so by granting an inland bounty on the carriage of corn to Dublin. He found Ireland in the article of corn a country of import; he put in practice his plan; she ceased to import; she began to export; she began to export much; she proceeded to export more; she became a country of great, of growing, and of permanent export. The public care of Mr. Foster and his vigorous mind followed Lord Pery, and, by a graduated scale of export, furthered the growth of tillage. Then came my right honourable friend (Sir John Newport), whose presence represses the ardour I feel to dwell on the imperishable honours annexed to his name and his measures. He finished the work by his bill of unlimited export; and Ireland, who was fed by imported corn in the middle of the last century, has, in the last war, fed herself on a scale of double population, supplied Great Britain with above two millions' worth of corn, and sent near another million to supply your expeditions, and to feed foreign nations.

It is an infirmity in the argument of the gentlemen of the other side of the question, that Ireland should have made no part of their calculation, and that, in contemplating the resources of the British empire, they should have overlooked one-third of the King's dominions. Gentlemen acknowledge the principle of self-supply: they cannot deny it; but they, in substance, retract their concession, and say, you should not make the effort. If the commodity-corn, for instance is to be rendered dear, they do not say what they call dear, but leave us to suppose that corn must be dear, if corn is protected. Thus their argument goes against all protecting dutjes, still more against all prohibitions, and going equally against the whole of your policy, goes without force against any part of it. They speak of a surplus; to have what is sufficient for your consumption, you must, at times, have a surplus; and you cannot, they tell you, dispose of that surplus abroad, on account of its high price. Surplus is the effect of plenty, and plenty is the cause of cheapness, and cheapness the sign of surplus; and the proprietor will be remunerated by quantity for what he loses in price. Besides, will you not take into consideration capital, which enables the proprietor to hold over that surplus, nor the increase of population that grows to consume it?.

Conceiving that the gentlemen on the other side have not given reasons sufficiently strong to induce the House to give up a great maxim of state, and to accede to the extraordinary policy of abandoning those resources which Providence has given these islands to supply their own consumption, I come to the third question, which is, whether you can at all times command a sufficient quantity of

corn from foreign nations? The gentlemen on the other side of the question will show (it is incumbent on them to do so) that you can ; they will set forth what physical necessity, what moral obligation, what law, obliges foreign nations to supply Great Britain with corn ; they will show that they must furnish our expeditions, such as that to Portugal for instance; expeditions, perhaps, against the very nations from whom the supply is to proceed; they will show that foreign nations cannot tax, still less prohibit, the export of their grain; they will show this, I hope, before they shall induce you to confide your people to their policy; but unable to show this, they are reduced to rest their case on the experiment of the last war. In the last war they say the trial was made, and, notwithstanding all our difficulties, we found a supply from the continent. We did so, we escaped in the last war. In the last war we made an experiment which should teach us never to rely upon foreign grain, for we found the price immense, and, but for the Russian war, should have found the corn unattainable. With this experiment or this experience before you, and this their only argument for the certainty of foreign supply, I hope you will think that the gentlemen have not made a case strong enough to incline you to reduce your people to a state in which they must depend on foreign nations for their food. Having gone through the three considerations, I beg to observe, with regard to the opposers of this measure, that they found their policy on a vain philosophy; it is the error of Mr. Smith, refuted by Malthus, and adopted by them, and on this error they found the strength of the empire and the food of the people. The maxim contended for is, that you should get corn where you can get it cheapest. Why? Because corn is necessary; so is clothing: however, in Ireland, generally speaking, corn is not so. Yet corn, though a necessary of life, is not the only necessary, but is one of the five necessaries, and therefore ultimately sways, but by no means rules, the price of labour. Smith, a great author, is mistaken, and he is the less an authority (in general I applaud and admire him), but he is the less an authority on this point, because he considers it in the abstract, and has no reference to the political part of the subject, which is the principal part, and which governs the decision; he advises to go to the cheapest market, but omits to consider whether that market be accessible. Again, the application of this rule to the present question goes against the drift of his philosophy; his drift is, that everything should find its true level, and capital its natural application; but to do this, all nations must agree; for it is impossible that any one without general concurrence can attain it.

All nations then must abate their bounties and their prohibitions ; that will not be sufficient; they must abate their taxes also. To make the experiment then, you must find some other planet, for the Earth will not answer your purpose. But suppose this philosophical traffic practicable, the proposition of its abettors goes, as I have said, in the teeth of its principle; the proposition goes to leave one article unprotected, and to continue on all other articles prohibition; that is to say, to take your capital from corn, which is a natural trade, and apply it to silk, which is an artificial one.

Gentlemen have spoken of the view of the resolution; the view is to encourage the growth of corn; encouragement is plenty, and plenty is cheapness. The view of the manufacturers is cheapness, but they oppose the means of obtaining it-plenty. They advise you, the gentlemen who oppose the resolution advise you, to procure the cheapness of the article by going out of the cultivation of it; but they will find that plenty is the only sure cause of cheapness, and the only certain plenty is the home market; when you diminish that, you diminish your supply; you, of course, raise the price of corn you are dependent on the supply of foreigners, which supply, without the abundance of the home market, is inadequate, and therefore dear; and is also a precarious supply, which the foreigner may tax, and which the foreigner may refuse. Thus the policy of the opposers of the measure goes first to ruin the farmer, and then to starve the manufacturer. Gentlemen have said truly, that their interests are indeed united, and that when the farmer is beggared, the manufacturer is famished. I beg to return to that part of the subject which is comprehended in the denomination of Ireland; you know it was the policy of your ancestors to destroy the manufactures of Ireland, and it was the tendency of the Union to direct her capital to gross produce. Have you then driven Ireland out of manufacture, and do you now propose to drive her out of tillage? You recollect that Ireland has, for ages, excluded the manufacturers of other countries, and has given an exclusive preference to yours. Ireland desires, and desires of right, that as she prefers your manufactures, that you may prefer her corn. Do you propose that Ireland should prefer the British manufacturer, and that the British manufacturer should prefer the French husbandman? You know that Ireland owes £137,000,000, the principal debt of the war; that the interest is £6,500,000; that her revenue is not £5,500,000, and that her deficit to pay the interest is above a million a year. Do you mean that she should supply that deficit by giving up her agriculture? You know that of her interest, £4,500,000 is paid to you. How?

By her produce. When you propose that she should desert or even diminish her husbandry, you shake your funded security. Again, you are aware, that in rent to absentees, Ireland pays not less than £2,000,000 annually, and pays it out of her produce; when you propose to diminish, when you do not propose to augment that produce, you shake your landed security. Again, in the respective traffic of the two countries, the account stands so: Ireland pays to Great Britain for commodities, at the current price, a large sum; about £4,500,000 for interest; for the rents of absentees £2,000,000; altogether, about £16,000,000 annually. The exportation of Ireland is about £17,000,000, of which £2,900,000 is the export of corn. When you propose to diminish her produce in corn, nay when you do not propose to increase it, you propose that she should not pay you that balance. Again, are you unapprised that the population of Ireland is not less than 6,000,000, and that a great proportion of that number are people connected with tillage? If you go out of tillage, what will you do with that population? Will you, with the opposers of this measure, consign that people to famine and to tumult, or, with the supporters of the measure, hand them over to plenty and to peace? Again, ir addition to these reflections, will you consider, that the question before you is not merely a means of subsistence, but a measure of empire? England clothes Ireland, Ireland feeds England, and both live with one another and by one another; the two nations are bound together by law; but there is something stronger than law; they are grappled together by the iron fangs of necessity, and not only legally united, but physically identified; and this is the very soul of your connexion. In the relationship of the two countries, mutual want is public concord; that intercourse which makes them physically dependent on one another, makes them physically independent of their enemies, and thus forms the strength of your empire as well as its abundance.

Sir,

Sir, I am for this resolution; I am for it, because it is decisive, not ambiguous; because 80s. is a preference which the farmer will understand; do not send him to your averages; for, while you perplex the farmer with your calculations, the plan is at a stand. I am for the measure, because it gives strength to your funds, credit to your landed interest, identification to the people of the respective countries, and physical independence on the foreigner. I am for it, because it is an increase of your ways and means; because it promises plenty, where alone it can be relied on; namely, in your home market, and, with that plenty, cheapness, but that cheapness which is steady, and which pays your farmer while it feeds your manufac

turer, instead of that extravagant fluctuation which alternately ruirs both; and I am for this measure, because it secures us against the policy suggested by its opponents, and which is reducible to three monstrous propositions-an abandonment of tillage; a relinquishment of your power to supply your own consumption; and a dependence on foreign markets for bread.

DOWNFALL OF BUONAPARTE.

May 25, 1815.

SIR, I sincerely sympathise with the honourable gentleman who spoke last in his anxiety on this important question; and my solici tude is increased by a knowledge that I differ in opinion from my oldest political friends. I have further to contend against the additional weight given to the arguments of the noble lord who moved the amendment, by the purity of his mind, the soundness of

his judgment, and the elevation of his rank. I agree with my honourable friends in thinking that we ought not to impose a government upon France. I agree with them in deprecating the evil of war; but I deprecate still more the double evil of a peace without securities, and a war without allies. Sir, I wish it was a question between peace and war; but, unfortunately for the country, very painfully to us, and most injuriously to all ranks of men, peace is not in our option; and the real question is, whether we shall go to war when our allies are assembled, or fight the battle when those allies shall be dissipated?

Sir, the French government is war; it is a stratocracy, elective, aggressive, and predatory; her armies live to fight, and fight to live; their constitution is essentially war, and the object of that war the conquest of Europe. What such a person as Buonaparte at the head of such a constitution will do, you may judge by what he has done; and, first, he took possession of the greater part of Europe; he made his son King of Rome; he made his son in-law Viceroy of Italy; he made his brother King of Holland; he made his brother-in-law. King of Naples; he imprisoned the King of Spain; he banished the Regent of Portugal, and formed his plan to take possession of the crown of England. England had checked his designs; her trident had stirred up his empire from its foundation; he complained of her tyranny at sea; but it was her power at