ticles which were to be admitted at lower | England. The owners of the other interates. The aggregate thus risked was rests in those lands may possibly-though 2,326,105. Now, he would take one item he (Sir R. H. Inglis) thought not with any only, that of spirits. Foreign spirits were certainty-hereafter, at the distance of now admitted at a duty of 17. 2s. 10d. per some years, and with an amount of intergallon; henceforth they were to be ad- mediate misery which has not hitherto mitted at 15s. per gallon. Either the been described in these debates, be enaconsumption of foreign spirits would remain bled to recover rents equal, perhaps, to the same, in which case the revenue would those at present. We have learnt now to lose 413,7911. every year; or it would rise, produce meat by the plough; the applicaaccording to the diminished price, and, in tion of science to agriculture has enabled that case, you would gain the same duty the farmer by his green crops to provide by having distributed more than half a food for cattle, to a degree unknown even million of ardent foreign spirits throughout fifty years ago; and by the conversion of the country, increasing the temptations to arable to pasture lands, the actual revenue crime, as well as disturbing many of the to the lord may possibly be as great a few existing commercial interests of the people. years hence as now. But there is one class The second point to which he wished of proprietors for whom no such resource briefly to direct the attention of the House, is open. They are irrevocably bound to was the gross injustice of the measure as receive an unvarying quantity of one artirelated to the owner of tithe-rent-charge. cle of produce at a lower and a lower price. His hon. Friend who seconded the Amend- Is not the object of your measure to ensure ment (Sir J, Y. Buller) had with great a lower price? If it be not, and if such force and effect impressed this point on the be not the result, you have needlessly disHouse. He would not weary the House turbed all the social and domestic interests by referring, except passingly, to the mea- of the country; if it be, and if it succeed, sure for the commutation of tithes, which you have perpetrated a gross injustice not became law only some seven or eight years merely on an unprotected class, but on that ago. At the time he stated that, without very class which, on the faith of your own entering into the question of the divine laws, within the last eight years, you have right of tithes, nothing was clearer than compelled to exchange their old security that tithes were the oldest legal property on the broad lands of England for a barin England. That property the owners gain which you are yourselves the first to did not desire to exchange for any other. violate. On the third point, he (Sir R. Without their request, and against their H. Inglis) would be very brief. He was, interest, the Legislature compelled the in fact, hardly able, as the House would surrender of this property in exchange for perceive, to make himself heard. He rethe present rent-charge. A bargain is a ferred to the injustice done to the landed. bargain whether made with a man in a interest, not merely by the measure itself, black coat, or with a man in a blue coat. but by the delay of the measures which That bargain you made with the tithe- ought contemporaneously to have been owner. You told him, that, instead of brought before the House. It was possible having the first interest in the soil of Eng- that the measure now on the Table might land, whether cultivated or uncultivated, become law; while the compensatory meawhenever it might be brought to bear pro- sures, however inefficient they were for duce, he should have hereafter, in refer- actual relief, might not even be proposed. ence to that land only which at the date of He repeated that he did not much value the compact was under cultivation, a cer- them: he thought that the transfer of tain number of bushels of wheat, at a price some large portion of the poor's rate to the varying according to the average of a cer- Consolidated Fund would have been a far tain number of preceding years; that greater relief to the landed interest, while wheat being a protected article, protected it would distribute the burden more equally, by the laws for the encouragement of na- as it ought. His fourth point was, the tive industry and native produce. What utter inapplicability of the proposed meais the case now? You introduce a mea- ure to the relief of the evil which it prosure, without the consent of the tithe rent-fessed to meet. There was no more concharge owner, which is, according to your own showing, to diminish the value of that which you have given him, in exchange for an absolute right over all the lands of exion between them than, according to the popular version of the old saying, there was between Tenterden Steeple and Goodwin Sands. He fully admitted that his right hon. Friend at the head of the Government was perfectly sincere in his present course. He could have no conceivable motive for it except such sincerity. He was to govern England on his own principles, and not on those of any other man : on his own honest convictions to-day, not on those which he might have held with equal honesty yesterday. But, while he admitted this most fully, he could not repeat, what he had stated on a former occasion, that exactly in proportion as he acquitted his right hon. Friend as a man, he must depreciate him as a statesman-all whose opinions on commercial policy must have been wrong for the thirty-five years of his past public life, if his opinions for the last three months were right. Though he did not think that a case had been made out for opening the ports in November last, that at least was, in point of time, a remedy more near to the disease than the measure now in progress. A famine is threatened in Ireland this spring; and you meet it by a measure which is to take effect on the 1st February, 1849. His right hon. Friend (Sir R. Peel) said on this day month, that the climax of the distress would be three months onward. How is scarcity to be cured or relieved in Ireland three months hence, by importing corn duty-free three years since? Upon every ground he concurred with the Amendment moved, in a speech of such talent, by his hon. Friend the Member for Cambridgeshire (Mr. Yorke), though he did not quite follow him in some of the latter allusions in that speech. He retained his old convictions in favour of his own country, and of the duty of protecting the interests of England, rather than of encouraging those of Poland or Russia. He was not of that school who looked with equal regard or equal indifference to all other countries and to his MR. CHILDERS gave his approbation to the present measure, under the conviction that the price of corn in this country would not be at all reduced by a system of free trade. A return which was prepared at the Foreign Office last year, proved, on the authority of our Consuls, that the price of bread in England was as low as in any part of the world. It was a fact that bread in London was chaper than in Ostend and Antwerp, and that the steamers plying between England and Belgium invariably laid in their stock of bread in London. The price of inferior bread at Dantzic was 24d. per lb., at Warsaw 31d., at Hamburg 21d., Amsterdam 34d. At Odessa bread was 2id. per lb., though corn was only 28s. a quarter, and in each of those cases bread in London was lower in price per lb. Marseilles was comparatively near Odessa, and drew a great quantity of corn from that port; and yet it was a singular fact, corn in Marseilles was at times dearer than in England. Why, then, should we be afraid of the effects of free trade? The right hon. Baronet at the head of the Government had declared "that there was a remarkable tendency apart from all legislation, to a decline in the price of wheat in this country," Now this was a proposition opposed to his view. The right hon. Baronet hatl quoted in support of the argument the average prices during periods of five years each, fom 1800 to 1830; but there was a fallacy in this argument. The right hon. Baronet had left the question of the currency entirely out of consideration. When the currency assumed a natural and healthy condition, the prices rose. From 1825 to 1830, for instance, the price was 56s. 7d.; but from 1830 to 1835, the average was 57s. 11d. Wool, and other articles, fluctuated in the same way, and ultimately the same results were produced. He also anticipated great benefit from free trade, by opening the ports of other nations. He felt assured that our good example would be everywhere followed, and that an extension of peace and civilization would be the consequence. Debate adjourned. House adjourned at half-past Twelve o'clock. INDEX - 1R. 2R. 3R. First, Second, or Third Reading-Amend., Amendment.-Res., Resolution.--Com. Original Question. A., Ayes.- N., Noes *It has seemed better, instead of incumbering this Index with a reference to Private Bills, upon which ABERDEEN, Earl of Basilian Nuns of Minsk, 768 ALLIX, Mr. J. P., Cambridgeshire Oregon Boundary, The, Correspondence moved Andover Union, The for, 1116 ACLAND, Sir T. D., Devonshire, N. ADDERLEY, Mr. C. B., Staffordshire, N. AGLIONBY, Mr. H., Cockermouth Andover Union, The, Com. moved for, 672 Fraudulent Objections to Voters, Com. moved Frost, Williams and Jones, Address moved, 904 Agricultural Protection 7. Petition (Earl of Hardwicke), 473 VOL. LXXXIV. {Third } Series, c. Com. moved for (Mr. Etwall), 625; Amend. Aqueducts-Standing Orders c. Question (Capt. B. Osborne), 1044, ASHBURTON, Lord Game Laws, 2R. 13 Metropolitan Buildings, 2R. 1219 Oregon Boundary, The, Correspondence moved ATTORNEY GENERAL, The (Sir F. Thesi- ger), Abingdon Bequests for Pious and Charitable Purposes, 2R. 599 AUCKLAND, Earl of Sutlej, Campaign on the, Thanks to the Army, 379 3 B AUSTEN, Colonel T., Kent, W. BANKES, Mr. G., Dorsetshire Corn Laws, Total Repeal of the, 472, 527, 531 BARING, Right Hon. F. T., Portsmouth BARING, Mr. T., Huntingdon c. Papers moved for (Hon. W. F. Cowper), 767 BEAUMONT, Lord Basilian Nuns of Minsk, 768 Bellerophon and Rodney, The, BENTINCK, Lord W. G. F. C., King's Commercial Policy-Corn Laws, Com. moved Bequests for Pious and Charitable Pur- c. 2R. 578, [A. 24, N. 60, M. 36] 619 BORTHWICK, Mr. P., Evesham Bequests for Pious and Charitable Purposes, Cheltenham Petition, The, Instruction, 521 Corn Laws, Total Repeal of the, 467, 545 BROTHERTON, Mr. J., Salford Cheltenham Petition, The, Instruction, 514 BROUGHAM, Lord Ireland, State of, 837; Address moved, 1394, Newenham's Divorce Bill, 3, 5 Oregon Boundary, The, Correspondence moved Poor Law (Ireland)-Privilege, 1214, 1215, Prosecutors, Witnesses, &c., 2R. 772, 773, 777, Protection of Life (Ireland), Com. 691; cl. 16, Railways-Gauge Commission, 8 Seery, Bryan, Execution of, 3, 114 BRUCE, Mr. C. L. C., Elginshire and Nairne Commercial Policy-(Cattle) 1157 BURROUGHES, Mr. H. N., Norfolk, E. BUTLER, Hon. P. S., Kilkenny, Co. Butter-The Tariff, CHANCELLOR, The LORD-continued. Prosecutors, Witnesses, &c., 2R. 774, 777 Sutlej, Campaign on the, Thanks to the Army, CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (The Commercial Policy-Corn Laws, Com. moved Fever (Ireland), Leave, 1001 Printing Papers, Com. moved for, 15 Railways, Com. moved for, 1263, 1430 CHAPMAN, Mr. A., Whitby Commercial Policy-(Timber) 1295 c. IR. 716; 2R. 973; Rep.* 1044; 3R.* c. Amend. (Mr. Grogan), 1027, [o. q. A. 213, Chelsea Out-Pensioners Services Bill, N. 111, M. 102] 1032 Buttons-The Tariff, c. 1032 c. 1R.* 714; 2R.* 929; Rep.* 1121; 3R.* * Cheltenham Petition, The, c. Com. moved for (Hon. C. Berkeley), 380, CHILDERS, Mr. I. W., Malton Corn Importation, 2R. 1471 CHOLMONDELEY, Hon. H., Montgomery CHRISTIE, Mr. W. D., Weymouth Andover Union, The, Com. moved for, 645; CHRISTOPHER, Mr. R. A., Lincolnshire, Commercial Policy-Corn Laws, Com. moved Church of Ireland, c. Observations (Mr. A. S. O'Brien), 98 CLANCARTY, Earl of Poor Law (Ireland)-Privilege, 1214, 1215, CLANRICARDE, Marquess of Bellerophon and Rodney, The, 1120 |