either at the bar of the House, or before a committee, that the provisions in the act of 1815 had failed as entirely of their object, as if that act had never passed. They stated general grievances, and left it to the wisdom of the House to devise the means by which their sufferings might be mitigated. He could not take leave of this subject without adverting to the petition from certain merchants and manufacturers, which had been presented by the hon. member for Taunton. There were no doubt in that petition many principles that could not be denied; but they were wholly inapplicable to the state of society in which we now lived. He would take the opportunity of saying, that he thought there was no great wisdom or propriety in the mode in which that petition had been introduced. It was brought forward at a time when the agricultural petitions were known to be in the hands of many members, and its main object was, to prejudice the interests of agriculturists, to indispose the House towards a consideration of their grievances, and to operate as an antidote to the effects which their petitions were calculated to produce. If the hon. gentleman who opened that subject to the House with so much ability, wished to disguise the real object of the petition, he could not congratulate him upon his success, for, whatever temper and discretion he might have shown in every other part of the subject, whenever he came to speak of the agriculturists he lost his temper,-he lost his discretion, and it seemed impossible for him to speak of that body in any other terms than those of the most unceremonious rudeness and incivility. The opinions of the agricultural petitioners might be below the notice of the hon. gentleman, and might be, as he had called them, "a farrago of nonsense;" but surely their distresses might at least have screened them from incivility. He was sorry he had trespassed so long on the time of the House, and feared he must have appeared to have lost the connexion of what was more perfectly arranged in his mind when he entered; but he should now at once come to his motion, which was, "That the several petitions presented to the House upon the subject of Agricultural Distresses be referred to a select committee, to consider the matter thereof, and report their opinion thereupon to the House."

Mr. Gooch said, that he considered the question to be of the most vital import

ance, and that however reluctantly he trespassed upon the House, he felt he should not discharge his duty unless he shortly stated the reasons which induced him to second his hon. friend's motion. He was certainly one of those who thought that nothing could be more mischievous, to say no worse of it, than to attempt to separate the interests of agriculture from the interests of any other great branch of the national industry. But the subject under consideration came recommended to the House on another and a very different principle. He would not say that the motion was not intended for the benefit of agriculture, but he would say, that, although, coming from an agricultural part of the kingdom, he certainly did feel a bias in favour of agriculture, yet, if he knew any thing of himself, he was one of the last men in the House, or the country, who would support a motion, the tendency of which would be to injure one class of the community for the advantage of another. A few years since the legislature passed a bill the object of which was to secure to the agriculturist a price which would enable him to cultivate the land without loss to himself. That bill had, however, been totally inoperative. It had not answered the purpose for which it was intended. In consequence of the defective way in which the averages were taken, it was made to appear that the farmer got 80s. a quarter for his corn at the very time that he was actually getting only 72s. Those averages were taken by persons who bought corn, and who were therefore interested in keeping up the apparent price. In some instances they were also taken in districts where little corn was grown, and where the freight was naturally added to the price of the corn. All that the agriculturists asked was, that the bill of 1815 should be made complete and effective for the purposes for which it had been passed. Our ancestors thought agriculture worthy protection, and he could see no reason why it was not as worthy of protection at the present day. How was it possible that, without protection, an English farmer could compete with a foreign farmer who had no poor-rates, no tithes, and comparatively little taxation to pay? He did not mean to enter into the question, whether our present taxation was just or unjust. He knew very well that we could not do without taxes. It was perfectly idle to talk of such a thing. But then came the

question, how the British farmer and landlord were to meet this great taxation? If they were not protected, how could it be expected that they would be able to contribute to the revenue? If the farmer could not sell his grain, the landlord must lower his rents, and how could he then pay his share to the revenue, or to the support of the poor? He felt his inadequacy to expatiate on this important question; but he also felt that if he had not thus briefly declared his sentiments upon it, his constituents would have had a right to tell him, that what he had said to them when he met them, he had been afraid to say to the House of Commons.

Mr. Robinson expressed himself extremely sorry to be compelled to address the House on a subject of such importance, at a time when he was labouring under a degree of indisposition that he was apprehensive would prevent him from making his statement so clear as he wished to make it; and he felt that on that account he must request the idulgence of the House, should he not be so explicit as he could assure them it was his earnest desire to be. Among the various subjects to which the attention of parliament was from time to time directed, there never in his opinion was one which required to be treated with more reserve, and more caution, and he would add, with less frequency than the question which his hon. friend the member for Surrey had just brought under the consideration of the House. On all topics connected with the subsistence of the people, there necessarily prevailed so much apprehension, and he was by no means disposed to deny, so much prejudice, that at all times and in all countries, such topics had been considered as involving matters of peculiar delicacy. So much was he impressed with this opinion that he confessed he felt great regret that the present discussion had taken place. When, at the commencement of last year, an expectation appeared to be entertained that the attention of parliament would be called to the revision of the corn laws, he and his colleagues had felt it to be their duty to state unequivocally their decided conviction that it was not expedient to alter the existing law. In communicating that opinion he had endeavoured to be as explicit as possible, not merely because he thought it his duty to be so, but because he flattered himself that so unequivocal a declaration might lead to the result that VOL. I.

the subject would not be pressed. To that result it certainly did lead during the last year, at least as far as the House of Commons was concerned. Ever since that period, however, great pains had been taken in the agricultural districts to excite a conviction that the existing law for the protection of agriculture was inoperative. Associations were established from one end of the kingdom to the other, for the purpose of concentrating in one mass the whole of the agricultural population, in order to bring their case more effectually under the consideration of parlia ment. In addition to this, it was deeply to be lamented that a kind of manifesto had been issued by an individual, whose name had been very conspicuous in these transactions, in which manifesto (for he could call it by no other title) the case of the agriculturists had been stated with a great degree of culpable exaggeration. He did not pretend to say that there was no agricultural distress. It would be very preposterous to assert any such thing. But he did take the liberty of expressing more than his doubts that that distress was universal. On this subject he had heard with great pleasure a noble lord, one of the members for Yorkshire, declare that to one part of the country at least the distress had not arrived at the extent described by others. As far as his (Mr. Robinson's) personal knowledge went, he did not see about his own residence those symptoms of extreme distress which it was said had betrayed themselves elsewhere. He saw no tenants leaving their farms, no cultivators afraid of speculating, no rents annually in arrear, no poor-rates continually increasing. He was not so absurd, however, as to believe, that, because in that part of the country which came under his own observation he did not see any distress to a considerable extent, it did not therefore exist in other parts of the country: that would be as absurd as appeared to him to be the conduct of those who, seeing great distress around themselves, necessarily concluded that there must be equally severe distress every where else. He by no means, therefore, denied the existence of distress. But the question was-first, what were the causes of the distress? Secondly, what was the remedy which it might be fit to apply? The immediate and direct causes of the distress undoubtedly were, the reduction of the price of corn, and the diminution of the demand. But par2 T

liament would involve itself in inextricable error, if, before it adopted any proceeding on the subject, it did not look more deeply into the primary cause which had occasioned the reduction in the price of corn. By doing so, all would see that as the present distress could not have been created by any deficiency in the corn laws, it therefore could not be remedied by any alteration of the corn laws. It was, in his opinion, impossible for any man to contemplate the events of the five and twenty years of a struggle of unprecedented duration and singularity-it was impossible to contemplate all the extraordinary and various circumstances which attended the late war, without perceiving in those circumstances the real cause of the present agricultural distress. The consequences of that war-a war unlike in its character to any former contest, were such as had never before been experienced in the world. In some countries its tendency was to destroy capital; but in this country its tendency was to accumulate it, and to give an artificial stimulus to every species of our manufactures and agriculture. No man could deny that in consequence of the rapid rise in the value of agricultural produce, occasioned by various circumstances, and above all by the occurrences of the war, an immense capital was embarked in the cultivation of the land, which would never otherwise have been so employed. It appeared to be thought by some that the natural level of the price of corn, was that which would pay the cultivator of the worst land actually in cultivation. It was evident, however, that there was no land, however inferior in quality, which would not produce corn, provided a sufricient capital were expended upon it. But would any man say, that it was possible the legislature could justly be called upon to adopt such measures as would retain bad land in cultivation, when the circumstances which had originally led to its cultivation were totally changed? It was not by any act of the legislature that that land had been called into cultivation, and it was not therefore to be expected that by any act of the legislature it should be continued in cultivation. But it had been stated by his hon. friend the member for Surrey, and by the hon. seconder of the motion, as well as by many other persons, that the law which was passed in 1815 was totally inefficient, and it had been so characterised because it had not produced

to the farmers the price of 80s. the quarter for their corn. Now he confessed that if his hon. friend thought that it was the object of the bill to secure that price to the farmers, his hon. friend's view of the motives which led to the introduction of the bill were very different from the actual motives which induced him (Mr. Robinson) to propose it to parliament. On making that proposition, one of the arguments which he had urged against the opponents of the measure, who contended that if it were adopted 80s. would thence. forward be the minimum, was, that in his opinion 80s. would thenceforward be the maximum. If the bill had failed to produce to the farmer 80s. a quarter, it had failed to produce that which it had never been intended to produce. It was impossible that it could produce that which the agriculturists expected, if they calculated upon its operation being similar to that of the circumstances which had maintained the price of agricultural produce during the war. The object of the Corn bill was simply to relieve the farmer from the apprehension of an overwhelming foreign competition, and thus to encourarge him in the proper, but not in the extravagant application of capital to the purposes of cultivation. His (Mr. Robinson's) argument in favour of that bill was, that by its operation the quantity of corn would be increased, which would necessarily diminish the price. It was evident, therefore, that the law was never framed for the purpose of producing to the farmer the price of 80s. a quarter for his corn. If, however, this general argument were considered insufficient, let the House look at the practical effects which had followed the passing of the Corn bill, and consider what had been the actual price of domestic, and the actual importation of foreign corn during the period that had since elapsed. During the last five years the importation of foreign wheat had amounted to 3,483,675 qrs. From this must be deducted 324,546 qrs. remaining in the warehouses, and 770,437 qrs. which had been exported, leaving the amount which had been added to the consumption of the country in five years 2,388,692 qrs.; being at the rate of about 477,000 qrs. per annum. This might appear a formidable quantity of foreign corn to throw into our consumption; but if the House looked at the average price of corn during the last five years, they would find that the agriculturist had not suffered from is,

much worse state than that in which it was at present. The plan, therefore, so strongly recommended, was calculated to produce the greatest possible mis. chief. His hon. friend had said,-and he (Mr. Robinson) knew that great stress was laid on the argument by those who had unfortunately been taught to believe that the legislature could remedy their grievances that much fraud existed in the mode of taking the averages. For his own part, he had always thought, and he still thought that the greatest possible delusion prevailed on this part of the subject. It was supposed that the price obtained by the agriculturist would not so soon be made to appear to rise to 80s. a quarter, if the average were struck by a different mode. If, for instance, instead of taking the separate average of different markets and different districts, and adding those averages together, the plan was adopted (a plan certainly very plausible in theory) of taking all the quantity of corn sold in the maritime districts, and the price at which it was sold, and thence forming a general average, it was supposed that the result would be extremely favourable to the agriculturist. With a view to ascertain the accuracy of this supposition, he had made some calculations which he fancied would very much surprise those by whom it was entertained. He had taken the average price of grain in the twelve maritime districts for six weeks preceding the 15th May, 1820, as estimated in the usual manner, and he had taken the average price of grain from the total quantity of grain, and the total price, as recom. mended by the agriculturists. For the week ending the 8th of April, it appeared that the average price of wheat, according to the former method, and published in the gazette was 70s. 2d. a quarter; the price according to the latter method was 71s. a quarter. The price of rye for the same period was, according to the former method, 43s. 7d.; according to the latter method, 44s. 1d. The price of barley was, according to the former method, 35s. 4d.; according to the latter method, 35s. 1d. The price of oats was, according to the former method, 24s. 11d.; according to the latter method 24s. Thus it appeared that, of the four species of grain, wheat and rye were higher by the proposed alteration in the mode of taking the estimate, and that barley and oats were lower. This would at least prove that the change recommended would not be so ad

vantageous, as those who had suggested it imagined. He would not trouble the House by going through the details of the other weeks. It was sufficient to say, that out of the six, five exhibited similar results. Unless therefore the calculation he had made was totally erroneous (which he was by no means disposed to believe), what, he asked, was the object in proposing the change in the mode of taking the averages? It could do no good; and could have no other effect but to put the whole country into a state of agitation and ferment. The introduction of the Welsh counties into the averages had also been objected to. It had been said, that it was absurd to take the average of parts of the country which were so little productive of corn, and that they had better be omitted. The Welsh counties composed the eighth and ninth maritime districts, and Monmouth part of the tenth. Now with a view of discovering how far the objection to their introduction was well founded, he had made a calculation of the averages with the omission of the Welsh counties. According to the view of the agriculturists that omission ought to diminish the price. The reverse was, however the fact. If the eighth and ninth districts, and Monmouth as part of the tenth, were omitted from the calculation of the average price of corn, that average price would be found to be much higher instead of lower. Thus then it appeared that parliament were required to make an alteration on the greatest possible delusion by which several millions of people had been deceived. He would by no means assert that the system of taking the averages was perfect. He did not think that the whole system of the corn laws could be perfect. It was, as he had before said, a choice of evils. But, unless a specific ground could be shown for making an alteration in the system, he strongly deprecated the agitation of the whole country by repeated discussions on the subject. He knew that the averages might be imperfectly, and he admitted that it was just possible they might be fraudulently taken. But that imperfection, and that fraud (if fraud there was), might be in favour of the agriculturist as well as against him. At a trial which had lately taken place in Liverpool, it was proved that the object of a person who had made a false return was not to raise, but to lower the apparent price of grain, and that he had succeeded in that object.