837 State of the Country→→→

{DEC. 9}

Lord Wynford's Motion. 838

employment which the farmers were unable | It had been constantly asserted, that the
Corn-laws were, in fact, the great, and
almost the only cause of the evil. If this
were so, let the Corn-laws be repealed. He
had no objection himself to the repeal of
the Corn-laws; his interest in them was
but small; and though he was certainly
the friend of the landed interest, yet he
was no further the friend of it than because
he was convinced that every thing which
affected the landed interest must affect at
the same time all the other interests of the
country. He saw no objection to the
Corn-laws being repealed, if, at the same
time, their Lordships took away those
burthens which weighed peculiarly on the
landed interest. He was quite sure that
the Corn-laws of 1826 were of no use
to the agricultural interest. They might
be, and he believed they were, useful to
the speculator: they might, and he be-
lieved they did, encourage a spirit of
gambling, which had originated on the
Stock Exchange, but which now affected
all our markets, which deranged the whole
economy of our domestic life, and which
caused uncertainty in every species of
property throughout the country. The
part of the Corn-laws to which he more
particularly alluded was that which re-

to give them. The throwing up the poor
land, which required more labour than
rich land, was one cause of the want of
employment, and of the distress; and the
object of their Lordships ought to be, if
possible, so to relieve the farmer, that he
might advantageously cultivate the poor
land. He would beg of their Lordships
also to recollect what had taken place since
1793. Since that time settlements had
been made, and money had been borrowed
upon estates, in a very different standard
from what then prevailed. How were
these incumbrances to be discharged, if a
return was made to the standard of 1793?
Besides, if such a deduction were to take
place, would the landed proprietor be in
the same state as the rest of the com-
munity? Certainly not; for, with the
rents of 1793, he could not afford to give
those prices which articles fetched in 1830.
The necessaries and the luxuries of life
had been, some of them, doubled, some of
them trebled, in price, since 1793. Unless,
therefore, every thing else were reduced
in the same proportion with rents, the
consequence of returning to rents of 1793
would be, that the landed gentlemen
would be degraded from their station.
Nor would this be the only consequence-gulated importation; but, among the
the landed gentlemen would not be the
only persons who would suffer by such a
reduction; all who were dependent on
them, servants, labourers, and small
shopkeepers, all these would suffer in the
same proportion with those by whom they
were supported. He should presently
show also, that if this principle were acted
upon, the manufacturing and commercial
interests of the country must, and would,
fall with the agricultural interests.
Their
Lordships would recollect, that in dealing
with this subject, allusion had very
frequently been made to bad seasons.
These were stated to have been great
causes of distress; and there could be no
doubt that such calamities must have had
their effect. They were told last year that
the badness of the season was the great
cause of the evil then complained of; but
now they had had a good season, and yet the
evil not only remained, but it had increas-
ed. This circumstance shewed, he thought,
that the causes of our distress were not
yet accurately known, and were worthy of
the consideration of their Lordships. The
next circumstance put forward to account
for the evil was, the state of the Corn-laws,

objections to the Corn-laws, and those
objections were as serious as they were
numerous,-none appeared to him to be
so strong as the objection to the mode
of striking the averages. These averages
were regulated by the price of British
corn, and, while Irish corn was to be con-
sidered as British corn, he must say, that
he thought it very hard that the price of
Irish corn was not included in the aver-
ages. While he was upon this subject,
allow him to observe, that he thought our
neighbours-he meant the French-were,
in some things, wiser than we were. In
France there was a distinction made be-
tween corn carried in French vessels, and
corn carried in vessels of any other country.
We made no such distinction; and he was
very much afraid that foreigners went back
with their ballast and their money for their
corn, and took none of our manufactures
in return. And this led him to speak of
those burthens which were exclusively
borne by the agricultural interest.
these burthens it would not be too much
to say, that they amounted to 25 per cent
at the very least; and yet the agricul-
tural interest had no equivalent protection

Of

given them in return-that was to say, no protection which gave them any remuneration. Thus, for instance, the Poorlaws attached almost exclusively to the land. At the period of the enactment of the Poor-laws the time of Elizabethvery little commercial wealth could be touched by these laws.-very little was in existence; but all the land was reached by them. They reached also the inhabitants of towns, it was true; but only their viseble, not their actual, means were adocced by the Statute of that queen, the same was the case now, and at the presen, Pine the landed interest paid more Glau Place Marins of the poor-rates: the added interest paid ins, and paid it, too. 10% the support, not of its own voor only, Sui & de ardidiäcturing poor also. He Lauships that this

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that came into competition with the growth of our own soil was admitted, at almost a nominal duty. But why, he would ask, should it be thought necessary to neglect one interest while they protected another? The profession which he had followed, and the high station which he had had the honour to fill, taught him the principle of perfectly equal justice, and that principle demanded that those burthens which it was necessary to impose upon the community should be equally borne by all is various parts. He was sorry to have de tained their Lordships so long; but there was yet one topic upon which he felt it neces sary to touch. He need not tell their Lordships how loud the complaints of distres were, nor was it necessary for him to inquire into the truth of the assertion, that the distress complained of was generaly Seit. He believed, however, that that sertion was true. Let their Lordships

ree to his motion, and inquire into fact, i they had any doubts upon the sub set; but he was convinced that the m ruteturing and commercial interesti sympathized with the landed interest. zueeu, D:s was the necessary const quence of the stress which was unive Suv Catted to prevail in the landed erest. It was quite as impossible that

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841

State of the Country—

{DEC. 9} Lord Wynford's Motion.

842

paid a tax here, and that left two millions ple were so stupid as not to attend to the
as the whole of the income-tax upon com-wise opinions of our political economists,
merce, manufactures, trades, and profes- who told them to take our manufactures,
sions; while the land alone paid six mil--they refused to do so-they manu-
lions. Could it be denied, after that fact, factured their own goods. The Danes did
that the landed interest was the most the same. He had seen a very clever Essay
important in the country? And if so, was
it not likely, as he had asserted, that the
depression of that interest in the home
market must depress all the rest, and must
produce all those evils of which so many
complaints were now heard? He might
add, with regard to the calculation he
had just made, that he believed it would
be found that three-fourths of the money
paid on behalf of the towns was pro-
duced from the owner of the land and
his tenants, and from those who were
concerned in the home trade of the coun-
try. He did not undervalue the foreign
trade, but he did not think that, in order
to preserve it, we should sacrifice our in-
ternal means of prosperity. If we fostered
and encouraged our home trade, and,
above all, our agriculture, we should be
happy and independent. If the foreign
trade left us, as there was good reason to
believe it would, still we should find ample
means for the development of our industry
in the home market, and in our commerce
with our colonies. Our merchants, who
fetched for our use the produce of the
earth from the most distant of its extremi-
ties, and whose skill and perseverance had
enabled them to convert what at first ap-
peared a barrier into a more easy means
of universal communication, would still be
able to keep us, in any case of necessity,
above the possibility of a deficient sup-
ply, so that it was impossible a country
like this could ever feel itself dependent
on any other for a supply of corn. He
repeated, therefore, that, to preserve our
foreign trade, we ought not to sacrifice
our agriculture and our home trade, on the
success of which depended much of the
moral courage and energy of the people of
this country. We saw already symptoms
of the decline of our foreign commerce,
and we ought to provide ourselves with a
substitute in the additional encouragement
given to our agriculture. Our commerce
was declining, because other countries
had become, like us, manufacturers.
France had her manufactures; America
had hers, and to that extent, too, that
they had occasioned a great falling off in
our exports. The Russians and Germans,
also, had their manufactures. Those peo-

no doubt very clever-in which the Danes were told not to manufacture their own cloth, because they could get it so much cheaper here; but they said, "If I buy from you I must pay money for it, but if Ï buy it at home I may appear to pay a little dearer for it, but I can make that payment in paper." In his opinion, we ought to follow the same course, and give the same answer to the advice of those political economists who recommend us to buy the agricultural produce of other countries, and to continue to pay in gold; for, whilst we paid in money, we diminished our means of competition, and threw out of employ the workmen by whose labour we were supported. He would just call the attention of the House to the history of the years 1815, 1816, 1817, 1818, and 1820, in confirmation of what he had just stated. If they read the history of those years, they would see that our manufacturing interests were, as they always must be, affected by the prosperity or decline of our agriculture. When the latter flourished, the former were prosperous; when the latter declined, the former felt the consequences of the pressure. In 1815, corn, from the monopoly of agriculture existing during the war, in consequence of which our lands were well cultivated, was very cheap; and though he admitted that manufactures were then suddenly depressed, he knew that that depression was occasioned by other circumstances. In 1816 the quantity of corn in the country was exhausted, and the agricultural interests were distressed. In the same manner the manufactures were affected. In 1817 the corn got up in price; no supply was obtained from abroad, and corn was at 105s. per quarter; yet, in spite of that, and because the agricultural interest was flourishing, manufactures were in a prosperous condition, and the Prince Regent, in the opening Speech of the Session, congratulated Parliament on the flourishing state of the country. In 1818 both the agricultural and the commercial interests were prosperous, but in 1820 corn fell lower than it had ever before been known, and manufactures at the same time suffered an exactly similar depression. At that

time his Majesty, in his Speech from the Throne, expressed his sorrow at the unfortunate state of the country. He now begged to remind the noble Earl, at present at the head of his Majesty's Government, that when the Address in answer to the Speech was moved, that noble Earl desired that some expressions of a stronger nature than those inserted in the Address should be employed, for he asserted that those expressions, strong as they were, were not strong enough to express the feelings of that House on the subject of the distress of the country. He was satisfied that it was quite impossible to find a stronger instance than that he had just alluded to of the fact, that when the agricultural interest was depressed, the manufactures inevitably suffered along with it. He wished now to mention another circumstance, not less important than the flourishing or decayed state of the trade of the country-he meant that of the danger of famine if the agriculture of our country should be suffered to go without its full support. That danger had existed when agriculture was in a better state than now. In 1817, if we had had Cornlaws such as those now in force, that evil would have happened, for, instead of corn being 105s. a quarter, he believed that a great part of the people would have perished from famine. The same causes which produced a scarcity in England would produce it abroad. We ought not, therefore, to trust to the foreign market, but to encourage our own agriculture generally, so that the deficiencies of one year might be supplied by the abundance of another.

He was

sure, that unless care was taken to accomplish this object, some dreadful famine would fall on the country, and the fault would be on their Lordships' heads if that occurrence was not fully provided against. In the course of his professional life he had become a little acquainted with the matter of Exchanges, and, from what he had learnt, he was of opinion, and he believed others agreed with him, that the exchanges of the country ought to be kept as uniform as possible; at least, that they ought not to be allowed to go against us. That which he regarded as an evil-the exchanges being against us-was a matter always determined by the importation or non-importation of corn. During two of the years which he had before referred to, when corn

had been imported, the exchanges were

against us, in one instance, to as great an amount as 6 per cent; when the importa tion ceased, the exchanges rose, and in a very short time were actually in our favour. In his opinion, protection ought equally to be given to every species of labour; and he was quite sure, that in any measure that would have that tendency the people would find as great a blessing as the Legislature could bestow. The same cause which depressed the agricultural interest deprived a part of the industry of the country of that protection which it deserved. The agricultural produce of this country was, in consequence, not equal now to what it had been in some former years. In what he had already stated he had not mentioned all the causes of the present distress, but all those things which were usually described as the causes of it. He asked their Lordships to eramine all these, to see whether they were all, or whether there were others, that contributed to produce the distress, and whe ther that distress was what it was described to be. He should rejoice if it turned out that the distress which was stated to exist did not really exist, for such a circumstance would be the best answer to those people who availed themselves of the distresses of the country to commit the excesses of which they had lately heard so much. He would not diminish the security of the fund-holder; be would not deny that per son's just demands upon the State; but he was persuaded that if things went on as they did, though the fund-holder might now have his full dividend, the security of his property would be worth nothing. He would not appeal to their Lordships on the score of interest-that would be the last motive which would influence their conduct; their only motive was, to exert themselves in the best manner possible for the good of the country for the protection of others, not of themselves. Their Lordships held their high situation to protect the interests of the poor, who could not protect themselves; for their sakes he implored the House to adopt some course of inquiry, in order to discover some means of remedy for present evils.

If a course better

than that he now pointed out could be shown, he was not so bigotted to his own opinions, nor so prejudiced against those of other people, as to refuse to yield his own to a better plan. All he wanted was some effort to relieve the country from its present distresses. For that he appealed