CONTINUATION OF THE LORDS' DEBATE ON THE CORN BILL.

The debate having been resumed on Tuesday, the speakers were— the Earl of WILTON, against the bill; the Duke of CAMBRIDGE, against; the Earl of GRANVILLE, for ; the Marquis of NORMA.NBY, against, but to vote for ; the Earl of Cartnioast, against ; the Earl of W mot/Laza, setting ; the Earl of CLARENDON, for; the Earl of CARNA RYON, against; the Earl of MALMESBURY, against ; the Earl of HADDINGTON, for ; the Earl of HARDWICKE, against.

The Earl of WILTON regretted to find himself called upon, in the honest discharge of his public duty, to oppose the present measure. Still more painful and poignant were his regrets at finding himself opposed, for the first time in his life, to his illustrious friend the Duke of Wellington. He was not hostile to free trade, so far as it is compatible with the condition of the county; but relaxation must have a limit. The idea of an unfettered system of free trade ,could only exist in the mind, of the noble Earl opposite, [Earl Grey, it is supposed,] or of the too sanguine Government, or of dangerous enthusiasts, or of those who, with more deep and perilous designs, had been hallooing on the Government in its wild career. The act of 1842 had completely answered the expectations of its projectors; why, then, quarrel with it ? The groundwork of the new policy was without doubt the apprehended scarcity, in Ireland. We were told by the Government, if we doubted it, to wait till May and we should have de- monstrative evidences ; but May has arrived, and when we ask where are those evidences of distress, echo answers, ' Where ?' He called on their Lordships, if they believed that the proposed change was cal- culated to impair the constitutien and weaken the pillars of the throne, to let no considerations of expediency induce them to vote for it.

The Duke of CAMBRIDGE said, he owed it to the country and to his own character to state frankly the line of conduct he intended to pursue. He believed he was now the oldest member of their Lordship's House, having been a Peer for forty-five years. He had made it a rule from the time he started in life, never to give a vote in opposition to the Government of the day ; and when he could not from conviction Five an approving vote, he declined to vote at all. Acting upon this principle, he did not mean to vote on the present occasion, as he could not in his conscience approve of the measure. Painful as it might be to him not to give his vote in support of the Government on this occasion, he could not help that, for his own character was at stake. (Cheers from the croas.benehes.) If he did not state frankly what he meant, he should be supposed to be lukewarm on this question ; which, on the contrary, he lookea upon as the most important that had ever come under consideration since he had had a seat in that House; and no man could deplore more than himself that it had ever been brought forward. He had gone to the House of Commons to listen to the speech of the right honourable gentleman at the head of the Government, with the hope, as he had the highest opinion of that gen- tleman, that he would be able to convince him by argument that he might accede to the measure ; but he fairly acknowledged that he could not approve of the reasons adduced by the right honourable gentleman. (Cheers.) Every one knew that he (the Duke of Cambridge) was no poli- tician he was never actuated by party feelings; but attended honestly and fairly ta any subject that might be brought forward, the sole object which he had in view being the good of his country. (Hear, hear.) He regretted most-sincerely that the question had ever been brought forward, less on account of the question itself than for the consequences.

Earl GRANVILLE thought, that with respect to commercial regulations, the last authority to appeal to was the wisdom of our ancestors. He would much rather take the opinions of those who opposed and those who supported the present commercial policy of the Government. The farmers had been spoken of as amongst the former • but it must be admitted that it was impossible for them, from their education and habits of life, to come to correct views on a question of political economy. The country gentlemen were also reckoned -amongst the opponents of the measure ; but they, as a body, are not only not political economists, but they detest the name of political economy. Then as to the clergy, to their credit be it said, although their interests are concerned, they have abstained from all agitation on the subject. 33rith regard to the commer- cial and manufacturing classes, he could not allow of their being called turbulent and violent. By their daily avocations they are obliged to attend to all matters which operate on the commerce of the country ; and, as a body, they are in favour of this bill. So are the most eminent men of both parties ; and therefore, whether his opinions with respect to free trade were right or wrong, he had some authority for supporting them.

The Marquis of NORMANBT said, that, like Lord Stanley, he was anxious to avoid personalities ; but, agreeing as he did with most of the arguments made use of on the previous evening by Lord Brougham, he had felt in- clined to say a few words then, by way of protest against the eloquent piece of declamation with which his noble and learned friend concluded his speech. The object of his noble and learned friend's peroration was to convey to the minds of their Lordships the impression that the con- duct of the Prime Minister entitled him to be considered as a great states- man, not only for the age, but for all time. Lord Normanby might per- haps rest the justice of that assumption upon the reception which the observations met with in their Lordships' House. Enforced as that state- ment was by all his noble and learned friend's brilliant powers of declama- tion, it was reeeived with one solitary cheer from the right honourable gentleman's zealots colleague on the woolsack, which found a faint echo in the voice of one of his noble friends who sat near him. He was rather unwilling to enter into the question of what the motives were which had induced their Lordships to show no concurrence in that state- ment. The question was, how far the right honourable gentleman, who had without doubt conducted himself through life with the most perfect honour in private transactions, had applied the same principle in his pub- lic conduct towards others. That was not a question for him to enter upon ; but, as there was no assembly in the world in which the conduct of the right honourable gentleman could be more fairly weighed, he con- sidered that the expressive silence maintained last night was a faithful Conimentary upon his conduct, and almost amounted to a sentence of

condemnation. Was the greatest Minister of the age, he would ask, the person who for the last thirty years had done more to throw difficulties in the way of settling this question than any other living man ? His own opinions upon the subject of the Corn-law were perhaps rather peculiar ; and he did not think that the results, either for good or evil, which would follow the adoption of the present measure, would be so important as the conflicting parties expected. While, therefore he had listened with great respect to the sentiments which had been that night expressed by an Illustrious Prince, he must venture humbly to state his own opinion that neither the institutions of the country nor the cause of religion would be endangered by the passing of this measure. Helad no opinions to retract or to change upon this subject. He had always been in favour of a gradual tendency in our commercial regulations towards free trade. This being his opinion at present also he felt it to be his duty to state how strongly he felt that the beneficial effects to be expected from the measure had been exaggerated, more particularly with reference to its operation upon the condition of the working classes ; and he did so with the view either of mitigating the present excitement if the bill should not pass, or that tardy, but, in his opinion, not less certain disappointment which would result from the working of the measure. He thought that, looking to both sides of the question, the balance would be in favour of the bill, as it would tend to diminish the misery under which a large portion of the inhabitants of this country unfortunately laboured. He did not think that it would relieve the misery which was and ever must be the lot of those who have to labour ; but he did feel that the existence of large masses in a state of degradation, and in the midst of surrounding wealth, was a spec- tacle which was neither for the safety nor the credit of the state. His attention had been principally directed to this subject during the two years which he administered the internal affairs of this country. The result of the inquiries which he set on foot was to convince him that the repeal of the Corn-laws, though not an unimportant object in itself, was yet of much less importance to the poorer classes of society than some other measures.

Adam Smith had laid it down that an ample reward for labour was a proof of the prosperity of the country, and that a scanty remuneration was a proof of a country's standing still : he stated that the remuneration given to the labourer in his day was quite sufficient to enable him to enjoy the comforts of life, and to educate his children. But, as it could not be now said that the reward of labour was as ample as it was in the time of Adam Smith, it became necessary to attend to the changes which had occurred since that time. Whatever mighty good the wonderful invention of machinery might hereafter produce, there was no doubt that it had pro- duced a very considerable Change by acting upon the labour market. Let it not be supposed for a moment that he was an antediluvian, who wished that machinery had never been invented ; but he thought that the Government ought for some years past to have watched the course of events occasioned by labour in its transition state. But what had been one of the effects of this great creation of labour in one part of the country ? One effect was the migration of a large part of the the population. Skill and strength were no longer required in some of our national manufactures ; and the use of the term "manufacture," im- plying "something made by hand," was out of place, as it was not by hands that these manufactures were wrought. The demand which now existed for labour was for labour of the cheapest kind. This migration, then, having taken place from one part of the country to another, the effect had been to establish with reference to the dwellings of the people what was called a monopoly price. In the Report on the Sanatory Condition of the People, which bore the name of Mr. Chadwick, it was stated that, whereas the rent of a cottage in Rutlandshire was 50e., an inferior apartment in Manchester was of the value of 71. 10s. He only used this statement to show that there were other things which might be remedied besides the evils of the Corn-laws, and to show that the Government ought to have directed their attention to matters which would iniiiience the condition of the people more directly and more largely than the proposed measure. Their Lordships had heard of the cry of cheap bread; but the cost of an 8s. duty to a labouring man would be something like lid. a week, if the labouring man paid the whole of the tax ; but, as it was stated by Mr. Senior that only one-sixth of the tax would fall on the consumer, the cost to the labouring man would be about a farthing a week. Now, what use did he make of all this ? He did not say they ought not, by passing this measure, to increase the comforts of the labouring man to the extent of a farthing a week. He wished, however, to point out what had been the conduct of the Government in this respect. They had had these reports before them three or four years, and they had the opportunity of acting upon them without creating any division of parties or incurring reproach; but they had neglected to do so. He would now turn for one moment to a statement cited by Lord Stanley from Mr. Gregg. Mr. Gregg gave the, country a very melancholy account of the prospects of the manufactures, and declared that in foreign countries there was an increasing power of under- selling our manufacturers. The Marquis of Normanby had taken great pains to inform himself on this subject in the course of the last autumn ; and he found that, to a certain extent, Mr. Gregg's observation was right ; but his foreign commercial friends gave a very different reason for the fact to that assigned by Mr. Gregg. They did not say, "We find that we can under- sell you," but they said, "We find that we can sell as cheap, by taking more pains with our manufactures and making articles which please the eye more." It was high time that these gentlemen should apply some part of the ingenuity which they had devoted to teaching the agriculturists how to improve their land, towards the improvement of their own manu- factures. (Cheers and laughter.) A hope had been expressed that the passing of this measure would lead to a better education of the working people of England. Such a sentiment came with an ill grace from those who were opposed to all diminution in the hours of labour ; the only method by which the people had a chance of being better educated. Mr. Gregg had only seen the first generation of factory operatives, and he had not seen the second generation, whose education had been fearfully ne- glected. He must say that he thought their Lordships had a right to complain, when they found themselves unexpectedly forced to come to a decision upon this question in a manner which they had no right to anticipate. He complained of the conduct of the Government, because they had very much aggravated the difficulty of a peaceable and quiet settlement of this question. Ther 4a3. roused that defensive principle against a supposed attempt to overreach and deceive, which was one of the most powerful stimtilatts to human action. He tionsidered that Much higket qtestions were at stake here than t mere commercial principle. lid thought that in all congitutional governreents public character Was a sort of of common stock, and that, where it was wantonly wasted, every one inte- rested in the prosperity of the country and the maintenance of its institu- tions suffered a positive loss. They had heard much about buying in the cheapest market and selling in the dearest ; and those who inscribed that motto upon their banners might discover some merit in a cheap Minister, who watched the turns cif the political market, and turned himself accord- ingly. He did hope, however, that there still existed among the great body of the people of this country some regard for public character and consistency; and that a promise made by a public man, or a pledge upon which he obtained power, would still be considered one which ought to be religiously and scrupulously observed. For his own part, he preferred a fixed duty to total repeal. He advised such of their Lordships as disap- proved of the details, not to postpone their objection till the bill got into Committee, but to vote against the second reading ; because they might be assured that any amendment in the bill would be followed by its rejec- tion in the other House. He had a great anxiety to maintain the legiti- mate influence of their Lordships' House ; and he should be sorry to see them exposed to the undeserved reproach that, in taking so unusual a course as that of interfering with a money bill, they were influenced by a regard for their own private interests. Did the noble Lord opposite [Lord Stanley] believe that the present Ministerial majority of 98 in the other House would be diminished in the event of an appeal to the country ? Those who thought so saw their way much more clearly than he did ; and he did not believe the Govenament could be carried on in the other House except by one or other of the two great parties who were pledged to the maintenance of this bill. He did not agree with those who spoke of this bill as "irrevocable." If it produced all the evils that were antici- pated—if it threw land out of cultivation and disturbed the labour market —their Lordships would have no difficulty whatever in retracing their steps. For his part, he did not believe that any evil could result from the measure. On the contrary, he thought that it was a step in the right direction. He felt that it was calculated to do much good ; good which, however, they might think was purchased at an exorbitant price, and suicidal to the public character of those who introduced it. Yet that was an evil which they were not called on to remedy: they had betrayed no constituencies, and they were free to consider the measure before them solely as regarded - the effects which it had a tendency to produce. On the whole, viewing it as a measure for the benefit of the many, and believing that it would be a great evil if their Lordships rejected it, he would vote for the second reading of the bill.

The Earl of CARDIGAN said, that the only inconsistent vote he had given in that House was on the question of Catholic Emancipation, when, out of profound respect to the infallible judgment of the Duke of Wellington, he gave his vote in favour of that measure. But how could he follow any other person on a similar occasion, when the carrying that measure into a law had been only the prelude to further demands ? The result was, that we had now a Government without fixed principles, whose career consisted in borrowing the opinions and acting upon the principles of others. If their Lordships yielded to the present measure, he hoped it would not be till a new election had taken place.

The Earl of WINCHILSEA said, he would give all he possessed if he could suppress his feelings so far as simply to record his vote against this measure. The Catholic Bill of 1829 was carried by the violation of plighted pledges. The Reform Bill followed, carried by the influence of threats and fear. And how stood the case now ? When the present Parliament was elected, the constituencies were called to test the question of pro- tection, and had decided in favour of it. Was the Minister, upon this question, to turn round, and because he had caught a few followers, to throw himself into the, arms, not of the high-minded Conservative party, but into the arms of the Anti-Corn-Law-League faction, and basely to betray their Lordships ? The opinion of the country ought to be taken ; and, if the people agreed to the measure, he would be the last man to ob- ject to it.

The Earl of CLARENDON said, he had neither new opinions to avow nor old ones to retract ; for since he had had the honour of a seat in that House he had never failed to state what he believed to be the evils of protection. His belief had been that the time was rapidly approaching when the Corn-laws must be abolished ; but, as he trusted that this would be nearly the last time that they would be called on to discuss this ques- tion, he could not avoid expressing the unfeigned satisfaction with which he, in common with all who wished to carry out the principles of free trade, must view a measure which would for ever, and he wished he could add "at once," put an end to the protective system. They had now to decide on the question before them ; and it was of little importance by what motives the Government had been actuated in introducing this measure—whether it had been founded on the experience of the last three years—whether they had been convinced by argument—or whether the failure in the potato crop had influenced their decision. He rejoiced that such a measure had been introduced; and he rejoiced almost as much in the wisdom of the argu- ments which had marked its introduction audits defence through the long and weary ordeal which it had undergone elsewhere. He could not regard this as a party question, nor could he admit that any party, either in or out of that House, had accomplished any triumph. The question had been one of time' of fact, and of experience, much more than of party ; for on no question had opinion undergone such frequent qualification during the last thirty years as on the Corn-law, as knowledge was acquired, as science advanced, and as the numbers and wants of the population increased. There was scarcely any man whose mind had not undergone some change with respect to this important law during the last thirty years ; and he would appeal even to the Protectionists themselves, and he would ask them whether they would take upon themselves the responsibilities of office, as they did now the responsibility of opposition, and would declare that they were determined at all hazards to maintain the present law ; or would they not rather admit that they would now gladly accept and hail as a salvation that very duty of 8s., "and something more," as they were told, which five years ago they scornfully refused ? Were they not indeed threatened with some such amendment in Committee ; though, if the Protectionists supported such an amendment, they would be throwing overboard their prin- ciple, and would be demanding not protection to corn, but to the exchequer. He repeated, then, that this was not a party question ; and he regretted that so much public time had been wasted, and that so much public injury had been inflicted, in demonstrating that it was a party question, and not in dis- cussing the merits of the measure. The opposition that had been raised to the Ministers more than to the measure, and the invectives which had been cast upon Sir Robert Peel, had only proved that he had been influenced by higher considerations than those of party ; and that, if he had forfeited the good-will and the support of his political friends, he had forfeited them for what was of far more importance, the advancement of his country's wel- fare. (Cheers.) With famine advancing with rapid strides—(An tronical " Hear, hear !" from the Protectiotists)—noble Lords might cry " Hear, WM I h ut if they had Sat Oh the Ministerial benches in October last, and hild fec i ved sueh reports from their Lord-Lieutenant in Ireland as Sir Relfeit eel had reeeited, Would they not have taken some such measurer{ to meet the threatened evil ? Feeling, then, as the right honourable Baronet must have done, that it was incumbent on him to take measures to avert the ptogres/s of starvation, and its invariable consequences, disease and turbulence, what was he to do ? He might have opened the ports, and Lord Clarendon heartily wished that he had; for he had been told by one of the Protectionist gentlemen in the House of Commons, who had dis- tinguished himself as much as any member who had recently come for- ward in these debates, that the mere apprehension of a famine in Ireland would have fully justified the opening of the ports. The right honourable Baronet had indeed been invited to open the Irish ports by the Protectionist leaders in the House of Commons, who thereby admitted that the present law was not sufficient for an emer- gency, or when tested by the pressure of extraordinary circumstances ; for if they believed that protection benefited the poor, why had they not recommended increased protection, instead of the opening of the ports. As to opening the Irish ports, however, when then there was a duty of 17s. at the English ports, with a trade free between the two countries, that would have been very like opening the ports of the United:Kingdom ; and had that been done for six or eight months, could the Government have given any guarantee that the protective duties should have been again imposed ? That might have been twenty years ago ' • but he apprehended that in these days no power in this country dare to disregard public opinion when such a question as the food of the people was concerned. The noble Duke on the cross-bench, and other noble Lords near him, declared that this measure had taken them entirely by surprise. He could only say, if these noble lords were deaf and blind to the intentions of Sir Robert Peel, the country was not so—the country had well understood the direction in which for the last four years he had been advancing. Prior to that time, however, it was a different question ; and, for his own part, he never could conceive how statesmen who must or who ought to have understood the dangers and the necessities of the country—how political leaders, who must have known that their advent to power could not have been far distant—how such men could have maligned the motives of the late Government—how they could have advocated opinions which they must have known to be fallacious—how they could have rejected the policy of free trade, when they must have known that soon they would have to promote that selfsame principle: how they could have done all that, certainly did appear to him perfectly incomprehensible, on the grounds of common sense and common honesty. (Cheers.) Let that be as it might, however, it was sufficient for the country that with the times their policy had changed ; and that, on all questions affecting the great commercial interests of the country, we had had a Government possessing the power to do good, with an Opposition without the will to thwart them. During the last four years, he asserted, the language of the right honourable Baronet must have been perfectly intelligible to all who did not wilfully deceive themselves. It was impossible to suppose, when the right honourable gentleman threw wide open the gates of free trade, that he meant them to admit only colonial assess and drugs, and spices' and the articles which were enumerated in the Tariff, but that he meant to extend them to admit the food of our daily-increasing and always under-fed popu- lation. Notwithstanding the notice which Sir Robert Peel gave by his speeches, by his Tariff, his Canada Corn-bill, and his commercial policy— notwithstanding the oft-repeated statements of Sir James Graham, sup- ported as they were by incontrovertible facts, that plenty and cheapness were the real foundation of prosperity—that connected with cheapness and abundance were the diminution of turbulence, the abatement of crime, increased commerce, and improved morals ; whilst scarcity and dearness were disasters to the country, for under them the poor were tempted to crime, trade languished, mortality increased, and discontent prevailed. Notwithstanding all these warnings, and all these symptoms, the agricul- turists doubted to the last, and even now affected to stand aghast with surprise, and had raised the cry of protection to native industry. Formerly the cry used to be "protection to agriculture" : but that was too stale for the present day; something more comprehensive was required, and "pro- tection to British industry in all its branches" was the cry. But British industry wanted not protection; it repudiated alike their new-born sym- pathies, and their worn-out legislation. The great staple manufacturers of this country, some of whom employed from 1,000 to 2,000 hands per week, and who paid from 1,000/. to 2,000/. per week in wages—men who, permit him to say, were as much interested as their Lordships in pre- serving the peace and welfare of the country—wanted none of their pro- tection; nor did the manufacturers of cloth, gloves, hats, boots, and many others whom he could name, from whom protection had been with- drawn, who at the time thought that they would have been sufferers, but who had since found that they were much better without it, and who had had the manliness and the honesty to avow the fact. There was not one single instance in the manufactures of this country where the withdrawal of prohibitory duties had been prejudicial either to the producer or to the consumer. He defied the noble Duke to show them the labourers' condi- tion improving under the protective system. The Duke of Richmond had drawn a very agreeable picture of the scenery which they enjoyed, and of the fine air which the labourers breathed ; but he had not said a word about the wages of the labourers in the South of England. Their Lordships had only to remember the rate of wages which those labourers received, the quantity and the quality of the food by which their lives were main- tained, their moral and social condition, their helpless life of unbroken toil, the difficulty with which they obtained even a bare existence —they had but to bear in mind the evidence of the medical men from all parts of the country, given before the Committee for the administration of Medical Relief to the Poor, who con- curred in stating that large masses of the labouring classes of England were miserably under-fed. Let them remember that, and he feared they must agree with him, that it was impossible for the labourer to sink lower in the social scale than he was at present ; and that he, therefore, could have no interest in upholding the protective system. He next came to the tenant-farmers ; and he would admit that some of them—men who had neither skill, nor money, nor education—men who would take 200 or 300 acres of land as they would take a public-house, but who had no more business to be farmers than they had to be jewellers—such men might, perhaps, require legislative measures to protect them from their own inca- pacity. But to the good farmer—to the man who had intelligence, and industry, who would not obstinately adhere to the system and implements . of his forefathers' who viewed every improvement as a boon, watched every discovery of science in order to adopt it to his own use—to such a man, in agriculture as in every branch of industry, competition would prove nothing but a lic.ilthy stimulus. Supposing, however, the worst fears of the worst alarmist to be realized, and that the country were to be inundated by a flood of foreign corn : what then? People seemed to sup- pose that this corn was to be brought to them on the waves of the ocean, and would be delivered gratis to them at their own doors. It seemed to be only necessary to read of some vast plain in Hungary, or of the Ukraine, or the United States, to invest it with a fancied fertility—to imagine in a moment the plain waving with corn and our markets inundated with its produce. And this was done without the slightest relation to the want of capital, to the bad cultivation, to the cost of transport, and to the distance of the place of shipment ; when, really, having the example of Ireland before their eyes, governed by our own laws, exposed to our example, commanding, as it ought to do, our capital, possessing every facility for being the storehouse and granary of this country, and still infinitely less cultivated—having, he repeated, such an example before their eyes, they might have spared themselves this bugbear. But, sup- posing all that the worst alarmists apprehended to occur, then it was said the farmer must have some reduction of rent first, to meet this sudden importation. His firm belief was that this was a landlord's question and no one's else ; and he believed that the measure owed its opposition and all the lamentations they had heard to that class. Not one word of such lamentations was heard in that House when the duties on linen, cloth, wool, silk, hats and boots, furniture, or the exportation of machinery, were reduced, every one of which affected the productive industry, at home, and involved a vast amount of foreign competition. They all knew that the British lion was not roused, that the sun of prosperity did not set for ever on any of these occasions. It was only when corn, cattle, hops, and apples were attacked, that the British lion shook his mane, and that Ministers were accused of deserting their colours. The apprehension of reduced rents, however, was, in his opinion, groundless and hypothetical; and he believed that it was so on account of improvements in the science of agriculture which had taken place within the last fifty years, by means of which the price of wheat had fallen 50 per cent, while the rental of the country had increased 16 or 17 per cent. Though his' noble friend had presented "a petition that evening from the great provincial assembly of farmers at Willis's Rooms, whose expenses had been paid very liberally for coming to spend the day in London—( Cries of "No, no!" from the Protectionist Peers)—he certainly had beard it dis- tinctly stated by a farmer from Wiltshire. However, he did not think that the petition emanating from that assembly proved that any panic existed atnongst the farmers ; for he would put that as a set-off against what had been passing during the last four months, since the Ministerial policy had been.clearly understood. During that time, the farmers had shown no apprehension by stopping improvements, by selling off their stocks, or by refusing to take farms. On the contrary, in many cases leases had been renewed at increased rents, and land tilled invariably fetched its accus- tomed price. Indeed, he was quite sure, that if any one of their Lordships Would that evening publicly announce that he was prepared to take four or even two years less purchase for his property than its marketable value eight months ago, his difficulty woulsl not be to find an applicant, but to select from the host of applicants. Their Lordships must admit one of tem things—either, that those fears were groundless, or that they had some reasonable foundation. Well, if they were groundless—if they had no reason to expect such an inexhaustible supply of foreign corn at so re- duced a rate—if nothing more would follow than they saw now in the Channel Islands, where there was a perfect free trade, where mer- chants imported it as it was required, and where the average price had ranged at Guernsey at 60s., and in Jersey at from 40s. to 50s. per quarter—if it were ascertained also that the British farmer had more skill than any other farmer, that he had more fertile soil, and as good a climate— (Cries of ".Ni," from Lord Stanhope.) The noble Earl said "no." He ihould like the noble Earl to point out a country possessing so many advantages for cultivation. Certainly the soil was very superior to that of Germany ; at all events, we had greater capi- tal, better roads, better markets, and cheaper labour in proportion to the work done ; for of that there could be no doubt, since it was notorious that the English workmen who were now engaged in the construction of foreign railways were paid double the wages of the foreign labourer, and yet the foreign capatalists preferred English labour to any other. Then if all that were true—and he thought it could not be denied—how was it possible that any important loss could result from this measure ?—that the pros- pects of agriculture could suffer, or the rents of land materially decline ? And if no such results were to be anticipated, whence all the oppo- sition to a measure by which a supply of food more regular in quan- tity and less fluctuating in price would be given to the people ? That, he believed, would be the certain effect of this measure. There was no business which had so many advantages as agriculture: the system of protection had been created by landlords for its benefit ; laws had been passed by them- selves, and for themselves, whenever they pleased : yet it was a remark- able fact, which could not be contradicted, that there was no business whatever which had made so little progress—none so often distressed— none had so frequently and piteously appealed to the Legislature for relief. Yet their Lordships were asked to maintain this system—a system which not only the great political leaders of this country united in considering unnecessary, but which the most reckless and ardent Protectionist would not venture to guarantee for three years longer—a system which they all knew the first deficient harvest would sweep away altogether. How in- consistent, then, was it to contend that further concessions were den- gerons, when they knew that they might be granted now without loss, whereas at a future time they could not be made without losing the best portion of their usefulness I

A great deal had been said about fighting hostile tariffs with free imports. He need not repeat what had often been said as to the failure of diplomacy and negotiation on subjects of trade. All such negotiations had proceeded upon the basis of an exchange of equivalents, which it was found impossible to adjust with satisfaction to the various parties. The only safe course was, for each country to pursue the course best adapted to its own interests, without re- gard to that taken by any other nation. Surely, then, the fact of our being a highly-taxed people was no reason why we should continue to pay dearly for our food ; the existence of the Income-tax was surely no reason why we should not have a low rate of duties ; and the illiberality of other countries was certainly no reason why we should not buy the com- modities which we wanted in the cheapest market and sell our own in the dearest. There was no reason for inflicting upon ourselves a double penalty. We had to look only to our own interest ; and whilst we were advancing in wealth, by adopting our own course, their Lordships might rely upon it that we should be setting an example which the rest of the world not only would but which they must follow. A noble Duke on the cross-benches said that foreign nations would not take our commodities in exchange for their corn, but that they would drain our bullion. Lord Cla- rendon denied that such could be the permanent result. We might on some extraordinary occasion, as in the year 1839, for instance, when we were obliged to import nearly three millions of quarters of corn at a cost of seven millions sterling, without notice, and when no preparation could be made for the payment in the ordinary way of trade, suffer a drain of bullion. In that year the bullion in the Bank of England fell from upwards of nine millions, which it was in January, to two-and-a-half nnllions in October ; and but for the assistance of the Bank of France

this country would have had to undergo the disgrace and calamity of a national bankruptcy. But what had been the consequence of the want of preparation at that time ? Why, that due preparation was now made for meeting sueh a drain in the ordinary way of trade ; and he would mention one fact in illustration of this improved policy. When the Zell- verein was established, in the year 1833, our exports to Germany had fallen to 4,600,0001. ; and they remained at between four and five millions from 1833 to 1839, during which years we imported no corn from Germany ; but in 1839, as soon as our importations became constant and considerable5 our exports rose from 4,600,000/. to 6,700,0001., which was their value in 1844. Soon after the Revolution of 1830, there was a considerable desire on the part of the Governments of France and England to place the commercial relations of the two countries upon a more satisfactory basis ; and a mixed commission, of which he had the honour to he a member, sat in Paris. Although the present able and enlighted Minister, Duchatel, was a member of that commission, it was found impossible to adjust the equivalents to the position of the two countries, and the nego- tiations were in consequence unavoidably suspended. At that time, our exports to France did not amount to half a million—an amount absolutely disgraceful when we considered the vicinage of the two nations. Since that time the tariff of France had remained as hostile as ever ; but it had been our policy to reduce our import duties upon a great variety of articles of French production. The consequence had been, that our exports to France had increased from 480,0001. in the year 1833, till, in the year 1845, they amounted to 2,600,0001. In Spain and Portugal the tariffs were absolutely prohibitory ;what was the consequence of their prohibitive policy ? Why, that British manufactures, cheap and abundant too, were to be found in every part of the Peninsula. The smuggler was always at hand to correct the errors of the Legislature, and to prove that the interests of men were stronger than the laws made to restrain them. The smuggler would always take care that commerce should flow in its natural, though it might not be in its legal, channels. The contraband system was to be found in the greatest activity where the system of protection was most rigid. It MIS to be found in Prussia, France, Spain, and Portugal : it was along the whole line of the Russian frontier : the Zollverin could not guard against it : it was found practised in the United States and Canada. Even we ourselves, with all our Coast Guard and Revenue Police, could not pre- vent the contraband introduction of silk ; and at the present moment we could not prevent more tobacco being brought in by the smuggler than - passed through the Custom-house. And it could not be prevented, unless the st.uggling trade was rendered unprofitable. There need not, there- fore be the shghtest apprehension felt as the mode of payment for what we .look from foreign countries. Allusions had been made to speeches in the French Cham, sr by M. Guizot and others, as furnishing little or no reasons why the commercial relations of that country should be relaxed. Lord Clarendon must say, he thought those speeches were exceedingly proper and prudent speeches, more particularly before an election ; (Hear, hear !) for it must be borne in mind, that no Minister, in a representative government, could bring forward any mea- sures until they were supported by the public opinion of the towns—until, in fact, they were as much settled out of doors as the present measure was with us. It rested with the French people to decide ; and when a nation so enlightened discovered it was not their interest to pay dear for bad iron and bad wood when they could get cheap and abundant supplies of good iron and fuel from Belgium and England, they would not be long in dealing with such a system. The fact was, that public opinion in France on this subject was rapidly changing; and he could assure his noble friends on the cross-benches, that a Free-trade League had been established in Paris, with a Duke at the head of it. But the example of England in liberalizing and relaxing her commercill policy had been followed by several nations. The Papal Government, the Sardinian Government, were among the number. Norway had reduced her duties upon her timber. The Prussian Government was now making a vigorous stand against the demand of the Zollverein for further protection ; and the United States were progressing in the same feeling. In fact, the system upon which human intercourse had hitherto been con- ducted, which was one of restriction, was fast crumbling away, and it would soon find its level among other exploded fallacies. As for ourselves, impelled as we were by a necessity to provide for increased demand by in- creased powers of production, we were about to adopt a policy which other nations must follow ; a policy by which we should extend the intercourse of nations, and carry into effect that law of God which ordained men to be mutually useful to each other ; a policy by which we should give and re- ceive perpetual guarantees for placing upon a solid foundation the greatest and most inestimable blessing of peace. For these reasons, he thought her Majesty's Government had acted wisely in proposing to regulate our foreign commerce without reference to the policy of other countries ; and as to our domestic concerns' he was convinced no better time than the present—it being a period of comparative prosperity—a time more favourable for a change of system, with less disturbance and dislocation of existing interests, had ever occurred. (This speech was cheered very frequently.) The Earl of CARNA.RVON thought there never was a period more un- favourable than the present for the introduction of Free-trade prin- ciples. England had reached to a high station under a protective System. In the abstract, commercial intercourse ought to be free ; but the House was not called upon to deal with a country in the abstract. He would admit that, should this measure pass, the ma- nufacturers would experience a temporary benefit ; but it would be temporary only, because they would lose their best customers when they lost the home market. He acquitted Sir Robert Peel of any improper mo- tive- but he did not think that the mode in which the Government had treated a great psrty had been fair ; and, however desirable they might consider the end to be, they should have remembered that, in political as in social life, an important object could only be arrived at by an honest and straightforward course. The Ministry ought to have put the question of their policy to the fair, open, and candid opinion of the English people. The yeomanry of England asked their Lordships to exercise its proper functions, not for the purpose of permanently defeating the measured but that they should stand in the gap between them and ruin, and secure for them that which Englishmen should never ask in vain at the hands of British Peers—fair play.

The Earl of MALMESBURY expressed his deep regret at finding him- self now, after so many years, placed face to face in opposition to the men he had all his life faithfully followed. From earliest youth he had been brought up to surrender all his opinions with almost blind confidence to the direction of the Duke of Wellington and the members of his Govern- ment; but most sincerely did he regret the course the noble Duke had thought it necessary to adopt. To show the danger of so great an ex- periment, he would refer to what occurred in the Hebrides and opposite . coasts. In 1827, no fewer than 187,000 persons were engaged in gathering and burning kelp; but the trade had been annihilated by the abolition of the duty OR foreign barilla. Two or three of the ancient chieftains had been obliged to sell their estates ; not a soul was employed

in anything but keeping sheep, and this gave employment for but few of the population ; thousands upon thousands were deprived of their occupa- tion. The fate of these islands would be that of tee agriculture of this country if the proposed bill should become law. He did not wish to speak harshly against the Ministers ; he did not wish to impute dishonest or dishonourable feeling to them : but it was a deplorable fact, when the Prime Minister came down to the House of Commons and made the ap- palling confession that for thirty years, and during the reign of four Sove- reigns, he had misgoverned and misguided this country. The effect on his party had indeed been fatal, as well as the effect on such of his friends as had been sent again to their constituencies with a great sacrifice of their reputation. If their Lordships forced the Government to dissolve Parlia- ment, and if, after the election, this bill should again be sent up to their Lordships by a clean as well as a clear majority, though he should not abandon his opinions or his apprehensions with respect to the bill, he should, however, feel it his duty as an English Peer to bow to the un- doubted and indisputable opinion of the majority of his countrymen.

The Earl of HARRINGTON expressed also his regret at finding himself in opposition to those with whom he used to act. He admitted that it was well for the country when consistency and character were combined together ; but, like many other sound doctrines, if carried to its utmost consequences, it might deter men from avowing even an honest change of opinion. The present question was one of the purest expediency, and not one of political, religious, or moral principle. He should have no shame whatever at any time at a change of opinion on such a question. For many years past he had entertained the opinion that agriculture did not depend upon protection for its prosperity ; and this i

opinion, although not expressed n the House, had been freely avowed by him out of doors. He had heard with great surprise the remarks which had fallen from some of their Lordships on the subject of distress in Ire- land. That distress involved an alarming question ; but he did not found the course he had adopted in reference to the Corn-laws upon that point alone. If Sir Robert Peel, without reference to the state of Ireland at all, had told his colleagues that his opinions on the Corn-laws had changed, and that he was anxious the question should be reconsidered with a view to a final adjustment, Lord Haddington would not have been surprised at the statement, and would have cheerfully gone into the inquiry. He would say, in the most solemn manner, that in the course he had adopted he had not been actuated by any love of office whatever ; for he was not only ready, but should be glad to lay down office tomorrow, and remain a private man for the rest of his life ; and certainly there was nothing that any Mini- ster could do to him or advise her Majesty to do for him, that could compen. note for the loss of his fortunes which must follow from this measure it the apprehensions of the noble Lords on the cross-benches were realized. He did notanticipate, however, any such disadvantage; and he believed a large por- tion of the landed interest had ceased to apprehend any evil consequences from the adoption of the Free-trade principle. The bill had been sent up by a majority of nearly a hundred from the other House of Parliament; and he considered that very serious consequences might ensue from its rejection by their Lordships. The Government were told that they ought to have appealed to the country on the question. (" Hear' hear !" front the Protectionists.) It was very easy for irresponsible members of that House to talk of appeals to the country, on a question which, as it materially affected the food of the people must necessarily give rise to great agita- tion and excitement; but he believed that if Sir Robert Peel and his col- leagues had determined upon appealing to the country, they would have taken a most fatal course. The Marquis of Normanby, stung by the eloquent eulogium passed upon Sir Robert Peel by Lord Brougham, had followed the example of the Duke of Richmond, and indulged in offensive person- alities. Lord Haddington thought it would have been more becoming in his noble friend to have adhered to his resolution of not indulging in per- sonalities, especially considering the vote which the noble Marquis and the friends around him were about to give, and considering that, though Sir Robert Peel had excited so strong a feeling among his friends and supporters, he, at least, brought forward a measure which the noble Marquis or his friends had proclaimed that he considered as the best that had ever been brought forward. After disposing of some of the current objections to the bill, Lord Had- dington proceeded to address the Peers on the consequences to result from a rejection of the measure. From the respect he entertained for the important services rendered by their Lordships to their country, he should heartily grieve that anything should occur which could lessen in the slightest degree their influence with their neighbours in the country. It was' however, because he entertained these sentiments that he would regard with so much alarm the alternative of their Lordships throwing this bill out. He did believe that they would be entering on a hopeless conflict for the maintenance of a corn-law, and that they would be ultimately defeated. If this bill were thrown out, nothing would be more likely than that those noble Lords who seemed so much to desire a dissolution would have the benefit of it, and that there would be a general election. (" Hear:" frons Lord Stanhope.) It was his conviction that it would result in' an overwhelming majority for free trade ; and that their Lordships would, under the pressure of that result, be in a manner compelled to give way, at the same time losing all the grace that attached to concession. Great injustice had been done to his right honourable friend at the head of the Government. Lord Haddington did not believe that there ever was at the head of affairs in this country a Minister who was more desirous to do his duty, or who was guided more by a sense of what was right, irrespective of everything else. Having been for five years a member of the Cabinet with him, he could not be mistaken upon this point. No Minister in this country had ever shown greater or more incorruptible integrity than Sir Robert Peel. He was, too, a man of profound sagacity. (Laughter from the Protectionist benches.) Those who laughed should show how long since they had come to their present conclusions on this subject. He had the greatest confi- dence in the judgment of his right honourable friend ; and noble Lords who laughed should remember that they also once had confidence in his judgment. If his right honourable friend and himself should turn out to be right in the opinion they had formed of the effects of the present measure, Sir Robert Peel would prove to be a great benefactor to his country, and even to the landed interest also.

The Earl of HARDWICKE was convinced that the rich would suffer the least from the change. He could see nothing to justify the introduction of the measure. The country was prosperous • and the farmers had been most successful in increasing the produce prosperous; lands. There was no scarcity of food, neither were prices extravagant. He prognosticated the usual evils to arise from the bill ; and emphatically called upon their Lord- ships tu dismiss this measure on its second reading, that the people of this country might have an opportunity of expressing their opinion upon it.

The Earl of Wicimow moved the adjournment of the debate till Thnraday. This motion led to a spirited discussion as to the propriety a alike than by.meeting.on Wednesday.

. lard VitOVONAN prayed their Lordships to sit on Wednesday. Surely

the question was one upon which their Lordships would not allow the vo- cations of the county of Surrey [the Derby race] to have place over the in- terests of the whole empire ? The Earl of Vxxc.otv said, their Lordships were not in the habit of sitting upon Wednesdays, and more especially upon such a day as this Wednesday. (A laugh.) Earl Gaer said, it was not calculated to raise their Lordships' House in the estimation of the country, if their Lordships preferred their amusement to the general interest. The Marquis of CLANRICARDE believed there was no rule against their Lordships sitting on Friday next, as it was merely required that if their Lordships met on that day they should attend divine service. The Duke of WELLINGTON remarked, that their Lordships had a point of practice in not sitting on the anniversary of King Charles's Restoration ; and as it was most desirable that the debate should be brought to a close before the adjournment, he thought their Lordships should come to an understanding that their Lordships would finish the debate on Thursday. Lord BROUGHAM said, unless it was clearly and distinctly understood that the debate would be concluded on Thursday, he thought they should meet on Friday, even at the risk of attending the service of the Church. Why their Lordships should have such an apparent horror of attending that service he really was at a loss to conceive. (A laugh.)

An adjournment to Thursday was then agreed to.

Thursday's debate was commenced by Earl GREY, who supported the bill. The other speakers were—Lord Asimultrosr' against ; Lord LANSDOWNE, for ; the Earl of Essex, for ; the Earl of Eoustrourr, against ; Lord BEAUMONT, against ; the Earl of DALHOUSIE, for ; the Duke of BEAUFORT, against ; the Duke of WELLINGTON, for.

Earl GREY began with a compliment to Lord Stanley's speech. He thought his reasoning unsound, and his conclusions erroneous : but his argument was so ingenious, it was put with so much skill, and clothed in language of such extreme beauty, and the whole speech was such a brilliant display of eloquence and oratorical art, that for three hours it received the unwearied attention of their Lordships ; listen- ing to that speech being, very different from listening to most other speeches, not a labour, but a delight. What struck Lord Grey forcibly was, that throughout the whole of this debate those noble Lords who were opposed to the bill had avoided explicitly avowing and defending what he took to be the main object and aim, not only of the existing Corn-law, but of every preceding Corn-law. The real aim of all those laws was to secure what was called a remunerating price for corn, or, in other words, to raise the price of the food of the people by artificially restricting the supply. Such being, as he humbly ventured to submit, the real objeet of all those laws, it required to be proved by argument that that object was a good one ; and, in the absence of cogent reasons to that end, they must na- turally and instinctively conclude that, not scarcity and dearth, but plenty and cheapness in respect to the food of the people, were to be desired. But this was a question which, to a great extent, had been evaded by most of the noble Lords opposed to the bill, and there had been a disposition to rest the defence of the Corn-laws on other grounds. Most of the noble Lords who had spoken had told the House that the real and great object of the Corn-law was to secure for this country a certain supply of food, and to exempt it from the great danger of being dependent on foreign nations for the supply of the most necessary article of national subsistence. With- out meaning any offence, he hoped he might be permitted to say, that it was utterly out of his power to regard this as anything more than a colour- able argument. He was a little incredulous as to whether that which ex- cited the enthusiasm of Protection Societies—whether that which drew such crowds to Willis's Rooms that the two noble Dukes on the cross-benches were obliged to divide their forces—was a real apprehension entertained out of re- gard to the consumer. He could not help suspecting that the real feeling was rather an apprehension of having too much corn now, and at too low a price, than of having, in some possible emergency, too little corn and at too dear a price. But if the feeling was a bona fide one, it had been satisfactorily dis- posed of by Lord Brougham • who had shown, that during our struggle with France, Napoleon was unable to exclude from this country the supplies of Continental corn which were wanted here. Lord Stanley had described the argument that competition was the cause of certain articles rising in price as the boldest and most laughable paradox ever palmed off for wisdom on the credulity of mankind. It was as great a paradox to assert that the best security for a steady, certain, and cheap supply of corn, was not to be found in extending as widely as possible the sources of supply, trusting at the same time to the competition of nations, and to the natural operations of commerce and industry, untrammelled by artificial restrictions. It had been shown by Lord Brougham, that the existing Corn-laws could not be considered as laying a smaller tax on the consumers than 10,000,000/. sterling, which was double the amount of the Income-tax and double the Malt-tax. And this was a tax' not fel. the purposes of the state, for not one farthing of it went into the exchequer, but it was a tax for the benefit—not the real, but imaginary benefit—of a class. The House had been told that the working. classes were not really injured by the system which kept up the price of food, because the effect was to keep up wages ; but it was clear that a high price of food must impose a considerable tax upon the working population, a large proportion of whose income was necessarily expended upon it. On this point the ex- perience of the past few years was decisive. If the condition -of the country in 1833, 1834, and 1835, when wheat was low, was contrasted with what it was in 1839, 1840, and 1841, when wheat was scarce and dear, it would be found that in the first period trade was good, there was a arrest demand for labour, and wages were very high ; but in the last three years trade was depressed, there was no demand for labour, wages consequently fell, and numbers of the working population were unable to obtain employment. But the cause of the difficulties of those unhappy years was obvious. When corn rose to the very high price it then at- tained, every family throughout the kingdom was compelled to expend a much larger portion of its income than it had done previously in the purchase of food. There was, of course, less available income left for other purposes. Lord Stanley had admitted that this was the effect of high prices for a short period; but what possible reason could there be for believing that if high prices became permanent this effect would not continue ? Surely the per- manent effect of high prices, like their temporary effect, would be to render a smaller proportion of the national income available for general purposes, producing a reduced demand for labour and a consequent diminution of the rate of wages ; while, on the other hand, the permanent effect of low prices would be to create a greater demand for labour. A noble Earl who spoke on Tuesday had allowed that wages did not appear to be governed by the price of food ; fo_ that in America and Australia, where food was very cheap, wages were very high: that noble Earl also said, that in Poland, where corn was cheap, wages were low. But wages weie kept down in Poland by the misgovernment to which that unhappy country was subjected by the restrictions imposed upon its industry, and by the existence of a'sYstem of qualified slavery. lie would challenge that noble

Earl to mention any country in the world, where there was a small popula- tion in proportion to the the extent of territory, where food was, consequently, abundant and cheap, and where good order and good government were es- tablished, in which wages were exceedingly high. It was clear to Lord Grey's mind, that the Corn-laws inflicted a double disadvantage upon the labour- ing classes ; for, so far from the high price of corn entailed by the Corn- laws being counterbalanced by an increase of their wages, those laws, while they enhanced the price of food, depressed the wages by which that food was to be purchased. If he was right in this opinion—if such was really the effect of the Corn-laws upon the condition of the labourer—that one fact ought to be conclusive, without any further argument on this ques- tion; and, as a Christian Legislature, if they were once satisfied of that fact, no consideration ought to prevent them from at once sweeping away the existing restrictions. He warned the Lords against producing a panic among the farmers by exaggerated statements about the enormous quan- tities of corn at a very low price which could be introduced into this country. They knew that, in 1842, those who called themselves the far- mers' friends inflicted most serious injury upon those farmers who were simple enough to rely upon their predictions as to the probable effects of the Tariff. It is evident from the rise which has taken place in rent, from the spirit with which improvements have been prosecuted, that the farmers themselves anticipate no injury.

Lord Stanley, on the authority of a Liverpool correspondent of high standing as a corn-merchant, had told the House that there were at present in this country two cargoes of wheat, which had been purchased at Dant- zic, and which had cost only about 23s. per quarter, including freight to this country. But Lord Grey had received a communication from a gen- tleman at Liverpool, describing himself to be well acquainted with the circumstances of this case, which threw a very different light on the transac- tion. [He proceeded to read several extracts from the communication. The writer said it was perfectly true that Lord Stanley's correspondent held two cargoes of red wheat from Dantzic, which only cost him the price mentioned in his letter. It might be inferred from this that wheat might be shipped at Dantzic at 14s. a quarter free on board. But the fact was, the wheat referred to by Lord Stanley's informant was ordered in 1844 by a house in Manchester, who sold it a loss of 10r. the quarter, the original cost having been 338. the quarter, including freight ; but the glorious uncertainty of the sliding scale prevented its being released from bond, and it was eventually sold to Lord Stanley's correspondent at 23s. 6tf. per quarter. The writer further stated, that from the Mediterranean middling qualities of wheat could not be shipped free on board at less than 35s. per quarter ; and the expense of freight was nearly double that from the Baltic. The writer also added, that Lord Stanley's informant had bought on the preceding day a cargo of red Weimar wheat at about 45s. the quarter ; which, allowing 10s. per quarter for duty, would make it cost 558.] The writer of this letter further stated, that the wheat purchased by his noble friend's correspondent at 14s. was now worth 25s. the quarter ; but that it was of mixed and very inferior quality, and that it was liable to become heated during its transit, which rendered it unfit for food. It appeared, then, that the wheat referred to could not be imported into this country and sold at a profit at a lower price than our own wheat was at this time obtaining in the British market.

Lord Grey instanced the case of wool, of live stock, of flax and rape seed, about the introduction of which at reduced duties so much evil was pro- phesied, to show the baselessness of similar prophecies as to the effects to arise from the free importation of foreign corn. He did not expect a great fall of prices as the result of the measure ; but he did not believe we should see the weekly average of wheakdown to 36s. as in 1835, or that it would rise to 81s. 6d., as we saw it in January 1839. The average price would be, he expected, lower, but not greatly lower than the average during the last dozen years ; while the fluctuations would be reduced within narrow limits. It was an important fact, that previous to the law of 1815, there was just before harvest-time never less than six months' consumption of wheat in the country; while since that period there had never been more than a fortnight's consumption.

A reduction in the price would cause an increased consumption of corn, and this would lead to an augmented demand for meat. He had no fear of land being thrown out of cultivation ; and he believed that no country would gain so much from the passing of the bill as Ireland. He would reserve his reasons for this latter opinion until the subsequent stages of the bill.

Lord Stanley had depicted the injurious effects which would arise to the Colonies from the adoption of free trade ; but the best examination Lord Grey had been able to give to this point convinced him, that so far from being to the disadvantage of the Colonies, or being likely to weaken the ties that unite them to this country, the adoption, in the largest manner, of a system of entire free trade, would be the policy of all others likely to bind our Colonies to us. We did not propose to apply the peinciple ex- clusively to our Colonies but to ourselves as well. The effect of Eng- land's protective system had been to divert the industry and capital of the Colonies horn their natural into artificial channels, and which, therefore, were unproductive. Did any man doubt at that moment that Canada was much poorer than if we had never given a protective duty to her timber ? The fact was, that with regard to the Colonies we had gained nothing by protection, whilst they had been serious losers. Every man who knew anything of the history of our Colonial empire knew full well that it was commercial jealousy—that system of keeping up a commercial depend- ence upon the Mother-country—that led to the American war, and lost us those very colonies. He owned he was rather surprised that his noble friend had ventured to touch upon this subject of the Colonies, because he thought that the policy of his noble friend with regard to trade in the Colonies was not, to say the least of it, fortunate. Did they remember the policy he had pursued with respect to our Australian Colonies on this very subject ? The privilege was granted to Canada of sending her corn to us at a nominal duty. It was refused to the Australian Colonies ; and by doing that they appeared to give to Canada an advantage because she i had recently been n a state of rebellion, whilst at the same time they re- fused it to those Colonies that had ever been loyal. He thought that that was a policy well calculated indeed to raise a spirit of disaffection. His noble friend said that if we did not keep our Colonies in a state of depend- ence upon us, they would not be worth retention and the expense of keeping up military and other establishments for their protection. He must be permitted to say that he considered that a defective mode of argu- ment. For his own part, he thought that the mutual dependence upon each other of the Colonies and this country was of advantage to both. We had the advantage, in our Colonies, of possessing friends and allies in every quarter of the world ; of a large population, possessing great natural resources, united heart and soul with us, prepared to support us and defend our trade and interests, and to take part with us in all hostilities against a common enemy.. On the other hand, to the Colonies there was the inestimable advantage of security derived by them from being part of the greatest and most powerful nation of the earth. They had the glory (and he knew they felt it to be such) of calling themselves British subjects ; and that, in the protection of their interests and just rights, the power and strength of this country were ready at any moment to be called forth and exercised. That was a substantial advantage of the greatest service to the Colonies. He believed they were fully sensible of it ; and he wished

that we should pursue towards them., in one respect, a more liberal policy, by extending to them the best privilege of Englishmen—that of self-

government. He believed, that if they pursued a liberal system of political and commercial policy towards the Colonies, they would bind them to us with chains which no power on earth could break, and the connexion between the parent state and them might continue until they far exceeded ourselves in population. Lord Stanley had instanced Canada ; and as- serted that the bill would inflict a blow on that colony from which she would never recover. But what were the feelings of the Canadians them- selves ? Lord Grey held in his hand a newspaper containing a report of the debates in the Canadian Assembly upon this subject. [He recited the circumstances formerly stated in the House of Commons debates.] He had read the speeches made upon that occasion ; and instead of finding them complaining of the injustice of this country, and of the ruin to which they were to be liable from the destruction of their public works and improvements, he found from most of the members of that Assembly lan- guage far more creditable for them to use. They said, " If you give us no longer protection, let us try to do without it ; and, as the first step towards it, let us repeal this duty upon American corn ; we can grow it cheaper than in America." One gentleman said he had been over to Buffalo, and that he found corn was fid. higher than in Canada. Another gentleman said that they need not fear competition ; that the traffic from the Great Lakes down the St. Law. rence was all a descending traffic, and that they could carry, not only the

corn of Canada, but also the corn of the Western States of the Union' and

that they could carry it cheaper than if it were sent by the Lake Erie Canal. Well, they came to a division, and what was the result ?—That, without any fear for the success of Canadian enterprise, they repealed this duty, by a majority of 45 to 27. The resolutions were affirmed, and the Canadians had determined to admit American corn duty-free for passage through their country to England. But his noble friend also went on to say that the introduction of this measure was treatment so unjust to Canada that it was calculated to shake the Canadians in their feelings of loyalty to this country. He confessed he heard that language with great alarm and regret ; because his noble friend had prophesied a diminution in the strength of those ties which bound Canada to this country ; but he could show, from what had passed in the Legislative Assembly, that lan- guage of a very different character had been used. [Lord Grey read an extract from a Canadian newspaper, containing a report of the debates in the House of Assembly, in which the speakers said they had no doubt that if a case of necessity arose, the French Canadian, as well as the Anglo-Saxon, would be found ready to defend the rights and interests of this country.] So much for the effect of this measure el commercial policy in weakening the ties of the Colonies to this country. The Duke of Richmond having made a satirical remark about the 8s. duty, Earl Grey defended that proposal, as being suitable to the time and circumstances in which it was made ; but even at that time, he warned the opponents of the proposal that the course they were taking would inevitably lead, at no distant day, to free trade. He still believed., that if, in 1842, a moderate fixed duty had been adopted, it would have been accepted by the country as a settlement of this question ; but he was no less firmly persuaded, that if Parliament were now to sanction a fixed duty, it would not have that effect, but that a renewed agitation would

commence ; and, as one deeply interested in the prosperity of land—for he would not attempt to conceal his personal interest in this question—

and as one most anxious that nothing injurious to the land should be adopted, there was nothing he would so much deprecate now as a mea- sure for a fixed duty ; for there would be a continuation for some years of the agitation which was now going on, and which was of all things the most deeply detrimental to the interests of the land. But, even if a fixed duty were desirable, by what set of men could it be carried ? Not by the present Government, which was pledged to adhere to the present measure ; and to expect a fixed duty from Lord John Russell would be altogether irrational and inconsiderate, seeing that in November he was prepared to form a Ministry on the principle of total repeal. There remained, then, the third party—the nobles who sat on the cross-benches: and were they prepared to form a Government on the basis of a fixed duty ? He thought, after the severe language which had been held in both Houses of Parliament, and in the country, as to incon- sistency and deserting pledges and eating words, they were the last per- sons who should propose a fixed duty. Even last year they had declared that their objection to a fixed duty had not been diminished., and that free trade itself would be a less abominable experiment. Then there was no one to propose a fixed duty ; and therefore all idea of a fixed duty must be consigned to oblivion. The danger of passing the bill had been spoken of by Lord Stanley, and allusion was made to a foolish speech recently made at the Anti-Corn-law League.

Lord Srezerann—" The speech was not made in the League."

Lord GREY-" Whether it was made in the League or not, appeared to him to be utterly immaterial. He believed that no one had undertaken to defend

all the speeches made by all the members of the Anti-Corn-law League. He admitted that the existence of the Anti-Corn-law League was a great evil. He must not, however, be understood as throwing any blame upon the leaden' of the League : in his opinion, the country and their Lordships owed a debt of gratitude to the leaders of that body, and more especially to Mr. Cobden. It was to him, to his genius, his indefatigable energy, and his perseverance, and not to Sir Robert Peel—(Cheers)—nor to the party

in Parliament with which he acted—no, it was to his honourable friena Mr. Cobden that they and the country were indebed for the achievement of

what he considered one of the most important measures for the future welfare of the body of the people which had ever received the sanction of Parliament. To him the country was deeply indebted: he had achieved this triumph by means altogether unexceptionable ; he bad not appealed

to physical force he had made no display of formidable multitudes. (" Because he could not!" exclaimed one of the .Peers.) He had not done so,

because he thought—and justly thought—that the proper way to act and to Operate upon Parliament was through the opinions of the nation : he thought that the most effectual means he could adopt were, by showing the opinion of the nation, to teach the Parliament and the manufacturers the real interests of the community ; and, considering the time during which there had been these great conversions of opinion, his success appeared almost miraculous. Still, Lord Grey thought that the existence of the Anti-Corn-law League was an evil • and he be- lieved that if they asked Mr. Cobden f, he would lie of the same

opinion. (" Hear, hear! ") It was an evil; but it must be remem- bered that such a body never could exist unless frtini the fullest and molt hopeless sense of wrong and of injury. His great objection to the present bill was, that it retained" the rag of protection" for a term of yeses; for it was likely to keep up the power of the Anti-Corn-law League, which it was possible to turn to other and more dangerous purposes. Lord Stanley had described most accurately the proper place which that House held in

the constitution,—it was to offer a check to hasty and inconsiderate legis- lation, and not to oppose continued and deliberately formed public opinion. It was, therefore, of the utmost importance that they should dia- critninate and distinguish accurately the wish of the people in favour of a change of a law—whether it arose from a hasty and inconsiderate passion for alteration, or whether it rested on a continued and deli- berately formed opinion. It was most important thus accurately to dis- tinguish between these two, because if by mistake, and under the idea of preventing hasty legislation, they set themselves against deliberately formed public opinion, it was perfectly clear that they must ultimately give way, and so seriously affect their own authority and power in those cases in which they might exercise their power for the benefit of the country by throwing out a bill. By rejecting what was really the deliberate desire of the people, they would be diminishing their power to resist the clamour for hasty and inconsiderate legislation. [Lord Grey here took a rapid glance at the progress which Free-trade opinions had made in the country since the time of Adam Smith, and proceeded to notice its effect on Parliament itself.] During the last few years, though there was a nominal majority against it, no man who had looked at the proceedings of the other House of Parliament could have failed to find symptoms of the rapid ap- proach of the event in which the principle would be fully adopted. Its oaponents spoke in such terms that they evidently considered them- selves beaten, and that this result could not be much longer delayed ; till at last they saw her Majesty's Ministers, who had so long been the ablest advocates of protection, coming forward and manfully avowing a complete ehange of opinion. They made that avowal, and he gave them full credit for making it with perfect sincerity and honesty ; in fact, he knew of no reason why it should be otherwise ; and when he found those supporting it who under other circumstances would be the most forward to resist such a measure as the present, he derived from that circumstance the strongest possible reasons in favour of the course which he had no doubt that the .11E. ouse of Lords would pursue when they came to vote upon this most im- portant question. It was well known that the Ministers of the Crown did • hold views respecting the Corn-laws in the years 1839 and 1841 which were not in accordance with those opinions under the influence of which the present measure was brought under the notice of Parliament ; but no man in his senses could doubt that that expression of opinion which they now heard from the responsible advisers of the Sovereign was perfectly sincere. Every one knew that in adopting the opinions which they now put forward, they were making a great sacrifice, and doing that which afforded the strongest possible proof of the necessity which existed for passing the measure

Lord ASHBURTON had opposed the bill of 1815, believing it to be a wild, ruinous, and fatal measure ; and in connexion with it he could not help noticing the singular coincidence that his noble friend Earl Ripon, who proposed the present bill: should have been the identical individual by whom a bill was brought into the House of Commons intended to fix the price of wheat at the high price of 80s. His noble friendbrought in the first Corn-bill of the present series, and now he moved the last. He was con- cerned in the commencement and the close of the system which was in- tended to regulate the importation of corn. As was said of Mr. Grattan, with reference to the political independence of Ireland, "he sat by its cradle, and he followed its hearse."

Had the ports been opened last autumn, he saw no difficulty in the way of their being closed again. A similar occurrence

took place the time of Mr. Huskisson In 182.5, that able Mi- nister, when the price of corn reached 72s. in this country, let in the bonded corn at a duty of 10s. At that time there were 400,000 quar- ters in bond ; and M. Huskisson let in that quantity in three parts, at intervals of three months each, and thus he removed the possibility of the approaching distress. But how little danger there was of the Executive Government being disabled from again closing the ports, if necessity required such a step, when the price of corn was only 52s., and when there were as many as 2,000,000 quarters in bond ! What did Government now propose to do ? Not to let in corn by degrees, as that wise and prudent Minister Mr. Huskisson proposed ; but, in the face of a harvest which up to this time promised favourably, and in the presence of an abundant supply of food, they proposed to let in an indefinite amount of foreign corn. The House had been told that the farmers were as ready to take farms on long leases as ever : but, although he entertained a very high opinion of the skill and ability of farmers in reference to the cultivation of land, he did not believe that one in a hundred of the farming population had the least idea of the competition to which under any possible set of cir- cumstances they might be exposed. To show the probable extent of this competition, Lord Ashburton referred to the evidence given by Mr. Bamfield before a Committee of the Lords ; and proceeded to re- mark, that at once as much as 6,100,000 quarters might come in, which would be almost one-third of a whole year's consumption; and this would pour in upon them at a moment when they were on the point of enjoying what some parties might think an unfortunately good harvest. (Laughter.) Under such circumstances it would be impossible to tell how low the price of corn might fall. The supply would be immense, beyond all power of consumption. Lord Ashburton quoted from a work published by Lord John Russell in 1821, written in the philosophic quiet of retirement, to show what he then thought of political economy as a science. The noble writer spoke of political economy as an "awful word," as a science which was "changing from day to day" and still, said Lord Ashburton, their Lordships were called upon to decide a question involving the happiness, perhaps the existence, of millions of people, according to the rules of such a science! In his opinion, it was the most mighty and momentous question ever submitted to a Legislature. It was one affecting the foundation of their constitution, disturbing the domestic relations of almost every family in the country, endangering the tenure of their Colonies, exposing them to the mercy of foreign nations ; and, as such, they could not treat it with too much caution. He had voted for the relaxations of 1842; but he could not consent to adopt a system which abolished protection entirely. With regard to Canada, the speeches read by Earl Grey were the speeches of French Canadians, men who had high notions of nationality. Besides, the Free-traders in Canada, were expecting entire freedom with no navigation-laws, and Great Britain to have no other right there than France or Belgium. The whole question was a very- grave one : the Peerage of England would consider it, he was confident, looking only to the general prosperity of the country, and not to any interests of their own. The Marquis of LANSDOWNE did not mean to trouble the House with ' the "awful' subject of political economy, or anything else subsidiary to the great question in hand. It was a question which had been the subject of debate and discussion for years past in and out of Parliament, in every aseembly, and in every town and village in the country. It did indeed assume something of a new aspect as it was now presented to their Lord- ships, as it came before them for the first time in the shape of a bill sanc- tioned by her Majesty's Government and the other House of Parliament. He knew, however, that his noble friend Lord Stanley—whose absence, -- -Anti the cause of it, he regretted—would tell them, as he did on a former 1,..-.Mght, that against filet-decision of the House of Commons he would set their decision of 1842. Now, unless he was to suppose that a House of Commons became senile and infirm and incapable of judgment in the fourth year of its existence' he did not know why he was to reject a mature resolution of the House of Commons come to after much deliberation, rather than that which they had arrived at in the early part of their his- tory. Another noble friend of his the Earl of Maimesbury, had told them that this measure had been passed, indeed, by a clear majority, but not by a clean majority. He would ask, however, if the former ma- jority of the House of Commons was more clean than the present? He would also ask, if they would ever arrive at any decision in the other House of Parliament, to which they would attach the importance it de- manded, without the exercise of some authority or influence upon the body of persons who composed it ? All these decisions were come to, more or less, from influence or authority derived from the advice of those persons accustomed to use it ; and it was not for that House to inquire into the motives that had entered into the conduct of the other House, especially when by a large majority they sent up, as on the present occa- sion, a bill to settle a most important and difficult qusstion. They had no doubt heard of members of that House who had voluntarily revealed the circumstances, the times, and the extent to which, of late years, in their private meditations, they had differed from their public duties : but, though they had made those revelations, he did not think that he had a right to drag them or their supporters into the confessional; it was sufficient for him that they had altered their minds, and that their supporters had altered their minds also. He took the decision of the House of Commons as he found it, and received it as the undoubted decision of the Representatives of the People.

Lord Brougham had satisfactorily disposed of the plea, so much in- dulged in on the opposite side, of the danger of dependence upon foreign countries for food. The Marquis was surprised to hear the eulogiums which had been passed on the sliding-scale ; for if ever there was a law so contrived to expose this country to the danger of political animosity, it was the sliding-scale. Was he to be told that the sliding-scale was a security against foreign dependence ? Why, after proclaiming to all the countries of the world that they were in want—as the sliding of this scale would show—was not that the very time when foreign nations—if they were ca- pable of the conspiracy which his noble friend thought so natural, but which never had occurred—would not that be just the time for those hostile countries to cut off their supplies and reduce us to starvation ? He had no fear of the landed interest suffering in influence or respecta- bility from the operations of free trade. In all countries, in the poorest i and n the most wealthy, and not more in the former than in the latter, there would always attach an importance to the possession of land, which would give the landed interest an almost preponderating influence in the government of the country. He thought this measure could not possibly have any influence to diminish the importance of the House of Lords or of the aristocracy and gentry of this country. He believed it would leave them precisely as they were now.

In addressing himself to the commercial part of the question, Lord Lansdowne remarked, that whatever Lord Ashburton might think of political ecnnomy, he and his noble friends who supported the bill relied on experience as their guide ; and it was those who supported a protective system that, in truth, relied on theories. The many experiments which had been made for fostering trade by protective means had failed, and been abandoned ; and with regard to the Corn-laws, which had been described as "the settled system of our ancestors," that system had never had any fixed shape whatever ; it was always changing. It had even been said to form part of our constitution and religion, and he knew not what: but if it had formed part of our religion, it must surely have done so unlmowit to the right reverend Prelates, for in that case our religion had certainly never been the same for twenty years together. He agreed with Lord Ashburton in the high estimate he had expressed of Mr. Huskisson; but one of the first efforts of Mr. Huskisson was exerted in destroying protection enjoyed by the silk-trade ; and the experiment proved perfectly successful. The same remark applied to wool,to shipping,and to the introduction of Irish manufactures into England. When the proposal to introduce these manu- factures was made by Mr. Pitt, it met with the most decided-opposition; the ruin of the cotton manufacture in England being freely and confi- dently held up as a compquence. But what has been the result? Un- fortunately for Ireland, she did not produce cotton goods for her own con- sumption; and the cotton manufacture of England. had not only doubled, but tripled, quadrupled, and quintupled. About the year 1788, the com- mercial treaty with France was debated in their Lordslnps' House ; and on that occasion Dr. Watson, Bishop of Llandaff, took up those notions of protection which Lord Stanley had now taken up, and came down to the House of Lords and told their Lordships that they were overturning all the experience of their ancestors by this commercial treaty. Following, or rather preceding, the example of Lord Stanley, who appealed to the time of Edward the Fourth, Bishop Watson came down later, and read the preamble of an act of Parliament of the time of Charles the Second. And what. did this preamble, embodying the wisdom of our ancestors, state? It said—" Whereas it is universally known that the wealth of this country is disappearing, and ruin is advancing, from money being sent out of the country to purchase French wines. (Laughter.) This was a sample of the experience of our ancestors to which his noble friend Lord Stanley had referred. Revering, as Lord Lansdowne did, the wisdom of our ancestors, in founding the constitution under which we lived,—be- lieving that they had laid that constitution on the surest and most certain foundation, and had thereby contributed to the happiness and prosperity of this country,—still he must say that his respect for our an- cestors did not extend to any one of the nostrums which from time to time they had thought fit to apply to our commercial system. All the schemes invented by them, and founded on the protective system, had failed ; and the noble Lord who presided over the Board of Trade, if he were to look over all the papers and memorials presented to that Board from time to time, would find that the commerce of this country had encountered more imaginary dangers than ever had been met with by any adventurer in a voyage, not excepting Sinbad the Sailor himself. If all those represen- tations were to be believed, the commerce of this country had been almost ever at the brink of a precipice; but after a few years all apprehension, blew over, and the commerce of the country was always found to be upon a higher eminence than it ever attained before. He therefore again said, that they had experience against, and not for, a protective system.

Lord Lansdowne quoted the opinions expressed by Mr. Huskisson in 1830, to show that that statesman could not be referred to as a determined upholder of the Corn-laws. He referred also to the readiness with which the Scotch farmers, a class of men remarkable for their intelligence, and for the care which they took of their own interests, were entering into new engagements at increased rents, as showing that they anticipated no injury from unlimited competition. He deduced arguments in favour of free trade from the profitable nature of the flax-culture in England, in the face of unrestricted competition with the foreign grower. He might be told that this was owing to the prosperity of the linen manufactures : but this would not do, for protection was withdrawn from the linen trade at the same time, or rather he would say, the linen trade was relieved from pro- tection and placed in a situation of independence. He therefore repeated, that he was of opinion with Mr. Huskisson—he did not mean Mr. Hus- kisson's earlier opinion, which Lord Ashburton had quoted, but his last opinion, which the noble Lord had omitted to quote—that the Corn- laws were an impediment to the commerce and manufactures of this country. They were told last night by a noble Lord on the other side of the House, that they heard too little of the importance of the home market to the manufacturer, and that it WES to it the manufacturer ought to look. But was the home market not also of importance to the agricultural interest ? Be had recently been reading an historical account of the county with which the late Secretary for the Colonies was immediately connected—he meant Lancashire: and what did he find there ? Why, he found that in the course of a hundred and fifty years the property in the county of Lancashire had advanced 6,300 per cent. But noble Lords might say that this was in the manufacturing districts ; but in the three hundreds which were chiefly agricultural dis- tricts, the property had advanced 3,500 per cent. Did their Lordships believe that, if in the manufacturing part of Lancashire property had not advanced 6,300 per cent, it would have been possible that in the agricul- tural districts it would have advanced 3,600? Tears ago, lio had given it as his opinion that a fixed duty was the pre- ferable mode of settling the question. He thought so because he was un- willing greatly to impair the revenue; and also as it appeared to him that the proposition was calculated to conciliate the support of the landed in- terest. These were his opinions on the subject; and if he had, had the settlement of this question in his own hands at present, he would have pro- posed a measure in accordance with those opinions. (" Oh, oh!" from the Opposition benches.) But the question was this—whether, if he voted for an amendment calculated to promote his own views on the subject, he would not, in fact, while nominally voting for such an amendment, be really voting against the settlement of the question. He could not dis- guise from himself—looking at the sentiments expressed by Sir Robert Peel, and to the declarations contained in the letter of Lord John Russell, to which he was not then a party, and to the general opinions expressed in favour of an alteration of the law both in doors and out of doors—that if an amendment were carried which had the effect of throwing out this bill, they would not obtain a fixed duty, but a measure of a to- tally different description would be adopted. Under these circum- stances, he felt, upon the whole, that in order to obtain a settle- ment of this question, he was bound to accept the bill as tendered by her Majesty's Government, and which had received the sanction of a majority of the other House of Parliament. He thought the bill would be productive of great and lasting benefits to the country, by promoting a gradual and certain extension of commerce, based upon a solid foundation, He hoped and believed that, in this respect, the measure would contribute to the wealth and prosperity of this empire, and that, after the lapse of a few years, it would be difficult to discover what par- ticular class had derived the greatest benefit from its operation. He was confident that the exertions of the British farmer would save him harmless even from any temporary injury. He could not adopt the opinions on political economy expressed by one of the greatest poc ts of this country, in one of his most beautiful productions- " That trade's proud empire bastes to swift decay, As ocean sweeps the labour'd mole away ;"

but he could adopt the sentiments embodied in the two succeeding lines and apply them to the landed interest and the farmer of this country —that Self-dependent power can time defy, As rocks resist the billows and the sky."

On these grounds, he felt bound to give his most cordial assent to the bill now before their Lordships. (Cheers.)

The Earl of Eglintoun, Lord Beaumont, and the Earl of Essex, rose together. None seemed inclined to give way ; and, as the respective friends a each loudly called on him, a scene of considerable confusion followed. At last, the Earl of SHAFTESBURY (occupying the woolsack during the temporary absence of the Lord Chancellor) put the ques- tion, and called on the Earl of Essex.

The Earl of ESSEX said, that his opinion on the Corn-laws had been shaken by late events. Had he continued to entertain doubts on the sub- ject, he would have given the Government the benefit of the doubts and voted with them. He confessed that he had now no doubts whatever upon the subject, and was prepared to give a conscientious, willing, and hearty support to this bill. He had advocated the admission of foreign corn for feeding and fattening of cattle, as likely to be of the greatest benefit to this country. It was the abundance of meat and corn, the produce of our own soil, to which the farmer should look for remu- neration. It was, on the contrary, a common fallacy among the farmers that it was to their interest to have high prices. Moderate prices, in con- junction with abundant produce, would be most profitable to them. By a courageous abandonment of antiquated prejudices, and by a state of things under which they would have security for their capital, they would be able to sell their produce at a moderate price. However greatly their produce might increase there would ever be mouths to consume it. He reiterated the opinion he had expressed in his published letter, that the farmers, generally speaking, had not sufficient capital to carry on their business to advantage. To his mind it was one of the best signs of the times that men not connected with agriculture were ready to embark their capital in agriculture ; and it was further a matter of congratulation, as it kept up the connexion between the commercial and manufacturing classes. His conversion to his present opinions was at least disinterested. He had never asked anything from the Minister, and he hoped it would not be imputed to him that his motives were of an interested character. (Cheers.) He had made a sacrifice of his character for consistency, in the firm hope and belief that this measure would be beneficial to themselves as well as to the country at large. Ile believed the measure must pass ; and he thought it better that their Lordships should snake a present sacrifice of their opinions, rather than perpetuate a state of bitterness between the two great interests of the country. The doubt hanging over the landed interest had rendered it impossible to enter into contracts between land- lord and tenant; and this state of things was almost as injurious to that interest as the measure now under their consideration could possibly be. For himself, he supported the measure not only as one that was likely to meet with the sanction of their Lordships, but also to obtain God's blessing and approbation. He supported it also in entire confidence in her Ma- jesty's Government. They were charged with inconsistency ; but who on this question had been consistent ? Those only who had from the first urged the entire abolition of these laws. He would never join in the charge against the right honourable Baronet at the head of the Govern- ment of want of consistency ; nor would he assent to the use of the term "political cowardice," applied by the Duke of Richmond on a former evening. On the contrary, he admired the great moral and political cou- rage of the right honourable Baronet; who, setting aside personal consi- derations, had stood up against the taunts and sneers of political adver- saries, while prepared l to bring forward measures which he honestly believed to be for the good of the country. The country would always be indebted to him for the former measures of his Administration—for raising our finances from the slough of despond in which he found them. (" Oh!" from the Opposition.) Of this he felt quite assured—that if this measure should fail, the country would acquit the right honourable Baro- net of all sordid motives ; while if it met with the success which the right honourable Baronet so confidently anticipated, when time had. obliterated all party considerations, then, he would venture to say, those who had urged on the Legislature the abolition of these laws, as well as the Minis- ter who had accomplished the change, would be looked upon as among the most successful and sagacious legislators this country had ever possessed..

The Earl of EGLINGTOUN opposed the measure. He would not indulge in any unseemlym invective upon those who had abandoned their principles. He acquitted 3.f. 'sters of being actuated by improper motives, and ac-

counted for their backsliding by want of firmness and great deference to the views of their leader. By the bill the interests of the British farmer

would be sacrificed to the interests of the French, the American, and the

Russian. The labourer, too, was deeply interested. He believed that to three-fourths of their Lordships the measure is odious. Some noble Lordi said the present Ministry must be supported, because it was the only one that could stand; others, that Sir Robert Peel was a Heaven-born Minis,. ter, and the only man capable of wielding the destinies of the country ; whilst some did not think the measure would do much harm after all. But it was an undoubted fact, that the last Ministry was turned out on this very question of protection ; and that at the last general election there was a large majority returned because they were the champions of that principle. If, then, their Lordships did not exercise their preroga- tive in such a case as this, he feared the question might be asked, ' What is the use of the House of Lords ?" and it would be difficult to find a sa-

tisfactory answer to that question. As the hereditary guardians of the people—as the protectors of their rights—as the Peers of Great Britain—

he called upon their Lordships to reject this measure. He besought the noble Duke to stand forth once more in defence of that country he had sg often saved; he called upon noble Lords opposite to adhere to that prin- ciple of protection which they had always advocated. Laws might be re- enacted, statutes might be repealed, but character once gone could never be regained. He besought their Lordships, then not to suffer that House to share in the general degradation which this Ill-omened measure had brought upon the public character of British statesmen, and which, if they agreed to it, would only bring disgrace upon them in after ages.

Lord BEAUMONT, on the same side believed that the bill would coun- teract a great good which would otherwise have arisen to Ireland front

the potato disease. Having ascertained the necessity of not relying upon that vegetable for subsistence, the Irish would have become producers of corn; but this measure would destroy the English market, on which they would have relied for remuneration. He anticipated great evils to arise from the drain of gold to pay for foreign corn ; and gave it as his decided opinion that the British farmer could not compete with the foreigner. By the sliding-scale, foreigners knew when we wanted corn, and when we were not likely to require supplies of grain ; but that advantage to them and to us would be put an end to by the present plan. If we pro- tected our own farmers we should scarcely ever be in want of corn; but upon those rare occasions when that necessity might arise, there could be no doubt that the nations on the Continent would gladly furnish us with an abundant supply. Bonaparte, with all his power, could not restrain his people from sending us supplies.

The Earl of DALHOUSIE was anxious to submit the reasons which in- duced him to give his vote in favour of the second reading of this bill, and

to bear his share of responsibility for its proposal. In the course of debate many things had been said which it was hard to listen to and galling to bear ; but he was not, either on his own part or on the part of isis noble friends behind him, to complain ; for they could not but have been con- scious, however strong might be their convictions of the necessity and ex- pediency of the course they pursued, that the introduction of this measure must create feelings of mortification in the minds of those who had acted with them. They, therefore, had no right to complain of any expression of their dissatisfaction.

He was ready to maintain the opinion that the principle of pro- tection is unsound in itself. He believed that the principle of protective duties, when they were protective and operative, was unjust to the consumer, by raising unnecessarily the price of the article, and that in the long run they were in no degree what- ever benefirial to the producer. He never gave a vote on the Corn- laws but once, and that vote was in favour of a diminution of duty and of a relaxation of protection ; and in their Lordships' House the first motion that he had ever the honour to propose was the Canada Corn Bill.

Its making the avowals which he now made on the subject of protection, he said nothing at variance with the sentiments which he had addressed to

their Lordships' House, throughout the three years that he had the honour of conducting a portion of the public business. He was prepared to deny that the commercial prosperity of the country had ever been owing to the protective system ; and he was pre- pared also to combat the statements which had been made by Lord Stanley, on the authority of Mr. Greg, with regard to the falling-off in manufactures on the relaxation of the duties. Lord Dalhousie In-

stanced the case of wool, and showed that Lord Stanley had not stated the case fairly, when he said that wool had fallen in price when the duty

was reduced from 6d. to ld. Lord Dalhousie had returns for the years In question. In 1818 the duty on foreign wool was id.; from 1819 to 1824 it was 64.; and after 1824 it was reduced to Id. per pound, at which rate it remained until 1844, when it was finally abolished. Now, at the first rate, in 1818 the import avoN 24,000,000 pounds, at 2r. 6d. per pound price. The high duty had the effect of reducing the quantity to 17,000,000 pounds, and the price to 1.r. 4d., being the very result that had been an-

ticipated; and the blow which was thus given to the woollen trade had never been entirely recovered ; but still the price continued to increase din-lug the whole time, until the removal of the duty. Lord Dalhousie also gave details disproving sonic of Lord Stanley's conclusions- on the subject of timber and shipping.

Many authorities had been adduced in support of the principle of pro- tection; but much allowance had to be made for the times in which the men lived. Lord Chatham was a great authority on questions relating to the liberty of the subject; but on a question referring to the regulation of corn at the present day, it was impossible to adduce him as an authority. Had his son, Mr. Pitt, lived at the present day, Lord Dalhousie was confident he would have been foremost in advocating the present policy. Mr. Husk's- son's opinion in 1814 was against the principle of protection ; and so was Lerd Lauderdale's. Lord Stanley had enumerated many countries, from Turkey round to Sweden, and said that each of thern had a corn-law. This is true : but what sort of corn-law is it ? Is it like ours ? No. No law had been imposed for the sake of protection, or that could exclude foreign corn, in the years to which his noble friend had alluded. He held in his hand a statement with respect to the corn-laws in different countries. In Turkey, the duty on corn was five per cent ad valorem ; in the Danubian province of Tur- key, three per cent; and let it be recollected, that that was the province which had been so much dwelt upon as the corn-producing province. While in the other provinces the duty was five per cent, it was only three per cent in the Danubian provinces ; and there was no point which the Danubian provinces contested so much as the right to have only three per cent instead of five per cent : and what did his noble friend draw from that ? In Italy, at 48s., the importation was free ; Sardinia, 5s. a quarter ; in the small Italian states, 32.; in Tuscany, a fraction ; in Greece, 2d.; in Aus- tria, 3s. Austria possessed in herself the richest provinces of Iungary, Transylvania, and Galicia ; but notwithstanding that fact, the ports of Venice, Fiume, and Trieste, on her coasts, granted free admissions to the importation of corn. In Spain and Portugal there was a total prohibition. Belgium had a corn-law and a sliding-scale, but at 33s. corn was admitted . free. In Holland the same thing. But were they in those countries in the habit of conducting those duties on the system advocated here ? No; Lad in this year the first thing done in Holland was to suspend their corn-law. In Russia, whose ports were hermetically sealed, the duties were also removed ; and the Belgian Chamber, having been called together, also removed the duty on corn. What analogy, therefore, existed between the laws of those countries as corn-laws, and the law for the establish- ment of a permanent duty on corn ? What folly it was to talk of the sliding-scale having rendered England independent of foreign supply, when the fact was notorious that year after our foreign importations had been increasing under that system. The quantity of foreign corn imported into this country had been gradually, but most sensibly and most percep- tibly, increasing ever since the sliding-scale had been introduced. In the five years intervening between 1840 and 1845, no less a quantity than 1,879,000 quarters had been imported. Nor should this fact be lost sight of, that never had agriculture been in a more thriving or more prosperous condition than during that period. He could not understand the meaning of the great outcry which hadbeen raised against dependence on other countries. He should like to know what material comfort or luxury of life there was for which we were not in this country, to a greater or a less degree, dependent on foreign nations. It was a fact which could not be denied nor disproved, that there was not a single trade, occupation, or employment of life, in respect of which we were not hopelessly and entirely dependent on supplies from foreign countries. It might perhaps be said that there was a difference in the case of food, and that it did not bear a strict analogy to other matters ; and this, no doubt, sounded very speciously : but it was the same thing whether "you take my life or take the means whereby I live ;" and if they withheld from the tradesman the use of those foreign products which were essential for carrying on his business, what did they do but withhold from him the means of purchasing provision ? So that, viewed in what light they might, whether in the case of cotton or corn, it was the same principle still that was at issue. • • He had been called upon to state on the part of the Government what would be the precise price of corn under the new system: but he consi- dered that demand altogether unreasonable. Was there a single noble Lord advocating the Protective system, who, under the sliding-scale, would have been prepared to predicate to any particular period the price of corn next year ? Nothing had been put forth to contradierthe official documents by which it appeared that the importation of corn would be extremely li- mited. It was stated by Lord Stanley that 5,000,000 quarters additional corn could be imported from the countries on the Danube within a term of three years ; being purchased abroad at 14s. a quarter, and sold here at 36s. to 40s. He would not read letters to disprove this ; but he would lay be- fore their Lordships documents infinitely more authoritative, being the bills of sale of several cargoes of wheat imported from Galacz. These were purchased in the year 1844, and brought to this country ; they were not de- layed in the warehouses; yet on every one of these there was a loss to a great extent. It might be asked, if there was not to be a great increase in supply or diminution in price, why did Government propose this change? They did it not because they thought that it would greatly reduce the price of the article, but because, by stimulating trade and setting in motion the manufactures of the country, they would be taking the surest possible means of providing full employment for the population. Let them depend upon it, the labourer in the rural depended entirely on the labourer in the manufacturing districts. Every loom stopped in the city stopped a spade in the field.

The Duke of WELLINGTON said—" My Lords, I cannot allow this ques- tion to go to a division without addressing a few words to you on the vote which you are about to give. I am aware that I address you under many disadvantages. I address you under the disadvantage of appearing as a Minister of the Crown to press this measure, in opposition to the views of many of those with whom I have so long acted in public life—with whom I have lived in habits of close intimacy and friendship, and whose good opinion it has always afforded me great satisfaction to obtain, and indeed which I have enjoyed in the utmost degree. I have already named to you the circumstances under which I became a party to this measure. In November I considered it my bounden duty to my Sovereign not to with- hold my assistance from the Government ; and I resumed my seat at her Majesty's councils and gave my assistance to my right honourable friend the First Lord of the Treasury, because I knew at that time that he could not do otherwise than propose a measure of this description—nay, this very measure. It was this very measure that he proposed to the Cabinet early in that month. ("Hear, hear.") It is not necessary, my Lords, that I should now say any more on that subject ; and though some of your Lord- ships may entertain a prejudice against me for the course I have adopted, I can justify it before your Lordships, by telling you that I was bound to take it, and that if the same circumstances occurred to-morrow I would take it again. (Laud cheers.) I was bound to my Sovereign and to my country, by considerations of gratitude, of which it is unnecessary for me to say more than to allude to them on this occasion. Your Lordships may think it probably true, and it is true, that with reference to the subject I ought to feel no relations of party ; and you may think that party ought not to rely upon me. Be it so, if you think proper. (Cheers.) I have stated to you the motives from which I acted. I am satisfied with them myself, and I should be exceedingly concerned if any dissatisfaction was caused in the minds of any of your Lordships by my conduct. I am aware that I never had any claims upon the confidence which your Lordships so long reposedin me, and which I have now enjoyed for a considerable number of years. Circumstances contributed to give it to me. In some cases I had the confidence of the Crown ; and in other

rlTetelioPt ektie'vgr confidence in consequence of the zeal with which -endeaterareWOME your Lordships, to promote your public views, and to facilitlifrreTtnsactson of the business of this House. I shall ever lainektatsix bre4g.up of the 'habits of confidence in public life with which, your Lordab have honoured me; but I will not allow this glace- Ilion to pass, even if this night should possibly be the last upon which I should give you my advice, without giving my counsels as to the vote which I think your Lordships ought to give on this occasion. My noble friend, whose absence I regret tonight, addressed you a few nights ago, and urged you in the strongest manner to vote against this mea- sure, and told you, in language which I could not imitate, that your duty on this occasion was to step in and protect the public from the rash and inconsiderate measures which have passed the other House of Parliament, and which were inconsistent, in his view, with public opinion. My Lords, there is no doubt whatever but it is your duty to consider all the measures which are brought before you with great deliberation before you vote ; and you have a right then to vote as if you thought that Parliament would act on the vote which each of you gave. (Cheers.) This is the course which I have always taken on former occasions, and it is the course which now, my Lords, I beg of you to take. My Lords, I will request of you to look to this measure—to the manner in which it has come before you, and to the consequences likely to follow from your rejection of it. This measure, my Lords, was announced to you in the Speech from the Throne ; and it has been passed by a ma- jority of more than half of the House of Commons. My noble friend says, and with truth, that this vote differs from the original vote given by the same House of Commons, and with the views or with the supposed views of the constituencies. But I do not think, my Lords, that this is a sub- ject which you can take into your consideration ; because you can have no accurate knowledge of the fact ; and because, in the next place, we know that it is the bill of the House of Commons that has come up to us, and we know by the votes which have been passed that it is the bill which has been recommended by the Crown. If we reject this bill, my Lords, we know that we reject the bill which has been passed and agreed to by the two other branches of the constitution, and that the House of Lords will stand alone in rejecting it. This is the consideration with which I beg your Lordships to look at the question. This is a position, my Lords_, in which you ought not, in which you cannot stand ; it is a position in which you are powerless, and can do nothing. You have vast influence on public opinion; but separated from the Crown and from the House of Commons, you can do nothing until the connexion with them is revived. I conclude that a new Government will be formed : be it so or not—do you conclude, my Lords, that there will not be the same measure brought before you by the next Administration Do you mean, then, to reject this bill a second time ? Do you mean that the country shall go on in the discussion of this measure for many months longer ? But, my Lords, I am told that the reply is, that the Parliament should be dissolved—( Loud cheers)— and that the country should have an opportunity, if they think fit, of returning other Representatives, and of seeing whether or not another House of Commons will "wee to this measure. Now, really, my Lords, if you have so much confidence as you appear to have in the results of those elections, und in the decision of public opinion on this question, I think you may safely rely on the elections which must occur in lit•le more than twelve months in the common course of law ; and that you might trust to the Parliament which shall then be elected to take into consideration this law, without interfering with the prerogative of the Crown by obliging it to dissolve Parliament by rejecting this bill. You have now before you, my Lards, the results of rejecting this bill; you will have the option of having another bill brought before you to pass or to reject. If you reject this bill, you can appeal to a new Parliament if you think fit : but, at all events, this measure will not become a law until the year 1819. (Cheers.) The LORD CHANCELLOR then put the question, and declared that the "contents" had it. A loud exclamation of" Non-content " followed ; when the House divided— For the second reading of the Corn Bill—

Contents (Present) 138 Proxies 73 —211 Non-Contents (Present) 126 Proxies 38 'Maj ority --I6447 The Duke of WitraasuroN moved that the Corn Bill be committed on Thursday the 11th of June.—Agreed to. The House then adjourned, at five o'clock on Friday morning, to Thursday the 4th of June.