stead of being confined to the maritime districts, were taken from the markets of the whole kingdom; and accordingly he opposed any alteration, as an indirect means of raising the import price six shillings above the point fixed by law. To reconcile the statements of the two minis ters, we ought to interpret lord Castlereagh, not as really believing that the results of the two modes of striking the average would vary to the amount specified, but as admitting, for the purposes of argument, the statement of the agriculturists to that effect, and as then maintaining, that, according to the doctrine which they themselves held, a change in the law relating to the ascertainment of the averages would, in truth, be an essential alteration in the principle of the existing corn laws.

Mr. Brougham opposed the motion in a speech, in which he expatiated with considerable sarcastic humour on the surprise with which ministers found themselves in a minority on the preceding evening, and the means they were now taking of repairing their defeat. Mr. Tierney supported Mr. Robinson's motion, which, on a division, was carried by a majority of 251 to 108.

On the same evening, Mr. Maxwell, member for Renfrewshire, in presenting a petition from the mechanics of the town of Paisley, praying that the means of emigration to one of the colonies might be afforded them, drew the attention of the House to the situation of the manufacturing poor. It was, he said, a dreadful thing to see, as was the fact in many parts of the country, four hundred persons in every square

mile, destitute of the means of subsistence; and he conceived, that, from sound policy as well as humanity, something ought to be taken from the abundance of the wealthy, in order to supply those who were starving, and must continue to starve, if they remained at home, with the means of providing for themselves and families elsewhere. On the 29th of June, he moved for the appointment of a select committee to inquire into the distress of the cotton-weavers, and the practicability of extending relief to them. It was his wish and intention, that the committee, if granted, should consider how far the superiority of machinery over manual labour arose from the heavy taxes with which all the articles consumed by the labourer were loaded; whether some alterations should not be made in the laws relating to combination amongst workmen ; whether a plan might not be adopted for withdrawing some of the poor from avocations that did not yield wherewithal to sustain life, and for placing them in situations where their industry might be productive to themselves and the country; whether, for example, lands might not be provided at the public expense for weavers who could find no employment at their looms. He thought, also, that the multitude of foreign menials, who were employed in this country, and of persons who, with their property here, spent the revenue of it abroad, should not be passed unnoticed. These ideas were obviously the crude suggestions of a benevolent, rather than of an experienced mind, and did not draw much attention or excite much discussion. Mr. Robinson would not consent to

the appointment of a committee, which would only serve to propagate delusion and to raise hopes of unattainable relief. Besides, the business of the proposed cominittee was to be, not the collection and arrangement of facts, but the discussion of certain abstract ideas. Mr. Ricardo dissented entirely from all Mr. Maxwell's plans, which he thought were inconsistent with the sacred rights of property, and would tend to aggravate the very distress he meant to alleviate. Mr. Maxwell, finding that he met with no support, withdrew his motion. Propositions, similar in their principles, though different in their details, had been previously made (May 16th), with a similar result in the House of Lords by earl Stanhope. They were introduced by a very elaborate speech, and involved three distinct schemes. The first was, to bring waste lands into cultivation, and to substitute, to a considerable extent, the spade husbandry for that of the plough. The second related to the improvement and extension of fisheries. The third was, to devise some mode of limiting the use of machinery. Lord Liverpool very successfully exposed the futility of every part of the scheme. He admitted, that the extension of our fisheries would always be advantageous; but he contended, that the encouragement of them had been carried as far as possible, and declared, that he should be happy to listen to any practicable plan of procuring a greater supply of fish, and an adequate market for it. As to the cultivation of waste lands, the impolicy of such a mode of investing capital could scarcely admit of a

doubt. Capitalists should be left to find out the way, in which their funds could be most profitably employed; for here the interest of the individual coincided exactly with that of the public. A great part of the pressure, under which the country laboured, arose from the quantity of poor soils which had been brought into tillage; so that the proposed remedy would, in fact, be an aggravation of the evil. Was it consistent with the dignity of government to descend to agricultural speculations, or with its wisdom, to undertake the cultivation of lands from which the industry, enterprise, and frugality of individuals could derive no profit? Then, where was the money to be found, which such a scheme required? Were the public burdens to be increasednot for purposes of national utility, but that a constant series of losses might be sustained in cultivating land, which would not give a return equal to the expenses incurred? But of all the parts of the plan, that which related to the use of machinery was the most extravagant, and the most completely at variance with every principle of sound political science. Next to the spirit of her people, England was indebted for her commercial power and greatness to her machinery. It had given, as it were, legs to the lame, and sight to the blind; it had inspired the dull with enterprise, and to the enterprising had given additional energy: it had placed the country, in spite of all its disadvantages, on a level with the most favoured natious, and had enabled its merchants, who paid a heavy price for labour, to compete with those of other nations,

who paid but a trifle for it. Did his noble friend conceive, that the commercial greatness of England had arisen from any superior advantage in its climate, any superior fertility in its soil? No. He might go to the east or to the west, to the north or to the south, and find climates of more genial influence, lands of much richer quality-but he would not find in their boundaries men, whose mind was a richer treasure to the land which contained them, than any which either soil or climate ever produced. He would find, that they did not number among their inhabitants, a Watts, a Bolton, an Arkwright, and many another name to which England was indebted for its present greatness-men who were as useful to their country, in their generation, as any of the legislators of old were in theirs. Let him visit our manufacturing towns, and he would see the greatest inventions matured, and brought to perfection, by those whom he might consider as the meanest and most abject of mankind, but who were, notwithstanding, daily rising, from the humble situation in which fate had originally placed them, to wealth, and honour, and eminence in the state. If, therefore, he was for discouraging the employment of machinery-if he was for putting down the enterprising and inventive spirit of our industrious mechanics, he was for putting down and discouraging that, which had been, in times past, and must again be in days that were to come, the source of much of our welfare and happiness.

Lord Stanhope's motion was, as might have been expected, negatived without a division; and

his lordship, with paternal fondness for his project, and a prudent anxiety that it might not be totally forgotten, entered his dissent from the vote on the Journals of the House.

Among the many sound views, which lord Liverpool's speech contained on the subject of our internal policy, there was one error of considerable magnitude. He seemed inclined to admit, that the extended use of machinery aggravated the evils which accompanied any change in the channels of commercial and manufacturing industry, though he maintained, at the same time, that this inconvenience was a comparatively slight drawback from the many great advantages which machinery conferred on us. The truth, however, is, that the greater the share which machinery has in the production of any commodity, the less individual suffering will be produced by the distur bance or destruction of that particular branch of manufacture; for the number of workmen engaged in it will be proportionally fewer, and, consequently, when the article no longer finds a ready sale, and those engaged in the preparation of it are left unemployed, the misery is confined within narrower limits. Instead of starving workmen, we have machinery standing still; the mischief is transferred, to a considerable extent, from the poor to the rich; and a great portion of the inconveniences of a revolution in commerce or manufactures loses the appalling form of human misery, and assumes the more tolerable aspect of a loss of fixed capital. This is a great moral advantage of the extended use of machinery, and one which is too often overlooked.

It is impossible to observe the course of the debates, which occurred during this session, on commercial policy, without remarking the rapid progress which sound and liberal views had made in the minds of all parties: and these questions, the discussion of which had, in former times, called forth nothing but violent prejudice and invective, were now the points, on which ministers, and the more enlightened of their opponents, approached most nearly to perfect coincidence of senti

ment.

Though the wild and visionary schemes of Mr. Maxwell and lord Stanhope did not meet with much attention, some very interesting discussions took place upon the means of reviving our internal industry, by removing some of the restrictions which we had imposed on our foreign trade. Petitions from various manufacturing districts for the removal of these restrictions were laid upon the table of the House. In present ing that of the merchants of London on the 8th of May, Mr. Baring entered into the subject at great length; and, after illustrating several general principles, recommended specifically to do away with all enactments that were absolutely prohibitory, to revise our navigation laws, to repeal the wool-tax, to facilitate the transit trade in German linens, to permit the importation of timber from the north of Europe on the same footing as from North America, and to remove the restraints on the trade with China. Mr. F. Robinson candidly admitted both the soundness of the general principles advanced by Mr. Baring, and the correctness of his application of VOL. LXII.

them to the particular instances which he had mentioned. He declared himself an enemy to the restrictive system, which he conceived to be founded in error, and calculated to defeat its own object. But it now involved so many interests, that it could be departed from only gradually; and it had taken such deep root in the public mind, and had enlisted so many prejudices in its favour, that, even where it could be abandoned safely, and without delay, it was difficult to persuade men to give it up.

Mr. K. Finlay (May 16th), in presenting a petition from the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce, similar in its prayer to that of the merchants of London, placed, in a strong point of view, the effect of our restrictions on the trade with China. Suppose, said he, a British merchant and an American one to be at the same time in London, and each of them to receive intelligence from the East, that a new opening for a certain portion of our manufactures had just presented itself in that quarter-the difference in their situation would be truly astonishing. Secrecy and despatch were the two most essential things on every occasion of this kind. The American might engage a vessel of perhaps 150 or 200 tons, and, having purchased his goods, despatch it in the course of a week to the East Indies. The English merchant must first repair to counsel, and, having acquainted himself with the law of the matter, apply to the Company for a licence for his vessel, and a licence for his supercargo. With regard to the latter, he was always obliged to wait a month before he got an answer from the directors. [G]

When he obtained it, he might find that the licence was refused, and then he was under the necessity of applying to the board of control. If, after a considerable lapse of time, and a full disclosure of his plans, he obtained it from the board of commissioners, he could not ship his goods in any vessel of less than 350 tons burden. Could any merchant embark in the trade, subject to all this expense and delay, without courting his own destruction? Though he had opposed these regulations, when they were first brought forward, he was not inclined to deprive the East-India Company of what had been solemnly granted to them. But he hoped that the Company would consent to the relaxation of a system, which was so injurious to the prosperity of the country, and was calculated to promote not even their own interests, but those of the private foreign trader.

Mr. Finlay also urged the repeal of the usury laws, the revision of our revenue laws, particularly that part of them which related to extents in aid, and also of our bankrupt system, aud the removal of some of the imposts on the importation of foreign commodities. He concluded with expressing his conviction, that other countries (with the exception perhaps of France) would not recover from their embarrassments more speedily than ourselves, and that, in our principal manufactures, we should still be able to beat down all competition. The country was already in a course of progressive improvement. Our commerce and manufactures were reviving; the situation of the labouring classes

was ameliorated; they were beginning again to enjoy the com→ forts of which the scantiness of their wages had for a time deprived them, and they were returning into their former habits of tranquillity and subordination from the infatuated delusion into which they had wandered.

The petitions for commercial freedom, and the favourable ear with which parliament seemed inclined to listen to them, had already excited alarm in some of those who had, or conceived they had, an interest in an opposite line of policy. The shipowners, in particular, expressed great dread of the effects of admitting timber from the Baltic, and, having held a meeting, agreed to petition both Houses of Parliament against the adoption of such a measure.

This important subject underwent a still more elaborate discussion in the House of Lords. On the 26th of May, lord Lansdown, in moving for the appointment of a committee, to take into consideration the means of extending and securing the foreign trade of the country, led the House into a comprehensive view of every part of it. After proposing the abolition of all abso lutely prohibitory duties, he proposed a relaxation of the naviga tion laws to the extent of allowing produce, not colonial, to be imported from all parts of Europe, without making it necessary that it should be altogether in English-built ships, or in ships belonging to the nation whence the produce comes. At present, a vessel which had taken part of its cargo in a French port, and which afterwards had proceeded to a Flanders port for the remainder,