not altogether denuded of protection. In conclusion, he denied that it was the intention of the Government to treat with the slightest disrespect the agricultural interests, or to dispute the fact that severe distress did exist amongst the owners and occupiers of land; but nothing could be more injurious to them than to hold out an expectation of a return to a system of protection, and thus to divert their attention from the proper means of improving their condition.

Mr. Disraeli rose to support the amendment. There was no question now in the House, he observed, that what was called agricultural distress prevailed in England, Scotland, and Ireland; he wanted no better evidence of this fact than the admission of Mr. Villiers that, within a brief period, a principal branch of national industry had been deprived of between 90,000,000l. and 100,000,0001. by changes in our laws. Yet this distress was noticed in the Speech as 66 complaints," the justice of which was studiously not acknowledged. Was it reasonable that Parliament, after what was passed, should refuse to acknowledge the existence of this distress should not deem it their duty to express their opinions of its cause and their sympathy with the sufferers? The first proposition in the amendment being admitted, nothing could be more legitimate than that those who were convinced that this calamity had been occasioned by recent legislation should respectfully express that opinion to the Sovereign. He cared not whether dukes or peers gave their adhesion to this view of the question; the cause was the cause of labour, or it was nothing. Mr. Disraeli then addressed himself to the arguments of Sir C. Wood, re

iterating his opinion that the exchange and the value of British industry had diminished; he contrasted the conclusions of the right honourable baronet with the result of elaborate calculations in the Economist, showing that during the last four years the manufac turers of Manchester had been manufacturing at a loss; and he endeavoured to demolish the inference drawn from diminished poor-rates. Passing then to the special burdens upon land, he asked the Manchester school if, as they averred, land was only a raw material, why it was taxed-why they did not extend to land the same economical principles as to the other raw materials? The cultivator of the soil, he maintained, had a right to two things: 1st, to be put on the same footing as his fellow-subjects; secondly, to be placed in his own market upon an equality with the foreigner. The object of the amendment was not to abrogate recent laws, but to obtain a recognition by that House of a distress that was notorious, and an expression of its sympathy with the distressed. He counselled the Prime Minister of the Crown to do justice to the land, and he might then rely upon the support of that interest, which would be a surer source of strength than a combination of parties that should place a Jacobin on one side of him and a Conservative on the other.

Lord John Russell professed that he did not understand the drift of the amendment. Sir J. Trollope, the mover, had avowed that it was to lay a ground for reconsidering recent legislation; but Mr. Herries and Mr. Disraeli had given expositions of its object entirely different. Lord John repeated the disavowal given by Mr.

Labouchere, that any insult or disrespect was intended to the agricultural interest by the paragraph in the Speech, which abstained, as it should do, from expressing an opinion upon a subject of recent legislation. He explained shortly the views he had entertained for some years past on the subject of the Corn Laws, resulting in the conviction that they should be repealed; and after a short experience of free-trade measures, the state of the country, in respect to shipping, trade, revenue, and the increased comforts of the great body of the people, vindicated the soundness of this policy. Assuming the prices of corn to continue as low as they were then, which he did not expect, the cost of farming materials and stock would adapt itself to those prices. The real question was, whether the House should take the first step to return to protection; in other words, whether the producers of corn should be secured a price for it by Parliament, which they could not otherwise obtain; and this was a question which concerned not the landed interest only, but the whole body of the people. If a contest were renewed upon this question, who could say what subjects might be mixed with the discussion, and what institutions they might not be called upon to protect? He asked the House to be content with the present state of legislation upon this subject. If any measures of relief could be suggested for the distress of the landed interest, without injustice to other classes, let them be considered; but let no attempt be made to disturb a question now decided, the revival of which would create a doubt as to the stability of their decisions.

Mr. Cobden said, an impression

prevailed out of doors that the question of free trade had not been settled in that House, which was prepared to reconsider the subject of the Corn Laws; but no honest man could desire to keep this question suspended; he would be the greatest enemy of the country at large. The question must some day be decided, and decided against protection; and he could not understand upon what rational principle those persons acted who kept up this hopeless and suicidal agitation. He complained of the vagueness of Mr. Disraeli's speech, and called upon him in the name of the farmers of England to give notice at once of the time when he would discuss the question of protection.

Mr. Henry Drummond and Colonel Thompson addressed the House shortly amidst strong symptoms of impatience.

The House then divided, when the Address was carried by 311 against 192.

Immediately on the reassembling of Parliament Mr. Disraeli had given notice of his intention to bring the claims of the agricultural classes under the consideration of the House of Commons, with a view to inquire whether by some remission of local taxation the grievances endured by that depressed interest might be capa ble of alleviation. On the 19th of February the Hon. Member for Bucks redeemed his engagement by moving for a Committee of the whole House to consider such a revision of the Poor Laws of the United Kingdom as might mitigate the distress of the agricultural classes. He began by observing that the depression amongst those classes continued, nay, became darker and more

lowering; the value of the feesimple of the soil was deteriorating, the factitious employment of the labouring population in the rural districts was daily diminishing; and that it was necessary to inquire into the best course to be taken in order to remove or mitigate this depression. He and his friends believed that it had been caused by recent legislative enactments by the repeal of the laws regulating the importation of foreign products, and that the surest and most efficacious remedy would be to re-establish those laws; but they could not shut their eyes to the practical conclusion that a large majority in Parliament refused to disturb at present a settlement recently arrived at. If, however, the Legislature thought fit to repeal those laws which had so long regu lated the industry of the country, the agricultural classes felt that as they were deprived of that system of protection under which they had enjoyed their property, and pursued their industry, their position should be adapted to this altered state of circumstances, and the system of taxation revised, with reference to a more equal and just distribution; they demanded to be placed upon an equality with their fellow-subjects, and upon equal terms with foreigners in our own market, in regard to the peculiar taxation to which they were subject, and to the fiscal restrictions which prevented them from exerting to the utmost their energy and resources. When the subject of rates had been discussed in that House, there had been a considerable controversy as to the particular class, whether proprietors of the soil or occupiers, upon whom the burden of the impost fell; but the problem, he sar

castically remarked, had been solved the other night, when Mr. Hume rested his support of a representative system of county government upon the assumption that the occupier paid the rates. But the moment the protective laws were repealed, and the land of this country was forced into competition with all the soil of all the quarters of the globe, the Legislature was estopped from considering the relative interests of occupier and owner; it had only to deal with the interests of the land itself. Some persons held that there was a distinction between land and other species of property, in association with political qualification; others maintained that there was no difference that land was only to be considered as a raw material. If the latter opinion were correct, he had asked, and had not been answered, why the same principles were not extended to land as to other raw materials? The facts he had laid before the House upon a former occasion, as to the relalation of the agricultural interest to the general taxation, had not been controverted. He had shown that the classes connected with the soil in England, independent of their contribution to the general revenue, contributed to local taxation (including the land-tax), in England alone, 12,000,000l. It had been argued that real property had been inherited or acquired subject to the poor-rates, but this was not true as regarded Ireland or Scotland, or many portions of land in England. The family of the noble Lord opposite him (Lord John Russell) had not acquired its broad possessions subject to the 43rd Elizabeth. But, if true, as a matter of principle, under recent legislation, was it just? The resolu

tions he should propose in the Committee to mitigate agricultural distress were the following:-1st, That the Poor-Law establishment charges in the United Kingdom (about 1,500,0001.) should be transferred to the general revenue. 2nd, That certain miscellaneous rates which, generally speaking, it was convenient to raise by the machinery of the Poor Law, but which had nothing to do with the maintenance of the poor, such as registration of births and deaths, preparation of jury lists, &c., should also be defrayed by the Consolidated Fund. 3rd, That the charge for the casual poor throughout the United Kingdom should likewise be transferred to the general revenue. These propositions, he contended, were just and practicable; they required no new machinery and destroyed no old; and the bulk of the amount could be furnished by the balance in the Exchequer.

Sir George Grey expressed his satisfaction at the admission made by Mr. Disraeli, that a return to our former system of commercial policy was in the present Parliament impossible. Although it had been assumed by him that there existed extensive and deep distress throughout the agricultural districts, there was no proof that such distress, which had arisen from a combination of causes, still continued; on the contrary, trying the condition of those districts by the tests applied to other classes -crime and pauperism-that condition appeared to have improved, though wages had been in some parts unduly reduced. Mr. Dis raeli had made a grave omission in passing by without notice an allimportant question as respected the Poor Law, affecting the great bulk of the agricultural popula

tion, namely, the Law of Settlement. In endeavouring to show the unjust operation of the poorrate, as falling exclusively upon real property, Mr. Disraeli had fallen into the same error he had committed last year, in confounding the contribution to the poor-rate by the great bulk of real property with the portion contributed by the landed interest, as if the classes connected with the soil bore exclusively the burden of the rate. Real property had been held to be liable to the rate ever since the reign of Elizabeth, and stock in trade had practically been exempted; but Mr. Disraeli had omitted to notice the decrease of the burden of poor-rates upon real property, and the larger proportion which fell upon other real property in comparison with land. With reference to the propositions intended to be made by Mr. Disraeli in Committee, Sir George admitted that there might be items in the union establishment charges which did not properly attach to the local administration; but if the local check were removed from the expenditure, by its transfer to the Exchequer, there would be the greatest extravagance. So, with respect to the second proposition: without prejudicing the consideration hereafter of the question as to the expediency of transferring a part of the charges to the Consolidated Fund, he could not recommend their transfer at present. As to the last, the relief of the casual poor, Mr. Disraeli had not given even an estimate of the expense of this item. The whole amount of relief afforded to the agricultural classes from all these sources would be trifling, and nothing could be more injurious to those classes than to encourage them to

expect relief from Parliament, and from the removal of minor charges, instead of applying their capital and energies to the land; for if they did so, it would be unjust to these classes to suppose they could not, like other classes, successfully compete with foreign countries. He opposed the motion. Mr. Charteris, Mr. Seymer, Sir John Tyrrell, and Lord John Manners supported the motion, contending that it involved a measure of justice to the agriculturists, without any injustice to other classes. The last-named speaker controverted Sir George Grey's inferences drawn from the state of crime and pauperism in the rural districts, which he considered to be fallacious.

Mr. Anderson, Mr. Rice, and Mr. Hobhouse opposed the motion, although admitting to some extent the inequalities of taxation, but strongly discountenancing the idea of returning to protection. Mr. Bright spoke on the same side.He said he did not dispute the fact of agricultural distress, although Mr. Disraeli had stated no case in which the fee of the land was depreciated, or rent had been permanently lowered. Unless the proposition could stand by itself, without connection with protection, it was inadmissible; it was, he admitted, practical and simple, but the result would be that the occupiers of the soil would add so much to the rental of the proprietors as was subtracted from their rates. The time, however, was gone by for Parliament to transfer taxes from real property to industry and consumption, and he would not be a party to such a measure.

Mr. Henry Drummond said, the farmers felt themselves deeply agrieved; betrayed by those in whom

they had trusted, and treated with indifference, they saw the manufac turing and trading interests, when whining suppliants, listened to with sympathy. Parliament had anuihilated half the capital of the tenant-farmers, and reduced the value of land one-half; the result of which was that every tenant who had borrowed his capital must fail, and every estate that was mortgaged must be sold. He ridiculed the hollow pretexts under which, he alleged, the free-traders had deluded our labourers, who were now superseded by foreigners; and he warned them against a coming struggle between capital and labour, between wealth and life.

Sir James Graham agreed that this question was a very large one; if he thought it could be narrowed within the limits prescribed to it in Mr. Disraeli's speech, he should be willing to rest his vote upon the arguments of Sir George Grey. But the question under debate was not less than this-whether we should commence an entire review of the whole fiscal burdens of the country; for Mr. Disraeli had avowed that this was but one of a series of transfers; it was but a fragment of the large measure brought forward last Session in gross. Mr. Disraeli had frankly said that he excluded the land-tax only "for the sake of argument;" other Members had hinted at the malt tax; so that really the question was whether 18,000,000l. or 20,000,000l. should be transferred from the land to the Consolidated Fund. This was a question of immense magnitude, affecting our whole fiscal system, involving a revival of the policy of the last five or six years; and more than this, it was a question of a change of Administration, for