Sir (continued the hon. Gentleman) in this House, we are all rich men. More or less so, all at least assume that qualification. Members who have not got it will of course laugh at the notion of having it. [General laughter]. But, comparatively, we are all rich. We had a good breakfast this morning, and intend to have a good dinner this evening; and that, Sir, in the eyes of millions of our fellow countrymen, that is the distinction between rich and poor. For really, in the frightful contrasts which present themselves in the situation of those around us, to be able to get two good meals a day, is to be comparatively rich. (652)
But I protest against any change in these duties so sudden and so sweeping as is now proposed to us; and I feel disposed to concur with the noble Lord opposite (J. Russell) in thinking that if such a change were to be carried out so suddenly, it would have been far better that the duties in 1842 should have been lower, that the transition might have been more easy, and the shock less abrupt. I have been no inattentive student on this subject during the last four years, and I cannot concur with those who consider the present protection excessive. I may say, however, that there is one change 655 produced in my opinions on this subject. I began my consideration of it believing it a landlords' question. I did believe that the effect would be so great of a sudden and immediate repeal, that vast quantities of land would come into the market at once, and its value be greatly deteriorated. But, Sir, I greatly doubt if this can be called a "landlords' question;" or if so, it is certainly a question for small landed proprietors. It is not a question for the great landed proprietors—they who would be able to "weather the storm." It may be a question for the small landowner, who, on the faith of Parliament, even if in some sense indiscreetly, may have charged his estate to nearly its full value, and who may, therefore, find it difficult to meet a sudden and severe shock. But the more I consider this question, the more am I satisfied it is a tenant-farmers' question.
And, far from thinking that a reason for underrating its importance, it is on that very account I resolve to make my stand against the measure. Apply the precepts of your new philosophy to the tenant-farmer. Suppose prices fall in consequence—partly, perhaps, of an inundation of foreign corn—the tenant-farmer says to his landlord, "I hope, Sir, you will allow me a small abatement in my rent? I may not know so much about draining as Mr. Smith of Deanston; I may not have all the patent implements, nor show the fattest pig; but my family has held under yours for many a generation; we have weathered hard years together; I have worn your colours—and I should be sorry to go elsewhere." The landlord may reply, "My good fellow, I am very sorry for you. You have invested your capital in these drainings and these soils; but so have I mine. You have invested the money—as I have—on the faith of the Legislature. But we are told now by the Prime Minister that we are 'to buy in the cheapest market, and sell in the dearest.' There is a gentleman from the manufactoring districts with more capital than you, ready to invest in your farm. I really must look to my own family arrangements. You talk of feudal times and days long gone by, but it is idle to conjure up old exploded notions—and as for 'colours,' God bless you, my good fellow, there is no 'true blue' now!" Yes! unless the landlord acts towards his tenant a better part and with kindlier feeling than you are now prepared to act towards the whole agricultural body, the tenant-farmer must leave his farm.
A short simple story, Sir, sometimes does better to illustrate an argument than more formal reasoning. Some months ago a farmer told me, "I have had a fortune left me." "Well, then," replied I, "you had better leave these 'cold clays'—take a better sort of land—settle down to it, and make your fortune double." "Sir," replied he, "there are the gravestones of four generations of my family in this parish. My father, grandfather, and great-grandfather worked this farm—I will not go anywhere else. I will try what I can do at home. I will stick to the old farm till the plough breaks in the furrows." Sir, the heart of that man was worth volumes of political economy. And it is hundreds and thousands of men like him, without the same fortune indeed in their pockets—but with the same sort of heart in their bosoms—whom you are driving forth by your legislation with broken hearts and ruined fortunes; and I am sorry to be obliged to add, that when thus driven forth, their keenest associations, their bitterest recollections of ruined fortunes, blighted hopes, and broken hearts, will not be coupled with the name of Cobden!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Sharman_Crawford
The Commissioners of Poor Inquiry in 659 1836 described the condition of the agricultural labourers as follows:—
A great portion of them are insufficiently provided with the commonest necessaries of life. Their habitations are wretched hovels. Several of the family sleep together upon straw, or upon the bare ground, sometimes with a blanket, sometimes without so much to cover them. Their food commonly consists of dry potatoes; and even with these they are obliged often to stint themselves to one spare meal in the day. There are even instances of persons being driven by hunger to seek sustenance in wild herbs.Under such circumstances he would ask, could they say that the country was benefited by this principle of protection?
It was said, that if the Corn Laws were repealed, Ireland would lose the benefit of the English markets. What were those benefits? He admitted that there were vast quantities of provisions sent from Ireland to England, and that there were millions of English money paid for them; but did Ireland benefit by this circumstance? No. The export of provisions from Ireland, instead of being a test of her wealth or prosperity, was, on the contrary, a test of her abject wretchedness and misery. These provisions were not exports of her superfluities, but exports of the very means of her existence, which the people required for themselves to support existence, and to lead a comfortable life. The Irish people were suffering, therefore, beyond any person's belief. The exports were even recently going out of the country as largely as at any former period. Was not this a proof that the protective system did not show any prosperity in that country, but absolute wretchedness, in the abstraction 660 of these provisions from the actual wants of the people? The means of supporting life were thus taken from them. If they considered the number of acres there were in Ireland, and the amount of population that was to be fed, the quantity of land was much less in proportion to the number of people there was in England, and yet the land of England was found insufficient to support them. Why then should there be such exports of these provisions from Ireland, when the people were supposed to exist almost wholly by the labour connected with agriculture? The fact, however, was, that the people there were not generally employed, and had not the means of procuring food for themselves, although they assisted in producing plenty for exportation to this country.
One of the greatest misfortunes of Ireland was the obligation they lay under to subsist upon the potato — the lowest article of food. Immense evils had followed from this circumstance; but how were they to alter this state of things? Why by no other means than that of so cheapening corn that the people would then be able to substitute it for the other. They would not then be subject to such dreadful periodical famines as had been witnessed by the failure of the potato crop of late years.
He had only that day received a communication from that part of the country with which he was connected by property, conveying the dreadful information that there was not now one potato left, and the people were consequently obliged to recur to oatmeal and other means of supporting life. He should feel it his bounden duty to give his cordial support to the proposition of the right hon. Baronet opposite.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Baillie_(c._1737-1793)
H.J. Baillie (son possibly)
It seemed to be now generally assumed as an axiom, that free trade must, under any circumstances, prove beneficial to a nation: undoubtedly we had never been able to convince foreign nations of this truth, or to induce them to adopt the proposition. Foreign nations are well aware that Eng- 662 land possesses peculiar advantages for the production of manufactures. They know that we possess in a greater abundance than any other country the two great elements of manufactures, viz., coal and iron; that the country abounds in fine harbours, rivers, canals, and railroads, by which the raw produce is brought to the doors of our manufacturers; that, possessed of those advantages, together with great mechanical skill, we are enabled to produce our goods at a cheaper rate than they can be produced in any other country. It is for this reason that they have erected barriers in every country of Europe against the introduction of our manufactures, in the shape of protective duties; and it is well known that, fostered and encouraged by these protecting duties, the cotton manufactures of France and Germany have risen into great importance, and have become the source of great wealth and prosperity to those countries. But, could any one doubt, if these protecting duties were withdrawn, that France and Germany would soon be inundated with British goods, and that their own manufactures would be undersold and supplanted in their own markets? If any one doubted that, let him only refer to the history of the the cotton manufactures of India. When first we arrived in that country, we found the population of that vast empire, consisting of not less than 160,000,000 of inhabitants, wholly and entirely clothed in their own beautiful domestic manufactures: by the great cheapness of our own, we had succeeded in supplanting and destroying them. Hundreds of thousands of people were, by these means, thrown out of employment, and reduced to misery and starvation. They had no one to fight their battle. They perished by famine and disease; the great and flourishing cities, the seats of these manufactures, had become desolate and depopulated. The most ruthless conqueror of India had not inflicted greater misery, or caused a greater destruction of human life, than we had done by the introduction of our cotton manufactures into that country. These are notorious facts. We may boast of having established an enlightened Government in India, a Government which gives protection to life and property, which encourages education, and seeks to elevate the condition of the people, but we cannot deny that from the date of our rule in India must also date the decline of the internal prosperity and material wealth amongst the mass of 663 the people; gradually their condition deteriorated, as gradually we succeeded in destroying their domestic manufactures. Such had been the result of free trade to India. Can we be surprised that foreign Governments hesitate to allow their people to be submitted to chances of a similar fate? Having failed, therefore, in our endeavours to induce foreign nations to adopt the principles of free trade, the question is, shall we try the experiment upon our own people?
Can we be surprised that foreign Governments hesitate to allow their people to be submitted to chances of a similar fate? Having failed, therefore, in our endeavours to induce foreign nations to adopt the principles of free trade, the question is, shall we try the experiment upon our own people? We have only to refer to the occurrences of the last few years, in order to be convinced of the intimate connexion and relation which exists between our agriculture and our commerce, and how much the success and prosperity of the one depends upon that of the other. Indeed, we need go no further back than to the year 1841. We all remember what was the state and condition of the country at that period; the trade and commerce of the country were stagnant, the manufacturing interest in the deepest state of depression; thousands of our operatives were out of employment, subsisting upon public charity; and the revenue had fallen far below the expenditure of the country. To what was this state of things attributed? for, be it remembered, three years previously we were in a state of great prosperity. This disastrous state of things was attributed to four notoriously bad and deficient harvests in the four preceding years. In like manner, when we look at the prosperous state of the country at the present moment, when we know that every branch of our national industry is flourishing, that our operatives are in full employment upon good and sufficient wages, that our manufacturers have been making greater profits during the last two years than at any former period upon record; to what is this altered state of things to be attributed, unless to the three fine and abundant harvests of the years 1842, 1843, and 1844? But, if this were true, how clearly does it demonstrate to us the vast importance of our agriculture—how clearly does it point out to us that we should devote our attention to promote its prosperity and success! Well, the question is, then, which is the best way to promote the prosperity and success of agriculture?—whether by giving a moderate protection to the produce of our own country, or by leaving it to free and unrestricted competition with those foreign countries who possess as great and superior advantages over us for the production of wheat as we possess over them for the production of 664 manufactures? It is not my intention upon the present occasion to enter into the discussion as to whether there are or not peculiar burdens upon land in this country which are not equally shared by all the other great branches of our national industry. I certainly believe that there are; but I will not enter into that discussion at present, because I think I shall be able to show that the agriculturists of this country labour under a much greater disadvantage in their competition with foreigners, than any that can be attributed to peculiar or exclusive burdens upon the land—to a disadvantage which certainly has never been sufficiently appreciated in these discussions, and one which no labour, or science, or skill on their part can ever enable them to surmount—I mean the disadvantage of the inferiority of the climate of this country, as compared with that of most foreign countries, for the production of the finest descriptions of grain.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Lefroy_(Irish_politician)
after referring to the advocacy of the measure by the hon. Member for Rochdale (Mr. S. Crawford), on the ground of the benefit it would confer upon Ireland, said, he was anxious to ask that hon. Gentleman in what way the support of such a measure would improve the condition of the lower orders in that country, or raise the circumstances of the Irish landlords? For his own part, though he was grateful to the Government for some measures which they had adopted in reference to that country, yet he could not give them his support in reference to the measure before the House.
he did still feel that it was utterly impossible for him to vote in support of the proposal of the Government. It was time, indeed, for every man to put to himself the question—was it for the advantage of this country 668 that the Corn Laws should be repealed? All those evils and dangerous consequences which his hon. Friend had argued would attend this measure in reference to this country, would of necessity fall with greater force upon Ireland. What would naturally be the consequence of such a measure? If the exports of Ireland, which were very great, were to be diminished, must not the landlords of that country be seriously affetced? Could rents be paid? And must not the agriculturists of Ireland turn those lands, which now gave employment to the people, into pasture lands, which would not afford the same extent of employment? And suppose that the results which were anticipated from this measure, by those who brought it forward, should fail of being realized, that those lands should be turned into grass, and the people deprived of employment, would not Ireland, let him ask the House, become, under such terrible circumstances, a land of trouble, sorrow, and destitution, beyond all that was ever heard or conceived?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Clements,_3rd_Earl_of_Leitrim
For the last six years he had earnestly endeavoured to improve the agriculture of his neighbourhood, and he had made himself intimately acquainted with the wants and condition of the farmers and the labouring classes of the county he had the honour to represent. (lying cunt)
He believed it would be found from every inquiry into the state of Ireland, that nothing could be more melancholy, nothing more destitute or deplorable, than the condition of the labouring population. Their state was such that it was impossible for any one to imagine it, unless he had been an eye-witness of it, and cognizant himself of that misery and total destitution. That destitution had lately been most fully and usefully laid before the public by the enterprise of a leading publication in this country. The gentleman intrusted with the inquiry had depicted in strong and forcible language the total destitution of the poor in certain localities; and he (Lord Clements) was prepared to admit, that in no one single syllable written by the Commissioner employed by that publication had he in the slightest degree overstated the case. He believed, indeed, that if it were possible for language to draw the picture more forcibly, it might have been done without in the least deviating from the truth. He would turn to the evidence taken before Lord Devon's Commission, which appeared to him particularly relative to the present case. It
The noble Lord, in conclusion, stated that he would give his support, with great pleasure, to the measure of the right hon. Baronet, and with still greater pleasure, if the suggestion of the noble Lord the Member for the city of London induced the right hon. 676 Baronet to propose an immediate, in place of a gradual, repeal of the Corn Laws.
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