were afraid to order corn from any of the nearest markets, and therefore they did not order it from America. He then entered into an enquiry as to the reasons why a flourishing trade with America had been carried on in 1836, in spite of the Corn-laws; ascribing it in great part to the enormous investment at that period of British capital in the stocks, shares, and various enterprising companies of America; a process which could not permanently continue. He then considered the practical effect of admitting corn from America, which being paid for in British manufactures, a stimulus would be given to employment-the expenditure of persons so engaged would return to its former scale-poorrates would be reduced - the wholesale dealers, as well as the shopkeepers, would participate in the general improvement, and be relieved from the necessity of observing a rigid economy-and thus the revival of trade would be felt through the whole frame-work of society. In the present juncture, he could not conceal from himself that things wore a most serious aspect, and that a feeling, once confined to the Chartists, was now dangerously extending itself to the middle classes. He did not expect the Government to retrace their steps at present; but the country had a right to expect that, if the Ministers were not able to discover other means of affording relief to the people, at all events they would not suffer the present year to close without summoning Parliament again; and then, if they had no measure of their own to suggest, to try what would be the effect of that course of policy which had been recommended to them by their opponents.

Mr. Ellice said, that unjust legislation had brought the price of the best wheat-he did not speak of the average-to 70s. a quarter and upwards. He imputed the present, as well as former visitations of distress, to tampering with the currency. In 1822 money was so abundant that an immense quantity of the capital of the country had been swallowed up in South American loans. The Bank of England had even offered to advance two millions of money to the United States Bank, which was now accused of dealing unfairly with its creditors. In fact, this country had stimulated overspeculation in America, and now the bubble had burst. Mr. Ellice gave a qualified approval to the measures of Government; but condemned the way in which his constituents, the silk-weavers of Coventry, had been exposed to attack, without equivalent advantages being secured to them.

Mr. Sharman Crawford said, as the distress was not so great in Bolton as in some districts, the cotton and woollen trades there not being entirely at a stand-still, though the privations of the people were very great-and as Belfast was for the time deprived of a representative-he should plead the cause of the Irish town. The working classes there were undergoing the greatest suffering: in Newtownards, the workhouse could not receive all the applicants for relief. He maintained that there was no over-population; for four acres of land could support five individuals, while the population of England and Wales was about 14,000,000, and the number of arable acres 32,000,000. He urged, therefore, resort to the small allotment system; admitting that total repeal of the Corn-laws

would do some good; and he should not object to a proper system of emigration. The patience of the people under their sufferings had been much spoken of; but he could not acknowledge it as a merit in a people to bear injustice with too much patience; and he warned those in high places to be cautious, lest the present quiet should be but the awful calm that sometimes preceded a storm.

Lord Palmerston said, he could not support the motion, as it was open to technical difficulties; but he agreed that Government ought not to content themselves with objections to the formal motion, or with mere expressions of regret and sympathy, and laudations of the people's patience under severe suffering; they should open their views in respect to practical measures for the relief of the fearful distress which prevailed: "It appeared that, without any steps taken, or any assurance given, Parliament was to be prorogued within a few weeks: honourable Gentlemen were to be sent to the country for their partridge-shooting, for their grouse-shooting, for their pheasant-shooting, for their cockshooting-(Cries of "Oh, oh!" and laughter) and so to rest until February next, as if the country were in a state of the most perfect prosperity; and that the Government were to sit during that long period in a condition of inertness and inactivity, while the people were perishing-motionless, stirless to relieve their dire distress, and without the slightest effort to remedy the misery of the country-waiting for they knew not what events-expecting relief they knew not from whence or when-and looking, it would appear, alone to some miraculous in

terposition of Providence in their favour for the rescue of the country from ruin. Perhaps they looked to the approaching harvest for a remedy ?-if they did, they looked, in his opinion, to a broken reed. The harvest might, it was true, be a good one; but it could not by any possibility be abundant. ("Oh,oh!") The sun of the summer could not repair the injury wrought by the rains of autumn. He admitted that the principles of the Tariff were just; but they had been abandoned in so many cases, or their operation so postponed in others, as to leave no hope of present advantage to the community. Did Government look to private charity?-it was exhausted; besides, it must be withdrawn from the fund for the payment of labour. Did they intend a grant from the public money?-that must increase the pressure on the people at large. Perhaps they called on the Opposition to propose the remedy; the answer of the Opposition was, that the channels of trade were choked, and ought to be cleared; and that the remedy for the distress would be found in a removal of the duties upon corn and sugar. America owed you large sums; she could pay you in corn, but you would not allow her. You might get sugar in abundance from Brazil; yet you refused it, on the score of some mysterious treaty, although there was a sufficient treaty already in existence for the suppression of the Slave-trade, requiring only to be executed. He himself, however, did not take a desponding view of the future; he believed that the affairs of the country would be restored. Not that he anticipated any great increase in our European commerce, so effec

tually were nations often blinded to their real interests by their political jealousies; which was remarkably the case with France. In Germany, our perseverance in duties upon timber and corn had begotten manufactures adverse to ours. We must look then to North and South America, to Africa, to Arabia, but above all, to China and to India. In some of those countries, our duties on corn and on sugar obstructed us; but, in India, the great measure taken by the late Government in Affghanistan had opened a wide field for British commerce. That the present Government approved and must continue that policy, he inferred from the fact, that they had requested Lord Auckland to remain at the head of the Indian government."

Lord Stanley said, that a very narrow view was taken of the subject, when it was asked whether Government intended to take no step. He admitted with pain the existence of distress; but he had a conviction that some of its causes were beyond the reach of human legislation: "He would challenge the boldest free-trader to deny, that there had been a great aggravation of the distress by the bad harvests of the last four years. The free admission of foreign corn might benefit the manufacturers; but the consumer would not benefit, and the loss of capital and wealth could not be made up. Lord Palmerston said, that many a seed had been sown, which had not been ripened by the summer sun; many political seeds which have been sown do ripen. The noble Lord said We might look to distant markets; we might look to North America, but that we are there met by the Corn-laws: are we not

"It

met also by jealousies and ill-feeling fostered by the noble Lord? In South America, the same hand was visible in disputes and blockades. To China he turned with pain, for he saw there a doubtful war against an unwarlike people. In central Asia, to establish an imaginary bulwark against an imaginary foe, the noble Lord had brought upon us a series of anxieties and losses. Lord Palmerston would meddle in all parts of the world, engaging in petty wars; and he left to the present Ministers the task of restoring the disturbed commerce of India.' Mr. Wallace's proposition could be productive of no sort of advantage, while it would embark the House in a fruitless discussion on a vast variety of topics. The existence of the distress was universally agreed in; but the causes to which it had been assigned, were various : is said to arise from the taxation of the country, from the change in the Poor-law, from the Corn-law, from the currency, from the increase of machinery, from the monetary difficulties of the United States, from the war in India, in China (which some honourable Members do not believe to be so fortunate), from the increase of population, from the Tariff and commercial treaties, from the large farms, a division of which is thought advisable-from reciprocity treaties; one honourable Member attributes it to the advances we are making in free trade-others to want of education, to deficient facilities for emigration, to the denial of universal suffrage, to the timber duties, and the duties on sugar. All these are separately pointed out by different honourable Gentlemen, as causes of the present distress; to each of which the attention of

a Committee would be directedeach of which must be investigated, and inquiry taken what alterations were to be made, and what obstacles it was necessary to remove."

After this speech an adjourn ment was again proposed, and the debate stood over to a third night, notwithstanding the remonstrances of Sir R. Peel and other Members against so large a consumption of the public time upon subjects already so often discussed.

The debate was renewed by Mr. O'Connell, who urged the Ministry to try the experiment, justified by the awful state of the country, of at once releasing from bond the 1,500,000 quarters of corn.

The resolutions were opposed by Lord Eliot, Mr. Escott, Mr. Borthwick, Mr Childers, and Mr. Grimsditch; and supported by Mr. P. M. Stewart, General Johnson, and Mr. Mark Phillips.

Mr. Leader condemned the Tariff for disturbing all the smaller interests, and leaving the larger untouched. He urged the necessity of enlarging our foreign trade, and asked what had become of the commercial treaties with France and Spain ?

Mr. Charles Buller made a defence of the late Government's policy in India and China; challenging their antagonists to prove a single instance in which it had injured the trade of the country; while they had largely encouraged the growth of sugar and the improvement of the cotton culture in India. But the main point of his speech consisted in enumerating in a catalogue raisonnée those articles of common food and domestic use on which the Tariff does not lower the duties-bread, butter, cheese, milk, beer, tea, sugar, soap, can

dles, fuel, leather; there was a reduction on coffee, and also on meat, coupled with the assurance that no meat would be introduced. Government had done nothing for the immediate relief of the people, but had refused emigration, a grant of public money, and alteration of the Poor-law. Such a course of legislation could only end in a change of the representative system.

Mr. Ewart having said a few words in support of the resolutions, the House was addressed by Mr. Cobden at considerable length. He argued that machinery does not throw people out of employment; for its perfection and introduction to practical use are too gradual suddenly to do so. Before Arkwright's time in 1767, only 30,000 persons were employed in the cotton manufactures, and now there are a million and a half. The agricultural districts, where there is no machinery, send their people to be employed in the districts where there is. And in cotton-weaving districts and the Potteries, where the machinery is simple and antiquated, the people are in as bad a state as in Manchester. Machinery, therefore, is not the cause of the distress. He described the condition of Stockport, with 60,000 inhabitants, earning 500,000l. a year; but in process of being eaten up by the poor. Other large towns are approaching the same state; and what is to be done with such masses of people? They cannot be left to starve. Hinckley, 11. an acre is paid by the land to the Poor-rate; and he begged to remind the landowners that the common law gives a rate in aid of towns whose funds are exhausted He called on Sir Robert Peel (whom he found himself to have supported with his vote

In

oftener than he had supported Lord John Russell) not to treat the subject with quibbles respecting the operation of machinery, nor as a mere "Manchester question," but to look at it in connexion with the whole condition of the country; and it must be done this session.

Mr. Ferrand argued against the resolutions. He was followed by Mr. Villiers and Mr. Roebuck, the latter urging the Legislature to put aside party, to consider the great interest of the greatest of nations as brethren assembled together; and, viewing the state of the country, to ask themselves whether a remedy for at least a part of the evil might not lie within their power.

Mr. Fielden then moved the adjournment of the debate.

Sir Robert Peel strongly opposed it. It was thrice put in a varied form, and thrice rejected by large majorities.

Ultimately a division took place on Mr. Wallace's resolutions, when there appeared, for the resolutions 49; against, 174: majority 125.

The debate just recorded took place on the 8th of July. On the 11th, it having been moved to go into Committee of Supply, the Opposition party again succeeded in introducing the subject of the state of the nation; and a long debate took place.

Mr. Villiers-having moved as an Amendment for the appointment of a Select Committee on the laws regulating the importation of corn, with a view to their total repeal prefaced his motion with a speech, in which he said that he brought it forward in compliance with the wish of the Anti-Corn-law delegates; and because, in discussing Mr. Wallace's motion, a taunt had been thrown out by the Ministe

rial side, that if the Opposition thought that a repeal of the Cornlaws would remedy the evil, they ought to submit that proposition to the House. Moreover, the new law, he said, had proved a failure; and, since it had passed, the principle had been avowed by Members of the Government, that the people ought to be allowed to purchase food wherever they could, and on the best terms.

Mr. Fielden seconded the motion, with statements to illustrate the impoverished condition of the hand-loom weavers.

Mr. Philip Howard deprecated the delay of the supplies, as tending to aggravate the distress of the country; and he foresaw in the repeal of the Corn-laws, merely the addition of agricultural to manufacturing distress.

Mr. Aglionby declared the new sliding-scale was a delusion. He prophesied that Parliament would be obliged to repeal the law before the winter.

Mr. Gally Knight objected to the discussion of a question already exhausted; and Sir Charles Napier, though condemning the Cornlaw, thought that these debates ought not to be protracted; that it was a very unfair way of conducting an opposition to any Government.

Sir Robert Peel began by complaining of the continual interruption to public business, and of the impediments opposed to a fair trial of the new Corn-law.

men on the other side have, though I will not say intentionally, adopted a course which in effect prevents my measure from having a fair trial; whilst any hope exists that Parliament will be induced to alter the law, and that corn might be admitted into this country on more