then moved the insertion of a Clause:—

"That so much of the Irish Poor Law Act as provides, that whenever the net annual value of the whole of the rateable hereditaments in any Union occupied by any person or persons shall not exceed 4 l ., the rate in respect of such property shall be made on the immediate lessor, be repealed, except as to anything heretofore done or now pending under this Act."

He was by no means desirous to establish the principle that persons, not paupers, were to be excused from the payment of rates to the maintenance of the poor. According to law, as it now stood, provision was made for the liability of immediate lessors for the whole rates, in place of the occupiers, in certain cases, of the value of rateable property; and his object in introducing the clause was to repeal so much of the Act as provided that, wherever the net annual value of the whole of the rateable hereditaments in any union shall not exceed 4 l ., the rate in respect of such property shall be made on the immediate lessor. He believed that the law as it now stood had encouraged evictions very much, and tended to an immense extent to increase the sufferings of the people. It was impossible that the land could be properly cultivated if labourers could not live on the soil, within a reasonable distance of their work.

Clause brought up, and road a First Time.

said, that though he gave the hon. Member for Rochdale credit for the humane motives which induced him to bring forward this proposition, he did not agree with him as to the effects which it would produce. He would give his opposition to the clause, as he was of opinion that it would be impossible to collect rates if that part of the law were repealed.

said, the exemption under the 4 l . clause was meant to facilitate the collection of the rates, and to relieve the small occupiers from a tax which it was supposed they were unable to bear. Those two objects had been effected by the clause; but it was liable to the objection that it threw upon the immediate lessor a heavy charge. He was, however, told that the latter difficulty might be in great part remedied by a new form of the rate-book, without the necessity for new legislation. It was a question whether the exemption of the occupier from poor-rates had not brought upon him a still heavier evil in the liability to ejectment. The Earl of Clancarty, who possessed property in one of the most distressed districts, wished to assimilate the 4 l . exemption and the quarter-acre clause; and he suggested that the 4 l . should be reduced to 2 l . The 4 l . clause undoubtedly prevented small farmers from improving their land, lest they might become subject to the payment of poor-rates, while it supplied the landlords with a powerful motive for wishing to get rid of tenants of this unimproving character. He thought, upon the whole, the clause in the present Bill might be allowed to stand in its existing shape, until after the effects of the famine had passed away. The main portion of the evictions, he was convinced, were not owing to the 4 l . clause; and he believed that without the poor-law these evictions would have continued to take place.

admitted that a good deal of hardship might have arisen from the operation of the clause; but they should take care that in endeavouring to obviate one hardship they did not create a greater one. It was admitted, he thought, by all the witnesses examined on the subject, that if the rates of those small tenements were placed on the occupiers, there would be a practical impossibility in collecting those rates, and those rates would be lost. It was admitted that by this law a heavy tax was inflicted on the landlords and immediate lessors; but still it was stated to be a better plan than to require the occupiers to pay the rates. Though some evictions had followed from this law, it should be considered that owing to its operation the occupiers were exempted from the distress for recovery of the rate to which they would be liable if the clause had not been passed. He thought the House would be acting very unwisely if they consented to a proposition which would render the small occupiers subject to such distress, and they would peril a great portion of the rates.

said, that a vast number of evictions had taken place in consequence of the operation of the clause. That, in fact, was almost the necessary result of throwing upon the landlord the responsibility of the rates of property, out of which he did not receive rent, but out of which he would receive rent when he consolidated those small holdings and formed them into a large one. It struck him that it would be a better plan than the present to have no tenement rated that was under 20 s . value. He knew the proposition was open to the objection that there might be fraud on the part of the valuator; but, on the whole, wishing to see some degree of certainty in the administration of the system, he thought it would be a more simple and intelligible plan than the one at present adopted.

would resist the proposal of the hon. Member for Rochdale, if he could agree in the assertion that the poor-rate would not be recoverable if the 4 l . clause were repealed. But the fact was, there was no practical remedy at present for the recovery of the poor-rates due in respect of these holders under 4 l ., and it would be found that of the sums due for poor-rate the greater proportion was owing for the rates of these occupiers under 4 l . The 4 l . clause had a natural tendency to promote the system of extermination, and its repeal would be the first step towards enforcing the collection of the poor-rate upon holdings of less than 4 l . value. On these grounds he was favourable to the practical repeal of the 4 l . clause by the proposition of the hon. Member for Rochdale.

was unwilling to vote against a Motion of his hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale without giving a reason for it. It appeared to him that the evil on one side was more immediate than on the other. It was right that there should be some interval, some gulf, between the man who paid poor-rates to-day, and the man who might become a pauper to-morrow. The tendency of the 4 l . clause seemed to be to keep up that gulf, and for that reason he must vote against the proposal now before the House.

denied that the operation of the 4 l . rating clause was, as had been stated, the main cause of producing evictions in Ireland, though he did not deny that it might have some effect in producing those evictions. For instance, he would take the case of the Kilrush union, where, he believed, the greatest number of evictions had occurred, and there he found that out of 8,000 persons rated for the poor, 3,500 only were rated under 4 l . Then he would take a union in which there had been no ejectments, the union of Mountmellick, and there he found that out of 13,000 persons rated for the poor, 8,000 were rated under 4 l ., being a much greater proportion than the number valued under 4 l . in the Kilrush union. If the 4 l . rating clause had been the cause of producing ejectments, there must have been a greater number of evictions in the last-named union than in Kilrush. That the clause produced some effect in that way, he did not deny; but the difficulties arising from its repeal would be far greater than those which now exist.

observed, that the circumstance of any proposition having originated with the hon. Member for Rochdale, afforded to the House and the country a sufficient guarantee that such proposition would not be oppressive to the poor, or unduly favourable to the landlord. But yet he could not help feeling considerable surprise when he heard any Irish Member prefer the collection of the rate to the safety of the people. With respect to this rate on 4 l . holdings, he had formerly recommended that half of it should be paid by the tenant, and half by the landlord. Objection had been taken at the time to that plan, on account of the difficulty of collecting rates in the west and south of Ireland. He regretted that the plan which he suggested had not been carried out; and he thought that the best course which he could now take would be to support the clause as it stood, and oppose the proposition of the hon. Member for Rochdale. He feared that that hon. Member's proposition would have a tendency to keep many ablebodied labourers in a state of idleness. It would cost very little less than 1,000,000 l a year to keep them in a condition of idleness. The object at which all legislation on this subject should aim should be to place all holders of land in such a situation as would enable them to pay their own rates. He had recently seen in the Times newspaper a letter, bearing the signature of "S. G. O.," which was understood to have been written by the same gentleman who wrote other letters in that journal under the same signature, which appeared last year. They were not very flattering to the people of Ireland, nor very favourable to their interests, inasmuch as that gentleman advised his parishioners not to subscribe anything towards the relief of the Irish. It was, however, satisfactory to observe that, with much candour, he now gave a statement of what he had seen in Ireland, and it would be impossible for any one to read that letter without feeling that its statements fully bore out the positions for which he (Colonel Dunne) had long been contending. The letter to which he referred appeared yesterday. This morning in the same journal there appeared another letter, a manifesto from the Chief Governor of Ireland, by which a policy was avowed that must, if acted on, have the effect of driving the Irish landlords from their estates. There was in that letter an opinion clearly expressed in favour of a change of proprietary.

said, it was obvious that the landlord would not continue to pay the rates for a tenant from whom he received no rent. With regard to the case to which the hon. Member for the county of Limerick had referred, he would observe that while the rates are low in the union of Mountmellick, the landlord may not object to pay them; but where they had risen to 7 s . 6 d . in the pound, no landlord could go on paying year after year for the tenants rated under 4 l ., and permit them to remain in possession. In case the House should agree to the Motion of the hon. Member for Rochdale, he (Sir L. O'Brien) would propose to add this proviso to it, "that tenants paying under 1 l ., and holding under a quarter of an acre of land, should be exempted from poor-rates."

hoped the House would come speedily to a decision on the clause. It appeared to him one of the most difficult questions connected with the poor-law. It could not be denied that the clause was not so severely felt while relief was only given in the poorhouses, and that it had a much stronger effect since the extension of the poor-law in 1847; but with respect to the total repeal of the clause, he felt that serious evils would follow from it. One evil was, that there would be a less sum applicable for the relief of the poor, and that the fund for their relief would be considerably diminished. The second evil was, that there having been in the past winter resistance in various parts of the country to the collection of the rates, they would run much greater risk of collision between bodies of the peasantry and the armed force of the Government engaged in collecting the rate, than they do at present. He thought it much safer, therefore, to keep the clause as it stands in the Act of Parliament, than to adopt the proposition of the hon. Gentleman. Whether it might be possible to collect the rates as was done in some of the towns in England, or that there might be some modification of the clause, was another question for consideration.

said, that if the Government undertook to take the question into consideration previous to the third reading, he would be most happy to withdraw his clause; but if no other hon. Member proposed an Amendment, and if the Government would not enter into any engagement to consider the question before the third reading, he was determined to take the opinion of the House upon his Motion.

Motion made, and Question put, "That the said Clause be now read a Second Time."

The House divided:—Ayes 25; Noes 55: Majority 30.

then rose to move the adoption of a clause tending to give facilities to the valuation of town lands in the different unions; but said he would not trouble the House to divide upon it if there was any objection to its reception.

Clause brought up and read a First Time.

said, there was no doubt that the object his hon. Friend had in view, namely, to bring into operation a speedy valuation, was very desirable; but he could not help thinking that the adoption of this clause would lead to considerable embarrassment and eon-fusion. He thought, on the whole, it would be better not to adopt the clause; and he could assure his hon. Friend that there was every disposition on the part of the Government to hurry on the valuation as quietly as possible.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the said Clause be now read a Second Time."

Motion and Clause, by leave, withdrawn,

moved the addition of a Proviso, of which he had given notice, to the following effect:—

"Provided always, That when a person chargeable to any electoral division shall have received relief, and shall cease to be relieved, and shall hereafter, within the period of twelve months, again begin to receive relief, such last-mentioned relief shall be chargeable on the electoral division in which such person was in the first instance chargeable."

Proviso agreed to.

moved, pursuant to notice, the following Proviso:—

"Provided always, That the cost for the relief of destitute poor who shall not have resided in the union where such relief is given for the last three years next previous to receiving such relief, shall be charged and chargeable according to the provisions of an Act passed in the 10th year of the reign of Her present Majesty, intituled, 'An Act to make further Provision for the Relief of the Destitute Poor in Ireland,'"

After a short discussion, in which Sir D. NORREYS, Sir G. GREY, and Mr. HERBERT took part, Proviso agreed to.

House resumed.

Bill to be read 3 ^o on Monday next. Bill, as amended, to be printed.

wished to ask a question, of which he had given notice to the noble Lord at the head of the Government yesterday. He wished to know how our relations with Austria now stood, and how the Treaty of Vienna was to be considered as affected by the events now going forward? He was anxious to learn whether the changes that were now going on, and the interference by Russia in Hungary, would put an end to that Treaty of Vienna, and in what position this country was likely to be placed in consequence?

With respect to the question which the hon. Gentleman has asked me, as I understand it, I have to say that there will be no interference whatever with the stipulations of the Treaty of Vienna by what has taken place in Hungary. The Emperor of Russia having been called on by the Emperor of Austria to assist in suppressing the insurrection in Hungary, he has lent his troops for that purpose, and he has made a representation to the British Government that he has interfered for that purpose only. I am not aware that any stipulations of the Treaty ef Vienna will be at all interfered with by these proceedings.

said, the noble Lord had not answered his question. It was said that certain territories were to be ceded to Russia by Austria, which would altogether alter the arrangements of the Treaty of Vienna; and he wished to know how such an arrangement was likely to affect this country?

We have received no information whatever of any such arrangement, and I certainly do not believe there are any grounds for the current rumours to which the hon. Gentleman alludes.

Would the noble Lord state to the House what are his grounds for calling the war in Hungary an insurrection?

That is a question to which I could hardly give a brief answer at present.

Then I beg to give notice that I will take an early opportunity of bringing the matter forward, so as to give the noble Lord an opportunity of considering the question.

Subject dropped.

said, that, by his position, by his feelings, and by his property, he was linked with what was called "the landed interest." Therefore, in addressing himself to the subject before the House, it could not be from any prejudice against the views brought forward by the hon. Member for Buckinghamshire, that he should refrain from voting with him. He should state, as briefly as possible, the motives which induced him to vote against that hon. Gentleman. The hon. Member for Buckinghamshire had contrasted the condition of the country in the years 1845 and 1846 with what it was now, and he had gone into long statistical details to show its depressed and distressed state. He had said, "Here you behold the effects of your policy. This is what has marked the progress of free trade and the change in our corn laws." But with that hon. Gentleman's ability and intelligence, he could not but have discovered other causes for the distressed condition of the working-classes, had he viewed and examined the question dispassionately. He must, had he looked fairly and calmly into it, have seen in the distressed condition of Ireland, resulting from the loss of the people's food for three successive seasons, one great cause for the influx of pauperism into England. He would have remembered that in England also the potato blight had done its work. He would have recognised, in the disturbed state of Europe, an ample cause for the depression of the trade and manufactures of England. Every candid man must, after examining the matter, have attributed the distressed condition of the people, where it existed, to other causes than those assigned by the hon. Member for Buckinghamshire. But his assertions regarding the condition of the working classes had been met by a statement so ample, so clear, so irrefutable, as to show that he was entirely in error in stating that they were as depressed is he represented, and therefore that he was in error in stating that their depression arose from those causes which he alleged. But there was one point which he (Mr. Slaney) should concede. It was, that many of the agricultural population in the southern districts of England were very much distressed indeed. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had made the same admission; but he had mentioned also one of the causes—the bad harvest in some of the southern counties. From the badness of the harvest, from the consequently large importation of foreign corn, and the depression in price consequent upon the change that had taken place in the laws, that distress had partly arisen. But there was one cause which had not been stated—one which related to the low prices of corn in those southern districts. Looking at the average price of corn, he found that for the year 1849 it ranged much higher—up to 56 s .—in the northern counties. That, he thought, showed distinctly that in those southern counties, favoured generally by beautiful weather, yet in which the price was lowest, the cause was that which had been stated by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, namely, the bad state of the grain itself. But the one great cause of distress which had not as yet been touched upon, was the very bad mode in which the poor-laws had been carried into operation for many years past in the southern counties. So long ago as 1834, the Commissioners stated that the Poor Law Act had been wrested from its original intention—that the poor were very much distressed—and that their condition was very bad in consequence of the manner in which the poor-laws were dispensed. In examining a question of the importance and magnitude of the present, such matters should not be lost sight of. Now, what was the object of the hon. Member for Buckinghamshire? It was, to reimpose those corn laws that had been so lately got rid of; the effect of which would be to raise the price of food upon the poorer classes, and probably also to raise the price of land. Those who had examined with the greatest care and attention what regulated chiefly the wages of the working classes, had come to this conclusion, that they were regulated by the proportion between the demand and the supply of la-hour. If that were so, he asked, as a matter of justice to those humble persons, whether they ought, by artificial means—by passing Acts for the purpose of putting a heavy rate upon the importation of foreign corn—to raise the price of food upon the poor, without also raising artificially their wages correspondingly? He asked, if they did the former, were they not bound to do the latter also? But he believed those low prices in the south of England were only an evil of a temporary nature. He thought they would shortly find them rising, if not to a high, at least to a moderately high, rate, so that they should be able to keep the land in cultivation with fair spirit and profit. He thought such a course most probable. However, he supposed the landlords would have to reduce their rents. But then, had not everything upon which they expended their income been proportion ably reduced in price? Had not all articles of consumption been lowered in cost from 10 to 15 per cent? This was a subject upon which he would not, upon which he could not, make a party speech, because he thought there was great reason for saying what had been said regarding the condition of the agricultural population in the southern counties. But there was a very important point in the speech of the hon. Member for Buckinghamshire, to which he should refer. The hon. Gentleman had said that for the last fifty years—during the period that protection had been the policy of England—the great body of the working classes had been in a good and thriving condition; that they had advanced in prosperity and comfort equally in proportion with the other classes of the community; and that in their present condition they had consequently fallen off, and were much to be deplored. Now, he thought that if they looked into the condition and state of the working classes of this country, they would find that they had not improved since the commencement of the present century proportionably with the middle and higher classes; and if the price of food were to be now raised upon them, they would be extremely injured. If hon. Gentlemen would only read the reports of the several commissioners who had been appointed to inquire into the state of the working classes from time to time, they would, he thought, agree with him. They would find that the condition of the working classes was uniformly represented as most depressed and unhappy. The hand-loom weavers, who and their families numbered between 500,000 and 600,000, were represented by the commissioners as having been in the same wretched condition for twenty years; and as he had before stated, from the different reports of the commissioners in 1834, the peasantry of the southern counties were represented as being in a most distressed state, owing to the bad administration of the poor-laws. Commissioners in 1843, 1844, and 1845, investigated the condition of sixty of the large towns of this country, comprising, in the aggregate, not less than 3,000,000 of people; and their report was, that the working classes were greatly depressed—that their health was injured by the neglected condition of the places they lived and worked in. The working classes had been neglected by the Legislature for a long series of years, and unjustly deprived of those improvements necessary to the preservation of their mind and body, and to which they were fairly entitled. The Committee on Education in 1838 stated, that one-eighth, at least, of the population ought to be educated; but it appeared that one in thirty—and in some cases one in thirty-five and one in thirty-eight only—were educated in our large towns. He admitted that both the physical and moral improvement of the people was now being somewhat attended to. But it was only very lately they had begun. If the recommendations of the various commissioners had been carried out—if those improvements in the condition of the working classes had been attempted before, or would be now fully brought into operation, not only would the people be improved, but a very considerable home market for the consumption of the manufactures and produce of the country would be created. But Parliament had neglected entirely for many years giving that protection to the health of the poorer classes in large towns which they so much needed. At length, indeed, they had begun to do so. But, as he had already said, they had neglected it too long, and the consequences of that neglect were manifest. Another matter to which he should briefly allude, was, the want of encouragement to invest their savings given to the working classes. The savings banks were the only means offered to them, and they were not sufficient. If they had encouragement to buy a bit of land, the stimulus to save would be far greater than at present. But the trammels of the law were so heavy, the difficulties so numerous and complicated, and the expenses so great, attendant upon the purchase of land, that they were deprived of the inducement to practise industry and frugality. When he (Mr. Slaney) attempted to bring forward measures for the improvement of the poor-laws in the southern counties, he was unable to make any impression upon the House until he said he could show that the landed gentry would save 4 s . in the pound by carrying out the improvements he suggested. In the same manner he should now proceed to show what saving might be effected by their paying proper attention to the morals, the education, and the physical condition of the working classes. And, first, he should deal with that assertion of the hon. Member for Buckinghamshire, that the condition of the people was not deteriorated from what it had been forty or fifty years ago. In the year 1810 the committals for crime were 4,600; in 1815 they were 7,800; in 1821 they were 16,500; in 1831 they were 19,600; in 1847 they were 28,800; and in 1848 they amounted to 30,000; showing that the committals for crime had increased three times as rapidly as the increase in population, and three times as fast as the increase in property. The consumption of spirits had increased in the same proportion as had crime, which proved, as he thought, that the hon. Member for Buckinghamshire was wrong in saying that the time during which the system of protection flourished was that when the condition of the working classes was better than it was now. Let them see what was the cost to the country of this state of things. Hon. Gentlemen whose rents were diminished, whose prices were lowered, said "show us any fund from which we can get relief." The hon. Member for the West Riding had brought forward a proposition accordingly, by which 10,000,000 l . were to be taken off the public expenditure; but the answer to that was, that it would cause the diminution of the Army and the Navy, by which the power and grandeur of the country would be so reduced that England could not maintain her position amongst the nations of the world. The hon. Member for Buckinghamshire had also submitted a Motion for removing 10,000,000 l . or 12,000,000 l . of local taxation which pressed very heavily. He (Mr. Slaney) agreed with him that the landed interest was unfairly pressed down by some of the burdens which he had enumerated; but instead of removing the evil from the shoulders of one to those of another portion of the community, he thought the better plan would be to remove the evil itself. He would state very briefly the cost to the country of the neglect of the poor. Firstly, there was the cost of crime; he had already shown the rapid increase in the number of committals within the last forty years. In the year 1836 a commission was issued, of which the Speaker was himself a member, to inquire into the cost of the constabulary of this country; and in the report which they presented there was a curious calculation. He should mention that there were no data from which an estimate could be accurately framed by which to gauge the cost of crime in the country. But in the report there was an estimate of the cost of criminals of both sexes for the town of Liverpool alone. And how much did hon. Gentlemen think it was for that one town? Why, 700,000 l . a year. And when the estimate was considered so enormous as to be a gross exaggeration, proof was given that it was at least from 30,000 l . to 40,000 l . a year under the truth. Now, making every allowance, he found, taking it as the ground of his estimate, that the cost of criminals throughout the kingdom amounted to not less than 11,000,000 l . sterling per annum, and that was no overstatement. There was one expense to be lessened, one vast cost to be diminished, without injury to any class, but with great benefit to all. The second item was the poor-rates, which amounted to 5,400,000 l . Every statement agreed in referring the enormous amount of the poor-rates to two causes—great ignorance on the one hand, and great misery and destitution on the other. We were only just beginning to educate the poor, and therefore as yet we could not expect to derive much benefit from it. But for thirty years, during which our attention was being constantly directed to it, we had neglected the education of the poorer classes; and even now so little was the proper system understood, that he knew of scarcely more than one single good industrial school for them, and that one was situated at King's Sombre, in the county which the right hon. the Speaker represented. With that exception he scarcely knew of another in the kingdom. Another point to which the commissioners had attributed a great portion of the increased amount of poor-rate was the neglected state of the health of poor people, who, living in crowded alleys and courts, and inhaling constantly a foul and tainted atmosphere, lost their health, and became unable to work. The next item of expenditure on account of the poor was for alms, both for the support of the hospitals and for casual alms. From the best calculations he could make, and he had submitted all his calculations to the judgment of a gentleman who was an excellent authority, he had set down that item at 5,400,000 l . for England and Wales: it was equal to the whole amount of the poor-rates. The next item was for police, which included the expenses of transporting prisoners convicted of crime, whether paid for by the county or from the Consolidated Fund, and various other items which he would not stop to particularise. The amount was 1,500,000 l . The next item was the cost to whe working classes themselves of the illness arising from causes which might be entirely removed hy proper social regulations, That was a difficult sum to arrive at, yet he believed he had obtained a fair average. He set it down at 4,000,000 l . a year. Thus they had a total of 11,000,000 l . as the cost of crime, 5,400,000 l . for poor-rates, 5,400,000 l . for hospitals and other alms, 1,500,000 l . for police and convicts, and 4,000,000 l . expense of illness to the poor themselves—total 27,000,000 l . for the poor of England and Wales alone, in consequence of the neglect with which their condition, physical and moral, had been treated. For Scotland and Ireland he ventured to add half that amount, which would be 13,500,000 l . At the same time the consumption of spirits had increased from 9,000,000 gallons to 27,000,000 gallons per annum, of which he computed that at least 20,000,000 gallons were consumed by persons oppressed by misery that might be removed, and ignorance that might be prevented. These 20,000,000 gallons cost no less a sum than 10,000,000 l . a year. So that the sum total of this class of expenditure amounted to about 51,000,000 l . per annum, one-half of which, he firmly believed, might be effectually saved or diminished by social improvements—by improvements which would have the further effect of making the poorer classes more contented subjects and better customers to our manufacturing and agricultural producers. He trusted the House would take these subjects into its most serious consideration. He hoped the Legislature would try to reduce some portion of that enormous sum of 51,000,000 l ., which was the annual fine for its own neglect in not having sooner provided for the social improvement and comfort of the poor. By means of industrial education brought to their doors, by protective measures for their health, by affording means for a fair investment of their savings, a spirit would be brought out of the labouring classes which, whilst conducing to their happiness and prosperity, would be the surest defence against foreign aggression, and the most perfect security of the Throne. With reference to the Motion itself, he should vote against it; because its object was first to turn out a Government in whom he had confidence, and next to raise the price of food by placing a duty upon foreign corn.

said, in the observations which he had to make on the question before the House, he should confine himself to the case of Ireland, which, having been at all times a Ministerial difficulty, the House would agree with him when he said was not less so at the present than at any former period. And in doing so, he could assure Her Majesty's Ministers, that he had no disposition to criticise their conduct or policy, as regarded Ireland, in any captious or acrimonious spirit. No one was more sensible than he was of the extraordinary difficulties with which any Ministry must have had to contend in Ireland during the last three years, and no one was more willing to make allowance for those difficulties. At the same time, when the state of the nation was the subject of debate, involving, as it did, the whole Ministerial policy, and implying a censure upon that policy, he thought he was only discharging his duty as an Irish Member, as free and unfettered by party considerations as any Member in the House, if he expressed his sentiments freely with respect to the Ministerial policy—and, indeed, the whole policy that had been pursued towards Ireland since 1846. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in his elaborate speech, had wisely avoided all reference to Ireland. The hon. and learned Member for Sheffield had stated that the present condition of Ireland was not attributable to legislation or policy, but in what he (Mr. G. A. Hamilton) considered a misplaced antithesis, had said it was attributable to Providence and improvidence. Now he was prepared to say, and he thought he should be able to show, that the legislation and whole policy towards Ireland, during the last three years, had been calculated to aggravate the evils and misfortunes of that country, and to increase rather than diminish the Irish difficulty. In the first place, he thought it necessary to remind the House that although, on the one hand, it was true that Her Majesty's Ministers had come into office under circumstances of great difficulty as regarded Ireland, in consequence of the failure of the potato crop in 1845; yet, on the other hand, they had many advantages which former Ministers had not enjoyed. There was a great subsidence in party and political differences in Ireland—which constituted one of the difficulties of former Governments; there was a great willingness among men of all parties there to lay aside their political and religious animosities, and to co-operate for the common good. Many of the most painful and embarrassing questions, as regards Ireland, had been settled or disposed of. In this country the bonds of political party had been rent asunder, and the ancient political systems in the country and party distinctions dissolved. He could speak for Ireland—he believed it was the same in England—there was a great disposition to support the noble Lord, irrespective of all former political antipathies, in any measures he might bring forward for the benefit and improvement of Ireland, and for meeting, as far as possible, the impending distress. The noble Lord, he believed, had then an opportunity, such as, when any deficiency should appear, as no other Minister had ever possessed, of securing to himself, by a wise and judicious policy, the support and confidence of all parties in Ireland. There were some other circumstances in the state of things at that time in Ireland to which he would just allude. It was stated most correctly, in the report of the Land Commission, of which he was a member, that there had been a great and rapid improvement in the condition of all classes in Ireland, with the exception of the labouring classes; and the commissioners had used the strongest language of warning with regard to the dangerous state in which that large class was left. That language had been frequently quoted in the House, and the commissioners had used it designedly, with the view of directing the immediate attention of Parliament and Government to the real weak point in the Irish social system. The various defects and evils in the condition of things in Ireland were thus pointed out, and many suggestions for improvements offered. This was the position of things in Ireland, when the free-trade system of the right hon. Baronet the Member for Tamworth was introduced in 1846. It was not his intention to enter upon that question now, but it was quite obvious that whatever might be expected to be its effects in England, where you have a mixed agricultural and manufacturing population, and where you have capital and enterprise, it was quite obvious that Ireland must bear the brunt of those measures, and that to Ireland they must prove measures of evil. The right hon. Baronet had himself admitted this. In his speech on the 27th of January, 1846, when explaining his now commercial system, he had used these words:—

"In the case of Ireland—if there be a part of the united kingdom which is to suffer from the withdrawal of protection, I have always felt that that part is Ireland."

In those measures it was quite apparent to him (Mr. G. A. Hamilton) that the interests of Ireland were sacrificed to the manufactures of England. Possibly it might be said that the failure of the potato crop in 1845 had precipitated the abrogation of the corn laws; but the sliding-scale, he believed, would have had the effect of admitting corn, and keeping it at as low a price as it was sold for in 1847. The Duke of Welligton, as quoted by Lord George Bentinck, had stated that he saw no reason for opening the ports, inasmuch prices would rise and the ports would open themselves. At all events, there was a great difference between the temporary admission of foreign corn for the exigencies of a famine, which no one objected to, and the permanent abandonment of the protective system. This, then, was the state of things when the Ministry came into power in July, 1846: Ireland, in a very critical and perilous position—her population exclusively agricultural—in addition to the ordinary distress of her labouring class, the free-trade system affecting the value of agricultural produce—a famine impending: the noble Lord, on the other hand, with an almost uncontrolled power of applying any remedy, or using any precaution which the means of this mighty empire might afford. Let us see now how that power was applied? One would have supposed, considering the wisdom and foresight of the noble Lord, and considering the knowledge and information he had the means of acquiring of the weak points in the Irish social system, and in the Irish character, he would have applied himself immediately to those weak points. We have heard a great deal of the inertness of Irishmen, of their want of energy and self-dependence—we have heard a great deal of their being accustomed to look to Government rather than to themselves in case of difficulty, and of the abuses incident to the expenditure of public money in Ireland. One would have supposed that the first step of a wise, prudent, and powerful Government, would have been to have prepared the people of Ireland, of all classes, for the famine that was approaching—to have stimulated their energies—to have encouraged them as much as possible to look to themselves, and to have taken timely precautions against the abuses incident to the expenditure of public money, which, under the circumstances, would be unavoidable, and the noble Lord was not without warning; the Government was warned by some of the best practical authorities on Irish subjects. The Earl of, Clancarty, in the House of Lords, soon after they came into office, warned them of the necessity of timely precautions; Lord Monteagle, on the 31st of July, called on Government to take immediate steps in providing for the contingencies which might arise, and moved an address to the Queen, praying that means might be taken to stimulate the industry and promote the improvement of the labouring classes. He (Mr. G. A. Hamilton) would ask the House to observe what course the Government pursued, and he invited attention to it, because he believed it was a fatal step, and had led to consequences of a most deplorable nature. There was a measure which had been introduced some time before by the right hon. Baronet the Member for Tamworth, the 9th Vic, c. 2, for the relief and employment of the poor in Ireland, which had evinced much of his usual foresight. In that Act it was provided that where employment should become necessary for the relief of the poor, baronial sessions should be held after due notice—that at those sessions presentments should be made of useful works for employment—that in order to ensure proper deliberation and the exercise of local authority, county sessions should also be held, at which the baronial presentments should be revised, and that subsequently Government should issue money for the execution of the works so approved of. This Act had worked beneficially—126,000 l ;. had been advanced under it, of which more than 41,000 l . was already repaid. In August, 1846, just before Parliament was prorogued, the Labour Rate Act, 9 and 10 Vic, c. 107, was introduced and passed by the present Government, at a time when the exigencies of Ireland had called almost every Irish Member away; and it was passed, as far as he could make out, without discussion and without observation. By this Act, all the guards and precautions which the right hon. Baronet had so wisely imposed in the Act previous were swept away. The Lord Lieutenant was empowered to call a sessions when he deemed it expedient, on a notice of only ten days; the revision and control of the county sessions was taken away; the sessions were not even permitted to adjourn for more than three days; all further power was completely taken out of the hands of the local authorities; the sessions having made a presentment, the execution and control of the works were vested entirely in the Government officers. The House was aware of the enormous abuses which had grown up under that system, and it was impossible it could be otherwise. Every hon. Member connected with Ireland would bear him out when he said, that in 99 cases out of 100 it was impossible, from the shortness of the notice and the circumstances of the case, that there could be any deliberation at those sessions. The law did not require any previous application; the sessions had no means of considering what works they should present for. They were usually surrounded by an excited mob. Somebody got up and proposed that a certain sum should be presented, without the slightest reference to the merits of the work, or even the wants of the people; and the sessions were at an end, and the execution of the works remained with the officers of the Government. He felt warranted therefore in saying that the responsibility of the labour rate rested with the Government, and not with the local authorities. This Act had been a most costly experiment to the nation, and most ruinous to Ireland. Nearly 5,000,000 l . had been expended in this way. He could appeal to every Irish Member to say whether half the money judiciously expended would not have afforded more efficient relief. The country roads over a great part of Ireland were destroyed, the works left incomplete, the very worst habits of the people encouraged. They were made idle and indolent, and a system of abuse and demoralisation introduced, which, in his conscience he believed, had led to much of what had since taken place under the new poor-law system. Now, he charged the Government with having aggravated the evils of Ireland—with having demoralised and injured the character of the people—and with a most wasteful and injurious expenditure of the public money, by the operation of that hasty, crude, and inefficient measure, the Labour Rate Act. Well, pending those ruinous proceedings under the Labour Rate Act, there were those in Ireland who did all that was possible to introduce a better system. His hon. Friend the Member for the county of Limerick, who was not then present, and many other Gentlemen, remonstrated with Government, requiring them to sanction a system of reproductive works. It was generally thought that Lord Besborough was favourable to such a system, but that the Cabinet, infatuated by the phantom of a labour test, for a long time resisted the recommendations of the Lord Lieutenant. At length Mr. Labou-chere's letter came forth. Public opinion proved at last too strong for political economy, and the Cabinet was forced to yield, thereby, as he thought, affording the strongest condemnation of the labour-rate system; but it was too late to repair the mischief—the demoralisation had proceeded too far. It was not so easy to get the people off the roads, and that demoralising system continued for nearly a year. He was now come to the Session of 1847. The cry in that Session was, a stringent poor-law for Ireland—as if a poor-law was calculated to remedy the evils of that country; and, yielding to popular impulse rather than to reason—abandoning their former deliberate opinions with regard to outdoor relief—disregarding the evidence of their own poor-law authorities—setting at nought the warnings of the great majority of Irish Members—a stringent poor-law was passed, and a system of outdoor relief introduced, which you now find it difficult to deal with. On that occasion resolutions were presented to the noble Lord at the head of the Government, prepared by Lord Monteagle, and signed, he believed, by a larger number of Irish noblemen and Members of Parliament than any document which had ever been presented to a Government. What did those resolutions state, with reference to the measure then before the House?

" Resolved —That the principle of giving outdoor relief to the ablebodied labourers of Ireland, has been condemned by the various Parliamentary Committees and Commissioners, as well as by the public officers appointed to consider the subject; and that the experience of the last twelve months, by which it has been shown how relief, even though accompanied with work, has interfered with ordinary agricultural labour, and endangered the future production of food for the people, demonstrates conclusively how much more fatally a system of gratuitous outdoor relief to the able-bodied labourers will produce and perpetuate the same lamented consequences. That these resolutions are intended to apply exclusively to the permanent laws proposed to be enacted, and not to the temporary measures which the present calamity may render it expedient to enact."

Now, that was the deliberate opinion of the great body of the Irish representatives, conveyed most formally to the noble Lord. They express themselves quite willing to submit to any temporary measures to meet the temporary calamity; but they protest against outdoor relief to the able-bodied, as calculated to interfere with ordinary agricultural labour, to endanger the future production of food, and to lead to abuses of a most formidable nature. He would put it to the House, had the apprehensions of the noblemen and gentlemen who signed those resolutions been verified by the event or not? He, therefore, impugned the policy of Her Majesty's Government in having made injurious, and, as he thought, fatal changes in the permanent poor-law system at a period of excitement, contrary to the deliberate opinion of those the best informed as regards Ireland, and yielding to a kind of popular impulse or outcry in England. Now, he would put in contrast with this the conduct of the right hon. Baronet the Member for Ripon, when Secretary of State for the Home Department. In February, 1846, in the very midst of the first famine, his hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale had made a Motion for outdoor relief; and in resisting it, what was the language of the right hon. Baronet? He said—

"We have had experience in this matter in England of the danger, even under temporary pressure, of giving outdoor relief to the able-bodied. It constituted, in fact, a payment out of the rate in aid of wages, and led to a system of relief now called in England the labour rate, which, of all the noxious offshoots of the poor-law in this country, proved to be the most dangerous and most injurious."

And he proceeded to say—

"If I could not, on general principles, consent to the adoption of such a course, much less could I be induced, for a temporary object, and to meet what I hope is but a temporary emergency, consent to so great a change in the law."

For so far he (Mr. G. A. Hamilton) had dealt with the policy adopted towards Ireland during 1846–7, as regards the poor. Making every allowance for the difficulties of the case, he felt warranted in condemning it as rash, hasty, and unwise; involving an enormous and useless expenditure, and being contrary to the deliberate opinion of Irishmen and to their remonstrances. But, irrespective of measures for the immediate relief of the poor, there was much in the other policy of Government which he thought censurable. Yielding to the same impulse, acting through impulse rather than sound judgment, they had introduced a series of measures affecting property in Ireland, hastily and crudely pre-pared, the introduction of which, under all the circumstances, had aggravated the evils of Ireland. He accused them of having introduced measures, the tendency of which, from their crude and undigested nature, was to weaken and unsettle property at the very time when their object should have been to give confidence. With regard to the object of many of those measures, he had no hesitation in saying-he was favourable to them. He was favourable to a Landlord and Tenant Bill—he was favourable to an Incumbered Estates Bill—and, in short, to the object that Government had in view in most of the Bills he had alluded to. But when Government come to propose legislation on matters of property, those measures ought to be well considered and matured. Nothing could be more unwise, or, as he thought, more censurable, than for a Government to introduce measures involving matters of such delicacy and difficulty as those of property, and afterwards, from their being insufficiently considered, to be obliged to alter them very materially, or to abandon them. In illustration of what he stated, he would take the principal Bills, in reference to property in Ireland, introduced during the last and the present Session. With regard to the Landlord and Tenant Bill, it had been referred to a Select Committee, who had learned something of the difficulties of the question; it was not desirable that people in Ireland should be left in doubt on that important subject; and yet, at the present moment, no one could say whether or not any further measure was in contemplation. For his own part, he would say that he thought the Bill of the present Session, and which applied to England as well as Ireland, was sufficient, under all the circumstances; but still the Bill of the last Session was kept hanging over Irish property. Then there was the Bill for converting leases of lives renewable for ever into freehold—a very useful object; but it would be curious to trace the course and history of that Bill. It was introduced last Session; it was then materially altered and abandoned at the end of the Session. During the recess he understood a new Bill had been framed, after consultation with some of the most eminent legal authorities in both countries; but when the measure of the present Session made its appearance in Parliament, it turned out to be something quite different; and in the Lords it had been materially altered. Then there was the Incumbered Estates Bill, in the object of which he fully concurred. The sale of incumbered estates in Ireland was the popular measure of the last Session, and Her Majesty's Government, yielding to the popular impulse, had introduced last Session a Bill which every one had warned them would prove ineffectual for its objects. It passed, notwithstanding, and, as was expected, proved quite abortive. Another measure was introduced this Session, and passed through the Commons notwithstanding similar warnings; and now in the Lords, Her Majesty's Government were themselves obliged to admit that it required most material alterations to make it work usefully and justly. It was easy to talk of the necessity and advantage of a Parliamentary title; but what was the value of a Parliamentary title? Why, it supposed that Parliament would not deal hastily or rashly with property. But why this continual system of tampering with the rights of property, and this uncertain and variable legislation on that subject? Then there was the Leasing of Estates Bill, which afforded, perhaps, the strongest illustration of the proposed legislation by Her Majesty's Government as regards property in Ireland. Would the House believe it, that this Bill, as introduced by Government, contained a clause that every lease shall convey the lands both at law and equity for the estate expressed to be created, and that the lessee shall not be liable to be evicted by reason of any want of title in the lessor, or by reason of any title to the lands in any other person paramount or contrary to the title of the person making such lease—but that it shall operate and take effect, as if all persons having any estate in such lands had concurred in executing it? so that if a person, having a limited interest, suppose for lives or years, was, under this Bill, to give a perpetuity in his lands to another, the fee-simple owner would be divested of his rights. It was true, he believed, that this clause had been abandoned; but he had adverted to it for the purpose of showing the hasty and crude mode in which legislation, as regards Irish property, was proposed by Her Majesty's Government, and of the tendency which their policy had to unsettle property in Ireland. The next ground upon which he felt it to be his duty to impugn the policy of Her Majesty's Government, was the manner in which they had departed from what he might call the principles of English legislation in the measures for Ireland, and their disregard for all Irish opinion in reference to those measures: the most obvious instance of this was the Rate in Aid Bill. No Minister would for a moment think of proposing a measure involving such a principle for England. The injustice of it was admitted even by the Ministers themselves—and yet they ventured to apply it to Ireland. He felt sure of this, that Ireland would never be in a proper and satisfactory condition, even socially, until the principles by which Govenment and Parliament were guided in legislating for England were applied equally to Ireland. Nothing would tend more to cement the Union than doing away, as far as possible, with all distinctions and differences of legislation, and applying the principle of legislation equally to both countries. He condemned the policy of Government, because, instead of lessening, it widened the distinctions, in this respect, between England and Ireland. He had already trespassed largely on the time of the House, but he had taken only a cursory view of the policy of Her Majesty's Government as regards Ireland. He had refrained altogether from adverting to the administration of the poor-law system, for which he held the Government answerable. It was a large question; he would only say now, that in the tending to centralisation, and in the disregard to all local opinion and representation, he thought that there was much room for censure. Neither had he alluded to the general conduct, and tone, and feeling of Her Majesty's Government as regards Ireland. He did not wish to say any thing offensive; but he was bound to say, that in Ireland an impression prevailed, that in the present Government, or, perhaps, he ought rather to say, in a section of the present Government, there existed a stronger anti-Irish feeling and prejudice than in any Cabinet that had existed for many years. But there was one matter of complaint which it would not be right for him to pass over, and he confessed he approached that part of the subject with pain. He had already stated, and he begged to repeat it, that he attributed no want of humanity to Her Majesty's Ministers individually, but he did attribute to them the want of sufficient energy and promptness in tailing the necessary precautions to prevent the dreadful scenes of starvation which had taken place during the last few months. On this subject, he preferred using the language of the Poor Law Commissioners themselves, which, in his opinion, conveyed a very strong censure upon the Government. The commissioners, in their official communication to the Treasury, of March 7, 1849, use the following very strong language:—

"As, however, all general expressions are more or less liable to different interpretations, the commissioners desire to place on record what they mean by extreme privations from the stoppage of relief. They think, that if the effect of such stoppage is that the destitute poor on the relief lists are without food for a single day, such persons, in their present notoriously debilitated state, in some of the western unions, must suffer extreme privations; and the commissioners must add, that the deliberately permitting them to suffer such privations involves a responsibility which the commissioners think they ought not to incur. The commissioners have only to add, that the funds at present at their disposal are inadequate for the prevention of extreme privations in the western unions; and the commissioners consider themselves absolved from any responsibility on account of deaths which may take place in consequence of those privations."

Now, he did think that in that communication a stronger censure was conveyed, with regard to the neglect of Government, than any he could himself express. But this was not all. Mr. Twisleton states, in his evidence before the Lords, on the 24th April, 1849—

"I am anxious to make no suggestion involving the expenditure of public money which might divert attention from the comparatively trifling sum with which it is possible for this country to spare itself the deep disgrace of permitting any of our miserable fellow-subjects to die of starvation. I wish to leave distinctly on record, that, from want of sufficient food, many persons in those unions are, at the present moment, dying or wasting away; and, at the same time, it is quite possible for this country to prevent the occurrence there of any death from starvation by the advance of a few hundred thousand pounds."

He (Mr. G. A. Hamilton) was quite aware that the reason given by Government was the indisposition which Parliament had shown—or rather, which some Members of that House had shown—to make further advances to Ireland; and the name of his hon. Friend the Member for North amptonshire was particularly referred to. But he thought the objection made was, that, though money was called for, no steps were taken to benefit the people permanently and remove the cause of distress. At all events, he did not think the expression of opinion by a few Members in that House, was any justification or reason why Government should shrink from taking the necessary means to prevent starvation. Since then, they had carried the Rate in Aid Bill; and yet, what was the condition of parts of Ireland at the present moment? He would not weary the House, but would content himself with reading an extract from Mr. S. G. Osborne's letter in the Times , dated on the 5th July. No one could deny that Mr. Osborne was a most unquestionable witness on this subject; and what does he state?—

"The condition of the country is this—the masses who should be engaged in producing food are now scarcely sustained alive in its consumption, and this at the expense of those whose sole means were dependent upon the independence of those very masses which they have now to feed in their helplessness. The poor-rates, from which the famine-stricken paupers have now to be fed, are drawn from property itself only of value when labouring men are sources of profit on it. Thou-sands of acres lie untilled, and yet more than 100,000 men might be found ready and capable of work, who are now undergoing a very expensive but rapid training for the grave; an equal number are fed and lodged, to do work not wanted, at an expense which could have supplied food and fuel, for want of which thousands must yet perish."

With such authorities as the Poor Law Commissioners, and Mr. Twisleton, and Mr. Godolphin Osborne, he (Mr. G. A. Hamilton) thought he had made out a case of mismanagement as regards the poor in Ireland against Her Majesty's Government, which fully bore out the statement he had made—namely, that their policy and conduct had aggravated the calamities of Ireland. As a consequence of all this, Ireland had been reduced to a condition which the hon. Gentleman the Member for Buckinghamshire truly described when he called it a state of social decomposition. All interests in that country were completely paralysed; and he believed that never in the records of any civilised State were such scenes of misery and such dreadful calamities pourtrayed as there were to be found in the records of that House as having existed during the last two years in the west and south of Ireland. In both countries, indeed, the condition of things is sufficiently perplexing. Here in England you are beginning to feel the effects of measures conceded, as he thought, unwisely to popular feeling. The competition of the untaxed produce of foreign countries was weighing down the industry and disheartening the spirit of Englishmen. But here you have capital, and the energy and recuperative spirit which so emineutly distinguishes Englishmen; and, above all, here you have a public opinion, and fixed principles of legislation, which no Minister can long violate with impunity. Ireland was laid prostrate by the hand of the Almighty. Generously, but not wisely, you have expended your treasure in administering to her necessities; but no efficient effort has yet been made to raise her from her prostrate position. If with the one hand you have been administering restoratives, with the other you have been exhausting her means of recovery. And, if, in the inscrutable decrees of Providence, Ireland should be visited with another blight of the staple food of her people, you will feel the consequences of your want of foresight at a time when no human means will be availing to repair them. For these reasons he felt himself constrained—he acknowledged reluctantly—to vote for the Motion of his hon. Friend the Member for Buckinghamshire, because he regarded it in the light of a censure upon Government, and because he was unable to satisfy himself that their policy, in reference to Ireland, had not been an aggravation of the calamities which that unfortunate country must under any circumstances have experienced.

, before addressing himself to the subject of the resolution, would say a word as to what had fallen from the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down. That hon. Gentleman had charged against the Government that their neglect and misrule had produced most of the calamities under which Ireland laboured. He could not join in blaming them on that ground, however much he might upon others. He had never sat in any Parliament in which so much time had been devoted to Irish subjects. If he were rightly to designate the Session, he might say it had been one adjourned debate on Irish questions. He believed all the Members, of that House and of the Government had been most anxious to devise means by which the miseries of that country might be alleviated. He knew of no instance wherein a proposition, having for its object the welfare of that country, had not been met with the utmost attention by the House. On the score, then, of neglect, he could not admit that any blame attached; and when the hon. Gentleman said that he had made out a case against the Government, he (Mr. Hume) was at a loss to discover in what that case consisted. He agreed with the hon. Gentleman in one point—that the liberality of that House, and its desire to administer to the state of destitution in which Ireland was placed, though well meant, had not produced the benefit which had been hoped from it. But when the hon. Gentleman said that he attributed to the Government the mismanagement and excesses of the local authorities, he must altogether differ from him. If the Government had failed in doing all that a Government might have done, he believed that the local authorities had been much more guilty. Had these local authorities met the wishes of, and joined cordially and heartily with, Parliament, the means being furnished liberally by that House, he believed things would have taken a very different course. He, therefore, could not believe that Her Majesty's Government were open to the censure which the hon. Gentleman would cast upon them. He thought that such measures as the labour rate were fit and proper means to adopt for the social redemption of the people of Ireland. It was true that great differences of opinion might exist with reference to the Irish Poor Law. Although a sincere supporter of that law at the time it was enacted, he now entertained some doubts as to how far it might or might not have been beneficial to Ireland. But the Government were not in any respect to blame on that head. At the time it was passed, it was the universal opinion that Ireland should maintain its own poor, and therefore the hon. Gentleman was rather too hard in attributing all the blame to the Government. With regard to the Incumbered Estates Bill, he was not aware of any measure more calculated than that for permanently raising the industry and giving employment to the people of Ireland. It would give a stimulus to labour. Had it been passed in 1847 it would have effected an immense amount of good; but, late as it was brought forward, he had given it an honest and conscientious vote, believing that it would greatly tend to advance the interests of the sister country. If any blame attached. to the Government, it was for not having passed the measure at an earlier period. He also considered that the Rate in Aid Bill would act as a means for the promotion of industry. The hon. Gentleman was not fortified by facts in his complaints against the Government on this and many other heads which might be mentioned. Blame had been attached to them for not having dealt with Ireland as they would with England. But it should be remembered that a doctor dealt with a patient according to the constitution of the sufferer. Was Ireland in a condition to bear the same treatment as England? Was the population in the same situation, and was the Government to be censured for having brought forward measures which might answer in a country like England, and could not answer in the disorganised and distressed districts of the west of Ire land? On these grounds he humbly submitted that the hon. Gentleman had not made out any case whatever against Her Majesty's Ministers, and that the accusations he had advanced were susceptible of a most satisfactory reply. Having given notice of his intention to move an Amendment to the Motion of the hon. Member for Buckinghamshire, he (Mr. Hume) could assure the House that he had been most anxious to submit that Amendment, entertaining as he did a very different belief from the hon. Members on the protectionist benches as to the causes of the distress now prevailing in England. But, from the tenor of the speech of the hon. Member for Buckinghamshire, he had been induced to abandon his original intention. The hon. Member had not pointed out any means for effecting his object; he had neither told the House who were to take the place of Her Majesty's present Ministers, nor the nature of the improvements which were to be made. Now, a very different course was pursued in 1819. Several hon. Gentlemen would recollect that when Mr. Tierney submitted a Motion on the state of the nation in that year, which was intended to displace the Government, the Opposition party of that day were prepared with the proper means for carrying out their views, for they said that they were prepared with the men to carry on the Government, and also with measures different from those which had been brought forward. That was a sensible mode of removing an Administration. But the hon. Member for Buckinghamshire had made no such statement to the House. Still, fearing that if he (Mr. Hume) interposed, he should prevent that free and proper discussion which was at all times of the utmost importance where truth and facts were concerned, under these circumstances he did not think himself at liberty to interfere for fear of doing mischief. He was of opinion that the details of the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer afforded a most complete answer to the accusations of the hon. Member for Buckinghamshire. That speech contained a most satisfactory reply to the assertion that the free-trade measures were the cause of the distress. The hon. Member for Buckinghamshire had alluded to the late Lord George Bentinck, and mentioned his opinions; but he forgot altogether the statement of that noble Lord, when he pointed out, with great ability, the distress existing in Ireland, and the causes of that distress, and when he wanted 18,000,000 l to relieve it. The noble Lord then told the House that the principal crop of the people of Ireland was the potato, and that the loss occasioned by the failure of that crop had amounted in one year to between 15,000,000 l and 17,000,000 l . The hon. Member for Buckinghamshire had taken no notice whatever of that important fact; but he went on to attribute the distress to the repeal of the corn laws and the changes made in our commercial tariff. But in common fairness he ought to have stated what Lord George Bentinck had proved, that the principal cause of the Irish distress was the failure of the potato crop, he-cause that was a reason which induced the noble Lord, with a view to alleviate that distress, to ask for 18,000,000 l . in order to promote railways throughout the country. He (Mr. Hume) believed the failure of the potato to be the principal cause of the aggravated distress in Ireland. He had never known a year when there had not been distress in that country. Every now and then, when provisions were high, distress, disease, and other calamities invariably followed; but the failure of the potato crop had of late years principally aggravated the evil. He was anxious now to state to the House what he believed to be the causes of the present distress in the united kingdom; and he was willing to take the statement made by the hon. Member for Buckinghamshire as to the condition of the mass of the population in England as a correct statement. He admitted frankly, that the present condition of this country was sufficient to arrest the attention of every thinking man. Variations would no doubt occur in every country, and he, for one, would not consider a rise or fall of 10 or 12 per cent in our exports or imports as a change of any serious moment. He was prepared to admit, however, that the question involved in the changes which had taken place, deserved the most serious attention of Her Majesty's Government. It had been said in reply to the hon. Member for Buckinghamshire, that some improvement had taken place in parts of the country; still the fact appeared to be, that the increase of able-bodied paupers between the years 1846 and 1848 had been no less 'than 74 per cent, and that, of the whole population, the increase had been from 40 to 41 per cent. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer had stated in reply to this, that in individual towns there had been some improvement; but that wasno satisfactory answer to the allegation that great distress had taken place in different districts. It might be true, and he believed it was, that an improvement of trade had caused a decrease of distress in the manufacturing towns; but if the statistics of the hon. Member for Buckinghamshire were correct, that the increase of distress in the agricultural districts was so great, then it became a matter of serious importance, deserving of calm and dispassionate inquiry. The question naturally arose, what was the cause of this increase? He was not one of those who believed that what was called free trade had been the cause. Hon. Members were very much in the habit of running away with the idea that we had free trade. We had no such thing. We had free trade in corn, but we had not free trade in a variety of other articles, such as butter, cheese, eggs, and rice. He wished to have a real free trade. He was anxious that all duties on raw materials, on all articles of food, on everything that entered into the consumption of the masses of the people, should be removed. Hon. Gentlemen who were so desirous of attributing the distress to the repeal of the corn laws, seemed to keep out of sight this important fact, that when distress came upon us in former days, the first act of the House was to suspend the corn laws and let in the food. By the admission of food, prices became reduced, and the lower classes were enabled to exist. He believed that free trade was not the cause of the present distress, but that, on the contrary, unless free trade had been effected, we should now be in a state of still greater distress. Had we coupled the repeal of the corn laws with the reduction of taxes, we should have been prepared for storms and difficulties. He, therefore, entirely differed from the hon. Member for Buckinghamshire as to the causes of the distress, but he agreed With him in believing that a large amount of pauperism existed in the country. He attributed the distress to excessive and unequal taxation. This was the source of the evil, and until it was removed all the efforts of the Government would be merely palliatives. At present we had our war establishments. We had all the expenses of war without the advantages of peace. The enormous establishments we kept up caused much of the existing evil. Ill the year 1792 we raised 16,000,000 l ., and spent 15,000,000 l .; but now we raised between 50,000,000 l . and 60,000,000 l and spent it all. It was impossible that such a sum could be raised from the industry of the country, competing as that industry now was with the whole world. Our prices were reduced, and the profits of the manufacturers were lowered; and although the cost of materials was lessened, still it was impossible that, in the face of immense competition, and depending as we were upon foreign markets, we could continue to meet the heavy taxation imposed upon us. Landlords could not expect to obtain the high rents they did formerly, or to be enabled to incur the heavy expense of bringing the land into proper cultivation. According to the budget of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the expected revenue would amount to 52,262,000 l . This, added to the expense of collecting, 4,154,000 l , would make a total raised from taxation of the country, of not less than 56,500,000 l How was this taxation to be met? The only mode by which relief could be obtained was by reducing our establishments, and leaving more money in the pockets of every class to employ labour. The Government, in his opinion, were not aware of the condition of the middle classes at the present moment. The profits of that class were extremely limited, and the means by which they could employ labour were consequently much restricted. A large portion of them, who were formerly in comfort, were now pressed down with public taxes, parochial taxes, church rates, tithes, and other imposts. These were some of the causes of the present distress. The drain of men's purses, and the inequality in the amount of taxation, were two great evils. The following table, drawn up on the 5th of January, 1849, exhibited at a glance how the rich were let off, and how the inequality of taxation bore upon the industrious classes:—

He had been told that capital had quadrupled in this country of late years. If so, he called for a direct tax on realised capital, and for a repeal of the customs, excise, and stamp duties. He contended that the taxation of the country bore most unequally on the lower and middle classes, and that was the ground on which he demanded a diminution of our national expenses, and a return to the expenditure of 1835. In 1828 the whole amount of our expenditure was 49,336,000 l .; in 1844 it was 44,422,000 l .; and last year it was 54,185,000 l . According to the Finance Committee of 1828, the revenue in the eleven years, from 1817 to 1827 inclusive, amounted to 581,991,917 l ., and the expenditure to 559,892,760 l ., giving on the average an annual revenue of 52,908,356 l ., and an annual expenditure of 50,890,250 l ., or an excess of income over expenditure of 22,099,157 l . on the eleven years, or more than 2,000,000 l . annually; and yet this was when we had scarcely recovered from the alarm and the consequences of the French revolution. Going farther back, they would find Lord Castlereagh saying that our expenditure ought not to cost more than 13,000,000 l . On the average of four years, up to 1842, the total expenditure was only 15,000,000 l ., 9,000,000 l . of which went to pay the interest of the national debt. Our taxation was then 16,000,000 l ., which left 1,000,000 l . towards the Sinking Fund. But taking from 1833 to 1837, and from 1843 to 1847, the House would find that the aggregate amount of expenditure for the first period of five years was 261,789,000 l ., and for the last five years 278,123,000 l ., showing an excess of 16,334,000 l . over the first period. Public appointments, civil and military, were the cause of this increase; and until they reduced their establishments, and thereby lessened their expenditure, they could not hope for relief. He held in his hand a paper, purporting to be an account of the excise net receipts for 1839 to 1848, in which there appeared a singular uniformity of account. In 1839 the receipts were 15,474,000 l ., and so they went on, without one year differing materially from another up to last year, when the account was 15,544,000 l . Now, there was not one of the articles contained in that paper on which he would not reduce the duties, except spirits. The hon. Member for Shrewsbury had spoken of the necessity of improving the health of the people by giving them better dwellings. He would assist him to do so by taking the duty off bricks. He would also remove duty from paper and soap; and although it might not be a popular measure, he would remove it also from carriages and servants; for he knew no duty which acted more directly against the employment of the people, while it interfered with the free enjoyment of those who possessed the means of employing servants. It appeared to be a tax upon the rich, but it was in reality a tax upon the poor. So with regard to some of the stamp duties. The man who wanted to transfer 100 l . in the funds, would have to pay as much duty for a power of attorney, as the man who had 1,000 l to transfer. AH these taxes were unequal in their nature and operation, and totally opposed to the plan which he re-commended for relieving the poor of the country. The man who gave a receipt for 5 l . paid 3 d ., which was about forty times more in proportion than the man paid who gave a stamp receipt for 1,000 l Then the legacy duty was an unequal duty. The duty on insurances was also unequal. On one class of property the insurance was taken off, while on another it was left on. He knew not why all interests should not be considered and dealt with in a fair and equitable spirit. If hon. Gentlemen opposite were really anxious to improve their own conditions as agriculturists, and that of the agricultural population, they must direct their attention to the one great means which he had pointed out of reducing the national expenditure, and then repealing those taxes which pressed so heavily and so unequally upon the labouring classes. It was in that view that he had desired to place upon record his opinion, that whilst the repeal of some of the restrictions had done good, it had not removed all the difficulty. The poorer the people, the more important was it that our laws should be equal. Make them equal—give fair play to industry—and they would be more likely to afford relief to the distressed portion of the country, than by pursuing shadows and Will o' the wisps, from which no useful result could spring.

said, he proposed to confine his observations solely to that portion of the subject which related to the agricultural interest. On viewing the Amendment placed on the Paper by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Montrose, he had at first sight felt inclined to dissent altogether from that portion of it which referred to that interest; but he confessed that he had not been prepared to hear from the framer of that Amendment a speech as full of protectionist sentiments as any to which it had ever boon his good fortune to listen at any meeting of his own party he had ever attended. The hon. Gentleman had commenced his observations by expressing his concurrence in a great part of the speech of his hon. Friend the Member for Buckinghamshire, relating to the distress which prevailed among the working classes of this country; and upon that subject the hon. Gentleman had propounded a question, to which in his (the Earl of March's) opinion he had given a very unfit answer. The hon. Gentleman had asked, where would they have been during that distress if they had not passed the commercial measures introduced by the right hon. Baronet the Member for Tamworth; and the hon. Gentleman had answered that question in a manner conformable to his own well-known views of commercial policy. But he (the Earl of March) should answer, on the contrary, that they would be in at least as good a position as that in which they were placed at present without any remission of the 4 s . duty on corn; and he had no hesitation in stating, that if they adhered to the sliding-scale, it would have adjusted itself in quite as satisfactory a manner as the hon. Gentleman himself could have desired. The hon. Gentleman had also said that the taxation of this country pressed most unequally and severely on the lower classes of this country; but then he (the Earl of March) would ask the hon. Gentleman why it was, that while he entertained that opinion, he had not voted for the Motion of his hon. Friend the Member for Buckinghamshire at the commencement of the Session, the object of that Motion having been that the House should consider the whole system of taxation in this country, with a view to ascertain where it pressed unequally, and, if possible, to alleviate the distress under which a large portion of the people suffered? But he should then proceed to notice some parts of the speech made by the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the first night of the debate. He confessed that he was at a loss to understand how the right hon. Gentleman could have come to some of the conclusions at which he had arrived; and although he had listened with the greatest attention to his speech, and had been much struck by the admirable manner in which he had handled the great variety of details into which he had entered, he (the Earl of March) certainly wished that the right hon. Gentleman had followed the example set him by his hon. Friend the Member for Buckinghamshire, and had confined himself to quotations from documents which had been laid before the House, and which could be sifted for the purpose of inquiring whether or not they contained any error. But, instead of that, the right hon. Gentleman had read to them a great variety of letters from private individuals; and he should observe, that in one instance the right hon. Gentleman had been candid enough to let them see pretty clearly what was the animus of the writer, who had praised the liberal and enlightened policy of Her Majesty's Government. Why, he (the Earl of March) had no doubt but he could without the slightest difficulty have obtained communications from many most respectable and well-informed gentlemen in the county of Sussex, with which he was more particularly connected, stating that in the opinion of the writers the greatest distress prevailed throughout the country, and that that distress was mainly attributable to our recent commercial policy. He had no doubt but that some of his correspondents who were strongly in favour of protection would declare that even the old prices of agricultural produce were insufficient to remunerate the English farmer. He repeated, therefore, that the right hon. Gentleman would have done better if he had confined himself to documents of a public and authentic character. The right hon. Gentleman had been somewhat unfortunate in one statement he had made. He had said that the average price of wheat, during five months of a former year, had been only 45 s . a quarter under the protective system. But the right hon. Gentleman had entirely forgotten to mention the not unimportant fact that that had taken place at a time when there had been one of the most flourishing harvests ever known in this country. The right hon. Gentleman had also omitted to state that the agricultural body did not complain at present that the prices of their produce were low, but that they were low after a deficient harvest, and that under those circumstances they were naturally driven to ask what were the prices which they would get after an abundant one? There was another point on which the right hon. Gentleman had laid much stress, and which he (the Earl of March) felt bound to notice. The right hon. Gentleman had referred to the price of wheat in Guildford, which amounted to 64 s . or 65 s . a quarter. But it should be borne in mind that the best wheat sold at that market was of a peculiarly fine quality, and was, in fact, principally bought by the pastrycooks of London. Now, it was clear that the price obtained for grain of that description was in no way a fair test of the general price throughout the country; so that that part of the argument of the right hon. Gentleman necessarily went for nothing. Then the hon. Gentleman had stated in the concluding part of his speech that although distress might exist in some districts, yet where labourers were receiving remunerative wages, they were still as well off as they had over been. Now, that was a proposition which no one in the House or out of it could deny. No doubt, the condition of the labouring classes had not deteriorated in those cases in which their wages and their employment had not been diminished. But that which the farmers of this country said was, that in their present depressed condition they could not give the same amount of employment which they had given heretofore; and he could declare that one of the consequences of that unhappy state of things was, that during the past winter there had been more ablebodied paupers, and the workhouses had been fuller in this part of the country, than at any former period. A fact had lately taken place in the county he had the honour to represent, which would show the great depreciation that had occurred there in the value of agricultural produce. Under an execution for rent, a sale had taken place on a farm which had been occupied for some years by a most respectable person. The farm was let for 21 s . an acre, which was considered a fair rent, and the growing crops were in a very favourable condition; and yet 127 acres of those growing crops had been sold for 247 l . 10 s ., the purchaser not being liable to any charges. That was one instance of the recent depreciation of agricultural produce. He did not wish to trespass at any length on the patience of the House, but he wished to state that he was perfectly aware of the great distress which at present prevailed, and the great alarm which was at present felt among the agriculturists of that part of the country which he represented. They believed that if the system of legislation on which Parliament had recently embarked were persevered in, the country would soon be involved in irretrievable ruin. They also believed, and he entirely agreed with them upon the point, that they were at present subject to a most unjust and unequal system of competition; that they had to endure burdens which must prove overwhelming, and that they would in consequence be driven to do that which they of all things most disliked—namely, to throw hundreds out of employment who were willing and able to work for their maintenance.

said:

Since the accession of the present Ministry to power, I have felt it to be my duty to give to the great majority of the measures they have introduced a general support. I have thought it but just to make allowance for the great difficulties with which they have had to contend—commercial discredit and distress—famine in Ireland—the greatest moral and social revolution, by which the internal tranquillity of nations or the peace of Europe was ever disturbed. I have thought that it was for the public interest that the energy and power of the Executive Government of this country during such a crisis of combined dangers, should not be impaired by factious or captious opposition. At the same time, Sir, I wish it to be distinctly understood, that all I mean to imply by the vote I shall give to-night is this—that I cordially approve of the general principles of commercial policy by which Her Majesty's Government have been guided, and that I will not consent to a Motion, the main object of which avowedly is, to censure them for

^* From a Speech published by Bain

their adherence to those principles, and to substitute in the place of that policy some other economic system.

The course I propose to pursue, with the permission of the House, is this—to examine the grounds upon which the hon. Member for Buckinghamshire has impeached the commercial policy which has been acted upon for some years. I shall then proceed to consider whether or no that new principle of economic policy which he proposes to substitute in its place, has any foundation in reason or experience, and whether the adoption of it would contribute to the welfare and prosperity of this country.

In examining the arguments of the hon. Member for Buckinghamshire I shall take that course which appears to me by far the most likely to conduce to the ascertaining of truth—namely, to state each argugument separately, as nearly as I can in the words in which it was conveyed, and then to give the answer to such argument. And I cannot help thinking that if that were the course generally pursued in this House in the conduct of discussions like these, substituting the plain simple test of argument for vague declamation, it would conduce to the full elucidation of the matters with which we have to deal.

Sir, I understood the hon. Member for Buckinghamshire to impeach the commercial policy which has been acted upon for some time past, and to attribute to that policy a great part of the suffering under which it is admitted that some interests in this country, or in portions of this country, are now labouring. But I was struck, I confess, by an admission of the hon. Gentleman at the commencement of his speech. I willingly pay to him the acknowledgments which are justly due for that admission. He was describing the state of this country when the noble Lord succeeded to power, and he made this admission with respect to its condition, and the moral influence of that Government, which was in power at the commencement of the year 1846. He said, that Europe generally was enjoying profound tranquillity; that there was great confidence reposed by foreign Powers in Her Majesty's Ministers; that if misunderstandings arose, there was a ready reference to the authority of the British Government, and a willing acquiescence in the advice which it offered for the adjustment of those misunderstandings. The hon. Gentleman said, moreover, that Ireland was in a state of comparative prosperity, and that the agricultural interest was contented, and looking forward with hope to the future. He said, also, that the greatest export trade that this country had ever carried on was carried on in the course of the year 1845, and that Her Majesty's present Government, on succeeding to power, found a surplus of some 2,000,000 l . or 3,000,000 l . in the Exchequer. Well, if that was the state of this country: if all interests were so prosperous; but, above all, if such was the condition of our finances, and of our export trade, I ask this question—What had been the principles of financial and commercial policy adopted for some Years previously to that time?

I find that, in the rear 1841, there was a deficit of income of about 2,500,000

"In 1846, you adopted a totally new principle, and from the introduction of that new principle have resulted the evil consequences which we now deplore."

Now, my answer upon that point is this—In 1846, we adopted no new commercial principle; we merely carried further the commercial principle which had been adopt-ed and acted upon in 1842, and in successive years. [ Marks of dissent .] It is more respectful to the hon. Member for Buckinghamshire to submit his arguments and doctrines to the test of reason, than to adopt any other course; and I am attempting to conduct the argument precisely in the manner in which I should conduct a purely scientific controversy into which party feeling did not enter. But I adhere to my statement, that in 1846 no new principle was introduced; and I give the hon. Gentleman the fullest opportunity of aaswering my arguments. What new principle was introduced in 1846 that had not been sanctioned during the period between the commencement of 1842 and the close of 1845? Before the end of 1845, the duties upon cotton and upon sheep's wool had been repealed. In 1842, the reduction of duties upon articles of import, amounted to 1,092,000 l .; in 1843, to 411,000 l ; in 1844, to 458,000 l .; and in 1845, to 4,511,000 l .; the total amount of this reduction of taxation to the end of 1845 being 6,582,000 l ., without any equivalent concessions by foreign countries. The articles upon which that reduction mainly took place, were cither raw materials, articles of food, or articles of general consumption, like coffee and sugar. What new principle of commercial legislation, then, was introduced in 1846? The amount of duties remitted in 1846, was 1,151,000 l , the amount remitted in the four preceding years having been 6,582,000 l . The articles which in 1846 were selected for reduced taxation were these—tallow, timber (being an additional reduction thereon), brandy, soap, linseed cake, rape cake, and many other articles, the introduction of which is important to the agricultural interest. There was, in-deed, provision made for the ultimate repeal of the com law; but that is the single instance in respect to which you can justly contend that any principle of legislation was adopted in 1846 which had not previously been acted upon in 1842, 1843, 1844, and 1845. And now observe, with respect to the repeal of the corn law: that repeal, so far as the Act of 1846 was concerned, did not take place until the 1st of February, 1849. It was from sheer necessity that in 1847 you suspended the duties. The hon. Member for Dorsetshire seconded the Motion for their suspension. But during nearly the whole of 1848, you levied a duty of 8 s . or 10 s . on foreign corn, and, consecquently, if there have ensued any evil effects from the repeal of the corn law, you cannot date them from an earlier period than the 1st of February, 1849. Protection, excepting for the interval for which you voluntarily abandoned it from the fear of searcity, lasted up to the 1st of February, 1849.

Still there are many who maintain it is the new tariff which has caused the commercial depression, and that the principles of free trade, adopted in 1846 and the preceding years, have created or aggravated the distress under which the country is suffering. Now, it is my firm conviction, that the principles embodied in that tariff, have not caused any one of the evils which have been endured; but that, on the contrary, the principles involved in that tariff have greatly mitigated those evils. Let us analyse this tariff. I challenge you to show me in what particular it is possible that free trade can have caused the distress of the country. Let us compare the official value of the imports into Great Britain in 1848, with the same value in 184 s . In the latter year, the official value of the imports was 73,000,000 l .; the official value in 1848 was 89,000,000 l . Some contended that it is the amount of imports, there being, according to them, no corresponding amount of exports, which has caused the depression of industry in tills country. Let us, then, analyse those imports, and consider the several articles of import of which this tariff consists. I divide it into three great branches. First, I take the articles of consumption—the food, the luxuries—the articles which the people eat and drink; I next take the raw materials of manufacture; and, lastly, the foreign manufactured goods. It is contended, that the amount of these manufactured goods, which under the operation of free trade have been imported into this country, has interfered with domestic industry, and caused many laborious and industrious persons to lose their moans of employment, Let us divide the imports of 1848, amounting in value to 89,000,000 l ., into the three heads I have referred to—namely, articles of consumption, raw materials, and manufactured goods. The amount in official value of the articles of consumption imported, was not less than 32,500,000 l . will any man ire tell me that he grudges the import of one single pound weight of those articles of consumption? What has become of them? They have been imported, they have been paid for, and they have been eaten. Can you deny any one of those three propositions, that the articles in question have been imported, paid for, and consumed? And how paid for? I suppose I shall be told, they have been paid for by the transmission of gold. It had been argued that if you permit these free imports, the for-that reigner will not take our manufactured goods in return, but will insist on payment in gold; that consequently the currency will be disturbed, and the reserve in the Bank will be exhausted. There will he imports, it is true; but, as a necessary consequence of extravagant imports, a constant exportation of gold to pay for them, and a corresponding appreciation of the currency. If this be so, how happens it that, concurrently with the great increase of imports, there has been, at the same time, no diminution of gold? nay, that there has been, in consequence of the state of these exchanges, an accumulation, an increase of gold? In the autumn of 1847, the Bank had a reserve of not less than ten millions of gold. The official value of your imports increased from seventy-eight millions in 1846, to eighty-nine millions in 1848 and yet, the stock of gold in the Bank has not been diminished; on the contrary, it has increased from ten to fifteen millions. So much for the threatened exhaustion of your gold.

But what has become of the imported articles of consumption? Who have consumed this 32,500,000 l . worth of eatable and drinkable materials? Has any one had too much? Has there been any case of surfeit? Is the cholera attributable to that consumption, or has any other disease or suffering been entailed in consequence of this import of food? I believe not; but, on the contrary, that the whole of these imports and the consumption of them have contributed to the material comfort of the people, and that it would have been a public misfortune if this amount of 32,000,000 l . of imports had been by any process reduced to 22,000,000 l . or 25,000,000 l . or any smaller sum. I believe that the import of these commodities, being articles of subsistence, has not only contributed directly to the material comfort of those who consumed them, but has also encouraged their labour, because they have been paid for by the proceeds of labour.

So much for the articles of consumption; I come now to the articles of raw material. The leading principle of every tariff with which I was connected, was the diminution of the duties on raw materials. Is it possible to contend that you have diminished the encouragement to domestic industry by having reduced the cost of the articles used in our manufactures? Is it possible to contend that the reduction of the duty on articles used in dyeing, on furniture woods, on madder, indigo, and on all those raw materials required for our manufactures, can have any other effect than that of diminishing the cost of the manufactured article here, and of enabling the manufactured goods of this country to compete with greater advantage with articles of foreign manufacture? Is it possible to contend that such a measure has interfered injuriously with the domestic industry of this country?

I have now spoken of the articles of food imported, and of the articles of raw material. Let us now take the third branch into which I divided the table of imports—he foreign goods partly or wholly manufactured. It is said that it is the import of these foreign manufactured goods winch has caused the distress of the country. Now, how stands the case? Here is this great commercial country interfering with the domestic industry of every country on the face of the globe, by the exports of its manufactures. If this be interference—if it be not a positive addition to the comfort and happiness of those communities with which we deal, where is the delinquent so enormous as Great Britain? In 1848, you exported in official value about 133,000,000 l . the produce of your industry: and you imported foreign manufactured goods to the amount in declared value of about 4,722,000 l . worth. Is such an amount sufficient to account for the distress? Your imports, in 1848, of raw materials to be fabricated by your industry I amounted in value to 48,400,000 l . and the manufactured goods imported amounted to 4,700,000 l . But is that 4,700,000 l . the amount which was taken for home consumption, and which could by any possibility interfere with your domestic industry? No. Deduct from that amount all that you re-exported. Of cotton goods from India and Europe you imported in value 512,000 l .; but you re-exported a very considerable portion of that quantity so imported—no less than 275,000 l , Therefore, deduct from the 512,000 l . worth imported, the 275,000 l . worth re-exported. Could there be a greater proof of the benefit of free trade than this, that it enables this country to become the entrepôt for the goods of other nations, inviting those goods to these shores, giving to them the advantage of our warehousing system, causing them to be deposited here for re-exportation? Thus was employment found for British ship-ping and British capital, in conducting a foreign carrying trade, without the possibility of interfering in any shape with your domestic industry. You refer to the great import of foreign silks. That import has taken place, not so much on account of the natural operations of trade, as on account of the troubled state of France, and the desire which the French manufacturer had of realising the value of whatever could be sold. But of the foreign silk goods imported, you exported to the value of 870,000 l .; and when you estimate the extent to which the domestic manufacture was interfered with by the import, then allowance must be made for the whole amount re-exported.

But another and still further deduction you must make. You must deduct from the amount of the legitimate imports all that would have been imported by smuggling, if you had chosen to retain high duties of 40 or 50 per cent. No doubt in such case the apparent amount of imports might have been greatly reduced, and the manufacturer in this country might have consoled himself with the thought that at any rate but one-fifth or one-sixth of the amount of the present Imports had entered. No idea could be more delusive. The smoggler would have corrected the absurdity of your commercial system, and would have pocketed the gain to the revenue which the Exchequer has derived from facilitating commercial Intercourse. Take the articles with respect to which there has been great complaint, such as watches, leather gloves, embroidery, and needlework. Do you think that, with a restored duty of 40 or 50 per cent, there would be a corresponding protection to domestic industry? No such thing. There would be a loss to the revenue, but not increased protection to domestic industry. There was a commission appointed in 1844, which was presided over by my lamented Friend, whose loss all who know him, either personally or by character, must deplore, the late Lord Granville Somerset. It was a commission of inquiry respecting certain frauds in the customs. They reported that they were disposed to admit that the annual loss of revenue which occurred bore some approximation to one-half the amount of duty levied; that, with respect to lace, they were assured that more than one-half the quantity imported was introduced without payment of duty; and that the proceedings which had taken place in the courts of law showed the almost unlimited amount of fraud committed in respect to the article of gloves. They expressed serious apprehensions that extensive frauds were not confined to the articles above-named. With such evidence before us, what is the prudent course to pursue? Is it to continue the duty to such an amount as would have the effect of handing over to the smuggler half the revenue which ought to be derived from gloves, and to permit lace and embroidery to be sent into this country under encouragements to fraud, which no vigilance can control; or is it not the wiser plan to facilitate the legal import by lowering the duties, thus enabling the manufacturer hero to know at any rate the nature and extent of the evil he has to contend with?

Let us take the case of the import of foreign manufactered goods in brass, copper, and cutlery. I have not forgotten the speech of the hon. Member for Birmingham, in which he described the state of Birmingham to be such that the Birmingham manufacturers in brass, copper, cutlery, and buttons, could not find a sale for their articles; that their trade was greatly depressed; and that the quantity of German and other foreign cutlery and buttons imported interfered with home productions even in the Birmingham market. Is it not marvellous that the Birmingham manufacturer should be beaten in Birmingham by the foreigner, when he can beat the foreigner in all the other markets of the world? ["Hear, hear!" Mr. MUNTZ: No.] Being aware of the

"Let us know the truth; let us have an account of all the metallic manufactures brought into this country from abroad; and in the same return, a statement of the amount of manufactured articles precisely of the same kind sent out of this country for the supply of foreign markets? we shall then know what is the foundation for the assertion that the Birmingham cutlers, and button makers cannot sell their own goods in their own town."

Well, the return which was thus moved for includes brass, copper, zinc manufactures, buttons, lacquered goods, and so forth. It gives the amount of all these articles imported from abroad. If you tell me that this is not a faithful account of the whole amount of imports—that a great many other articles are smuggled in, pay no duty, and do not appear in this return, my answer is—then let us reduce the duty again. That assertion constitutes anything but an impeachment of the reduction of the duty. The legitimate conclusion is that the duty retained is still too high. If, on the other hand, you admit that the duty is so low that there is no smuggling, but that this return contains a true account of the imports of the articles I have referred to, then let us compare the import of these foreign manufactured goods for the last three years with the amount which we sent to other countries. In 1846, 1847, and 1848, the aggregate average amount of all these imports into England from Germany and every other country was worth 102,000 l ., or 34,000 l . a year on the average of the last three years. Now, if we had exported only some such amount, that might constitute a presumption that our manufacture was depressed and interfered with, and that it was impossible for us to contend with foreign rivals in neutral markets. But in the same three years in which we imported this 102,000 l . worth of metal goods, we exported annually to the amount of 4,400,000 l . worth of exactly the same articles; the total aggregate amount of the imports in the three years being 102,000 l . worth, and the total aggregate amount of the exports for the three years was 13,372,000 l . The average of exports was 4,420,000 l . worth a year. The average of imports, 34,000 l . per annum. Now, what must these foreigners, who have not half our capital, or half our skill, or half our natural advantages for these productions of industry—what must they think of us when we denounce them as interlopers interfering with our domestic industry, inasmuch as they send here some 34,000 l worth of metal goods in the year, while we feel no scruple, at the same time, in interfering with their domestic industry by sending them 4,400,000 l . worth? What a grasping, selfish, exacting people we must seem to them! I ask, then, how is it possible that the changes made in the tariff cither in 1842, 1845, or 1846—that the free import of raw materials, or such an import of manufactured goods as I have described—can be justly made responsible for the manufacturing distress of this country?

I proceed to consider the second ground on which the hon. Gentleman impeached our commercial policy. I think he said that the average official value of all exports in 1845 and 1846 was 133,000,000

"That the Government forgot that every branch of our trade was founded on prohibition—that the country was struggling with dreadful difficulties—that 3,000,000 quarters of corn, and 2,000,000 l . worth of silk manufactures, had been imported into this country; and although it was argued that the money paid for all this would come back, he could tell the House it was no such thing; for that, whatever we might import, our exports would not increase in consequence—that in the course of the last twelve years preceding that in which he spoke, we had lost 120,000,000 l . by our export trade."

He proved all this by the paper which I

"The cotton goods exported in 1849 were 646,000 l . less in declared value than the same quantity of goods exported in 1848, and, therefore, the English workman had received 640,000 l . less for his labour."

That is what I understood the hon. Member to state; and I contend, in reply, that it is erroneous to infer that because there has been a diminution in the declared value of exports, the labourers who produce the articles exported suffer any loss.

I will give another proof of the fallacy of conclusions drawn from the declared value of manufactures exported. In 1815, the number of yards of wove cotton manufactures exported from this country was 252,000,000, and the declared value of the same, 18,158,000 l . In 1845, the quantity of wove cotton manufactures exported was 1,091,000,000 yards, and the declared value, 18,009,000 l . Thus it would seem that 100 pieces of calico cost 18 s . in 1815, and that 400 pieces cost no more in 1845. This circumstance alone is sufficient to show how unsafe it is to argue from these accounts of declared values.

The hon. Member for Buckinghamshire contends that the loss which he assumes to be exhibited in the falling off in the declared value of exported produce, has fallen mainly on the labourer, and he drew from that circumstance melancholy inferences with respect to the future condition of the country. Being desirous of meeting his arguments fairly and dispassionately, I will, as far as possible, comply with his suggestion, that in the course of this discussion we should refer only to official documents. It is, however, impossible to adhere strictly to that rule when the question turns on the present demand for labour, and the present condition of the labourer. Like the Chancellor of the Exchequer, I must be permitted to refer, upon this point, to the most recent information which I have received, and on the credibility of which I can fully rely. By far the most important part of the question is the condition and prospects of those who earn their daily subsistence by labour. From the accounts I have received on this subject, I will select those which have reached me from three manufacturing towns in different parts of the kingdom—from Chippenham, representing the manufacturing interests of the west of England; from Nottingham, representing the central part of England; and Dundee, representing Scotland. The letter from Chippenham, dated the 30th of June, is as follows:—

"Chippenham, June 30. "My dear Sir—My statement to you this morning, I find, in reference to our books, to be correct. In the six months ending this day we have paid to the same number of people 25 per cent more wages than in the corresponding period of 1847, and more, fully 20 per cent more, than in 1848; and I believe the people in this place generally are better fed, better clothed, and in every way more comfortable than they have been for years. The general trade of the town is in a very flourishing state; poor-rates about 3 s . 4 d . in the pound; the number of people in the union workhouse, 97. The west of England cloth trade is unquestionably better than it has been for years. I have reason to know that in the town of Trowbridge, more goods have been made and sold in the last six or nine months, and a larger amount of wages paid to the people, than were ever before known; and this, I believe, is the case in the whole clothing district of the west of England; the Parliamentary returns of the consumption of cotton and wool prove it to be the same both in Yorkshire and Lancashire."

In the west of England, and other parts of the clothing district, there is indeed one cause of complaint. The manufacturers cannot get a sufficient quantity of foreign wool. When we reduced the duty on foreign wool, it was foretold that the measure would interfere with domestic produce, and reduce the value of the wool grown at home. So far from that being the case, the manufacturers are now crying out for more foreign wool; and the more foreign wool they obtain, the better is the demand for our own wool, in order that it may be worked up with the foreign. A letter from Nottingham is in these terms:—

"Nottingham, June 11.

"Both in the hosiery trade at Leicester and Nottingham an advance of wages has taken place, and a second advance is now demanded by the workmen: and, at the present time, I should suppose, that about one-fourth of the hands have now struck work in Nottingham for a second advance. In my experience, I have never found workmen turning out for an advance of wages but in times when they were comparatively in tolerable or better circumstances, and they have had full work now since May, 1848, and the price of bread and meat, as well as clothing, so cheap, that for many years past the operatives have not been so well off. I have no mills working short time, but all fully employed. The silk factories, who spin silk for the lace trade, cannot supply the present demand; the lace trade is much improved, particularly in black silk lace and black silk shawls."

The letter from Dundee said—

Dundee, June 11.

"In reply to your letter of the 9th instant, I beg to state, that at no period, for several years past, have the mills, in my district, been so actively or fully employed as at present. I have every reason to believe, that trade is healthy and flourishing; and it is the general opinion, that there is a good prospect of a continuance of this state of matters for some time to come. There is, consequently, great demand for labour, not only in the mills, but in all the occupations connected with our manufactures. Provisions and all other necessaries are extremely cheap, potatoes and butchers' meat excepted, the former of which articles is always scarce at this season of the year, and the latter comparatively little used by our working classes. Under these circumstances, I am glad to be able to add, that the condition of our labouring population and manufacturing districts, generally, is at present very satisfactory."

I have read those letters for the purpose of encouraging the hope that, although there may have been a reduction in the declared value of manufactures exported, the condition of the manufacturers is not necessarily deteriorated. These letters furnish conclusive proof that at least in three large towns, separated from each other by a wide interval, and being the seats of different branches of manufacture, the condition of the working classes is better than it has been for some preceding years.

I have now I believe examined the main grounds on which the hon. Member has impeached the commercial policy adopted of late years, and I submit to the House that the charges which he brought against that policy have not been sustained. The House must be aware of the deep interest I naturally take in this question. I cannot forget—although I allude to the circumstance without the slightest feeling of asperity—that I have been exposed to a good deal of misrepresentation and obloquy. I bear not the slightest ill-will to any one on that account; I must however put in my claim to vindicate that policy which I believe to have mainly contributed to preserve this country from great disasters. The hon. Member said on Monday night that the doctrine which he had repeated on former occasions, namely, that we cannot fight hostile tariffs by free imports, had never been contested. It is my intention to contest it now. If I refrained from disputing the proposition on any previous occasion, it was from no disrespect to the hon. Member's ability or station; but the subject has been more than once brought forward at the close of a debate, when I had no sufficient opportunity of entering into an argument of a not very inviting nature.

Before I advert to it, I must however examine fully the hon. Gentleman's reasoning with reference to the poor-law. I shall draw from the facts to which he referred a conclusion exactly opposite to that

"See how the poor-rate has increased—look at the charge per head for maintaining paupers—see how many more ablebodied labourers are paupers in 1848 than there were in 1846; and, with those results before you, can you refuse to join in condemning the policy which has produced them? "

Let us test the validity of this argument. The hon. Member adopted, and I am not surprised at it, the paper I hold in my hand, which is contained in the report of the Poor Law Commissioners, giving the cost of maintaining the poor for seven years when the price of wheat was lowest, and the cost of maintaining them for seven years when the price of wheat was highest. The hon. Member drew from this return the inference that when wheat was low, poor-rates were high, and that when wheat was high, poor-rates were low. I cannot blame the hon. Member for making use of this return; but I am surprised that public officers like the Poor Law Commissioners should have voluntarily made such a return. It is the most foolish document ever presented to the House. One would suppose, of course, that the Poor Law Commissioners had selected seven consecutive years in each case. The hon. Member certainly did not state that they were consecutive years, but imagining that they were, I confess, I was startled when I heard him state that in seven years of a low price of wheat, the cost of maintaining the poor was greater than during seven years when the price of wheat was high. I looked at the return, and I found that this is the order in which the commissioners have taken their seven years of low prices—1839,1840,1841,1848,1842, 1847, and 1838. Having made this extraordinary selection, the Poor Law Commissioners state the conclusion at which they arrived, namely, that in the seven years when the price of wheat was lowest, the cost of maintaining the poor, per head, was 6 s . 3 d ., whilst it was only 6 s . 1¼d. in the seven years when wheat was highest. How can the commissioners draw any conclusion from years selected in such a manner? Could it be supposed that the influence of the high price of wheat in a year like 1801, for example, when it rose to 106 s . a quarter, was exactly limited to that particular year? What useful purpose could be served by taking a parcel of years in this way, and making no allowance for the subsequent effect which two bad or two good harvests in succession must have on the industry of the country? Take the very page in which this return of the Poor Law Commissioners appears—there appears in that page the amount of poor-rate and the average price of wheat for each year from 1834 to 1848. Does that justify the conclusion, that when the price of wheat is low, the cost of maintaining the poor is enhanced? By the way, I will here refer to one of the hon. Member's arguments which has just occurred to me. I was surprised to hear him state, on the authority of Mr. Jones, that when the farmers' income was 100,000,000 l ., they spent it all in manufactures; and that when it was reduced by 25 per cent, their power of encouraging our manufacturing industry was abridged in the same proportion. According to that theory it would, no doubt, be a good thing to have corn at 100 s . a quarter. Only make it apparent that the well-being and comfort of the manufacturing population is dependent on a high price of wheat, and it would be the most cogent argument in favour of high prices ever adduced. To revert, however, to the return of the Poor Law Commissioners, giving the poor-rate and price of wheat from 1834 to 1848. Taking the average of the years 1834, 1835, 1836, and 1837, the price of wheat was 47 s . There had been a cycle of good years, and at the end of it the country was left in a state of comparative ease and prosperity.

At the commencement of the period, in 1834, the sum expended in the relief of the poor was 6,317,000 l . The beneficial influence of low prices during four years, reduced the sum expended in the relief of the poor to 4,044,000 l ., in 1837. The rate per head was reduced from 8 s . 9 d . in 1834, to 5 s . 5 d . in 1837. The whole of this reduction must not be ascribed to the cheapness of corn; some portion is, doubtless, referable to the improved administration of the poor-laws. High prices succeed; and what was the case in the cycle of years in which they prevailed? In 1838 there was no material change; the total sum expended was 4,123,000?.; the rate per head 5 s . 5¼d. Pour years of high prices succeed.

The average price being 66 s . 9 d . Thug the average price of wheat, which at the end of 1837 was 47 s . rose in four years from 1839 to 1842 to 66 s . 9 d . In 1843 the poor-rate, which had been 4,044,000 l , in 1837 was 5,208,000 l .; the rate per head, which in 1837 was 5 s . 5 d ., was in 1843, 6 s . 5½ d . The next three years, 1844–5–6, formed a cycle of good years. In 1844 the price of wheat was 51 s . 5 d .; in 1845, 49 s . 2 d .; in 1846, 53 s . 3 d .; the average of the three years being 50 s . 9 d . There was a corresponding effect on the total sum levied for poor-rates, and on the rate per head. The total sum expended was reduced from 5,208,000 l . in 1843, to 4,954,000 l . in 1846. The rate per head was reduced from 6 s . 5½ d . in 1843, to 5 s . 10 d . in 1846.

There is, however, a striking contrast between 1846 and 1848, and on that contrast the main argument rests. In the latter year there is a great increase in the aggregate poor-rate, and a great increase in the rate per head at which the poor are maintained; but under what circumstances? You had the price of wheat in 1847 rising from 67 s . to 75 s ., to 88 s . to 92 s . In 1848 you had distress, an increase of the number of ablebodied poor, the workhouses full, the poor-rates increased. What is the obvious inference? Surely, that dear-ness of provisions is the greatest misfortune. Surely the experience of 1848 warrants a conclusion the very opposite of that which some would draw from it. In 1847 such was the pressure of scarcity, that you hastily suspended the duties on corn, you suspended the navigation laws, and sent ships to collect corn from every quarter of the globe. Your whole condition was abnormal. In three years you expended 51,000,000 l . sterling in the purchase of food. In 1846–47–48 you expended 51,000,000 l . The demand for this vast quantity of food, in addition to your own supply, was sudden and unforeseen. You could not expect that there could be a corresponding amount of manufactured goods exported in return for such a demand. It was not only that we ourselves were suffering from scarcity. Every country of continental Europe was suffering at the same time, not perhaps in an equal, but in a very considerable degree. Are you surprised that your foreign trade should have been depressed, when every country in Europe was compelled to purchase food at extravagant prices? You had severe pressure at home—severe pressure in nearly a corresponding degree in foreign countries which used to be customers for your goods, and you must, of course, expect diminished trade. It is the natural consequence of diminished demand, of the necessity of applying to the purchase of food those means which in ordinary years are applied to the purchase of your manufactures Of that distress which you were suffering in 1848, free trade was not the cause. The high price of provisions and continental convulsions were the chief causes of a distress which was mitigated and not increased by the freedom of commercial intercourse.

It is on these grounds that I submit that the impeachment of the commercial policy of the last seven years has entirely failed. I now propose to consider the merits of the policy which the hon. Member would substitute in its place. I believe this question—I mean the principles which are to govern your commercial legislation—to be the most important question that can occupy the attention of Parliament. A Minister may make a blunder, and that may be corrected; but an error in the principles which direct your commercial legislation is an error likely to prevail for a long series of years. [ Cheers .] I am glad to hear that in one sense we are all agreed; we have all the same object in view—the encouragement of domestic industry. I believe as firmly as any of those who dissent from me with respect to the mode in which the object is to be attained, that it is a vital question for the country—that unless our domestic industry be encouraged, we cannot expect peace, contentment, or prosperity. The point at issue is not the end, but the means by which that end can be best attained—the means by which we can most effectually encourage domestic industry.

We should greatly underrate the importance of this question if we supposed that it concerned only the accumulation of wealth. It is a question which affects the happiness of the people, which affects their social progress, their progress in morals, in the enjoyment of life, in refinement of taste and civilisation of manners—it concerns all these things at least as much as it concerns the accumulation of wealth.

It is considered by a powerful party that for the advancement of these great objects, the return to the principle of protection is indispensable. Of that party, whatever causes of dissension may have arisen, I never shall speak without sincere respect. I believe them to be in error as

"I am not favourable to prohibitory duties, but I maintain that it is necessary to give to our fellow countrymen that amount of protection which is necessary to counterbalance any disadvantages that may arise from the admission of foreign produce."

"We must return to the principle of protection." Again, on the 23rd June last, addressing the company at the Mansion House, Lord Stanley observed—

"Foremost among the measures which we believe to be essential to the prosperity of this great country, is the recognition of this great principle—that legislative encouragement ought to be given to every branch of domestic industry."

In bringing forward the present Motion, the hon. Gentleman the Member for Buckinghamshire was equally explicit. He observed, speaking of our recent legislation—

"That we have established a new commercial system, which mistakes the principles upon which a profitable exchange can take place between nations; that we can only encounter the hostile tariffs of foreign countries by countervailing duties; that such a system occasions, not scarcity and dearness, but cheapness and abundance. Hitherto," he said, "in enforcing the principles upon which the theory of reciprocity in commerce depends, I have laboured under the disadvantage of appealing only to abstract reasoning; now, however, we have practical results before us in the sufferings of our people and in the decline of our wealth."

Now, in opposition to these doctrines, I boldly maintain that the principle of protection to domestic industry, meaning thereby legislative encouragement for the purpose of protection—duties on import imposed for that purpose, and not for revenue, is a vicious principle. I contest the hon. Gentleman's assumption, that you cannot fight hostile tariffs by free imports. I so totally dissent from that assumption, that I maintain that the best way to compete with hostile tariffs is to encourage free imports. So far from thinking the principle of protection a salutary principle, I maintain that the more widely you extend it, the greater the injury you will inflict on the national wealth, and the more you will cripple the national industry.

I found my opinion on these grounds. The capital of the country is the fund from which alone the industry of the country can be maintained. The industry of the country will be promoted in proportion as the capital employed in its maintenance shall be increased. The augmentation of capital must depend upon the saving from annual revenue. If you give for certain articles produced at homo a greater price than that for which you can purchase those articles from other countries, there is a proportionate diminution of the saving from annual revenue. If you attempt to redress the injustice which would be done by selecting one particular interest for special protection; if you aver that your object is to extend equal protection to all branches of domestic industry—then I reply that the more extensive that system of protection, the greater will be the aggregate loss of annual revenue—the greater will be the check to the augmentation of capital; that is to say, of the means by which labour is to be maintained. So far from encouraging domestic industry, you are, in the first place, by legislative interference, diverting capital from its natural and most profitable application; and you are, in the second place, by giving more for every article than it is worth, exhausting the source from which alone capital can be maintained and augmented.

The principles which should govern the commercial intercourse of nations, do not differ from those which regulate the dealings of private individuals. It is the same law which determines the planetary movements and the fall of the slightest particle of matter to the earth. It is the same law which determines the accumulation of wealth by the private trader and the powerful kingdom. We only obscure and mystify the truth, by overlooking the principle which governs the dealings of every man of common sense.

Adam Smith illustrates the great doctrines of Political Economy, by a reference to the simplest transactions. He says—

"It is the maxim of every prudent master of a family never to attempt to make at home, what it will cost him more to make than to buy. The tailor does not make his own shoes, but buys them off the shoemaker. The shoemaker does not make his own clothes, but employs a tailor."

He says, moreover, that—

"What is prudence in the conduct of every private family, can scarce be folly in that of a great kingdom."

Now, let us consider the case of two artisans or dealers resident in the same town. The shoemaker and the tailor will answer the purpose as well as any other. The one wants clothes, the other shoes; they think it right to encourage the domestic industry of their own town—to deal with each other and not with strangers. The shoemaker gives ten shillings to the tailor for a certain quantity of clothes which he could get for seven shillings if he bought them in a neighbouring town. But by way of compensation the tailor gives him his custom, and pays ten shillings for shoes which he also could buy from a distant shoemaker for seven. Now, is there any encouragement in this to domestic industry? Is there not a loss of six shillings to the town in which they live, as the result of the dealing between these tradesmen? What are shillings in this case? They are the more representatives of labour. Let a shilling represent the labour of an hour. Is it not clear that in each case ten hours of labour have been devoted to produce that for which seven would have sufficed? Have not six hours of labour been unprofitably applied? Could not each party have procured that for which he gave the labour of ten hours by the labour of seven—and thus have had three hours at his disposal, with which to procure something else?

Now, let us try whether the arguments in favour of protection will justify this apparently unprofitable waste of time and labour? It may be alleged, that in the town from which the low-priced articles could be procured, the rent of houses is much lower, or the cost of food much less, and that therefore the residents in that town can afford to supply their goods at a cheaper rate. Is this any reason for not dealing with them? Is it any sort of compensation to those who are burdened with a high rent for their houses—or who pay too much for their food—that they should pay ten shillings for their clothes, or ten shillings for their shoes—when they could buy them elsewhere for seven? It may be that the town which produces the cheap articles requires nothing or will take in return nothing, which the less favoured town produces. Some will consider that a

"All our purchases must in that case be made with ready money—all the gold and silver coin will be sent out of the town, and nothing left wherewith to pay the wages of labour, and conduct the ordinary dealings of life."

Do not believe one word of this. Do not believe it either in the case of towns, in the same country, or of different countries in the great community of nations. Each town and each country will command the amount of currency which it requires for its own purposes, undisturbed in the slightest degree by consulting its manifest interest, namely, by purchasing that which it wants in the cheapest market. [ Derisive cheers .]

Yes, by purchasing that which it wants in the cheapest market. You consider this a very low and unworthy principle; that it is a doctrine of the Manchester school; that it is a novel doctrine of some speculative political philosophers, and that it may be safely rejected. But this doctrine of purchasing in the cheapest market is not a doctrine of speculative philosophers only. It is not a doctrine introduced by modern economists. It is, no doubt, a doctrine sanctioned expressly and directly by the authority of Adam Smith. It is the doctrine of Say and of Hume. It is opposed to a doctrine which was fashioned some eighty or ninety years since, of which such writers as Montesquieu and Voltaire were the patrons; but Smith, and Say, and Hume, demonstrated the true principles which ought to regulate the commercial policy of a nation. There are others, however, besides writers on political economy, who have adopted those doctrines. When this country was suffering from great depression of trade in the year 1820, certain practical men, merchants and bankers of London, presented to this House a petition under the sanction of the honoured name of Alexander Baring. Those merchants and bankers propounded this doc-trine—

"That the maxim of buying in the cheapest market, and selling in the dearest, which regulates every merchant in his individual dealings, is strictly applicable as the best rule for the trade of the whole nation."

In that memorable petition, it was observed—

"That, although as a matter of mere diplomacy it may sometimes answer to hold out the removal of particular prohibitions or high duties, as depending upon corresponding concessions by other States in our favour, it does not follow that we should maintain our restrictions in cases whore the desired concessions on their part cannot he obtained; our restrictions would not be the less prejudicial to our own capital and industry because other Governments persisted in preserving impolitic regulations."

[Mr. NEWDEGATE: What is the year?] 1820. The hon. Gentleman will derive great practical benefit from the perusal of this petition. [ Handing the volume which contained it to Mr. Newdegate .] That petition was presented by Lord Ashburton when Mr. Alexander Baring, and enforced by him with the greatest earnestness.

The petition was presented the year after your Act of 1819.

The hon. Member says that petition was presented within a year of 1819. We will discuss the Act of 1819 whenever he pleases; but, in the meantime, he will not deny that, great distress existing in 1820, whatever be the cause in which it originated, the merchants and bankers of London declared to the House of Commons that free trade was the proper remedy.

It is said, we cannot fight hostile tariffs with free imports. That is an epigrammatic form of stating the argument. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Buckinghamshire explains it more fully when he says, that the only way in which we can encounter hostile tariffs is by countervailing duties. Let us dispassionately examine this position. Let us consider it in its application to the three greatest countries with which we deal—Russia, France, and the United States. Take, first, the United States. The United States imposes duties on our manufactures; say, 20 per cent on our cotton goods. With such a rate of duty, we maintain a not very successful competition in the markets of the United States. What course are we to take? We ought, it is said, to impose countervailing duties on American produce. Would it be wise to have a high duty on raw cotton? What should we gain by it? A complaint is made on the part of the English cotton manufacturer. He says— duty upon cotton? What other class in this country would derive any advantage from such an impost? We are not dealing with any exceptional case, such as that referred to in the petition of the merchants of London. We are not considering the policy of a duty on American produce as a matter of mere diplomacy, for the purpose of extorting some concessions in our own favour. We are discussing whether as a principle of commercial policy the hostile tariffs of other countries ought to be combated by countervailing duties. I contend against that doctrine. I say you will more successfully combat the disadvantages under which you labour from hostile tariffs by buying that of which you stand in need in the cheapest market.

Let us take the case of France. France will not admit our hard wares or our cotton goods. How should we deal with France? Should we impose a heavy duty on her wines? If so, you are going to reintroduce the principle of the Methuen Treaty into your legislation. By that treaty, because Portugal undertook to admit our woollen goods at low rates of duty, you admitted her wines on a better footing than the wines of France. I thought that treaty had been practically abrogated with the unanimous consent of all persons of experience in matters of trade. In 1845, without procuring any equivalent concessions from France, we reduced the duty on foreign brandy; it was 22 s . 6 d . per gallon; we reduced it to 15 s . What has been the consequence? Have we suffered from that course? Has the advantage been an advantage to France alone? If, instead of reducing the duty from 22 s . 6 d . to 15 s ., we had maintained the high duty, we should have had to pay a higher price for our brandy, and certainly should have gained nothing in revenue. You got good brandy, by legal trade, at a less price. Has the revenue fallen by that reduction? In 1845, the revenue from brandy was 1,208,000 l , the duty was 22 s . 6 d .; you reduced it to 15 s ., and in 1848 the revenue was 1,207,000 l . Thus there has been no reduction of revenue, an increase of importation, a reduction of price to the consumer, a reduction of smuggling—every advantage, and no corresponding disadvantage. What should we have gained by fighting in this case of French produce, a hostile tariff with countervailing duties?

We are dissatisfied with Russia, We think the Russian is a restrictive tariff. Would it be any advantage to lay a heavy duty on the raw produce of Russia—upon her tallow—upon the several articles imported from that country, which we use in our own manufactures?

No doubt it would be for the advantage of trade—for our own advantage, and for the advantage of the countries with which we deal—that hostile tariffs should be reduced. It is nothing but the private interest of powerful individuals that induces the Governments of those countries, to the manifest injury of the great body of the people, to keep up those restrictive duties. Unquestionable as would be the benefit derived from their reduction, still if that benefit cannot be obtained, I contend that by the attempt at retaliation you would aggravate your own loss. Let this also be borne in mind, that the return to a retaliatory system, after it has been once abandoned, is infinitely more difficult than the continued adherence to it might have been. To re-establish duties upon the import of foreign produce, to be regulated by the principle of reciprocity, would be accompanied with insuperable difficulties. You have, in my opinion, no alternative but to maintain that degree of free trade which you have established, and gradually to extend it, so far as considerations of revenue will permit.

These are the grounds upon which I join issue with the hon. Gentleman, and upon which I earnestly deprecate the success of a Motion which would displace the noble Lord and the advocates of commercial freedom, for the purpose of placing in power those who contend for countervailing duties, who would establish, that which they call protection to domestic industry, but which, I believe, would be nothing but discouragement and detriment to that industry.

Feeling grateful to the House for their attention, I proceed to the last topic to which I shall advert—that which formed a principal part of the argument of the noble Lord who spoke last—namely, the agricultural condition of the country. I view the depression of that great interest with deep concern. I deeply regret the suffering that prevails among the agriculturists. So far as personal interest is concerned, my own is deeply involved in the prosperity of agriculture. If that consideration could bias for a moment the views of a public man, I should feel as much as any one, even on that account, the depression that exists. There can be no question, particularly after the notice given to-night by my right hon. Friend the Member for Stamford, that one of the consequences of the success of this Motion would be the restoration of protection to agriculture; that is to say, the reimposition of duties on the food of the people. No more fatal boon could, in my opinion, be offered to the agriculturists than any such protection as that which you profess to give. I entreat the friends of agriculture—I address myself especially to the noble Lord who spoke before me—to consider the real value of this protection. The noble Lord said, that in 1836 the farmers had very low prices; but then they had abundant produce, and that there were no complaints. On this point the noble Lord is mistaken. Abundant produce without the means of export had caused very low prices, and there were at the same time loud complaints and severe distress. I sat with other Members on a Committee which inquired into the condition of agriculture, and which attempted in vain to suggest a remedy. I do entreat the noble Lord's attentive consideration to the circumstances of that period—to the years 1833, 1834, and 1835. Protection to domestic produce existed in the highest degree. The duty on foreign wheat, when the price was less than 63 s . was 1 l , 4 s . 8 d . the quarter; when it was less than 67 s ., 1 l . 0 s . 8 d .; when it was under 62 s ., 1 l . 5 s . 8 d .—abundant protection, surely, so far as law could give protection. Meat was absolutely prohibited—animals of all kinds serving for subsistence were prohibited. Now let us take the price of wheat. In 1833 the average price was 52 s . 11 d .; the lowest price of the year having been 49 s . 2 d . In 1834 the average price was 46 s . 2 d .; the lowest price 40 s . 6 d . In 1835 the average price was 39 s . 4 d ., it having at one time fallen so low as 36 s .; this took place with protection carried to an extravagant degree. Was the depression of price owing to the importation of foreign corn? Certainly not, for foreign corn was practically prohibited by the amount of duty. In 1833 the whole amount of wheat imported was 82,000 quarters; in 1834, 64,000; in 1835, 28,000. The noble Lord says there were no complaints. I do assure the noble Lord that there are no complaints now made with regard to the state of agriculture at the present period which at all correspond with the complaints made at that time. The Committee of this House was appointed in 1836; and very intelligent and respectable men were sent to represent the interests of agriculture, and give evidence to that Committee. I will refer to that given by the first six of the witnesses deputed on the part of the agriculturists to represent their condition. The evidence of others is in concurrence with their's. Now, recollect, you had had abundant harvests, the exclusion of foreign corn, and extravagant protection. And what was the state of agriculture? This is the account of it given by the witnesses to whom I have referred:— The first witness, John Buckwell, says—

I have not denied that there is at present in some parts of the country severe agricultural distress. I have deeply lamented that it should exist. I trust, however, that the gloomy forebodings as to the future are not well founded. I entreat those who are suffering to remember that heretofore undue apprehensions have been entertained. When, in 1842, the prohibition was removed from the import of meat and cattle, there was great and needless alarm, and considerable loss was the consequence. I entreat them to consider, whether it be not possible that the recent imports of foreign corn have been governed by other considerations than those which influence the usual course of trade; whether, from the disturbed state of some countries, and the desire of converting corn into money, we have not imported more corn than we should otherwise have done; whether there has not been in some cases a great loss on the import of foreign corn, and whether our own produce has not thus been unduly depreciated in consequence of circumstances unconnected with free trade. That is my impression. I entreat them also to consider this, that you never could, in the present state of public opinion, have maintained a law which would have given a guarantee for high prices in unfavourable seasons. In the south and west of England the harvest was deficient—the quality was inferior—probably much of the wheat grown was not worth 40 s . a quarter. It might have been possible to devise a law which should have raised the price of that inferior corn to 50 s . or even to 60 s . per quarter. There would, in that case, have been some temporary compensation for deficient produce, but it would have been at the risk of creating disaffection and discontent, greatly outweighing the advantage of high prices gained by legislative intervention.

In the concluding part of his speech, the hon. Gentleman the Member for Buckinghamshire alluded to the condition of the labouring classes. He said, he thought the tendency of recent legislation had been to lower their condition he described them as members of a powerful hierarchy, the greatest in the world. That is a romantic and poetical view of their condition. Let me indulge in a more prosaic, but more practical view of the real condition of that class of this great hierarchy, as it stood in the year 1842. Let me take the position of a mechanic at Paisley, or of a labourer in Dorsetshire, or one of the southern counties. Let me suppose that in 1842 each of them was in the receipt of 10 s . a week, or, let us say 12 s . a week for the mechanic, and 8 s . for the labourer. First, consider the deductions you ought to make from this 12 s . and 8 s . a week, for house rent, for clothes, and medical attendance. Suppose there be in each case a family of three or four children. After making the deductions to which I have referred from the weekly receipt of wages, consider what are the various articles, the absolute necessaries of life, which will be required for the sustenance of such a family. Then review the state of taxation as it existed in January, 1842, so far as those articles were affected by it, and you cannot, I think, justly contend that the tendency of recent legislation has been unfavourable to the interests of the labouring classes.

At the commencement of the Session of 1842—

Indian corn, the great resource of the Irish people during the famine of 1846 and 1847, had a duty attached to it equal to that on barley, and varying with the price of barley.

Sir, it pleased this House to repeal some and to reduce others of those duties. My belief is, that a wiser decision than that to which you came—to subject property to direct taxation within certain limits—to remove the prohibition upon foreign cattle—to permit swine and sheep to be imported—to reduce the duty on corn, on sugar, on lard, on butter, and on cheese—you never made. My belief is that you have been amply repaid for any loss you may have sustained by that reduction; that you have gained the confidence and goodwill of the labouring classes in this country, by parting with that which was thought to be directly for the benefit of the landed interest. It was that confidence in the generosity and justice of Parliament which in no small degree enabled you to pass triumphantly through that storm which convulsed other nations during the year 1848. If, in 1842, and the following years, you had not made those reductions, had not subjected property to direct taxation, in order that you might relieve the labouring classes from the manifold impositions to which their subsistence was liable, such is the strength of your institutions, that you would no doubt have rode out the storm, but you would not have rode it out with the satisfaction of feeling that in the hour of peril you had the cordial support, the confidence and goodwill of those who depend for their subsistence on the wages of labour.

Your metropolis did indeed present a majestic spectacle, when 160,000 men, of the middle and working classes, were ranged in her streets in the support of authority; with the determination, without reference to party distinctions, to preserve the peace of this city, and to defeat the designs of the disaffected. But it is my belief that the metropolis did not exhibit a perfect and complete example of the spirit by which this country was animated. You most go elsewhere before you can fully estimate the true state of the public feeling at that critical period. Yo must go to the great seats of manufacturing industry—to Stockport, to Paisley, to Manchester—to the mines—to the collieries—to districts not subject to the various influences which, in a great metropolis, are combined in favour of order and the maintenance of authority. No, it is not London that I would select as the best example of the resolution which pervaded this country to maintain its laws and constitution. I would look to the West Riding of Yorkshire, to Lancashire, to places where, in former periods—in such times as 1818 and 1819—social order has been shaken to its foundation. In those districts, since the year 1846, the manufacturing interests have been deeply depressed, there has been great want of employment, great suffering from many privations. But see the patience and resignation with which that suffering has been borne; see how the inhabitants of these districts have conducted themselves, when, in combination with suffering and privation, they have had before their eyes the example of Irish disaffection—of revolutionary violence in France—of continental thrones subverted—of almost universal anarchy where before there had been peace.

I hold in my hand the report as to the state of Manchester, made by the chief officer of police. It bears date the 19th April, 1849.

He observes—

"In presenting these returns, it is impossible to avoid referring with pride and satisfaction to the state of this borough during that period of excitement and anxiety which occurred early in the past year. Slight disturbances did certainly take place; but when all circumstances are considered, it will be, I think, generally felt that it is scarcely possible to have stronger or more satisfactory evidence of the general intelligence, and loyal and peaceable character of the population around us, than was afforded by the events which occurred during the period referred to. Whilst gratefully acknowledging—as one having some degree of official responsibility in the maintenance of order—the firmness, vigilance, and watchful care manifested for the preservation of the peace by the mayor and magistrates, the active organisation of districts by the committees of the council, and the liberality of that body in granting efficient assistance to the ordinary police, as also the invaluable co-operation and assistance so readily afforded by the owners of warehouses, shops, and property and by those in their employ, I venture to suggest that this borough was indebted to a still larger extent to the working classes and the mill operatives, for the maintenance of order: to that important class, for their expressive disapproval of, and absence of sympathy with, the proceedings of the few disorderly and disaffected individuals who sought to create disturbance; for their determination to continue at their ordinary employment, and to resist any attempt at interference; and for the promptitude with which they at once agreed to be associated for the protection of the property of their employers, we are unquestionably indebted more than to any other source for the success which happily crowned the efforts of the authorities to preserve the peace and protect the property within this borough, during a period of almost unprecedented excitement and alarm, and of great privation and distress.

Surely these are significant facts—surely these are decisive proofs that the policy you adopted in removing the duty on articles of first necessity, was a wise policy. That which was done was no act of a sagacious Minister—the coming crisis was not foreseen by statesmen. It was no lucky accident. It is my firm belief that it pleased Almighty God to hearken to your prayers. It pleased him to turn "your dearth and scarcity," into "cheapness and plenty," and so to direct and prosper your consultations, that upon the eve of a great calamity, standing on the brink of a great precipice, you established "peace and happiness," on the foundations of "truth and justice." You have reaped the fruits of that policy. You have passed unscathed through the sternest trials to which the institutions of nations were ever subjected. You have stood erect amid the convulsions of Europe. And now you are to have a proposal made to you of some paltry fixed duty upon corn. Consider what this is. If it be 5 s . on wheat, it will give a duty of 2 s . 6 d . on barley, and 2 s . on oats; that is, 1 s . 6 d . on barley, and 1 s . on oats more than you have at present. It is an equivocal advantage at the best. But by every consideration which can influence consistent and rational legislators—by the highest suggestions of a generous policy—by the coldest calculations of a low and selfish prudence, I do implore you to reject this proffered boon. I implore you not to barter away the glorious heritage for which you are indebted to your sagacious and timely policy—for the most worthless consideration for which, since the days of him who sold his birthright for a mess of pottage, the greatest advantage was ever surrendered.

Sir, I hope the House will he kind enough to give me its indulgence for a short time, seeing the great disadvantage that I should rise under any circumstances, in endeavouring to answer my right hon. Friend; but particularly on the present occasion, when the hour is so late (past twelve o'clock). My right hon. Friend has made a very able and a very lengthy speech, and on both those grounds I hope for the indulgence of the House My right hon. Friend began his speech by saying, that the question that we had that night to decide was, whether we were to retain Her Majesty's present Government in office, or reverse the commercial policy of this country. Now, Sir, if that was the question, with all my respect for the talent of Her Majesty's Government, I should have no hesitation in deciding in favour of what I believe to be true, and essential to the material interests of the country; for I cannot agree with my right hon. Friend that the inheritance that we have from his measure is one that we ought to endeavour to retain. We ought rather to part with it on the first opportunity that presents itself; and if the House will grant me its indulgence, I think, even at this late hour, I shall be able to show that I have some grounds for saying so. Sir, my right hon. Friend began by thanking my hon. Friend the Member for Buckinghamshire for the admission that he made at the commencement of his speech, when he admitted that great prosperity prevailed in 1846. My hon. Friend did make that admission; but that prosperity prevailed before the operation of the tariff of 1846, or the Corn Repeal Bill of February, 1849. My right hon. Friend says that the principle of those measures was the same; that the tariff of 1842 embodied the principles of the measure of 1846. Now, in that is involved the whole of the question. There is no doubt that, if protection is rated too high, it is a most dangerous principle; but, on the other band, there is no doubt that if you reduce it below those moderate duties which I believe are the best calculated to promote the welfare of any country—I say, that if you reduce it below that standard, you must expect the results that you have had. But the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Sheffield said the other night (and it was repeated by my right hon. Friend this evening), if you had not passed these measures—and I assume that the corn-law repeal is more directly adverted to—what would have become of you in February, 1848, when the whole continent of Europe was convulsed, and thrones were toppling down? Why, Sir, the alteration of the law in 1846 could not have occasioned to you an exception from convulsion and anarchy, when the duty on corn was higher at that very time by 3 s . per qnarter than it could have been under the Bill of 1842. The repeal of the corn law, under the Bill of 1846, did not come into full operation until twelve months after the revolution of February, 848, and therefore that measure could not have saved you from political convulsions. When we venture to trace the distress that now universally prevails throughout the country to the measure of 1846, and the passing of the Corn Law Repeal Bill in February, 1849, my right hon. Friend tells us that free trade has not had a fair trial, and that we have no right to impute the present distress to those measures; whilst on the other hand he maintains that our freedom from revolution was owing to the Bill passed in 1846, and which did not come into full operation until 1849—only five months ago! To such ludicrous inconsistencies are even very talented men reduced when they attempt to bold up a system which, in my conscience, I believe was founded upon a most erroneous policy, and which will prove most injurious to the welfare of this country. My right hon. Friend has said that, notwithstanding the abundance of corn in 1836, the farmer was more depressed than he is now; but there is this very great distinction between the case of the farmer then and now—he might then be disposed to attribute the depression to accidental circumstances over which the Legislature of the country had no control; whereas, at the present time, you tell the farmer that you have passed measures in order to produce low prices. That is the object of our measure. We have gained that object. We have gained those low prices. You say to them, "We won't repeal the law which has given you these low prices; we admit that these low prices are the cause of your depressed state, but we will do nothing to relieve you." But, Sir, that was not the case in 1836. The case then was of a temporary nature, and Parliament and my right hon. Friend promised to do their utmost to relieve the farmer from his depression. The cases, then, are totally different. The fanners now said, "We had confidence then in the honour of the House of Commons, but now we have none whatever—the only remedy for us now is the poorhouse or the colonies." Now, Sir, we have heard a great deal about the agricultural labourer, and the effect which this change in the corn laws has had upon him. I stated to the House on a former occasion, and I now repeat the statement, and defy contradiction, that in Lincolnshire, at all events, the agricultural labourer is infinitely worse off than at the time of high prices and high wages. The wages of the agricultural labourer in Lin-colnshire have been reduced from 12 s . to 10 s ., whilst the cost of the articles of consumption has been so only to the amount of 15 d .; so that the agricultural labourer is out of pocket 9 d . in the week. Those facts are derived from the statements of the labourers themselves taken by parties anxious to obtain correct information; and I venture to say no one will contradict them. There are a variety of topics on which I should have liked very much to dilate, but at this late hour I would not presume so much upon the indulgence of the House. I will, therefore, go at once to that which I consider the most important part of the question—the condition of the labourer. I have already alluded to the condition of the agricultural labourers, as far as I know, not in my own district. The right hon. Baronet road a letter from Nottingham, from, I presume, a master manufacturer. I will read another from the secretary of the Stocking-makers' Association in that town: it is but fair that the House should bear both sides of the question. I may state that some time ago I was called upon by the operatives of Nottingham to afford them some relief under the privations they were then suffering, and now suffering, I am sorry to say. I wrote to inquire what were the wages they received when they struck, and what was the advance they struck for. They replied that the wages they received at the time they struck was 5 s . 6 d . a week, and they struck for a rise of 1 s . 6 d ., or 7 s . a week. Can any one say that this is a condition with which any man could be content? It may be inevitable, but I say that we ought to inquire, at all events, into these things; and I call upon the House, therefore, to vote for the Motion of my hon. Friend the Member for Buckinghamshire. I will now read the letter of Mr. Emerson. He says—

"Certain I am, that if we had more friends to the cause of labour and of native industry, the cause of the poor operative and labourer would be better attended to. I can with confidence assure you that the operatives in the framework knitting trade have been deluded, and now begin to see the folly of free-trade principles and that party—[they are now speaking, I believe, of gentlemen of the Manchester school], and that party they find to be the greatest enemies of the working classes. One of the greatest manufacturers of Nottingham told the deputation which waited upon him on Monday last, that he was astonished at, their impudence in asking for an advance now that bread and provisions were so cheap."

What a man must this be! When these poor fellows, starving on a miserable pittance of 5 s . 6 d . per week, go to ask for 7 s ., he tells them he is surprised at their impudence! I should not be surprised if this were the very master manufacturer who wrote the letter to the right hon. Baronet. Mr. Emerson proceeds—

"The time has arrived when the working classes have determined not to be deluded by that class of men for the future, for they invariably find them [the Manchester school] the greatest enemies to the working men."

But if the House will allow me I will come much nearer to the question, and show you that, if you really desire to benefit the people, you must grant the inquiry my hon. Friend asks for. I have here a return which shows the reduction of wages, since 1845, in every species of manufacture, in Manchester, compared with the reduction in the price of provisions. I do not sec the hon. Member for Manchester in his place, but there are other hon. Gentlemen who can tell me if this return be false. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, the other evening, said that of course there would appear a reduction of wages if we compared 18–15 with 1849, because the Ten Hours Bill had passed, and it was not to be expected that the workmen would be paid the same wages for working ten hours that they were for working sixteen hours. But the reduction of wages shown in this table is not effected by that; as the House will perceive, it gives the reduction in the price paid, and not upon the time the weavers are at work;—

"Effects of Free Trade on British Industry, being a comparate View of the Rates of Wages given in and about Manchester in the years 1845–6 and 1849.

"In the year 1846, for weaving 75 cotton handkerchiefs, in a 36 reed, the; sum of 4 s . 6 d . was paid; and in the year 18–19, for the same amount of work, the sum of 3 s . 8 d . is given.

"In the year 1845–6, for weaving a 36 check, 54 yards long, the sum of 3 s . 6 d . was paid; for weaving the same quantity in 1849, not more than 2 s . 7 d . is given.

"In the years 1845–6, for weaving 64 yards of a plaid, the sum of 4 s . 6 d . was paid; but in the year 1849, for weaving 66 yards of the same work, the sum of 3 s . is given.

"In the year 1847, for weaving a 44 check, 30 inches wide, 44 picks to the inch, the sum of 4 s . 7 d . was paid; for weaving the same kind of work, with 48 picks in the inch, and 68 yards long, the sum of 3 s . 3 d . is paid in the year 1849.

"For weaving 67 yards of chambrey, containing 14 lbs. of weft, the sum of 6 s . was paid in the year 1846; for weaving 70 yards of the same work, containing 17 lbs. of weft, the sum of 5 s . is paid in the year 1849.

"For weaving 30 yards of a mixed dress piece, a mixture of silk, woollen, and cotton, in a 110 reed, 60 picks in the inch, the sum of 10 s . was paid in the year 1845; for weaving 35 yards of the same work, containing 62 picks in the inch, the sum of 7 s . is paid in the year 1849.

"For weaving in a 44 reed a cotton check piece, 30 inches wide, 44 picks to the inch, and 64 yards long, the sum of 3 s . is paid, out of which 9½d. is allowed for winding. An active weaver, by working 15 hours per day, will finish two of them in a week.

"For weaving 144 gross yards of inch wide float lace, the sum of 1 s . 10 d . was paid in the year 1846. For weaving the same amount of work in 1849, the sum of Is. id . is paid. A weaver will produce about 12 gross per week.

"For weaving 144 yards of inch wide Oris lace, the sum of 4 s . 6 d . was paid in the year 1846. For weaving the same quantity of work in the year 1849, the sum of 3 s . is paid, being a reduction of 1 s . 6 d . per gross yards.

"In April, 1849, for a dress piece, composed of cotton and woollen, wove in a 72 reed, 60 picks in the inch, and 26 yards long, Messrs. Ashbury, Critchley, and Armstrong, in Mosley-street, Manchester, paid the sum of 5 s . for weaving; and in June the same persons do not pay more than 2 s . 9 d . for weaving the same work.

"To iron moulders the sum of 36 s . per week was paid in the year 1846; but in 1849 their wages vary from 24 s . to 30 s . per week, and there are cases in which a less amount of wages is given.

"Machine smiths, in the year 1846, were paid 28 s . per week; and in the year 1849 their wages average about 24 s . per week.

"Coal minors of Lancashire were paid for getting coal, 3 s . per yard for cutting, and 5 s . per quarter, being 3 tons weight, in the year 1846; but in the year 1849 they are paid 1 s . 6 d . per yard for cutting, and 3 s . 9 d . per quarter, being 3 tons weight.

"To silk hat-body makers the sum of 8 s . per dozen was paid; but in the year 1849 they are paid 6 s . per dozen. A man will produce about four dozen per week.

"Silk hat finishers were paid 6 s . per dozen for finishing in the year 1846; and in the year 1849 they are paid 6 s . per dozen. A man will finish about four dozen per week.

"Cotton spinning.—For spinning 117 counts, on mules of 648 spindles, the sum of 7 d . per lb. was paid in the year 1846; for the same counts and number of spindles, the sum of 6 d . per lb. is paid in the year 1849."

But, on the other side, I have the reduction in the expenditure of those who have been reduced in their wages:— An Estimate of the Expenses of a Man, with a Wife and Two Children, in the Year 1849, as compared with 1845–6, presuming that his Earnings were 20 s . per Week in 1845–6, and not more than 15 s . per Week in 1849; which is the case with too many Operatives in the Manufacturing Districts.

I do not say that this is to be relied upon implicitly; but when the Chancellor of the Exchequer read letters, and the right hon. Baronet read letters, from different—I suppose—master manufacturers, it is but fair that the accounts of the poor operatives themselves should be laid before the House, and that the House should allow the Committee my hon. Friend has called for to investigate which is right and which is wrong. I must now allude to an observation made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Buckinghamshire, who stated that employment is the one thing needed in this country, and that it is the want of employment which is increasing our poor-rates, and filling our gaols and workhouses. To this the Chancellor of the Exchequer said, he had great hopes that employment would improve, and that there would not be that want much longer in this country; and he hoped that, because he trusted to the energy of the farmers—to their skill and to their capital. As a rejoinder to that, I will mention one fact, which will

"Of course there must be a great diminution in the value of our exports, when we consider the reduction in the cost of the raw material, the price of provisions, and the rate of wages.

Now, with regard to the raw material, I cannot admit that the country suffers from the reduced value of our export in consequence of the reduction in cost of the raw material. The market value of the whole of the articles of cotton manufacture, according to Mr. Burn, in his statistics of the cotton trade in 1845, was 22,409,988

The state of trade in Lancashire and some parts of Yorkshire during the last two months of 1818 and the four first months of 1849, has varied so much from different circumstances as almost to preclude the possibility of speaking truly upon them. At the beginning of that period it is known that there were very large stocks of woollens. The manufacture of railway covers and revolutionary blouses has not only absorbed the greater portion of them, but the manufacturers have turned their attention to that trade."

There is one further passage so important that I must beg the attention of the House:—

"Every business in the early part of the year was brisk: the mills were working 13½ hours per day, with relays of young children; but that was only a temporary improvement. It has now generally fallen off; many of the largest cotton mills work only three days a week; and in some districts it is necessary, for the sake of employment, to obtain garden allotments for the clothiers, in order to eke out the partial employment given them by the manufacturers."

I fear, therefore, that there must he a great set-off against these increased exports. I fear that consignments of woollen goods often take the place of real demand, and that, in a period of apparent prosperity, the fulness of work is not occurred by a legitimate demand. I fear that is the case at the present moment, and I have good reason to believe so from this report. I will only make one further allusion. The Chancellor of the Exchequer taunted the other night the country gentlemen of England with a desire to increase their rents, to pay their mortgages, and maintain their families at the expense of the labouring man. If that statement had been made by a hired delegate of the Anti-Corn-Law League, I might have understood it; but when it is made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the British House of Commons, if I have a voice sufficient left me, it shall not be passed over here altogether in silence. In 1846, when the country gentlemen of England were deserted by their natural friends—when the country gentlemen of England were derided, as it was not surprising they should be, by their opponents, they did not flinch from the opinions they had ever maintained—they did not flinch in the hour of trial. And why were they thus unyielding? It was because they were convinced by reason and by argument, that in maintaining protection they were not maintaining it simply for their own benefit, but because they were maintaining a system which, in their consciences, they believed to be conducive to the best interests of all classes in this mighty em-

Sir, I should be wanting in respect to the hon. Gentleman who has made this Motion, and to his supporters, if I were not to state some, at least, of the grounds upon which I think I am justified in resisting that Motion. I may say, that so far as the conduct of the Government is concerned in the present state of affairs, I should rest satisfied with the speech of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I must say, also, that with regard to the general principles of the commercial policy of the last seven years, it would be the height of presumption in me to enter into the consideration of those topics, or to attempt to defend those principles, after the able and, as I think, unanswerable speech of the right hon. Baronet the Member for Tarn-worth. But we have before us the hon. Gentleman's Motion, asking that the present Ministry be displaced, and that a new Ministry be formed on the ground of the restoration of protection. The hon. Gentleman quoted, at the end of his speech, an eloquent passage from Cicero, to the effect that he saw no other end to concession except the destruction of the Republic. But the hon. Gentleman seems to have thought that Cicero was wanting in resurces, and that, if he had but thought of a Motion on the state of the nation, some remedy might have been found for such a state of despair; because the hon. Gentleman, after he had described the many woes which we were enduring—after detailing the distress which was felt in every part of the country—after informing us that, so far as he could learn, the state of the country was one of suffering without hope, as dreadful almost as that which Dante has described to be the state of the condemned spirits—he then proposed, on the ground of this miserable state of the nation, to displace the Government, though he gave us no hint as to what those measures are by which he expects to revive the hopes of the country. But we have got some further light thrown upon it tonight, because the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Stamford, the future Chancellor of the Exchequer, has told us—reversing the order of things, exhibiting a precipitation, and almost juvenile ardour, on this question, and before he has accepted the seals of office, before he is properly entitled to bring forward the measures of his Government, announcing what those measures are—that the right hon. Gentleman has already given notice that he means to propose a moderate fixed duty. We have, then, the statements, left out of the hon. Gentleman's Motion, of what is to be the result if that Motion is carried. Now, I must take notice of one or two of the statements of the hon. Gentleman. He referred to an official return, which I, in compliance with his wishes, had produced, with respect to the increase of the poor-rates, and he said that that return alone would justify him in asking the House to agree to his Motion. I think he came rather late with that convincing reason for his Motion. That return was a return of the expenses under the poor-law for the year ending May-day, 1848; and, therefore, comprising three-fourths of the year 1847, and only one quarter of the year 1848. That was a year which was unfortunately distinguished by the calamity of the great famine in Ireland—by a very great want of food in this country—by a commercial convulsion, and by other disastrous circumstances, which fully account for the great increase in the poor-rates of that year. But I should hardly have thought that the hon. Gentleman would have selected that as a peculiar year of calamity, because his argument is, that a high price of corn is almost synonymous with a happy condition of the labouring classes. The year 1847 has been distinguished from almost every year for the last twenty or twenty-five years, as being remarkable for the high price of corn that then prevailed, so that the very instance which the hon. Gentleman gives us, instead of being an argument in favour, is a conclusive argument against his Motion, because it shows the calamity was caused by a high price of food, and he says, if you give me a Committee on the state of the nation, I will show you how you may always ensure a high price of food. A more complete fallacy than that involved in the hon. Gentleman's argument can hardly be conceived. With respect to some later intelligence which is found in official returns which I happen to have received from my right hon. Friend the First Poor Law Commissioner, I beg to inform the House that the state of the country since that return was made up, to Lady-day, 1848, shows an improvement among those persons who seek refuge in the poorhouse, or receive outdoor relief from the poor-rates. These returns are not sent faulty. They have been audited; and I find that there are returns from 106 unions for the year ending Lady-day, 1849, from which it appears that there has been a decreased expenditure in eighty-seven unions, and an increase in only nineteen; and of these only about twelve are purely agricultural unions. So that, as far as these returns go, we have every reason to think that there is an improvement, and not a falling-off, in the condition of the agricultural classes. Then, with respect to the expenditure—the expenditure of these unions in the year ending Lady-day, 1848, was 860,870 l .; in the year ending Lady-day, 1849, only 799,151 l . So that, by having somewhat later intelligence than the hon. Gentleman, I am enabled, in some respects, to throw a more cheering light upon those circumstances which he appears to think so very dark and gloomy. With respect to the counties, I will read the names of those in which the returns from the unions show a decrease of expenditure, and not one of them an increase. They are—Bedford, Bucks, Devon, Dorset, Essex, Gloucester, Huntingdon, Lincoln, Norfolk, Northampton, Somerset, Southampton, Suffolk, Sussex, and Wilts; almost all of them agricultural counties, and many of them remarkable for being those in which poor relief has been carried to the greatest extent. But I will take the unions in one county only, and giving a return which is still later than these, state to the House with regard to the six unions in the county of Bedford, what has been the result as to the number of persons receiving indoor and the number receiving outdoor relief. In the midsummer quarter, 1848, the number receiving indoor was 1,007; 1849, 901. The expense of outdoor relief, 1848, 582 l .; 1849, 543 l . So that, so far from the state of the country having become worse (as the hon. Gentle- man supposes), it has, according to the latest official accounts we have received, been improved. Now, I do not mean by this to say that there is not considerable distress in some of the agricultural districts; but I think those who heard the speech of the hon. Gentleman, and whose memory carries them back to that time, will remember that in 1836, to which he refers, and in various other years, we have been asked to appoint Agricultural Committees in consequence of the number of petitions relating to agricultural distress; and those petitions were constantly founded upon the very low price of corn, and the statement that with those prices it was impossible for the farmer to obtain a remunerative return for his produce. So that it cannot be said that the present distress is the consequence of the introduction of free trade, and the complete abolition of the corn law. But I can well understand that there may be a period at which it is advisable to impose a moderate duty upon corn; and I have no hesitation in saying that I think that true as the principles of free trade are, undoubted as are the principles laid down by Adam Smith, yet when a nation has been some time living under laws which induce men to expect a higher price than their articles will naturally fetch, it may then he wise to make a change gradually, to depart from your high and excessive protection, and give a moderate fixed duty upon corn, as the means at once of enabling the people to obtain their corn cheaper, and at the same time making the transition for the agricultural interest less abrupt. But was no such proposal ever made? Is the proposal for a moderate fixed duty thought of by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Stamford for the first time? And what was the way in which that proposition was received? Why, when it would have been a wise proposition when the people of this country, who were asking for a change of the corn law, would have considered it a generous and spontaneous concession—when it would at once have lowered the price generally of food to the people, and have enabled the agriculturist to prepare for those further changes which the laws of economical science would finally have required—I say when it might have been, and as I believe would have been, a wise change, then there was the most violent, the most clamorous, the most pertinacious opposition to it. But now, when the corn laws have been utterly abolished —when the people of this country have the satisfaction of knowing that no law interposes in the way of their obtaining the articles of their subsistence at the cheapest price at which commerce, trade, and agriculture can bring them to them—when they have already tasted the fruits of that liberty of commerce—when they are contented with the Legislature because the Legislature has given them this benefit, and taken away all the shackles to that trade, then when it would be utterly unwise—then when it would be almost madness to attempt the imposition of a duty, that is the time when hon. Gentlemen who treated this proposition with the utmost scorn at a former period, come down and make the proposition to the House. It is certainly a singular thing, that having asked two great interests, the agricultural and the West Indian colonial interest, to agree to a duty of 8 s . upon corn, and 12 s . upon foreign sugar, I should have heard on the part of those who pride themselves on being the protectionists in this House, and who wish to restore protection, a proposal in the year 1848 for a temporary duty of 10 s . upon sugar, and that in the year 1849 I should see petitions presented and a Motion made for "a moderate fixed duty upon corn." I cannot say that their adoption now of a proposition very much resembling those made in former days, favours the opinion that they suit their propositions to the circumstances. At the former period, these propositions would have been carried into effect if they had consented to them, with very great majorities—almost with unanimity; but then nothing would induce them to hear of such a proposition. Now, when as I must say, I think there is scarcely a chance of success, and when their success would, as I believe, be far more fatal to their political influence than the utter rejection of their proposition, that is the time in which they think it wise and statesmanlike to make the proposal. I have stated with regard to the agricultural interest, and especially to that return upon which the hon. Gentleman relied, that there are well-founded reasons, from returns equally official, of a later date, to think that there are bettor prospects for the labouring classes than he represents. Now, with regard to our manufacturing interests, my right hon. Friend quoted some of the returns of the first four months of the year; since that time there have been produced to the House an account of our exports for the first five months—to June of this year. It appears, taking the cotton manufacturers, the linen, the silk, the woollen (the four great branches), that these are the results:—

Showing a very considerable increase in each of those great articles of our manufacture. The noble Marquess opposite accounts for any increase there may be by saying that the demand at home has fallen off, and that the manufacturers have nothing for it but to send out goods abroad. Why, certainly the explanation is convenient; but I think it would hardly do that we should year after year be lamenting over the increase of our manufactures, and saying, "Here is an increase of 3,000,000 l . or 4,000,000 l . this year—how very bad the home market must be. It is quite evident, from the great export of our manufactures, that poor people at home are unable to consume them." [The Marquess of GRANBY: I said there was a great diminution in value.] Well, I should certainly proceed upon the inference, if there is a very considerable increase in the export of our manufactures, that they are in a better state than in the commencement of 1848, and making some progress towards a flourishing condition; and that inference is, as I believe, confirmed by the accounts received from all parts of the country, and by the official letters of persons employed in the different branches of the Administration, written from the chief seats of our manufactures. So that it appears, that with respect to the agricultural interest—although certain portions of that interest are distressed—there is an improvement in regard to the number of persons seeking relief from the poor-rates, and that with respect to our manufacturing interests, there is a considerable revival of demand, and an increased activity in the main branches of manufacture. And I think we are not justified—I am glad in saying we are not justified—in holding that desponding opinion which the hon. Member for Buckinghamshire would induce us to hold upon this most important subject. There is another point to which I wish to call the attention of the House—though at this late hour I will not read the figures—and that is, the very great increase of consumption in some of the main articles consumed by the people of this country. From 1842 to 1848, there was an increase in the consumption of coffee of 30 per cent; of sugar, 60 per cent; of tea, 24; of cocoa, 30; of currants, 93; of raisins, 22; and of cotton, as computed to have been consumed in goods at home, of 35 per cent. So that we have an increase in the consumption of those articles which are in most general use amongst the lower classes of the people of this country far exceeding any increase in the amount of the population. There is another point to which also I wish to call attention, because I think it applies not only to the Motion of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Buckinghamshire, who would induce us to take such gloomy views upon the subject, but also to the language used by my hon. Friend the Member for Montrose, who would fain induce us to think that the people were continually becoming worse in condition, and daily finding it more and more difficult to obtain the articles of ordinary consumption. With respect to wheat in 1818, the average price was 98 s .; in 1828, 60 s . 5 d .; in 1838, 64 s . 7 d .; in 1848, 50 s . 6 d . If I take the prices of some of those colonial articles to which I have just adverted, taking, of course, into account the diminution of duty applying to many of them, I find the following were the prices in 1818, 1828, 1838, and 1848:—

In the raw materials of manufacture there has been a progressive reduction in the prices, duty paid, of the same given quantity, as the figures before me will show:—

Cotton yarn, in 1815, 5

"Jupiter hic risit, tempestatesque serenæ

Riserunt omnes visa Jovis omnipotentis."

We, the followers of a better and purer faith, believe that these are scourges sent to us to effect an ultimate purpose of good, to stimulate us to fresh efforts, to induce us by no moans to despair, and not to rely in idle confidence that if we do not make efforts for our own improvement, blessings will be showered upon us. But if we do behave in this spirit of energy and hope—if we continue in a system of policy which I believe to be wise—if we continue giving an example to other nations of liberty united with order, I hope that the blessing of Almighty Providence will rest on these kingdoms, and that, although

said, that he could assure the House he had no intention whatever to inflict a speech upon them at that early hour of the morning; but as the right hon. Baronet the Member for Tamworth had made such very particular remarks upon a speech which he had delivered there some four or five months ago, he thought they would allow him a few minutes' time, that he might recall to their recollection what he really did say. The right hon. Baronet had said that he never should forget the speech made by the hon. Member for Birmingham, upon the state of the trade of that town. Well, but it was quite clear that the right hon. Baronet had already forgotten the speech, for he (Mr. Muntz) had far too high an opinion of him to believe that if he had not done so, he would have misrepresented him so grossly. He had no opportunity of referring to Hansard as to what he was reported to have said; but as he never stated anything except he either knew it to be true himself, or had the authority for its being so from others, he was confident that he had never stated, as had been represented by the right hon. Baronet, that the Birmingham manufacturers could not sell any of their articles in competition with the German makers, even in their own town. Now, what he had said was, that so great was the competition between the Birmingham and foreign manufacturers, that the prices and profits were so low as not to cover the trouble and risk of a foreign merchant, and that, in consequence, he contemplated relinquishing his foreign trade—that even in many articles the foreigner undersold the Birmingham dealers in their own town, and that several of the trades had been altogether lost to them in the foreign markets. He had read to the House a letter from a glass maker, and one from a button maker, stating that the competition had left them no profit; and he had also read an advertisement from a Birmingham paper, offering certain German goods 40 per cent lower than English goods. It would be recollected by the right hon. Member for Tamworth, that the hon. Member for Manchester cried out, that it was only a puff; to which he (Mr. Muntz) replied, that he knew no more than he had seen in the paper, but that he saw no use in such a puff, and that he believed the person who had advertised was too respectable for any such proceeding. But, now, what was the fact? On the day following his speech he received a letter from the advertiser, informing him that the whole was a fact; and that if he (Mr. Muntz) would call upon him the following day, he would show him the articles, and, as the agent of the German house would be at his shop at a certain hour with his patterns, he would be able to judge for himself. He went at the appointed hour and saw the goods, the patterns, and the agent. The goods, on comparing them with the English goods of the same kind, were quite as well made, more substantial, and full 40 per cent cheaper. The pattern cards were excellently made up, and the shopkeeper then gave another order to the foreign merchant. It would be recollected by the House that his Friend and Colleague had doubted the correctness of the advertisement, because he thought we beat the foreigners in the third (American) market; but he (Mr. Muntz) had just at the time met with Mr. Van Wart, of Birmingham, a gentleman very largely engaged in the American trade, who had assured him that he had seen the German goods in question, and that they were fully equal in make to the English—that they were always 40 per cent cheaper—and that he had, within two years, seen the same make of goods selling extensively by the German houses in America. The gentleman he alluded to was well known to the two hon. Members for South Lancashire, and they were well aware of his capability of judging upon the matter. Several persons who were very much annoyed at these facts being made public, in opposition to their theories, endeavoured to show that the steel of which the goods were made was inferior to that used by the English makers. But, admitting this to be true, it availed nothing, for the size and make of the goods being admitted to be equal, or superior, to that of the English goods, the difference in the cost, whether made of common or best steel, could not exceed more than 2½ to 5 per cent on the goods when made, against the 40 per cent saving in prices. As to competition in these markets, he knew that it was daily increasing, and only within the last few days he had met a man lately returned from Bombay, who assured him that there were now three German houses established there, who were selling German goods in competition with English goods. With respect to the return referred to by the right hon. Baronet, he was well aware how small was the proportion of the imports to the exports; but he begged leave to remind the House, that only a small amount of articles was sufficient to cause the reduction in the prices of very much larger quantities; also, that the return of exports did not confine itself to Birmingham goods, but included all articles in metal and cutlery made for exports in the kingdom; and cutlery, which formed a very large proportion of it, was not made in Birmingham. Then, although the import of articles such as made in Birmingham was comparatively small with the exports, it would be found that there were 1,700 l . worth imported before the reduction of the duties by the right hon. Baronet; there were 17,000 l . worth now. He could only repeat what he had formerly said, that the state of Birmingham was very unsatisfactory, that many were unemployed, and of those who had work many had short time and greatly reduced wages, and that, although prices had been greatly reduced, it was quite as much as manufacturers could do, and, in some instances, more than they could do, to keep foreigners out of their home market. As to the neighbouring iron trade, he believed it never was worse than now, if ever as bad; some said it was only owing to the stoppage of railway schemes. ["Hear, hear!"] Well, that might be partly true; but let it be recollected that when he, some years ago, at a time of temporary prosperity, stated that it principally arose from railway speculation, and that it would disappear with such cause, he was contradicted; and it was hardly fair to blow hot and cold—either there was an effect then produced by railways, or there is not now. But with respect to the prosperous condition of Birmingham, attempted to be inferred by this Parliamentary return, if it really were so, why did the Chancellor of the Exchequer except Birmingham in his prosperity speech on Monday? or, what is more remarkable, why did the right hon. Baronet just now give us Chippenham, Nottingham, and Dundee, as proofs of the great prosperity; why did he jump so clean over Birmingham in passing? Was it so unimportant as not to boar comparisan with the towns given? It was not so far from the right hon. Baronet's country residence as to make it very inconvenient to obtain the desired information. He (Mr. Muntz) thought it probable that Birmingham had been applied to in both instances; he would not say positively that such was the case; but it was fair to presume, looking at the great importance of the town, that due inquiry had been made, but that the answers did not suit. He would conclude by stating his Inability to congratulate the Chancellor of the Exchequer cither upon his budget or upon his present revenue account; they were much what he had expected under the circumstances, and he had no doubt that they would still be much worse—low prices would never pay high taxes. He had not said that free trade had caused the distress; but he had said, and he now said, that free trade with the present money laws had caused it. [ Laughter .] They were all very welcome to laugh away; but he would put a question to them, which, if they could answer, he should consider much more important than their laughter, and It was this—Why, if we have free import and free export of all produce, with the same prices of gold and silver which we had in 1775, should we not have the same prices and wages as existed in 1775? In his opinion, that was the necessary result; and if they persisted In their present plans, and did not arrive at it, they might blame him as much as they pleased.

rose to reply: Sir, when I brought this Motion, to take into consideration the state of the nation, before the notice of the House, I founded that part of the argument which may be called the economic portion, on the most authentic and latest information which we had upon the condition of the people, and which had been afforded us by the officers of the Government. And now the noble Lord (Lord J. Russell) who has just addressed you, speaks in a depreciating tone of my quoting, as the basis of my argument, "some returns of no very recent date." Who could suppose that the noble Lord was speaking of the last official report of the President of the Poor Law Board, and which has only been placed within a few weeks on the table of the House by Her Majesty's Government? That report Is the only authentic evidence to which we can refer; and if Its date, carried up to Lady-day, 1848, he comparatively no very recent date, whose fault is it that we have not later Information? Who placed this document on the table during the present Session? It appears by that record—the last official record of the pauperism of the country—that the ablebodied paupers during the last three years had increased seventy-four per cent, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer to meet this statement, the accuracy of which no one has for a moment impugned, refers to certain letters which he has received from certain manufacturing districts, announcing that in those districts the severity of the pauper pressure has recently been mitigated. I thought that at the time a somewhat singular process for a Minister to have recourse to. Gentlemen must he aware that references to private correspondence on a subject of public and general interest, gives such an opening to lax and unsatisfactory statements, that it is only under peculiar circumstances—limited usually to the locality which a Member represents—that the right to introduce them in debate can he recognised. Undoubtedly, Ministers of the Crown have means of information not accessible to all, and sources of a more novel character than we can command; and with such means at his service, the right hon. Gentleman, for example, has applied to the Commissioners of the Savings Banks as a test of the condition of the people; and he has furnished the House with one or two instances in this respect. Now, really, if it occurred to the right hon. Gentleman to apply to the Commissioners of the Savings Banks for information, I am at a loss to understand why it had not also suggested itself to him to apply to the President of the Poor Law Board for the same object. If my information as to the state of pauperism, however authentic, is not of a date recent enough to satisfy Her Majesty's Ministers, was it not their duty to furnish themselves with some more novel? If it existed, they had it at command: if it were not produced, the only inference could be that it was not unfavourable to my argument. No one doubted—I myself commenced by the admission—that since the last return of the Poor Law Board, there was, probably, some alleviation in the pauperism of our manufacturing districts; that is, since Lady-day, 1848. We should, indeed, be in a woful position, if that were not the case. But since that period, that agricultural pressure has occurred, which has produced that effect on the unions of the rural counties which my hon. Friend the Member for Kent detailed. With some alleviation in the manufacturing districts, and considerable aggravation in the agricultural, the fair inference is, that in the interval the general result has not been changed for the better. And if the Chancellor of the Exchequer chose to have recourse to other sources of information than those before the House, he should have been impartial in his researches; he should have favoured us with some information of the state of the rural districts, as well as of the manufacturing. And, indeed, I have been expecting something of this sort from the President of the Poor Law Board. He is peculiarly qualified for taking part in this debate. He is a sort of double-barrelled gun upon the subject; he might have enlightened us not only on the state of pauperism in general, but on that of the port of Hull in particular. But after a considerable lapse of time, after two days, unfortunately not spent in the discussion of this subject, and scarcely in a very profitable manner, up rises the First Minister of the Crown, and comes forward in a high statistical character—a character, however, in which, I may be permitted to say, he has been scarcely as eminent as some which his genius enables him to fill. The noble Lord comes forward with manuscript returns of the state of pauperism in England—returns of a more recent date, to use his own phrase, than any that a mere Member of Parliament can refer to. And what do these returns amount in quantity to? They are the returns of 87 unions: 16 of which only are agricultural, or partially so, and they show a diminution of pauperism since the last official date. Why, there are 652 unions in England; and a considerable portion of the country is not yet even formed into unions, though their condition is accessible to the President of the Poor Law Board. If the noble Lord wished to establish a case by travelling out of the range of the official documents before the House, he was bound to pursue his investigation further and more widely. After all these official researches, the noble Lord favours the House with a more recent return of the state of actually sixteen agricultural unions. Statistical inquiry has seldom produced a shorter harvest. When the Chancellor of the Exchequer commenced his reply to me, the machinery at first seemed hardly to move rightly. He rose after some interval, and seemed to be looking for an antagonist. At last he found me. Where? At Drury Lane Theatre. His comments upon some speeches not made in this House, have formed a considerable portion of his reply. Really if he wishes to answer speeches made at Drury Lane, he should himself appear upon those hoards. Several distinguished characters on both sides of the House have figured there; and I doubt not if the Chancellor of the Exchequer were to follow their example, and were properly advertised, he might draw a house. After having answered the speeches that were made at Drury Lane, the right hon. Gentleman addressed himself to business, and proceeded with the argument which he had prepared in answer to my anticipated statement. But, unfortunately, my anticipated statement was not the one which I made. The theme of the right hon. Gentleman was that this country was more prosperous in 1848 than in 1847. Well, generally progressive as I think the decline of the country, I can afford to make this concession to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I admit that even at this moment we may be considered to be in a better condition than we were in 1847. The argument which I placed before the House was not founded on that year. I took the year 1845 as illustrative of the state of the country before certain great changes took place in your laws, and I contrasted that state with the state of the country at the present time when we had had throe years' experience of those great changes. I did not require the year 1847 for my argument, and had I required it, I am not sure that I should have referred to it. I wish in debate not only to be fair, but courteous. Every one has some subject which it is not pleasant to allude to, and which well-bred people carefully avoid. I was therefore not particularly anxious to go out of my way to remind the Government of the year 1847, when, principally under the advice of the right hon. Gentleman, they ruined most of the bankers and merchants of the city of London. Why should I have done anything so gratuitously unkind? The noble Lord, however, as if desperately resolved to encounter an inevitable difficulty, did observe that there was one topic which his right hon. Colleague had not dwelt on, namely, the policy of the Government with respect to the maintenance of the Bank Charter. And therefore I may now just observe, that although I did myself omit that subject in the bill of indictment, it was not because I thought, that even in the year 1849, the conduct of Her Majesty's Ministers in that particular was one which proffered a great claim to public confidence. The Chancellor of the Exchequer then proceeded to notice an argument of mine, as to the comparative value of our exports, and after a great many desultory observations, wound up his criticism by honestly and candidly admitting that he could not understand it; which was at least candid. The right hon. Gentleman said, that as he had shown us that wages were not diminished, and as I myself had admitted that the raw material was higher in price, the inevitable inference was one which he could hardly suppose would be seriously maintained, namely, that manufacturers would manufacture without obtaining a profit. And he was loudly cheered by Gentlemen around him, with that derisive cheer which would not only sustain the orator who speaks, but would wound the orator who has spoken. And yet, Sir, I remember the time not very far distant, when manufacturer after manufacturer used to rise in this House, complaining of their condition; and when we referred to the exports as an indication of their possible prosperity, they used to tell us, that, for years, they had been manufacturing without any profit whatever. We were then told, that nothing was so deceptive as our exports, and when we reproached them with their prosperity, they declared that our foreign trade in 1841, was even carried on at a loss. After this, the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer delivered himself of a quantity of statistics What point they were intended to establish; by what chain of ratiocination they were bound together; to what system of investigation they had been submitted before they were brought forward to illuminate our convictions, I am at a loss to understand. I can only compare the process with a scene that we have sometimes witnessed at a rural fair, where a conjuror will, for three hours together, draw out of his mouth a quantity of red tape. Late as the hour is, I must throw myself on the indulgence of the House, and, in some degree, avail myself of my privilege of reply. The House need not, I am sure, be reminded that this debate, important and expedient as it has been admitted on all hands, has been, from circumstances over which I had no control, somewhat precipitated, and that I have consequently been deprived of the assistance of many Gentlemen in this House, who would have ably supported in detail many points to which I was necessarily obliged only very cursorily to allude. I trust, therefore, I may be excused, if I touch for a few minutes on one speech, which dwelt very considerably on the observations which I made. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Tamworth, in rising to-night, announced to the House that to-night he was going to introduce a new plan of debating, as one more fair and satisfactory, I presume, than that which he has hitherto pursued, namely, to state many arguments, each separately, as nearly as he could, in the words in which it was conveyed, and then to give that which appeared to him to be the answer to it; and, having obtained apparently the sympathetic permission of the House to pursue this satisfactory system of discussion, the right hon. Gentleman, instead of refuting my observations, paragraph by paragraph, as we were promised, went off immediately to Drury Lane Theatre also. There, instead of replying to me, the right hon. Gentleman entered into the glove trade, which I had never even mentioned; and he only escaped from this scene, and this subject, not to refute me, but to indulge in one of his favourite criticisms on the dogmas of the hon. Member for Birmingham, and the state of the trade of the town which he represents. At length, the right hon. Gentleman condescended to remember his engagement, and attacked my heresies respecting exports. But my opinions, however heterodox, were not now, according to the right hon. Gentleman. If I had only been in Parliament when Mr. Alderman Waithman was a Member of it, I should have heard precisely the same opinions. Now, though I was not in the House with the worthy Alderman, who, by the by, was a distinguished Liberal, I think I am not quite unacquainted with the often-expressed opinions of Alderman Waithman on our foreign trade. The position of Alderman Waithman was this—he was in the habit of comparing the official and the declared or real values of our exports. He found the first, for example, was 130,000,000 l , and the real value only 50,000,000 l He measured the depreciation of the reward of British labour by the difference between the two sums; and any thing more absurd was probably never promulgated in this House. Mr. Alderman Waithman never took into his calculation the various circumstances which, for nearly two centuries, the date of our official values, had been gradually lessening the cost of production. But did I do this? What did I say? I said, that between the two periods which I compared in my argument—namely, the years 1845 and 1848—our exports had fallen off 7,000,000 l . in declared value, and, as I maintained, in consequence of your legislation, and that, although there had occurred, during the first four months of this year what is called a "revival of trade," and our exports had rallied in amount, that amount had been obtained by English workmen submitting to a depreciation of price greater even than the excess of exports during the period. I was careful to remind the House, moreover, that this depreciation could not be produced by any legitimate reduction in the cost of production, because the raw material was absolutely higher in the first four months of 1848 than it was during the first four months of 1849. The only inference that can be drawn is, that the English artisan obtains his foreign products under the new system, by giving more of his labour in exchange than heretofore. So much for the similarity between my opinions and those of Alderman Waithman. The right hon. Gentleman then said, that I complained that my argument in favour of commercial reciprocity, often urged, had never been fairly met; and the right hon. Gentleman, as far as he was concerned, attributed that circumstance to the lateness of the hour at which he generally spoke, and the abstruse character of the subject to be treated under such circumstances. If the right hon. Gentleman has felt the lateness of the hour a difficulty in treating the subject, what must be my situation, rising to reply to him at two o'clock in the morning? Nevertheless, I trust to the generosity of the House to permit me not to leave the observations of the right hon. Gentleman on this head altogether unanswered. The right hon. Gentleman asks me whether I would encounter the hostile tariff of America by a countervailing duty on raw cotton, to the injury of our own manufactures? The right hon. Gentleman will pardon me if I observe, that he scarcely appears to have condescended to have made himself acquainted with the principles of the reciprocity system. The reciprocity system does not countenance countervailing duties on raw materials. The fallacy of the right hon. Gentleman on this head appears to me his confounding raw materials and provisions. A countervailing duty on the raw material—American cotton, for instance—would place the foreign manufacturer who did not pay that duty in a superior position to the English manufacturer. Therefore, the reciprocity system, the object of which is to maintain the efficiency of British labour, does not authorise a countervailing duty on raw materials imported for reproduction; but countervailing duties on corn and provisions come under quite a different head. A duty on the raw material renders British labour less efficient; a duty on corn, on the contrary, would protect British labour, and maintain its exchangeable value. And it has always appeared to me. Sir, a very great mistake in the Manchester school, that when they succeeded in obtaining a repeal of the duty on cotton, they did not advocate a duty on corn, because, by giving a premium to the production of corn in the United States, they have restricted their supply of the raw material of their manufacture. The right hon. Gentleman seems very indignant with the Poor Law Commissioners for publishing, in their annual report, a table which shows that during seven years when the price of wheat was highest, a less sum by 200,000 l . was expended in support of pauperism, than in other seven years when the price of wheat was lowest. The right hon. Gentleman does not, however, dispute the fact. He only meets the inference drawn from it, by a suggestion that the years of high and low prices are not continuous years, and that in a year of low prices following a year of high prices, the country may suffer from the preceding pressure. But this argument will hardly help the right hon. Gentleman out of the difficulty; for the average price of the whole fourteen years is certainly not excessive. It is only 56 s . The right hon. Gentleman, then, not satisfied with finding fault with the Poor Law Commissioners for publishing the official facts that came before them, then fell foul of a Tithe Commissioner—no less a person than Professor Jones—whose work I had quoted to illustrate the extent and influence of what is called the home market. Professor Jones lays down, that in unremunerative times—periods of pressure, the farmers will reduce their cost of production 25 per cent, and that this reduction of the cost of production in due time exercises a relative degree of influence on their amount of produce; and it is this withdrawal of 25 per cent of their exchangeable surplus that occasions the distress caused by a depressed home market. The right hon. Gentleman says that he is surprised that Professor Jones should be an advocate of high prices. Professor Jones gave no opinion on high or low prices. He stated a certain economical law, the consequences of which it is in vain to shut our eyes to, and the accuracy of which no one will venture to impugn. My right hon. Friend the Member for Stamford (Mr. Herries) was the next individual who fell under the right hon. Gentlemen's criticism; in consequence of a Motion of which the Member for Stamford had given notice, not of any opinion which he had expressed in this debate; as if that Motion had aught to do with the question which we are now discussing. Now, Sir, I will give the reasons for my right hon. Friend giving notice of that Motion. It was only this day, when my right hon. Friend examined the balance-sheet of the Treasury, that he felt that notice should be lost in bringing our financial state before the consideration of the House, in order that the country might see that there were yet some means of ascertaining the fatal crisis which was approaching, and that the dividends might be secured to the public creditor. It was altogether a financial movement. No one even dreamed of proposing a 5 s . duty as a protection to native industry. As the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Tamworth says, that would indeed be a paltry thing. And yet paltry as it may now appear, there was a time when a moderate fixed duty on corn was not considered altogether a paltry subject, but one on which a few years back the most eminent men in the country felt themselves justified to agitate England to its centre. Paltry as it is, it was a question which destroyed the Government of the noble Lord, and returned upon the shoulders of the people of England a body of Gentlemen who might have been governing the country at the present moment, had they not suddenly discovered that the object for which they struggled, and the end they laboured to achieve, was, instead of a patriotic, after all, only a paltry one. And truly when the noble Lord the First Minister, who is proud of his supporters on this side, taunts us with so much acerbity, I think he might just recollect by whose advice and under whose influence we refused to accept that settlement of a question which perhaps might have prevented much of the evil experienced by the country at the present moment. And here I must say, with all respect to the right hon. Baronet, that there is something in his manner when he addresses on these subjects his former companions, which I will not say is annoying, but rather I would style somewhat astonishing. One would almost imagine, from the tone of the right hon. Gentleman, that he had never, for a moment, held other opinions on this subject—that he had never entertained a doubt upon it—that he had been born an infant Hercules, cradled in political economy, and only created to strangle the twin serpents of protection and monopoly. He speaks with a sneer of those who think that the principle of buying in the cheapest and selling in the dearest market, is a new principle invented by the Manchester school. I say the Manchester school. I have a right to use that phrase, for I gave them that name. I gave it them with all respect; I thought it a homage due to their deleterious, but well-disciplined, doctrines. But the hon. Baronent says we are all in error in assuming this principle to be a new one, and he opens a book and shows an hon. Member the celebrated petition of the merchants of London, and refers to this document and to the names of Adam Smith, Mr. Say, and David Hume, as authorities both for the principle and the phrase. The right hon. Gentleman mistakes us. We admit fully the comparative antiquity of the dogma: what surprises us is not the comparative antiquity of the dogma, but the recent conversion of the dogmatist. The right hon. Gentleman should view one's errors at least with charity. He is not exactly the individual who, ex cathedra , should lecture us on the principles of political economy. He might, at least, when he denounces our opinions, suppose that in their profession we may perhaps be supported by that strength of conviction which, for nearly forty years, sustained him in those economical errors of which he was the learned and powerful professor. The right hon. Gentleman always speaks of protection as if he had a personal feeling against it. He preaches a crusade against the system of commercial reciprocity. But this is a system which has been upheld by the opinions and illustrated by the writings of men of very great talent in this country, and not connected with our party politics or passions. Men of great scientific research have investigated and illustrated it; and I believe that it will require more time and discussion than it has yet received in this House, before it can be thrown into that limbo of stale opinions in which the right hon. Gentleman has found it convenient to deposit so many of his former convictions. Upon a fair occasion, and not two hours after midnight, I shall be happy to meet the right hon. Gentleman, or any other Member, in calm discussion on the subject. I must repeat, however, the opinions which I expressed on the first night of this debate, that I believe the judicious imposition of countervailing duties will produce abundance and not scarcity, cheapness and not dearness. I hope the House will excuse me if for a moment I am unwilling to quit the field to which I have been challenged by the right hon. Gentleman; but I must, even at the risk of wearying the House, refer to his illustration drawn from the prohibitory tariff of Russia, and our consequent commerce with South America. A countervailing duty on the Russian tariff would cheek the demand for Russian produce; the necessary consequence of this would be a fall in the value of that produce in the Russian markets. So far, therefore, the effect of a countervailing duty would be to produce diminished price. The fall in the Russian markets would equal the countervailing duty, until in time the English consumer would be enabled to purchase the same quantity of Russian produce at the same cost as before. Here then the ultimate effect would be neither dearness nor scarceness. But how would the countervailing duty act upon our transactions with the Brazils? The fall in Russian produce would enable our merchants to buy the quantity they required with a less amount of sugar and coffee than before. But how would that diminish our markets in the Brazils? England would either send out the same quantity of manufactured goods to that quarter for the same amount of tropical products, and retain the portion no longer required by Russia for her own use; or she would send a less quantity of her goods to purchase the less quantity of tropical produce with which she could now purchase the same quantity of Russian produce as before, and thus obtain a twofold advantage, an enhancement of her own manufactures in the South American market, from their diminished supply, while the difference would be retained for her own use, or for exchange for the commodities of other countries. In every way, the application of the principle of reciprocity would produce its intended effect, the enhancement of the value and efficiency of British labour. But why these attempts to narrow the question before us to a mere com- mercial issue? It is nothing of the kind. The unsatisfactory state of our commerce is but one count in the indictment which has been proffered to the consideration of the House. It is not upon that one point merely, or principally, that you have to decide to-night. It may be very convenient for those who, month after month—I may say, year after year—have been murmuring opposition to a Government which they have not the courage manfully to oppose; it may be very convenient for those who go whispering about in corners, that our colonial empire is in danger—that our foreign relations are mismanaged; it may be very convenient for such as those now to get up and proclaim, that the only question at issue is a commercial question. It is no such thing. The noble Lord at the head of the Government put it fairly. It is a vote of confidence in a Government, which has now been three years in power, and whose policy, in every branch, has produced certain results. It is a vote of confidence in an empty and exhausted Exchequer. It is a vote of confidence in an endangered colonial empire. It is a vote of confidence in Danish blockades and Sicilian insurrections. It is a vote of confidence in a prostrate and betrayed agriculture. It is a vote of confidence in Irish desolation. Vote for these objects; vote your confidence in the Government in which you do not confide; but if you give them your votes, at least in future have the decency to cease your accusations, and silence your complaints.

House divided:—Ayes 156; Noes 296: Majority 140.

House adjourned at Three o'clock.