of his capital is left, and that little will be wasted in the inexperience of a new undertaking. The labourer is as difficult of removal as his employer; he is as strongly rooted. The humblest of those emaciated weavers who take their station at your door, and await what they consider their doom, with a patient confidence in your wisdom, which I do not think, I say it with reluctance, that the course of your proceedings has justified; the humblest of these men is, in the division of his trade to which he belongs, efficient, skilful, perhaps eminent; and derives from these qualities a consideration to him valuable—the respect of those who surround him—of him by whom he is employed—of his family—his own self-respect. He will not abandon these advantages, to seek with his family and children, all difficult of removal, perhaps all skilful in their degree, a new occupation, where he will be helpless; inefficient, an incumbrance, and an obstruction. He knows his value, and in what it consists; he will not encounter the desperate speculation you propose to him. He will share the fortune of his employer. You will see him soliciting four days' employment in the week—two days—of a labour which he knows to be skilful, and believes to be valuable, and preferring that request with an earnestness derived from his conviction that the support of his family depends on its success. Six months of suffering, and of a condition in which he finds all he ever possessed of value, his industry and skill, rendered utterly worthless, will add twenty years to his age, and take it from his life. He becomes broken in spirit and strength the victim of disease and despair; his children no longer educated, not trained to habits of industry, become naked outcasts, is welling, perhaps, the class of juvenile offenders; and the whole race, and those that surround them, whilst we are indulging in dreams of experimental improvements, are condemned to slow but certain extermination, not less certain, though more painful, than though they had fallen the victims of civil or military execution.

And are these men, concerning whom the question is, whenever we legislate on their interests; not whether they shall be removed from one occupation which we hold disadvantageous, to another which we calculate to be more beneficial: but whether we shall protect and support their industry, where we find it occupied, or whether we shall abandon them to ruin: are we to deal with these men as a body of no importance to the general welfare, except as the mere producers of bad silk goods at a dear rate, which we can buy on better terms from France? They consume as well as produce: they give a market for all the productions of our industry. If I were called on to propose any course of commercial policy in the place of that, the fallacy of which I have explained, I should urge the advantage of providing and securing markets for the superfluous productions of labour. Every description of labour is capable of yielding more than it consumes of its own particular production; if there be no market for the superfluity, there is no value; it will not be produced; industry so circumstanced will remain unemployed, and capital will be stagnant. Create a demand for superfluous productions, and they acquire value—labour will then be exerted, and capital will accumulate. The most advantageous of all markets of consumption, is the home market. The half a million of people, if that be their number, who derive support from the silk manufacture, furnish a more extensive market for the productions of British industry, than will be given by any five million of foreigners, with whom this nation will ever be connected in commerce. The silk-weaver, of Spitalfields, in the prosperity of his trade, with full employment and good wages, consumes and gives a market, not to agricultural produce alone to the butter and salt provisions of Ireland, to the corn of Essex, but to hardwares, linen goods, and woollen, leather, timber; all that forms the dwelling and constitutes the support of the English mechanic. If you observe him in his state of distress, with inadequate employment, low wages, dependent on charity, it will be seen that other interests suffer with him: he neither produces nor consumes: he returns on the market of production the commodities he had previously withdrawn from it. The furniture of his dwelling, the bed, table, the clothing, are one after another sacrificed; they are taken to the pawnbroker; from him they go back to the general dealer, meeting new productions in the market, in a disordered and unnatural current; and that population which, in its prosperity, invigorated, and, gave life and strength to all the operations of com- merce, spread around them in their ruin, a destructive, influence, which corrupts and stagnates in all the branches of industry, and through all the bearings of society.

I claim, then, for the Silk-Trade, and for all interests similarly circumstanced, that they are to be considered, whenever their concerns come under the view of parliament, not as an incumbrance on the resources of the nation, to be tolerated in compliance with obsolete and exploded prejudices—in compliance with the calls of humanity;—these are the dreams of an imbecile and ignorant philosophy;—I demand for a population such as this and the capital employing them, their station on grounds of the wisest policy, as an important, essential, vital portion of the general prosperity. They contribute to that prosperity ten fold more than they draw from it. It is a miserable policy which would weigh their interests and security, in the balance against a little cheapness or a little dearness of French silk;—which would considers them an incumbrance, and a source of weakness, because they cannot, as many other branches of our productive industry could not either, withstand an unrestrained foreign competition. The distillery could not stand against unrestrained foreign competition for an hour. I know not how far that great branch of our prosperity and strength—the shipping interest, can or cannot maintain itself without protection; nor how far some branches of our agriculture require protection: but this I know, that the capital in those and similar branches of production, the population to whose industry this capital gives activity, form the surest foundations of national wealth and greatness. When we deal with interests such as these, we have in our hands, not a disordered, and useless population, the security of which we can with safety to the state put at hazard; these men, and such as these are the mighty sources of riches and of power: all the elements of prosperity and strength are in our hands—if we know not to combine them—if we are unequal to the investigation of these great interests and to their conduct—if we see nothing but disorder and weakness in these elements of good—if we can find no security for one part of the population but in the sacrifice of another—then are we ourselves that burthen on the general prosperity which we vainly imagine the people to be; and heaven has upon this empire lavished all the sources of abundant greatness in vain, since it has withheld from it a government commensurate in capacity and vigour to the matchless energy and resources of the people.

In explaining, Sir, these views, I am sensible that they are, some of them at least, of too abstract a character to be discussed with much advantage in this House. But such discussions have been rendered necessary, though referring to questions not readily made intelligible; because the government has in many respects guided its conduct, not according to the common experience and the common understanding of mankind; which, in my estimation, ought, with few and rare exceptions, to direct always the conduct of government; but by abstract and speculative maxims, such as may be discussed perhaps advantageously in the closet, but which can seldom be reduced to action without danger. But I have not maintained, nor do I believe, that the distress of the Silk-Trade has been wholly caused by the erroneous views which I have controverted, though it has been aggravated by them. The erroneous maxims interwoven recently with the free-trade system, have not, indeed, been hitherto, to their whole extent, acted upon with regard to the silk manufacture. The distress of the Silk-Trade is further, common to that, and to all other interests. Its origin is in those other measures of the government, erroneous and calamitous, by which, in altering from one period to another the character and the value of the currency; in juggling and tampering with our standard of monied value; they have produced at this moment a condition of universal embarrassment, from which I see no course of extrication, except in retracting, though at this late period, the measures they have pursued. The duty of parliament is, to proceed to the investigation, not alone of the distress of this particular interest, but of the general condition of the country, as connected with the measures of government; for the purpose of determining what steps ought now to be pursued, and how far the further prosecution of their destructive systems can be left, with safety to the nation, to the uncontrolled discretion of that government, whose course hitherto has been the substitution of one error for another, undeterred and untaught by the disasters to which their schemes and experiments have uniformly led. The whole of this question will be made however a subject of separate discussion, and I shall not therefore now enter into it, further than to point out, that that scene of universal disorder which overspreads the country, exists at a period, when, if there were any truth in the views on which government have acted, the people ought to have enjoyed a condition of universal tranquillity, prosperity, and ease. For fifteen years the government have been engaged in removing what they considered to be obstructions to the general welfare; in schemes for preventing those fluctuations in prices by which the paper money of the war, according to their view, inflicted sufferings on the lower orders; they have been occupied in bestowing on the country the benefits of what they termed a healthful metallic standard, and the present scene of universal suffering exists precisely at that moment, when those measures of the government are perfected, the tendency of which was described to be to better the condition of the labouring classes: to put metal money into the pocket of every labourer, and a fowl into his pot. Those measures are completed; the money which is paid to the labourer is of metal; but throughout the empire a condition of suffering and distress is experienced unknown at any former time, and hourly increasing. This state of things it is, coupled with the circumstances under which it takes place, and the declarations and experiments with which it has been accompanied, which demands from parliament an investigation into the causes not alone of the distress of the Silk-Trade, but of the whole condition and state of the country.

rose, and addressed the House as follows:— I am anxious, Sir, to address myself for a short time to the important measure now in progress through this Housed having been earnestly importuned so to do by those whose interests are at staked and whose cause I conscientiously believe to be that of humanity and justice: otherwise I should not have thought it necessary to have noticed those frequent allusions to the very brief part which I took in the previous discussion, especially those somewhat contemptuous ones which fell from at least one hon. member, such being, as I conceive, always the most emphatically answered by silence. Nor do I feel myself quite obliged to accept what I understood to be a sort of challenge from the right hon. member for Liverpool, that I should enter fully into the question of free trade, who asserted, at the same time, that I should find him ready to meet me upon that subject. Thus called upon I cannot well avoid alluding to it, though I know the House would very reluctantly endure, from me at least, a discussion involving a series of proofs and documents which would necessarily occupy much time in the detail; nor do I think that this is precisely the time or the arena for such a contest. And, besides, I fear many occasions will occur in which to re-open the subject and discuss its merits; for the more the principle is extended and the longer it is pursued, the more frequently and imperatively, I am persuaded, will its advocates be called upon for its defence. On any such occasion, however, I can assure the right hon. gentleman that in a contest with him, no man, either in this House or out of it, will become more sensible of my inferiority than myself, and nothing could induce me to it but the consciousness that I was supporting the rights of humanity and the principles of patriotism and truth, under the sanction of experience; not, perhaps, the experience of the great jobbers, the national interchangers, or, as Locke designates the entire class, the brokers of the country: that may be, and probably is, with him; but that part of the community in which its moral strength has been hitherto supposed to reside—the moderate capitalists, agricultural or commercial, who in spite of plentiful assurances to the contrary, feel themselves sinking in society, and are heart-broken at the prospects that await them—the experience of the suffering operatives, who, while they are proved here to be well employed and prosperous, know themselves to be "steeped in poverty to the very lips!" These, Sir, have recently petitioned to be heard in a committee, und their humble, reasonable, and just request has been refused. They still seek redress from this House; redress which, I believe in my conscience, we have it in our power to afford them. By the decision of this night they will judge whether we have the disposition.

But, when thus called upon the other evening to explain myself as to free trade, I appeal to the recollection of some around me whether I had not already done so in the few sentences I then spoke. I will repeat their substance, and I hope as shortly. But before doing so, I cannot refrain from remarking, that the demand is of a singular nature, considering the quarter from whence it came, or that to which it was addressed. I think it is for the advocates of that principle to define as well as to defend it. I am aware, however, that it is at this moment convenient for them to be somewhat vague. When this free trade, put forth under specious pretences, and glowing promises of unheard of prosperity and plenty, with which it was to inundate the entire community, conferred popularity on its advocates, then unrestricted commercial intercourse was the avowed aim, the anticipated issue, of the system; and we may still gather from the theorists, that they yet cherish these views. Even the right hon. President of the Board of Trade talks of looking towards certain principles approaching nearer to a certain system; in short, though with considerable vagueness as it respects the mass, yet with sufficient precision as it regards the initiated, his policy, as explained by himself, has reference to this system. But its consequences are too clearly seen, too deeply felt, at present, to be any longer fully avowed. Those who formerly opposed arguments to the ruinous experiments it has involved, have just sought to present facts in full confirmation of them, but have been refused a committee in which alone it could be done; but they still are prepared to prove the certain results of perseverance in so anti-national a course; and when those who, if they cannot argue, can nevertheless feel, know, in spite of all your documents to the contrary; that their labour is daily diminishing in value, and is as constantly lessening in its demand. The different branches of national industry which the system has as yet reached, whether the shipping, and partially the agricultural, the glove-trade, or the important manufacture how before us, know their interests to be deeply injured; and the country, therefore (always excepting the interested few), begins to rouse itself to the consideration of these new maxims of policy because, it begins to experience their consequences. When, therefore, the theory so highly vaunted, stripped of its disguises by the hand of time, presents itself in all its naked deformity surrounded by sufferings and crimes, then, Sir, its advocates turn round upon us, and ask with much apparent simplicity, what it is we understand by free trade? We are to define its nature and its effects; in a word, explain their principles. This we think rather unreasonable. We presume to think the onus lies with them. And if they mean, according to their system, that England is finally to be subjected to foreign competition of every kind, without those who so determine for her previously securing any corresponding advantages on her behalf, then we know what they mean. The proposition, notwithstanding the oracular responses of our inspired economists who are consulted on the occasion, is national degradation and ruin. Many of its interests will be destroyed, its different values revolutionized, and the shuttle and the plough sacrificed to the jobbers. But if, after all, they are content to resolve their boasted theory into a set of fiscal regulations—if it is to end in an adjustment of the tariffs of the Customhouse and the smuggler—then, we say the very term as applied by themselves is a farce; and we do think that in determining these matters the testimony of the honest manufacturer ought to have been consulted as soon as that of the base, anonymus smuggler, and that it would have been quite as likely to be true.

Sir, I think, in the mean time, it is for those who meditate this fatal change in our commercial policy, and have partly accomplished it, to explain as well as to defend it. Sir, we have no disguises to maintain on this subject. We have no sort of objection to define what we understand by free trade, nor to state the circumstances under which we think it safely applicable. The very term explains itself. It evidently implies a totally unrestricted intercourse as to the products of human industry between every country upon earth. And, Sir, were all those countries under one government, or, what is the same thing as it regards this question, placed under precisely similar circumstances in regard of taxes, prices, and habits of living, free trade would be a very different thing to that which is now contemplated under that appellation;: it would be virtually as much restricted as at present, and would instantly rectify itself. Its operations would be limited to the inter-change of those products which nature has unequally distributed throughout the different countries of the world, to the evident exclusion of those with which she has bountifully supplied them all. The universality of this distribution of the prime necessaries of life, combined with their nature and qualities, would not only secure the existence, but protect the labour, of every several community; that labour which, as an ancient writer has said, is at once the preceptor and benefactor of the human race; and which is as essential to their welfare in a moral as in a natural point of view; and which a wise and kind Providence has so accurately adjusted to the wants it is destined to supply. Of this labour I venture to hold, in spite of the heartless theories of the day, there is not an arm nor a sinew too much in the world, and least of all in our own country, of whose elevation it alone has been the sacred instrument, bestowing upon us, as it has, all our wealth, conferring all our distinction, and accumulating around us all our comforts and enjoyments.

Now, Sir, for any community, however rich, to take the labour of another community without returning their own, or without returning it to an equal value (a very possible, and, in many instances, an actual case, all that an economist has asserted to the contrary notwithstanding) tends to the impoverishment of any such community, and is a sacrifice of its own labour. Again, for any community to exchange with another labour of a similar kind, and to an equal extent, is absurd; it would amount to a mutual waste of labour. Recurring, however, to the supposed equal condition of every country, nothing so ridiculous could become possible. As well might we suppose the inhabitants of two distant ant-hills wasting their valuable hours in mutually changing their necessary stores, rather than in plying their successful toils in their own natural bounds, and thereby increasing them to the certain advantage of every individual of, their interesting communities. Nothing, however, so absurd occurs in the animal creation.

But, Sir, I need not pursue these speculations, nor defend them. The countries of the world are not equally circumstanced in any of those particulars which fix, or ought to fix, the value of human labour, and this least of all. England is in a highly artificial state, and when the right hon. member for Liverpool, in reply to an observation of mine, asserted the same regarding others, it would have been only consistent with that fairness and candour which I understand mark his character had he recollected that, as an argument, it is clearly a question of degree. The difference in the taxes and prices paid by one of our workmen, and those paid by any of the rivals now started against him, the Frenchman for instance, is greater than the difference paid by the latter and—nothing. According to this method of reasoning you might start a horse that carries only a pound against one loaded with a hundred weight, and still call it a fair race. Sir, the so much vaunted free trade as applied to England, then, I maintain, is not free. She is weighed down with heavy imposts, manacled by high prices; the very circumstances which constitute her the desirable victim of the free-trade fraternity of the whole world. And still those who have contributed to impose those taxes, and to continue those prices, are talking, forsooth, of free trade. It is nothing more or less than a plain proposition to allow foreigners to make free with our trade, who will speedily, if thus permitted, free us from several branches of it altogether. To submit the particular manufacture, under any consideration, to the free competition contemplated is to give, in effect, a positive premium to the foreign competitor: it is a direct bounty upon the product of the French loom. The proposition implies this, word it how you may.

In the market of labour, I find the right honourable the President of the Board of Trade means to keep up a competition, not between the English operatives merely, which I think in these times would be abundantly sufficient, but between them and a newly-authorized and numerous set of rivals—the French. But, Sir, the Englishman has to pay, daily, a heavy toll for his stand there, and, as we contend, and should have proved, had a committee been granted, to a far larger amount than that to be imposed on the foreigner, even if what is demanded from the latter, under the new system, were not constantly evaded. Free trade, then, under any such circumstances, would be a farce to be laughed at: but that, as it proceeds, the plot thickens, and threatens to become altogether a tragedy.

Sir, I shall not dwell further on these points, nor add other consideration closely connected with this important subject. A due consideration of the circumstances in which this country is placed dictates, most imperatively, a guarded policy, and one, as I conceive, equally clear and beneficial. Our disadvantages are great and obvious; but we possess, in other respects, a superiority which may, in many instances, fully countervail them. Let, then, those branches of our national industry in which our products, our capital, our machinery, &c. balance the disadvantages already mentioned, be those to which you shall continue to apply the principle of competition. Establish, if you please, as to these, a system of profitable interchange with the products of other countries; enter into such a plan, not with the fears of the miser or the feelings of the gambler, but with a view to the mutual and equal benefit of both parties. But first let a system of reciprocal exchange be fully settled and fairly carried into effect. But, in regard to those pursuits of industry absorbing much labour, in which the disadvantages of the English artisan are not thus counterbalanced, let such, be the branches of national industry which shall continue to receive, as they have till of late received, that needful protection on which their very existence depends. The trade before us is evidently one of these. Such, Sir, is the easy, such the politic, such the humane course, which, as it appears to me, the dictates of common sense, applied to the consideration of the plainest facts, evidently point out to this country. Nor, Sir, is it a new one. It has received the sanction of long and prosperous experience, and its recent unfortunate abandonment has still further confirmed its policy by a series of new and melancholy proofs. Sir, this was the course our ancestors pursued, from the period when commerce and manufactures took root amongst us till they attained that high and prosperous state in which they were found, when, listening to the theorists, a new policy was ventured upon, which, not with standing the vast and acknowledged advantages under which it was introduced, namely, in a time of profound peace, in a country increased in population and consolidated in power, industrious and enterprising beyond all example, and in possession of colonial territory unequalled in riches and extent by any country in any previous period of the world, has, not with standing all these advantages, paralyzed, like the touch of the torpedo, every branch of national industry it has yet reached, and depreciated the labour, diminished the capital, and degraded the condition of the country, spreading and multiplying distress and suffering throughout all classes in every direction.

Such are my views on the general subject, in which I concur, I think, with some of the greatest authorities that have ever lived; but which have received a greater confirmation than any mere authorities could bestow in the long experience of this hitherto great commercial country—the confirmation of its past prosperity, of its present increasing sufferings, and evident decline. Documents are, however, triumphantly appealed to, in contradiction of this state of general stagnation and distress; and, indeed, in full proof of the beneficial effect of the new principle, not only in reference to the manufacturing interests generally, but even as it respects the particular branch under consideration. These documents are to contradict what every man connected with it knows to be the fact; namely, that it is in a state of unexampled depression. And first, Sir, statements have been put forth as to the number of spindles and of looms employed in this trade at present, and a comparison instituted betwixt that and the number in existence previously to the alteration. Sir, these statements are denied, and denied from the very places to which they have reference; and the circumstance of this conflicting evidence ought to have induced his majesty's government to have granted a committee, by which alone the real facts could have been ascertained and presented to this House.

Sir, the alleged increase of unwrought silk introduced into this country since the alteration in question is deemed the most triumphant argument in favour of the new system; but, then, those who put forth this proof of present prosperity seem to forget that, previously, the raw material was subject to a very heavy duty, now scarcely to any, and, consequently, according to the whole tenour of their own argument, it must be concluded much was previously smuggled into the country, and consequently unentered in the former accounts, thereby entirely vitiating the comparison. If, in answer to this, they tell us that little escaped the vigilance of the revenue department, may we not ask why the same vigilance cannot be exercised in favour of the operatives regarding the same article when manufactured? One thing, however, these observations will suffice to show, that ministers can play fast and loose with their own facts and arguments as it regards the same interest, when it suits their particular purposes. But, Sir, the very fact alleged, supposing it to be true, of the great increase in the importation of the raw material, is the first and most important document to which I would appeal in proof of the extreme distress to which the trade is reduced. Granting that the quantity of raw silk introduced is thus increased, the question is, has the wages of the labour employed in the working of it up increased in a similar proportion?—has one farthing of additional remuneration been afforded in compensation for this immense increase of work? Nay, will any one take upon himself to say that the total amount of that remuneration has not diminished? Supposing the quantity of raw silk imported were even increased as stated, is it not a notorious fact that the wages of labour, weaving for instance, was from fifty to one hundred per cent higher at the former period than at present. The money, therefore, distributed amongst the working classes is less. As to the profits of their employers they have almost, nay entirely, disappeared. Has there, then, been any compensatory diminution in taxation, or fall in the price of the necessaries of life? None. The competition to which our recent policy has condemned our operatives has diminished their wages, and obliged them to encounter those increased exertions which have created, in connexion with immense imports, that glut which was its necessary and foreseen result, and which has affected other branches of industry amongst us most severely. The same circumstances lead to the same results in other branches of national industry. Hence labour has to be increased in its intensity and lengthened in its duration; the infant has to be devoted at a still earlier age; and the wife taken from her natural and proper sphere, that of domestic duty, and sent to work; and still all this mass of exertion is often inadequate to obtain for the family a scanty and insufficient subsistence; they "spend their strength for that which is not bread, and their labour for that which satisfieth not!"

Is the proof, then, of the increased labour of the British people, accompanied as it is with increased and increasing wretchedness, any ground of exultation? I think not. Such as can so regard it would have been fit political economists, appropriate task-masters of a celebrated tyrant of sacred story, who, while increasing the toils of an ancient people, diminished their allowances, till their cries called down the vengeance of Providence upon their oppressors. Let, therefore, the present system prosper a few years longer as it has recently done, progressively increasing the labour of the poor and diminishing its reward, and its very eulogists cannot shut their eyes to the inevitable result. Sir, it is my settled conviction, not taken up hastily, nor yet recently adopted, that the working classes of England have been grievously abused, and principally by the theoretical politicians of the age. The new system has already muzzled the mouth of the agricultural labourer to feed that of the foreigner; and it contemplates by a severer competition a still worse fate for the manufacturing one. I am further convinced, that a better system would not only rescue them from their distressed condition, but be still more beneficial to their employers. Meantime the present state of things must excite the sympathies of any benevolent mind as to the present, and the apprehensions of every patriot one as to the future. The boasted structure of our commercial greatness may appear vast in its dimensions, just in its proportions, and magnificent in its detail; it may be crowded with the prosperous votaries of wealth; but, cast your eyes down to its foundations, there you will see its supporters; there are imprisoned the slaves of unhealthy, demoralizing, increasing, and often nightly, labours, to which the sex itself is degraded, and infancy, snatched from the maternal bosom, doomed in the early dawn of existence to a fate far severer than that you award to your adult culprits. Such are the pillars of the commercial system you labour still further to enlarge, and which is founded on the sufferings and miseries of our fellow creatures.

Sir, the picture may be thought imaginary: it is far otherwise; infinitely short of the reality. I have collected from the last census, discriminated into ages, the statistics of mortality, and, consequently, of physical suffering, which prevails where this system is spreading. I can appeal likewise to those of immorality. It debauches as well as impoverishes and destroys its victims. In the meantime, what has it done for the people? Have their comforts increased? Look at the consumption of that article, which is a fairer criterion of the comforts of the British people, I think, than the consumption of Russian tallow—malt brewed into beer. Has that kept pace, not merely with that increased labour which it ought to cherish and sustain, but even with the increased population of England? It has done far otherwise. But, Sir, an appeal to the misery of the people, rather than to their comforts, is far more appropriate on this occasion. How, then, has your new theory practically operated upon the trading capitalists of the country? Let us turn, in proof of this, to the bankrupt list. The number of commissions signed three years before and three years subsequently to the full operation of this system stands thus:—

But, the new principle of trade commencing its main operations with

The former three years averaging 1,355; the latter, 2,109.

Let us now turn to its effects on the operatives. Their distress may be the most fairly indicated, I think, by the annual statistics of pauperism. Taking, then, the returns which are made up to the 28th of March, the termination of the ecclesiastical year, and, therefore, belonging, in fact, to the preceding one, these, for a few years, are the results:—

making an average of 5,793,177. But, Sir, when the free-trade system, which was to do such wonders for the wealthy, and to dispense such increasing comforts to the poor, was in operation, this was the effect—

making an increase on the two averages of 556,867. What will the next returns amount to? I have already ascertained that they are greatly increased.

Lord Hale has said, that national want is always indicated by national crime. What, then, say the criminal reports? Do they corroborate the preceding views, or otherwise? Let this melancholy branch of our national statistics also speak for itself. Commencing, Sir, from the period when the nation had settled down into habits of peace, namely, from about 1817, and continuing to 1823, when the commercial policy of the country was still undisturbed, these are the annual committals in England and Wales:—

exhibiting not much variation, but one of a most pleasing character, for it was a decided diminution. In the year 1824, when the new system was projected, but only put into limited operation, the committals advanced at once from 12,263 to 13,698, nearly twelve per centum; in 1825 to 14,437, nearly eighteen per centum; in 1826, the year when its new regulations, which were to cover us with so much prosperity and happiness, and which some would fain persuade us they have done, the number rose at once to 16,164, nearly thirty-two per cent advance upon that of 1823, only three years before; 1827, to 17,921, above forty-six per cent; in 1828, 16,564, thirty-five per cent! And this portentous advance in crime has taken place notwithstanding all our boasted improvement in the jurisprudence of the country, which has been made the ground of such eulogy, notwithstanding our police bills, our tread-mills, and I know not what besides. If we take the average of the three years already alluded to, before the system in question commenced, and the three years during which it has operated, leaving out the two of transition, then the former number is 12,539, the latter 16,883, an increase of more than one-third—an advance so vast and appalling as to be plainly attributable to any thing rather than accident, and which, is so exactly coincident in dates with the preceding documents, as plainly to fix itself upon the absurd, cruel, and ruinous policy then unfortunately adopted.

But I will dwell no longer on these particular proofs. The free-trade system, as it regards the country at large, is, therefore, accompanied by increasing labour, increasing poverty, increasing distress, increasing crime. It is, however, abundantly compensated for, in the estimation of some, by the fact of French silk lowering and supplanting our own, and latterly our cottons, in our own markets. The silk-manufacturer starves, the cotton-weaver suffers, but a part of the population dresses smarter. To repine is, therefore, I have been reminded by the right hon. member for Liverpool, morosity. I am fully aware, that the principles I have attempted to advocate, and the documents by which I have illustrated, and I think substantiated them, however sanctioned by reason, experience, and humanity, will be slighted and stigmatized as unfounded by certain classes, and, unfortunately for England, very influential classes, of the community. I mean the mere international exchangers, "the brokers," as Locke emphatically denominates them. These are numerous in London, and in one or two other of our great towns. Surrounding as they do the seat of government, which they weary with their interested representations, till they ultimately possess them with their views, and exercising much influence over the press, they must, as far as interest is concerned, favour foreign competition. So far they must prefer that the food of England should be the product of foreign plains, and the clothing of England the labour of foreign looms, their profit, commission, or whatever it may be denominated, being so derived. It is their privilege also too often to profit by the misery of others, and especially by a ruinous competition between British and foreign markets. To this class must likewise be occasionally added the great manufacturers in some branches of British industry in which we are at present pre-eminent, and, consequently, great exporters. These, after having absorbed the lesser competitors within our line, would not sometimes, perhaps, be unwilling to extend their own foreign concerns by the actual sacrifice of other branches of internal industry to foreigners. Also the monied capitalists of the country, so long as their funds are secured, have a palpable interest in depress- ing the condition of the home artisan, and cheapening all the products of his labour. Such, likewise, is the obvious interest of placemen and pensioners, one and all. Many of these, including the brokers, as Locke calls them, may be, and doubtless are, most respectable and humane; but it is impossible, nevertheless, not to concur with that great authority, who says, that such grow rich by that which impoverishes the community; and I think it might be as well if government would reflect that, by giving too much weight to the artificial parts of the social structure, the fabric may be overloaded, and its very foundations destroyed.

These, then, are the general views which I cannot but entertain in reference to the principles of what is called free trade, as applicable to this country. And, I would ask, is there anything in the particular branch of national industry now under our consideration to render it an exception? Is there anything to countervail the disadvantages under which the English silk operative must labour? Is the raw material cheaper?—No; it is dearer. Is throwing cheaper?—No; it also is necessarily higher. If both these were upon a par, are the remaining facilities equal? No: from first to last the English artisan has to labour, in this particular and important branch of national industry, under disadvantages which would render that free competition with foreigners to which the theorists, look degrading to him and ruinous to the trade; and these will remain while the country stands in its present condition.

Sir, it is most important to recall our recollections to the period of this commercial revolution in the Silk Trade—to revive the arguments on both sides—arguments which were, indeed, diametrically opposite, one side being, therefore, fundamentally wrong, which experience, melancholy experience, has already fully decided. The present policy was resisted on its introduction by a great proportion of the trade; and who ought, therefore, to have had some weight, but they were told by those who had pre-determined on introducing the foreigner into our market of labour—first, that it would increase the silk manufacture of this country; second, that the competition would greatly improve it, especially in fancy articles, on which so much labour is consumed; third, that it would put down smuggling; the "giant smuggler" was, I think, the expression; fourth, that it would become a great export trade. Sir, the manufacturers asserted to the contrary, and they asserted the truth. It has, on the whole, greatly diminished the labour employed in this trade; and it has done so by the foreign competition, so complacently talked about, having almost destroyed the British fancy and velvet branches; and instead of having annihilated smuggling, it has increased it twenty fold. But the great argument in favour of this new policy was couched in a single word, "reciprocity." In order to realize this in relation to our rivals France, we have taken duties off her wines—we have admitted her gloves, and her silks, and sundry other articles of her industry. Will the reciprocity advocates redeem their pledges, and show us what advantages have been accorded to this country in return, or rather to our starving manufacturers? None. And, then, is it not clear, that every hour of labour we thus give to France we deduct from England; that of every shilling of wages the artisans of the former country thus obtain we rob our own? Extend this fact to the amount of imports, and you have a key to the appalling secret of the distress of our silk-manufacturers. As to the happy results which were promised on the introduction of this new system, where are they? Are they to be found in the agitation that pervades the whole trade; in the immense depression of the fixed capitals engaged in it; in the rapidly approaching ruin of many; in the fall of wages and want of employment of far more; in short, in the utter destitution at this moment of many, many thousands of those who were formerly profitably occupied? Sir, I hold in my hand authenticated proofs, that in every stage of the silk manufacture, from the first purchase of the raw material to the last process it undergoes, the British artisan has in this branch to labour under signal disadvantages; that he cannot, in fact, compete with those of France, excepting in the heavier, branches of the trade, nor even in those without an unhappy, reduction in his remuneration; not at all, I repeat, in those finer and fancy branches in which labour constitutes so large a proportion of values. The very, articles in which it was confidently prophecied, that our workmen would improve so much by competition, competition has wrested from their em- ploy. I allude particularly to fine and thin fancy silks and gauzes, as well as velvets. Many, many hundreds of looms formerly engaged in fabricating these articles are now unemployed; those which are employed are working on heavier goods, and increasing that production, or glut, which is now complained of by those who, to shield the impolicy of their measures, would fain construe the misfortunes of the weavers into their folly and their crime. These proofs would all have been available had a committee been granted, and would all of them have been substantiated there. Sir, these results are already substantiated by that proof which no paper statements to the contrary can contravene; namely, by the wretchedness and destitution to which the silk-weavers of the united kingdom are now unhappily reduced. Documents have been appealed to. If we had examined those and other documents in a committee we should have known the truth; in the mean time, documents are nothing compared with the evidence afforded by the distress and ruin brought upon the trade by this unhappy measure.

Sir, I feel perfectly confident the present bill would never have been presented to this House had a committee been granted. And first, Sir, this bill avowedly sacrifices the interests, the capital of the throwsters, this branch of the trade being the judges; and, nevertheless, on the authority of all the rest, that branch of the silk business is necessary for the very preservation of the whole. The right hon. President of the Board of Trade, in reducing so materially the protection of the throwsters, plainly warns them that he will not pledge himself to the continuation even of that, thus making a future threat an apology for past wrongs, no uncommon course. And, as it respects these throwsters, we have heard strange doctrines held out, which may very possibly have a wider application eventually than to that ill-used class. It seems, on the authority of our present oracles, that private interests are not in future to stand in the way of public benefits. Good doctrine this if you came down with your indemnities! If, then, in this particular instance, the throwsters, who were publicly urged into the business above thirty years ago, under the guarantee of great protecting duties, are to be indemnified, the policy would at least have the merit of honesty; but no such thing. Government have learnt the knack of making scapegoats of particular classes and interests when they find themselves in a dilemma; and the two or three millions of capital, and the many thousands of hands dependent upon this branch of cherished industry, and put into jeopardy by this measure, little embarrassing them. Let them act upon this plan universally, and I know not of any future difficulties they will have to encounter. The claims of the British creditor, the demands of the pensioner, civil or military, may give way next to facilitate their career. But no! these are claims of a more sacred character in their estimation than those of honest labour or commercial capital.

But, Sir, the next ground of objection to this bill is, the very inadequate protection it affords to the British silk-manufacturer as well as throwster, a protection of about twenty-five per cent. Now, Sir, let us inquire whether this will or can possibly allow him who pays the taxes and sustains the burthens of this country a fair chance in his own market; and it will not be denied, I think, that these and the price he pays for the necessaries of life have or ought to have something to do with the price of his labour; to say nothing of that superior style of living which the English operative has hitherto enjoyed, as much to the advantage of the community as to his own. Without entering into a very minute calculation or affecting actual precision, I take the taxes of every artisan of England with a family, including himself, and wife, and three children, at 10d. a day—that of the Frenchman will not amount to nearly half as much, little above 4d. Then the same quantity of corn for which the Englishman pays 12d., the Frenchman will obtain for about, or less than 7d. As to all the comforts which the English workman has hitherto accumulated around him, and which have been the means of dispensing them to others throughout the whole hive of national industry, of those we will say nothing—those under the competition system must be all resigned, and will not much longer embarrass the calculation. Without, therefore, such obsolete allusions, with his daily bread above seventy per cent dearer, and with his daily taxes at least a hundred and twenty per cent higher, his guardians have judged, in the instance before us, that twenty-five per cent is all the advantage that ought to be afforded to him in his own market; and they appeal to the smuggler in proof that this is all that ought to be granted, and they apologise to the theorists and the barterers even for asking so much.

But further, of all the political paradoxes of the day, that which this bill embodies in relation to lowering the duties on foreign wrought silks, as a means of protecting the home-manufacturer, is certainly the most strange. It is said, that such reduction will have a tendency to put down smuggling. That I believe to be as erroneous a prognostication as was the original one, which boldly maintained, that opening our ports to them was to put down smuggling altogether. Be that, however, as it may, how, I would ask, is this closer competition between the Custom-house and the smuggler, as settled by this bill, to save the home-manufacturer? If it enables the Custom-house to introduce henceforth foreign silks as cheap or cheaper than the contraband trader, such a regulation can by no possibility lessen the quantity now introduced; whereas it may, and most certainly will, by increasing the lawful facilities of such a traffic, very much increase it. Sir, we have heard much of the impossibility of guarding against the contraband trade in any other way. It was, however, effectually guarded against by the preceding system, but now I have it from every tradesman whom I have consulted, who state the fact with strong feelings of commiseration for their starving countrymen, that owing to the alteration in that system the fancy goods they sell are almost entirely French, the goods whose manufacture in this country the ruinous alteration was so greatly to improve, that the most profitable branch of the trade is therefore nearly annihilated. Sir, had a committee been granted the manufacturers would have proved this, and suggested far more efficient means of protection. The government of the country show us pretty clearly when the revenue is at stake what can be done in the way of protection; then they are in earnest. They can collect a hundred per cent on the trade of China, five hundred per cent on the brandies of France, one thousand per cent on the tobaccos of America; and the sums raised demonstrate how small a part of the impost can have been evaded. These articles may be more difficult to introduce surreptitiously; but then the temptation is infinitely greater. In a word, Sir, the imposts are levied with certainty enough upon the English artisan: his labours might be as efficiently protected, were there an equal anxiety to do so.

Sir, I have some other documents on this subject, which, had a committee been granted, would not, I think, have been judged undeserving of its attention; on this occasion they would lead me into too wide a field of discussion for the patience of this House. I have already addressed it at more length than I intended: but I shall make no apology for having so done. The subject is too important to allow of apologies; and, however imperfect my views may be deemed regarding it, I claim the merit of having given it, and especially the principle of which it forms a part, a long and patient examination. When I had, as an humble individual, the pleasure of concurring with those who still direct his majesty's councils on other important points, still, on the subject of national economy, I was reluctantly compelled to differ. The evils which I apprehended in consequence of their commercial policy are, I fear, in the course of being realized. The few may be, and, probably, are served; but the many are injured; profitable industry is crippled, and growing more and more languid; the resources of the country, whether individual or public, I fear are not at present in a very prosperous state; labour is becoming daily more redundant, and its remuneration is perpetually diminishing.

But I will not pursue the distressing subject. I will merely ask, to what are these melancholy results attributable? Not to the country—not to its people—not to Providence! We have been already blessed with a long continuance of peace. The bounties of nature have flowed in upon us with an equal and unfailing stream. Our climate is still propitious—our plains fertile—our people active and enterprising, beyond all rivalry—our possessions, unequalled in wealth, and all but unbounded in extent. To what, then, are these distresses, which take, I fear, a wider range than we are now contemplating, attributable? At one time, they have been laid to the charge of too much capital; at another to too little. Now, overproduction was the cause—now, stagnation of commercial enterprise—now, the bankers were in fault—now, the landlords. I shall not dwell upon these conjectures, believing them all to be erroneous. Sir, I assert seriously, that I believe the distress that has been at shortening intervals long assailing different branches of national industry, and which I now fear is threatening all, is owing to the application of the principles of free trade to a country placed in a situation in which it has only another term for national difficulty, distress, and ultimate confusion. By husbanding our resources, protecting our labour, and developing our mighty and incalculable means, we have within ourselves the elements of prosperity. So, it is my belief, has every country under heaven. There may not, indeed, be everywhere the same signs of greatness, the display of equal wealth, the exhibition of the like grandeur, yet there is, in every place which God and nature have formed, the constituents of internal happiness and prosperity. In the universal mechanism of the social system, of which necessity is the main spring, all the parts are so adequately and necessarily balanced, especially those of labour and demand, population and production, that nothing but a deviation from the dictates of sound policy and true benevolence, can ever disturb or destroy its harmonious movements. In a word, we owe to each other and to our country those reciprocal duties, the discharge of which is invariably their own reward, is at once the security and the consummation of all happiness and prosperity, individual, social, or national. But, Sir, if the interest before the House is regarded as an exception from the general line of policy it may adopt in other instances, let that plead for a deliberate reconsideration of its pressing claims. Let those who conceive that the main branches of English industry require no protection, still extend it to this; seeing that it has hitherto always experienced the favourable consideration of the legislature, and is now claiming its particular attention, on account of its present weakness and distress. Let them console the sufferings of those that approach them on this occasion by hearing their appeal and granting their request. Even if concession should not bring relief, it will bestow comfort—it will preserve peace. Let the legislature of the country, then, consult its proper character—let it assume that in which it would wish to appear before a confiding public—let it exhibit itself in the attitude of a kind parent, who, while exulting in the strength and vigour of his elder born, still extends his fostering care to the young and helpless branches of his family; and who, lending his patient ear and his soothing voice to their complaints, half removes the sorrow which he is perhaps unable wholly to cure, in the very act of commiserating it.

Sir, I earnestly implore this House to negative the present bill, and to consult those deeply concerned in the present question in the framing one which would protect their long-cherished interests, and preserve to them their bread, and with that the peace of the community, as well as its prosperity, which I think is seriously threatened by the measure before the House. The hon. member, in conclusion, disclaimed any intention of using harsh or intemperate language, or of applying offensive terms to any of the members of his majesty's government; and particularly to the right honourable the President of the Board of Trade. He could be quite satisfied, if the distressed silk manufacturers were left to the good feeling of that right hon. gentleman; but he feared that he was persevering in a wrong course for consistency sake, when a much nobler course was open to him.

said, that if the arguments of the hon. member for Newark had had any bearing upon the question before the House, he should not have ventured to address them upon this occasion. He felt, however, that it was necessary to recal the attention of the House to the subject immediately before it; namely, whether it was or was not expedient to proceed with the bill now before it, which had for its object the imposing certain duties on manufactured silk. That bill had no reference to the general principles of political economy, nor was it necessary to advert to those principles in order to defend its provisions. What, it might be asked, were the circumstances under which, they were called upon to interfere with the Silk Trade? That trade was admitted by common consent to be in great distress; and the cause of that distress, as stated by the petitioners, was the freedom of importation allowed to foreign silk. Two remedies were suggested for the evils which prevailed in the trade; one, to prohibit this importation altogether; the other to give a duty sufficient for the protection of the British manufacturer. Prohibition, it was certain, could not prove an effectual support, because its object would be defeated by smuggling; and, indeed, it was by no means certain that the distress of the silk weavers could be fairly attributed to the importation of foreign silk, for it was well known, that great distress existed in other branches of industry where no importation occurred, and in other countries. In France, for instance, where the restrictive system prevailed to the greatest extent, there was quite as much distress in various branches of manufactures. After all the consideration which the government had been enabled to apply to the subject, they had come to the conclusion, that the distress was mainly owing to overtrading, or what was more properly denominated over-production. The honourable member for Callington had ridiculed this as impossible, and declared that the merchants and manufacturers of this country knew their interests too well to be guilty of such folly. This would be very well, and was no doubt true, where the manufacturers had an opportunity of consulting together; but the fact was, that a competition took place between the manufacturers, which gave rise to this over-production; and it therefore became not a competition between English and French manufacturers, but between English and English. This accounted for that consumption of the raw material to which the hon. member for Newark alluded, and to which government had not referred as a proof of prosperity, but of a great extension of trade. He then read an extract from the petition from the silk manufacturers of London, which ascribed the evils of that trade not to the want of prohibitory or protecting duties, but to the extension of the manufacture. With respect to prohibition, he was confident it would have no effect in restoring the Silk Trade to prosperity. The only effect of it would be to induce the persons engaged in that trade to expect that prosperity would be again restored, and that the mills would again be set in activity for a time; and the same consequences would follow as before; namely, disappointment and renewed distress. Without adverting to the general objection there was to the prohibitory system, he would contend that prohibition in this particular case was not the measure that parliament should adopt as a remedy for the existing evils. It was alleged on the part of the petitioners, that the cause of their distress was the great importation of foreign goods. Now, the legal importation was extremely small, and did not approach to the one-twentieth part of the whole manufacture of the kingdom. But, on the other hand, it was said, there was a great importation of foreign goods, by means of smuggling; and the petitioners stated, that the amount of this illegal importation was three times as much as the legal importation. In order to do away with the evil arising from this source, his right hon. friend, having ascertained the actual cost of smuggling silks into English ports, proposed to fix a duty; which, considering that circumstance, was the very utmost which it would be possible to collect. Thus it appeared, that they were disposed to give to the silk manufacturers of this country as much protection as possible, short of actual prohibition; for if the duty to be imposed was the highest that could be collected, it was impossible to do more for that branch of industry. He therefore considered that this was a measure with which the advocates of the manufacturers ought to be contented. It was the same thing to the manufacturers, whether the foreign goods came in by legal or illegal importation; but at least if they did come in, the public interest required that they should come in by a legal method, and both the government and the manufacturer would rather that they should come in through the Custom-house, in order that they might know the extent of the evil. There was no disposition on the part of government to depart from the system adopted in 1824 and 1825. With regard to a point which had been frequently adverted to in the course of the debate—the importation of raw silk—he would beg to state, that on comparing the three years before the restrictions were taken off, with the two last years since the system had come into complete operation, that importation had actually doubled. The increase which had taken place was much too great to be accounted for on any of the grounds stated by the petitioners. The fact was, that the importation of raw silk had actually increased from 2,000,000lbs.5 to 4,000,000lbs. a year. He denied what had been stated by the hon. member for Callington, that the present measure was carrying still further the system to which he objected, by a greater reduction of the duty on foreign silk goods. That system was originally adopted in 1824, and established in 1826, when the duty was fixed at thirty per cent as the maximum or highest duty to be collected, and to that duty government now adhered. He would now say a word as to the concomitant importation and exportation that had taken place in the foreign trade of this country, in consequence of the measures adopted for giving it greater freedom. It was perfectly true, that these measures had produced, or had certainly been followed by, a very considerable importation of foreign merchandize, and the increase of the exportation of British goods. During the three years before the restrictions were removed, as compared with the two years since, there had been an increase of the importation of foreign goods of no less than twelve millions, according to the official value, namely, from thirty-two to forty-four millions. During the same period, the increase of the exportation of British manufactures had been from forty-two to fifty-two millions. He wished also to call the attention of the House to the fact, that the imports were chiefly of those articles which were either of our own manufacture, or in which there was no competition with this country. These were glass, molasses, raw silk, sugar, tea, cotton, wool, and the only article of a doubtful nature was sheep's wool. During the same time there had been also a very considerable increase indeed of the importation of cotton goods, cotton yarn, wine, and steel, wrought and unwrought, and linen manufactures. For every importation of foreign goods there was a corresponding export of British produce and manufactures in iron, copper, brass, hardware, and lead. There was no symptom of the consumption of articles of English manufacture having decreased at home or abroad, but the contrary. It was not too much, then, to assume, that the principles of what was called the Free Trade System were consistent with the general prosperity of the country.—One argument had been resorted to against the importation of foreign silks; namely, that we should not admit foreign commodities without obtaining reciprocal advantages from other countries in return. In answer to this, he declared that he entirely entered into and concurred in the truth of that passage of the famous petition of 1820, in which, it was maintained, that the power of importing foreign commodities on the lowest possible terms was extremely desirable; and, being likely to prove beneficial to this country in many instances, ought to be possessed and exercised without reference to the conduct of other countries. Besides, supposing we were to sti- pulate with foreign states—France, for instance—to receive their commodities on the condition that they should accept ours upon similar terms — that they should admit our woollens and articles of hardware—how would British silk manufacturers be benefitted by that? But, he could not admit that our measures of free trade would be entirely without effect upon the commercial systems of other countries. He knew of no country in Europe, except Russia, that avowedly and systematically adhered to a close system. In France, though the government had not as yet given way, there was a strong party in favour of the free-trade system. A considerable portion of the press in that country took this view of the case, and the public mind was daily becoming more favourable to it. In Germany there were similar symptoms; and for Prussia a freer system than even our own was claimed. Spain, one of the most bigotted governments in the world, had recently been applied to to prohibit the importation of foreign rice; but the answer given was—"No: we will afford you a moderate degree of protection." With regard to the throwster, government found a considerable duty on foreign thrown silk; and certainly, at first sight, it would seem that the disposition should be, by taking off that duty, to improve the condition of the manufæturer: but then it must be remembered, that thrown silk, though to a certain extent a raw material, was also partly a manufactured article, and the English throwster was entitled to be dealt by with tenderness, and to receive proper protection as well as the British silk weaver. He thought there was little probability that the duty on thrown silk would be ever again raised: he did not mean to convey any pledge as to its further reduction; perhaps that also was unlikely; however, it would be the province of parliament to deal with the subject, if necessary. So far from the throwster being sacrificed in order to promote the interests of the weaver, as the hon. member for Callington appeared to suppose, the former would still possess a protection against the foreign article, equivalent to the difference in the cost of production between the English and Italian commodity. There was to be a drawback allowed on the exportation of English silks. The principle of the measure was this—we gave the British throwster what was intended to be, not a monopoly, but a considerable protection in the home market: that was perfectly fair, but we should not give him a protection in the foreign market; and it was therefore proposed, that the duty imposed on the importation of thrown silk should be drawn back on the exportation of English manufactured silk. The export of a corresponding quantity of British silk was to entitle the exporter to the amount of duty previously paid.—He was an advocate for what had been termed free trade, not solely or exclusively on the principles of political economy; for he was afraid there were points in that science, with regard to which he, in common with some hon. members, must continue a heretic. Thus far, however, he would go, and declare his conviction, that whether in trade or any thing else, the principle of government should be one as far as possible of absolute freedom. No particular individual or nation should be prohibited from buying and selling as their respective interests directed. He was ready to admit that existing interests should be treated as tenderly as possible, and that, as the hon. alderman had said, all changes ought to be brought about gradually. He thought his right hon. friend's measure calculated to effect this, and therefore gave it his cordial support.

said, that his hon. friend and colleague (Mr. Attwood) had undoubtedly treated the subject before the House with great ability, and had placed his arguments in opposition to the doctrines of political economy in the strongest point of view, For his own part, upon this subject, he laboured under the misfortune of not entirely agreeing with hardly any one class in that House. Admitting the general principles referred to, he was anxious to bring them to the test of particular facts. Nothing was more absurd than to decry general principles without due examination. Those hon. gentlemen, the members for Callington and Newark, who spoke so much against theories, had themselves done nothing but favour the House with their own theories, and in all probability unconsciously, like the bourgeois gentilhomme of Molière, who found that he had been talking prose all his life without knowing it, they had given vent to theories without being aware that they were doing so. The right hon. gentleman who spoke last had told the House of the favourable disposition towards free trade existing in France; a disposition that might, undoubtedly, be much enhanced, if we were able to offer the French a similar advantage to that which we desired in the free admission of their silks. But we put this out of our power by adopting the present plan. His hon. colleague had alluded to the trade with India. But that trade was peculiarly circumstanced: it took a large portion of bullion, an article by which our own circulation was regulated; and if a constant trade was kept up in that article, which was not only an article of trade but a medium of circulation, it must create some difficulty, which the purists were not aware of, but which a man of common sense must perceive would produce endless confusion. Then with regard to reciprocity, there were some articles which we could not dispense with; we must be dependent upon the northern countries for our marine stores, for example. With regard to the Silk Trade, if it stood on the same footing as it stood some years—a footing of entire prohibition—though he had a great objection to it, he would not interfere: but now we were differently situated; we had let in the system of regulated duties, and the bill appeared to put the manufacturer in no worse situation than he was in already. He was therefore disposed to vote for the measure which continued the present system. He was more willing to do this than to go into a committee of inquiry, which would excite expectations that would be disappointed, or to go back to the old system of prohibitions. He felt an objection to that part of the present bill which related to the bounty on manufactured silks, exported: he thought it would be better to reduce the duty on the raw material than to give a bounty, which was an encouragement to the manufacture of light and fancy goods, but which was paid upon the heavy goods, in which the silk was mixed with gum and starch. Such a plan afforded no protection to the throwster. Looking at the trade with a wish to do all that could possibly be done to protect it, even to the abandonment of general principles, he thought that the only safe course was to go on with the present system.

said, he should not have risen had not the hon. member who had just sat down complimented the hon. member for Callington, and the hon. member for Newark on their speeches, which speeches he thought would do much harm, if they went forth to the country uncontradicted. The arguments of the hon. member for Callington were ingenious, but they were entirely fallacious; and the speech of the hon. member for Newark was a declamatory appeal to the passions of the people. Those hon. members professed to be opponents of theory, yet they were theorists themselves: they opposed their theories to those which he and his hon. friends supported. He would suppose, for the sake of argument, that we imported silk goods from France, and that we paid for those goods in gold; and no opponent of free trade could desire a more liberal concession. The silks employed the labour of France, and the gold came from South America. But this gold we purchased by woollens which we sent to South America. It was, in fact, a barter of labour for labour, in which the British artizan had a fair share. Then how could the hon. member for Newark say, that the labourer of this country was deprived of his bread, and doomed to starve? How could he justify the highly-coloured picture he had drawn? This was the whole of his (Mr. Maberly's) theory, and he would ask whether it was not more practical than theirs? The hon. member who had just sat down, professed himself an enemy to both theories; yet to what conclusion did he come? Why, he approved of this bill. The principle of the bill was not the principle of free trade; it was only called an approximation to a free trade. The right hon. gentleman who introduced the present measure, had merely limited the amount of the protecting duties to thirty per cent, and declared that there should be no prohibition. He thought it would be well if the hon. member for Newark, with his knowledge of trade and manufactures, would come down to the House and offer to his majesty's government a better system than the present.

said, he thought that the British throwster, by the effect of this bill, would be placed in a worse situation than those of foreign countries; for even supposing that he could work at the same rate, and could produce manufactures at the same price, he would still be labouring under the disadvantages which would necessarily arise from the fact, that a drawback of 3s. 6d. would be allowed upon the re-exportation of any foreign imported silks. He thought the labouring classes of England had great reason to complain; but he did not see how they could be permanently relieved, except by a relief of taxation. The hon. Member continued to speak for some time upon the necessity of removing the assessed taxes and of providing a property-tax; but owing to the loud cries of "Question", which were vociferated from every part of the House, he was inaudible in the gallery.

The House then divided: Far going into the Committee 90. For the Amendment 22. Majority 68. The House then went into the committee and the clauses were agreed to. After which the House resumed and the report was brought up.