SCOTLAND.
The Waterloo Rooms at Edinburgh were filled on Monday by opponents of tine Corn-laws, whom the Lord Provost summoned, in compliance with a numerously-signed requisition, to petition Parliament for an " immediate and total repeal of all restrictions and prohibitions against the importation of corn and other articles of food ; for the re- moval of all legislative obstacles to the unrestricted employment of industry ; and ftw the establishment to the fullest extent, as regards both agriculture and manufactures, of the principles of free trade." Such was the substance of the Edinburgh petition, adopted by all but an insignificant minority, in a meeting of nearly three thousand persons. Sir Thomas Dick Lauder delivered a clever speech ; in the course of which lie said- " The opinion which I now hold is one which I adopted many years ago, and I have continued to hold it up to the present time; and every year that I have continued to hold it, it has grown stronger and stronger within me, and I have never hesitated to broach it when the occasion required me so to do. Gentlemen, I am one of those men whose sole dependence is on land; my Edo dependence throughout my whole life has been upon land : it is, there- fore, not unnatural that I shoold, at an early, period of my life, have taketse deep interest in this question, mg that I should, have taken. every. mearseto. inform myself thoroughly upon it. I may say-that I read alMost all that ivit either written or spoken upon it ; and I remember very well, amongst other works, I went through the whole of Mr. Jacob's report, and followed thg gentleman on the map over every one of three foreign districts to which be referred; and the result was, that I came to the decided conviction that those laws are not only unjust to the manufacture; but absolutely useless to the agriculturist. This opinion being taken up at that period, was deeply engravers ou my mind, and remains still engraven there with the strength I have told you, although many of the facts and arguments by which I arrived at it have long ago escaped my memory. * * * I conceive, gentlemen, the most effectual use that I can be in the present occasion is by the exhibition of. myself here—were it only to prove that there is at least one landed proprietor who sympathizes with you in your wishes. You must not, however, suppose that 1 am a rare avis in terris—I shall take the liberty to give a free transla- tion of this phrase,—a rare bird among the clods; for I can assure you, that I have great satisfaction in telling ,you. that I know a great number of may owa personal friends, men of sound judgment and enlarged views, amongst the landed proprietors and amongst the tenantry, who think with me in every particular. Gentlemen, I am prepared to contend, that if you once prove tint those Corn-laws do injury to the manufacturing interests, common justice demands that they should be repealed, even although it should be supposed. that they may be beneficial to the agriculturist. But, gentlemen, how is it possible that they can be beneficial to the agriculturist ? how is it possible that any tbiug can be beneficial to the agriculturist which is prejudicial to the manufacturer, when all of us know that manufacture and agriculture are 80- closely and intimately linked together, that it is quite impossible to do injury to the one without doing an injury to the other ? It is a common error—sn error which is extremely injurious and very dangerous—to set the agricultural and the manufacturing interests in opposition and hostility to each other. Nothing can be more erroneous than this ; the old fable of the body and mem- bers is absolutely not a sufficiently strong illustration to show the absurdity of this. I would say, gentlemen, that agriculture and manuflieture should be welded together with commerce, in order to make out the entire mid the eternal ring of British prosperity. Before I sit down, permit me to say one word by way of endeavour to destroy those phantoms of the imagination. which have so bewildered many of the agriculturists in considering this ques- tion. In the course of discussing it, they are too apt to imagine that the fall which must necessarily take place upon agricultural produce, when the Corn- laws are done away with, must amount to the whole quantum of the difference between the home and the foreign price. But this is a very erroneous view ; fur, on looking for relief for our manufacturer, it must arise from the increase of the price of food to his foreign rival, as well as from the fall in our markets giving case to himself at home. If the agriculturist would only consider that the compstatively small diminution that would take place in the price of sus produce would be more than compensated by tine improved steadiness of his markets, and look forward for tut immense prospective improvement which must be created for the sale of his produce, by tine great stimulus given to manufacture, and so to the manufacturers of his country, who form the largest portion of his consumers,—if they were to look at this, instead of complaining at the prospect of the Corn-law being, done away with, they would join with us in rejoicing at this prospect, and hail it as one of the happiest circumstances that could take place ; and I would hope to see them in our ranks, calling on tine Legislature to open to us, as speedily as possible, as large au inereese of freedom. of trade as our relations with other states might, in prudence and in sound policy, enable them to grant us."
Mr. John Wigham, Mr. M'Laren, the Honourable J. Erskine Murray,
aml Adam smoke in support of the petition. On 2,1i. 1;:ii,A'a rising, a Chartist moved an adjoe1=111., "to the Hill." But the Lord" Provost said, that at an advanced period of the proceedings an adjourn- ment was surely:inexpedient ; and Mr. Murray remarked, that by a "little more accommodation the few persons out of doors might find room." Mr. Black proceeded to deliver cogent arguments for abolish- ing the Corn-laws. He especially dwelt upon the hardships occasioned by a high price of food to the labouring man and the poor ; and seldom has any thing been said more to the purpose, than will be found in the following extract from Mr. Black's speech- " In January 18:36, the price of wheat was 36s. per quarter—it is now about 80s.; who can contemplate the cruel and demoralizing effect of these fearful oscillations, without pain ? If a poor man's wages werejust sufficient to pro- vide comfortably for his family when tine necessaries of life were to be hail for 36s., how hardly must his family be pinched when he cannot provide half the quantity they were accustomed. to. Deficiency of food brings on disease, suf- fering, and premature old age ; and when every exertion must be made to pro- cure what is sufficient to sustain life, there is no opportunity for attending to mental or moral culture; and those who have had an opportunity of seeing bow a sudden reverse of fortune and pressing poverty has led men of established character and cultivated minds to lie guilty of what they would once have shud- dered at, need not be surprised if these sudden reverses, and the strong tempta- tions ions of poverty, should demoralize the character of the labouring poor. Mem talk of the prices upon an average of years being moderate; but it a poor man and his tinnily are made to starve for one year, is it any compensation that lie may indulge in extravagance and dissipation the next ? It is this that is the great promoter of disease, ignorance, and crime. It is in vain that you establish schools, found hospitals, infirmaries, and dispensaries—it is in vain that you tbrni societies for the suppression of vice, the promotion of temper- ance, and other laudable objects—while time mighty corruption of the Corn-laws pervades all ranks, and especially demoralizes the labouring poor. Root out this opus tree, and then may you expect a salubrious atmosphere. The bene- volent, the patriotic, the religious, are bound to strain every nerve to get rid of these misery-and-crime-prod-ming laws. The rich man who fares sumptuously every day may heave a barren sigh of sentimentality, and plume himself on his humane disposition, when some of the crumbs that Bull from his table are dis- tributed in charity. The self-righteous Pharisee may deplore the depravity of the friendless poor, who have been reduced to crime by haul-pinching poverty, and say, God I thank thee I am not as these profligates. The priest and the Levite may pass by on the other side when they see the poor man who has Men among thieves, stript, wounded, and prostrate. But ' The wretch that works and weeps without relief, Has one that notices his silent grief; Ile from whose hands alone all power proceeds.
'Bunks his abuse amongst the frailest deeds.' "
A Dr. Glover moved an amendment, that it was "unnecessary to pe- tition the present House of Commons for a repeal of the Corn-laws, till the consumers of corn were as fairly represented in it as the producers of corn now are." The amendment was supported by only fifty per- sons, or thereabouts; and the petition for the total repeal of the Corn- laws was carried by an immense majority.
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