This question is of too important a character—of too comprehensive details—to be treated on mere party grounds. It is a question in which every man in this country is interested, from the highest to the lowest—the merchant equally with the manufacturer, the landlord with the tenant, the operative with the 550 artisan. I trust that each one of them will give it his deepest consideration. I consider this question to be of far greater magnitude than the Reform Bill, because it involves a change of that policy which has been the ruling principle of this country from the earliest period of its history—under which it has attained to great eminence, and enjoyed a high degree of prosperity—a policy which all nations have long followed, and which all still continue to follow. Whether the country be prepared for this great change—whether the constituencies are ready to grant their approval—remains yet to be proved. But I cannot hesitate to say that, on a question involving such vital interests, the country ought at least to be consulted. For undoubtedly the majority of the Members of the present House of Commons were elected on protection principles
He has told us he has abandoned his principles, and consented to change the measures which he himself passed in 1842. If he consider that this is essential to the best interests of the country, I do not blame him. But I cannot consent to follow him, or to change my opinions so easily. The measure of 1842 has been admitted by all parties to have worked well so far, as a Corn Law. It has conduced to great steadiness of price, and it has answered the right hon. Baronet's expectations. Under that law, he aimed at a price of 56s. as a "fair price" for the farmer. I should like to ask him what price he considers a "fair price" for the farmer now? I should be glad to know at what price he aims under the proposed law?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Lascelles
said, the hon. Gentleman who had just concluded his address seemed to think that the country had attained the prosperity which had been its lot, entirely in consequence of the restrictions on trade which had been so long imposed upon it. He owned that the hon. Gentleman seemed to him to have read very incorrectly the history of the Empire. In his view, ever since the commencement of the time when restrictive policy began to be applied, they were visited with a series of fluctuations in the price of food which could not be otherwise than detrimental to the country. Previous to the passing of the Reform Bill the principles of free trade were not considered as belonging exclusively to any party. Mr. Huskisson was in a Tory Cabinet supported in his measures by the Whigs; and he must deny that upon the reconstruction of the Conservative party, after the Reform Bill, its commercial principles were those founded on a restrictive policy. He, for one, had never considered 564 such a policy as the test of the Conservative party.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montagu_Bertie,_6th_Earl_of_Abingdon (Lod Norreys)
said, having been a supporter of the right hon. Baronet, from 1830 to the present period; having given a steady support to all the measures of the present Government, agricultural and financial, and to the whole of their Irish policy; it was with no inconsiderable regret that he felt himself compelled, not only to oppose the measure now before them, but to state also that he could place no further confidence in the right hon. Gentleman's Administration.
But could he (Sir R. Peel) be surprised that the agriculturists had taken the line of no alteration in the Corn Laws: they were only following the advice given them formerly by the right hon. Baronet himself, who, in 1839, when the noble Lord (Lord J. Russell) was in office, advised them to make their stand on the principle of no change in the then law. On the faith of these declarations the Table of the House was loaded with petitions for no change in the then law. Was there, he would ask, less scarcity in 1839 than now? He could not have expected that the right hon. Baronet, who in 1839 had advised them to stand by the existing law; who in 1841 had so damaged the fixed duty, as they had been told by a noble Marquess in another place, that they were forced to abandon that system of protection; and who in 1842 professed to propose an adjustment of the question: he did not expect that the right hon. Baronet could have come to Parliament—he who had objected to an 8s. duty, which was to be permanent—to propose a 4s. duty, which was to end in total repeal, accompanied, too, by such a miserable compensation. What was the inference which he drew from all this? He would not accuse the right hon. Baronet of a want of political integrity: he did not believe such to be the case—he believed he had been actuated by no dishonest or dishonourable motives; but he would say, that, looking back to all these circumstances, he had shown himself to be devoid of that political foresight which entitled a public man to the confidence of his party.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Baillie-Cochrane,_1st_Baron_Lamington
So in ancient Rome, the Senate debated whether to pronounce Adrian a god or a tyrant. He did not believe the right hon. Baronet either one or the other; but he did believe him anxious to do his best for the country in very difficult emergencies; and, inspired with this belief, he would recall to hon. Gentlemen on that side of the House the occurrences of 1830, when they turned the right hon. Gentleman out of office by a coalition with the Opposition, and the consequences were eleven years of Whig rule. Sir (said the hon. Gentleman) I vote for this measure, because I have confidence in the financial policy of the right hon. Gentleman. 574 It is precisely the principle of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, who votes against the measure, because he has no confidence in the right hon. Baronet. He is following at an humble, and at how far humbler distance, the opinion of Mr. Canning, who said, in 1802—
A way with the cant of measures not men, of the idle supposition that it is the harness and not the horses which drag the chariot along.I vote for this measure, because I prefer legislation to agitation; moreover, because I am a sincere advocate for protection. Yes, Sir, for protection not to one class, to one interest, however important, but protection to all classes, to all interests, foreign and domestic—protection in hours of darkness and trouble, which, I pray God, may be far from us, but which, we cannot conceal from ourselves, may depend on the life of one man in France, or on party cry in America—protection when another northern confederacy may threaten our shores, and hostile fleets threaten our colonial empire—the protection of a strong and vigorous Administration; but, above all, I vote for this measure because, in the beautiful language of the prayer which we hear each day, I would set aside all private interests, prejudices, and partial affections, and lend my humble but most sincere endeavours to any settlement which those whose peculiar province it is to rule the destinies of this great country may judge conducive to the comfort and welfare of the poorer but not less loyal classes of my fellow subjects.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Deedes_senior
and the very argument which the right hon. Baronet had used on the first night of the Session with reference to the supply of potatoes to be obtained from abroad, served to strengthen the conclusion at which he (Mr. Deedes) had arrived. For he had said that in looking round to see whence could be had a supply of potatoes, to replace the extensive failure 579 in Ireland, he had found that Belgium, Sweden, and other potato-growing countries had placed restrictions upon the exportation of the article, and would not allow it to come in aid of our failing crops. Could it be doubted that, under similar circumstances, foreign nations would, for their own sakes, adopt a similar course? He required no further argument than that to induce him to withhold his support from the right hon. Baronet. He was aware the right hon. Baronet had said he did not believe there would be a material diminution in the price of corn. But he asked if the gentlemen of the League held that doctrine; did they intend that there should be no reduction in the price of corn?
Entertaining these views generally—dreading, above all things, to see this country at any time dependent on foreign nations during the scarcity of so important an article as the bread by which we lived—fearing, also, that if we had to purchase corn from foreign countries, the specie of this country must go out to pay for it, and, consequently, there would be a reduction of that specie in the Bank of England which enabled other banks to have a larger issue—and dreading the consequences of such a paper restriction on the country—looking at this, and bearing in mind the language of the right hon. Baronet and his Colleagues in 1842 on this question, he could not allow himself, against his own convictions, to follow him and vote for the measure before the House. He should sit down with a fervent prayer that it would please Divine Providence, who had hitherto exalted this nation, still to guide its destiny so as to make it an example of good government at home, and fairness, and moderation, 581 and justice in its dealings with foreign nations.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Walsh,_1st_Baron_Ormathwaite
It appeared by a Return which had been made on the Motion of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, in 1843, that the amount assessed for Income Tax was 45,750,000l. as the rental of Great Britain alone, exclusive of the rental of Ireland, from which no return was made. He was unable to state precisely what was the rental of Ireland; but he could not be in error in assuming that it must be from 15,000,000l. to 20,000,000l. Taking this, then, as a narrow question of rent, and admitting that the preservation of rent was the motive which solely actuated the landed proprietors, it must also be admitted that a question involving no less a sum than 60,000,000l. a year—a large integral portion of the wealth of the nation—more than double the amount of the interest of the national debt, exceeding the amount of the whole export trade of the country—demanded respect and consideration as deeply affecting the prosperity of the nation? How was that wealth distributed? When hon. Gentlemen used the words "landlords" and "rent" in their addresses throughout the country, nothing else was suggested to the minds of their hearers but the owners of great territorial possessions, such as the Duke of Northumberland, or the Duke of Devonshire, or the Duke of Bedford—noblemen who had half a county under their sway—or some of the great landed gentry, who by the antiquity of their families, and the extent of their estates, might be regarded as the rivals of the highest and greatest of the Peerage. Those who presented such portraitures to the public, entertained most mistaken views on this question. There were whole counties in England in which there was scarcely one large mass of property collected together worthy to be called an estate, but in which, 583 on the contrary, the property was subdivided in every way—in which property was owned by every class of individuals—in great part by yeomen, who had inherited the land from their forefathers, owned small plots of land, and cultivated the farms on which they lived. Another most numerous class of landlords were small retired tradesmen, who, with that love of rural life which was almost a natural instinct with Englishmen, had invested all the savings of a life of industry and successful enterprise in land. Mr. M'Culloch, an authority of great weight, estimated the number of landed proprietors in this country at 200,000. There were then 200,000 landed proprietors, without considering their families or dependents, who were directly interested in the question of rent. He said, that even on that ground this question was not to be considered as one concerning the interest of a small and narrow class. If it were a class interest it involved the fortunes of a great portion of the population of this country. But when they considered the pecuniary amount involved in it—its collateral bearings, and wide ramifications—the property that by various engagements, by marriage and other settlements, was bound up in it—it was a question not to be separated from that of the national prosperity itself.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._J._B._Hope
This measure of 1846 formed a just crowning point to that strange heterogenous mass of legislation, the Maynooth grant, the Irish Colleges, and those other measures which constituted the political life of the Parliament of 1841. But the right hon. Baronet might say there was no other course open to him. He thought, however, that the right hon. Baronet might have said, as upon former occasions, that there were three courses open to him. The right hon. Baronet might have treated the question as he had done; he might have dissolved Parliament; or, better than either, he might have come boldly forward at the time the noble Member for London had, 596 with great gallantry, advocated free trade. If the right hon. Baronet had then come forward, and said to the noble Lord, "For a long time I have supported protection, you have supported free trade. I am satisfied now, that all my life I was wrong; therefore, to you who are right, I give up the Government of the country, and tender you my warmest and hearty support." That would have been honest, and whatever their private views might have been, they could not have helped praising such a course as heroic and magnanimous on the part of the right hon. Baronet, and he would have won golden opinions for himself even on that (the Ministerial) side. But still he would have done better if he had let hon. Gentleman opposite, as he had a right to do, bring forward those measures, and reap the honour and credit of their own policy. Hon. Gentlemen on the other side had a right to demand that those measures of legislation, which for many years they had toiled after and spent their lives in procuring, should be passed by them; that they should have the honour and credit of carrying them. That would have been but common justice to them. But another course had been adopted by the Conservative protectionist Government of 1841. A free trade was proposed by them, and was to be carried through the House by the cry of cheap bread. His vote therefore would be given as a protest against a course of policy which could add no lustre to the very best system of abstract legislation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dudley_Ryder,_2nd_Earl_of_Harrowby (Viscount Sandon)
Was this the new reading of political economy? Was it the object of the clamourer upon the Corn Laws to have a smaller rather than a bigger loaf? He could not, therefore, pretend conversion; he could not close his eyes to the fact, that in removing all protection from domestic agriculture, they were about to make a most hazardous, an almost unprecedented experiment. Let them look to commercial Holland, to monarchical France and Belgium, with their mixed interests, or to republican America, they would find no country which had yet been rash enough to leave her agriculture exposed to the unmitigated effect of occasional glut from foreign import, from which it especially suffered, and from which it had so little power to protect itself. He was now thinking of the case of the tenant-farmer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_John_Russell
I will not attempt to underrate the importance of this question. Hon. Gentlemen whom we have heard speak on the opposite side of the House, and who object to the propositions made to us by Her Majesty's Ministers, seem to consider that they have said what is quite conclusive when they say that for centuries a system of protection has been the system of legislation adopted in our public policy. I am not at all terrified, Sir, by that annunciation. We know that for centuries the system of religious disabilities was the system of legislation adopted in this country; we know that for centuries the want of security for the liberty of the person was the legislative system adopted in this country; but happily we have lived to acknowledge the great benefits which have flowed from the destruction of those systems; and I hope that we are now at the commencement of the destruction of another system which has been most injurious to the country. We shall hereafter all feel proud that we have participated in laying the foundation for a new and a better order of things.
to read a pamphlet, in answer to another pamphlet, published by Messrs. Malton and Trimmer, written by Mr. Halesworth, who says that every quarter of corn is raised 17s. in price by the protection afforded by the Corn Laws. If this be so—though I believe it in fact to be a great exaggeration—if corn and bread be thus raised in price, an enormous amount of protection is given to agriculture. Suppose the fact were so, if 20,000,000 quarters were raised 17s. a quarter, a tax of no less than 17,000,000l. a year would be paid by the people of this country for this protection to agriculture. I believe that this statement is much exaggerated, but still the great principle is correct: it does raise the price; and while we give protection, as it is afforded by the present law, we give, what I will not call an advantage, but an apparent advantage, to a particular class, which is injurious to the whole community.
When Mr. Huskisson brought forward his plan, many of those who sat on his own side of the House were opposed to him; many of us who sat opposite to him gave him our support. Plans of moderating duties, and introducing a tendency towards free trade, are not properly Whig plans; they are not exclusively Tory plans. The right hon. Gentleman opposite, when Home Secretary, as I have always understood, and as he himself has stated, acted most cordially with Mr. Huskisson in the promotion of those measures.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Inglis
The famine, or apprehension of it, was, however, limited to an insufficient supply of one article of food, and which article of food could, if not supplied from other parts of the world, be very well dispensed with by the substitution of another and higher description of product. He remembered some years ago reading a very able article in a paper called the Scotsman, respecting the evil of bringing up the people of any country to live on the cheapest possible food, because in that case, the writer argued, the population had nothing on which they could fall back. He admitted that having brought up the people of Ireland—4,000,000 of them at least—on potatoes, they could not supply them with anything cheaper as the fruit of their own labour. But he thought that such a crisis—a great crisis, as the right hon. Baronet at the head of the Government called it—might be met by extraordinary energy and exertion of the supreme Government. It was not by the introduction of potatoes they could be relieved; because, as the right hon. Baronet himself said, in the remarkable speech which he delivered to the 615 House, all the countries which produced potatoes had prohibited their exportation. In Sweden, Belgium, and Holland, the distress was so great, that no potatoes could be obtained from those places. But did that apply to the inferior kinds of grain, or did it apply to the superior kinds? He thought the right hon. Baronet had told them that both Turkey and Egypt had refused to permit any exportation of the higher kinds of grain from those countries. But the Irish people might have the supply they wanted by the importation of the inferior kinds of grain, and which would yet be superior to their ordinary food.
For his part, he could only deplore the course that had been taken by the Government, and endeavour to give it all the resistance in his power. He asked himself when, and on what ground, and by whom, was the present question brought forward? The answer was—in a time of profound peace and universal prosperity. Look to Ireland—Ireland not as in 1798 619 with a secret organization of 300,000 armed men ready for rebellion: not as three years since, when overrun with monster-meetings. Look at England—in a state of prosperity unexampled; and advancing in this prosperity under the very system of protection which was repudiated by the authors of the present measure. There never was a year in which every branch of industry flourished so vigorously as in 1845. The old maxim Quieta non movere might be paralleled in English, "Let well alone:"—why should we take physic and die? Then again, on what ground was this great change enforced? Why, that in one division of the Empire, there had been a great failure in one main article of food, the potato crop of Ireland. But, in the first place, all men admitted that other crops had been abundant there and here; and, as to this particular crop, in a document laid on the Table of the House, which he now took up in his hand, it appeared, that there was in the district to which the return applied, a large increase in the crop of last year over the preceding year. In the whole of the district, consisting of twelve parishes, the produce in each parish was, as contrasted with that of the preceding year, as follows: In one parish, 16 bushels this year instead of 10; in another, 18 instead of 10; 14 instead of 10; 14 instead of 10; 18 instead of 10; 18 instead of 10; 14 instead of 10; 14 instead of 10; and 14 instead of 10. In every instance, in short, the produce had been much greater this year than last. A private account which he had received, confirmed the conclusion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_FitzMaurice_(MP)
that under the tree of British protection every species of industry had flourished in this country, and the result of free trade would be, that it would throw a large mass of land out of cultivation in exact proportion 620 to the quantity of foreign corn imported from abroad, which was grown there at a cheaper rate than in this country. Taking the case of Poland, for instance, he had the authority of a person who had resided there for twelve years, for saying that wheat grown in Poland might be landed in the London market under 30s. a quarter. They were told that America would afford a great market for British manufacturers, and he sincerely hoped it would prove so; but suppose America did not choose to take British manufactures in exchange for corn, but should insist on having gold, in what a condition would this country be then placed! He would ask the right hon. Baronet at the head of the Government whether he did not know that nearly three-fourths of the whole shipping which came into the port of London laden with corn during the last quarter, returned in ballast, or, in other words, they returned with gold for their corn?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidney_Herbert,_1st_Baron_Herbert_of_Lea
I wish I could agree with my hon. Friend that there was not in Ireland any such cause for interference—that there was no cause for anxiety, none to justify any extreme step taken by the Government, none to justify Ministers in proposing to change the laws which regulate the importation of food. The hon. Gentleman tells us—and he selects one electoral district in illustration—that there was a larger crop than the average sowed in Ireland; and therefore the loss was not so great as the increase which the unusual fertility of the fields produced. [A VOICE: Those are potatoes.] Yes, but potatoes are a prime article of food in Ireland; and it is impossible to disconnect the failure of the potato crop from this question of food. It is not necessary for me to expatiate, upon the misery of a population depending upon that kind of food exclusively. We have this year a signal instance of the state to which a population may be reduced when it depends for subsistence on food which is not susceptible of keeping from one harvest to another; but is it the case, that there is this year an unusual fertility in Ireland? The Commissioners, referring to the opinion that upon the whole the potato crop this year was a very large one, said—
We regret to add, that we have been unable to obtain any proof of this; on the contrary, we have seen that the crop was small, and we have it in evidence that it is below the average; but we have also seen it to be heavy, and we therefore conclude that it may, perhaps, be an average crop.From first to last I must say, that the reports which the Government has received from the constabulary and from the stipendiary magistrates were most creditable to their judgment in this respect; that as they never gave in to the panic at first, they never gave in to the fool's paradise at last. They never gave in to the statement that there were no sound potatoes left. They never misinformed the Government in that respect, and they never in that reaction of the public mind—to which perhaps they are more subject in Ireland than in other parts of the Empire—fled to the other extreme and told the Government that no danger was to be apprehended. So far as the failure of the crop in Ireland is concerned, I wish I stood here in the position of being obliged to state that the reports by which we have been guided are fallacious, our judgment erroneous, our precautions unnecessary. On the contrary, I fear that any inquiry you may institute will give a fearful and 623 melancholy corroboration of the facts on which we have acted, and that our judgment will be proved true in a manner and to an extent which none, I am sure, will regret more sincerely than the very Gentlemen who now deny the fact. But the evil exists here also. In England and in Scotland, potatoes are a staple article of food. In the west of England, their use has increased almost as much as in Ireland. No man has put more strongly than the noble Lord the Member for London, the paradoxes of a scarcity of food with cheapness, owing to the inferiority of what is produced. Potatoes, in the face of scarcity, are sold cheap, the holders fearing their loss through decay. So the averages of corn were depressed last season by the inferior quality of the grain. I do not stand on a point of consistency when I frankly avow that I think the law of 1842 has failed; that the first time it was tested by adverse circumstances it failed, and signally failed. We have dear bread and low averages—dear bread and a high duty. We have bread as dear as in 1839 under the old law, the duty higher than under the old law. The prices of wheat in November ranged as high as in 1839; but the mass of the wheat being of inferior quality, sold at the lower prices, and depressed the averages. Bad wheat does not make bad bread, but less bread; you must buy more wheat to get farina to make the same quantity of bread. But we had bread at 9½d. and 10d.; a fixed duty of 14s. For short harvests the law of 1842 would have worked; for it was a mitigation of the principle of protection. Hon. Gentlemen forget that the whole object of the Corn Law enacted in 1815 was to effect the transition from the high prices of war to the low prices of peace. How did every statesman who ever touched the question deal with it? Was it to increase protection? No; but to diminish it; to carry out the principle in the same spirit in which it originated. Seeing the existing state of matters, seeing the law had failed of its purpose—that food was deficient in quantity and inferior in quality — that the deficiency was common to the whole of Europe—that in consequence of that deficiency other countries had opened their ports for importations of grain—while Turkey, Egypt, and others, had closed theirs against exportations of grain—that other countries on which we had depended for supplies had become competitors against 624 us for the purchase of grain; under these circumstances I thought, with others in Her Majesty's Government, that it was necessary to take steps for meeting the difficulties under which the country was labouring. I am glad to hear from the hon. Member for Somerset that he was not one who was adverse to opening the ports—that he was not prepared to oppose such a measure if its necessity were absolutely shown. I regret, even now, that the course we then contemplated was not adopted. I think that in cases of public emergency, promptness and vigour ought to be exercised. I thought, under these circumstances, that if the Government at once took upon itself the responsibility of these measures, the battle would have been half won. I knew this, moreover, and say what Gentlemen may in this House, they will not persuade me to the contrary—that the gentry and the agriculturists of England were not men to set up their pecuniary or other interests in opposition to the public advantage
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