of recent occurrence, the merchants and manufacturers in Foreign States have assailed their respective Governments with applica. tions for further protective or prohibitory duties and regulations, urging the example and authority of this country, against which they are almost exclusively directed, as a sanction for the policy of such measures. And certainly, if the reasoning upon which our restrictions have been defended is worth any thing, it will apply in behalf of the regulations of Foreign States against us. They insist upon our superiority in capital and machinery, as we do upon their comparative exemption from taxation, and with equal foundation. That nothing would more tend to counteract the commercial hostility of Foreign States, than the adoption of a more enlightened and more conciliatory policy on the part of this country. That although, as a matter of mere diplomacy, it may sometimes answer to hold out the removal of particular prohibitions, or high duties, as depending upon corresponding concessions by other States in our favour, it does not follow that we should maintain our restrictions, in cases where the desired concessions on their part cannot be obtained. Our restrictions would not be the less prejudicial to our own capital and industry, because other governments persisted in preserving impolitic regulations. That, upon the whole, the most liberal would prove to be the most politic course, on such occasions. That, independent of the direct benefit to be derived by this country on every occasion of such concession or relaxation, a great incidental object would be gained, by the recognition of a sound principle or standard, to which all subsequent arrangements might be referred; and by the salutary influence which a promulgation of such just views by the Legislature, and by the Nation at large, could not fail to have on the policy of other States. That in thus declaring, as your Petitioners do, their conviction of the impolicy and injustice of the restrictive system, and in desiring every practicable relaxation of it, they bave in view only such parts of it as are not connected, or are only subordinately so, with the public revenue. As long as the necessity for the present amount of revenue subsists, your Petitioners cannot expect so important a branch of it as the customs to be given up, nor to be materially diminished, unless some substitute, less objectionable, be suggested. But it is against every restrictive regulation of trade, not essential to the revenue, against all duties merely protective from foreign competition, and against the excess of such duties as are partly for the purpose of revenue, and partly for that of protection, that the prayer of the present Petition is respectively submitted to the wisdom of Parliament. The following is the case of the Landowners of Great Britain, alluded to in Mr. Baring's speech: Report of George Webb Hall, Esq. Chairman of the General Committee of Management for the Agricultural Associations in Great Britain and Ireland, made to the said Committee at Henderson's Hotel, on Monday, the 1st day of May, 1820. Gentlemen,-I have to report to you, that in execution of the trusts reposed in this Committee by the General Meeting held in this place, on Monday, the 25th day of Oct. last, I have taken upon myself to send to the chief magistrate in every town in England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, and to circulate, in various other parts of the United Kingdom, copies of the origin and proceedings of the Agricultural Associations in Great Britain, which has produced a very considerable effect, in confirming, extending, and enlarging the associations then formed, and has added many new associations to the general cause: that I have held a most extensive correspondence with almost every county in England, and with several in Wales, in Scotland, and in Ireland, as will appear by the bundles of letters now laid on your table for your inspection and perusal: and I have particular pleasure in reporting to you, that the associations, generally, have acquired no inconsiderable accession of strength and consistency since I had last the honour of meeting you in this place. Gentlemen,-We are now assembled for the purpose of entering on one of the most arduous tasks ever before confided in this or any other nation, to so small a number of men;-men too that are inexperienced and untried in the path which lies before themunaided by power,---unsupported by patronage, and unprotected by interest: in short, I may fairly describe ourselves as men destitute of every supposed requisite for the undertaking in which we are about to embark -except the energies of our own minds, and the justice of our cause ;-and supported only by those who have hitherto been considered, but most mistakenly so considered, as I shall prove in the sequel, as the most inconsiderable class of men in the nation, viz. the cultivators of the soil of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. But, Gentlemen, what we want in patronage we will supply by facts, what we want in interest by arguments, and what we want in political power, we will sustain by truth and justice; which, when respectfully, and properly submitted to the British legislature, have never yet been pleaded in vain. With the example, therefore, before our eyes, of the final success and triumph of Mr. Wilberforce in the instance of the slave-trade, after so many defeats, I urge you to think of nothing but ultimate success; well knowing, that until British agriculture shall rece.ve equal protection with her commerce and manufactures, it will be impossible to carry it on 1 on with advantage to the country or benefit to the cultivator, and that the declension of our agriculture must prove the destruction of both our commerce and our manufactures. Gentlemen,-I will not conceal from you, that the most difficult point we shall have to encounter, is the opinion which men of all ranks and descriptions, not only in the united kingdom, but throughout Europe, have imbibed, viz., that the amazing wealth and power which this mighty nation has displayed, is derived from her commerce and manufactures, rather than from her agriculture; and therefore it is that the interests of our agriculture have been for centuries past more or less sacrificed to the supposed, although mistaken, interests of our commerce and manufactures. But those who investigate this question more profoundly will ascertain, that it is from the unceasing industry and energies of her inhabitants, protected as they are by her unrivalled constitution, the fertility of her soil, her boundless mines of coal, and the union of agriculture, commerce, and manufactures, in one and the same people, that the united kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland has surpassed the whole world in wealth and power, as she has in arts and in arms; and that all the present sufferings of her people arise simply and solely for want of preserving a due equilibrium between her agriculture, her commerce, and her manufactures. She has sacrificed the former to the mistaken interests of the two latter sources of her wealth and power; and being well assured that no redress can be expected until this committee shall satisfy the legislature, his Majesty's ministers, and the public, of the dependance not only of the commerce and manufactures of this country, but of the revenue also upon her agriculture, I have spared neither time nor pains to demonstrate this fact by such a comparative statement of the profits of each to the country at large, as I doubt not, when it shall be thoroughly investigated, will set this question at rest for ever. I therefore crave your most serious attention, and your most minute investigation of the following comparative view of the profit to the united kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, arising from her agriculture, her commerce, and her manufactures; by which it is clearly demonstrated, that the depreciation of her wealth, occasioned by the import of foreign produce, duty-free, and which she might grow on her own soil, amounts to a much larger sum than she ever cleared by all her commerce and manufactures put together, whether for home consumption or foreign markets; from whence it may be fairly inferred, that all her present embarrassments arise from this single cause. Dr. Colquhoun, in his Treatise on the Wealth, Power, and Resources of the British Empire, estimates the property created in Great Britain and Ireland in the year 1812-13, as follows: Without staying to enquire whether the Doctor is correct in all these branches, it is sufficient here to state that this estimate hav ing been prepared anterior to 1814, and published in that year, it could not be fabricated if we check his estimate by the payments on to serve the purpose of the agriculturists; and the property tax, we shall be astonished at the coincidence and corroboration which the Doctor's estimate derives from this criterion. I therefore take the estimate altogether for ficiently accurate to draw a comparison of better for worse, in all its branches, as sufthe national profit on each branch, and which, when analized, will appear as follows: Agriculture, and all its branches, in Great Britain and Ireland, 216,817,6241. Of this creation, I may fairly estimate 1-4th as the rental or net profit to the land owners for Great Britain and Ireland... To the cultivators of the soil for the profits of stock, skill, and capital, I allow 3-4ths of this sum as clear gain, viz. for Great Britain and Ireland, 40,653,3031. of which I estimate for the cultivators of Great Britain 4-5ths..... 54,204,406 32,522,614 To the cultivators of the soil of Ireland created, and we leave 119,227,0161. for The like for the farmers or workers of Deduct these two sums from the amount created, and we leave 6,750,0001. for wages and working the nines, &c.&c. Total profits on the productions of the soil in 1813 1,125,000 1,125,000 98,840,608 By which it appears, that in 1813, the productions of the soil of Great Britain and Ireland yielded to the owners and occupiers thereof the net clear profit of 99,840,6081. to be expended in the country, whereby all ranks and conditions of men were alike benefited and employed, and the taxes were paid with facility: but in 1814, by the import of foreign produce, duty free, or nearly so, the productions of the soil were depreciated one half of their former value, and they have since averaged a depreciation of about one third of their value in 1813, which depreciation has diminished the currency of the united kingdom, and reduced the value of every other species of property in the same proportion, and produced that universal stagnation in every other business of which all complain, but which so few can solve the cause of. Manufactures Chartered & private bankers, 3,500,000l. This being a creation of profit upon a capital of 40,700,000l. we carry the whole as profit. a 250,000 262,500 3,500,000 Total net profit to the nation on all the boasted commnerce and manufactures of Great Britain and Ireland only!!! £28,025,468 I will now proceed to check these results by the several payments on the property tax. First, I deduct 1-5th of the sum of 54,204,4061. above stated as at the rental of Great Britain and Ireland, for the share of rent on land in Ireland, not charged to the property tax, which leaves sum of 43,363,5251. as the net rental of Great Britain, according to Dr. Colquhoun's estimate. The payment to the property tax in Great Britain in 1814-15 to schedule A, property in land, was 4,297,2471. which, multiplied by 10, ascertains the rental of Great Britain according to the payments on the property tax at the sum of 42,972,4701. leaving only the trifling difference between the Doctor's estimate and the actual payment on the property tax, of 391,0551. The first item, therefore, may be taken to be proved to demonstration as the profit from rent in Great Britain and Ireland. The next item is for profits to the cultivators of the soil of Great Britain, 32,522,6441. They were charged and payed to the property tax the sum of 2,176,2281. which, at the rate of 7 per cent. on their profits for England and Wales, and I believe less for Scotland, charges them with a profit of 29,016,3731. So that here again we have demonstration, almost to a fraction, of the truth of the Doctor's estimate, and of the proportion of it which I have allotted to the cultivators of the soil of Great Britain as profit; for I apprehend the allowances made to small tenants will fully balance this difference. I have no mode of checking the estimate of profit for the cultivators of the soil of Ireland, but the amount is so reasonable and so proportioned to what we can check, that I think no man will dispute any slight variation which might exist between the sum I have estimated and the fact. The next item is for tithes, 2,732,8981.; this being the amount returned to Parliament for 1814, no man can deny that this was so much net profit from the soil of Great Britain that year. The last item is for mines, minerals, and coals; and supposing that Dr. Colquhoun is right in the aggregate, no man can assert that the respective proportions of profit which I have assumed are at all unreasonable, but the fair and usual returns of profit actually derived from the working of mines in general. Thus have I established, by facts and figures, borne out and corroborated in every instance by the actual payments to the property tax, which amount to demonstration, that the net clear income of Great Britain and Ireland, arising from the land, and the skill, capital, and industry of the cultivators of the soil, did amount in the year 1813 to the enormous sum of, at least, 99 millions eight hundred and forty thousand six hundred and eight pounds; and we have the evidence of facts before us, that up to that year, and as long as this stream of wealth was received and flowed through every vein and artery of the state, our taxes were paid with facility, our labourers were fully employed, our commerce and our manufactures flourished, and all ranks prospered, in defiance of our heavy taxation;-at that time much greater than it is at present. But in 1814, as soon as foreign productions, which might be grown upon our soil, were admitted dutyfree, or nearly so, to compete in our own markets with our own productions, the agriculture of the country was first paralized, most of our productions fell 50 per cent. while sales were made with difficulty even at this depreciation; confidence in men and property were alike annihilated in a moment, and all our subsequent embarrassments are but the effects of that mistaken policy which induced the legislature in 1814 to listen to the popular cry, but fatal cry of cheap bread; and to permit the import of any productions which might be raised from our own soil upon terms which might produce an artificial reduction in the value of our own produce. But let us now compare the Doctor's esti mate of property created by our commerce and manufactures, and the profits which I have allotted on such creation, with the payments which the merchants and manufacturers have made on the property tax. Estimating the profits all round, on the sums created at 12 per cent. except the chartered and private bankers, which, on a capital of 40,700,0001. the Doctor has estimated at considerably less than 122 per cent. we obtain a sum total for the profits on manufactures in every branch, inland trade in all its branches, foreign commerce and shipping, coasting trade, fisheries, and chartered and private bankers, of no more than the sum of 28,025,4681. for Great Britain and Ireland. Of this sum I write off one-fifth for the share of Ireland, which leaves a net total for Great Britain alone of 22,420,3751. for profit, and no more; and I then turn to the the payments under the property tax, and find schedule D. trades paid 2,000,0001. which again proves to a demonstration how nearly the Doctor's estimate of truth is to the fact. For if the merchants and manufacturers of Great Britain really paid to the property tax upon profits to the amount of 20,000,0001. and actually made no more than 22,424,3751. no man can say, when all the contingencies of trade are taken into the account, that they did not pay most handsomely and honourably to the property tax. Thus, gentlemen, have I at last placed upon a rock, which all the merchants and manufacturers of Great Britain can never assail with effect, the true proportions of profit to this great nation arising from her agriculture, her commerce, and her manufactures. The productions of the soil of the united 28,025,468 kingdom, up to 1813, did yield a profit to the nation of no less a sum than..£99,840,608 While her commerce and manufactures during the same period, yielded a profit of only... Leaving a preponderance in favour of agriculture and productions of the soilover commerce and manufactures, of 71,815,140 Or considerably more than twice the amount of all the profits made by all the boasted commerce and manufactures of Great Britain and Ireland put together. Yet this agriculture, this unfathomable mine of wealth as long as it shall be duly protected, has this great nation sacrificed to the mistaken views of her merchants and manufacturers, who contend that they cannot compete with foreign manufacturers in foreign markets with their woollens, their earthenware, their hardware, and their manufactures generally, unless bread be artificially cheap in this country; and by which artificial reduction, a defalcation in the returns of the productions of our own soil for the last six years, of considerably more than twice the amount of all the profits ever made by our commerce and manufactures for both our home and foreign markets have amounted to, has arisen, and a great proportion of our labourers, both agricultural and manufacturing, have been thrown upon their parishes for subsistence. Such, Gentlemen, are the facts, the figures, and the results on which we ground our application to the legislature for that protection, on all the productions of our soil, which the merchants and manufacturers have so long enjoyed for their skill, capital, and industry; but the principle and policy on which these claims rest, have been so fully enlarged on in a former report, that I will not trespass on your time by here repeating the arguments, and shall only recommend to this committee, and the whole British nation, the most serious examination of the estimate which I have now the honour to lay before you, that the same may be received, admitted, and acted upon if true, and if it shall bear the test of examination; or be detected and exposed, if it shall be found to be incorrect and fallacious. I cannot conclude this report, Gentlemen, without congratulating each of you, and the whole class of cultivators of the soil throughout Great Britain and Ireland, that I have at last established our pretensions to the superior importance of the agriculture of this country over her commerce and manufactures, upon a basis which it will be difficult for all the skill and ingenuity, all the industry, and all the power of figures, in the hands of the most able and ingenious bankers, merchants, and manufacturers this kingdom can produce, to impugn, or even to shake. The data which Dr. Colquhoun has afforded me are corroborated and borne out in every instance by the payments to the property tax, and from the statement of profits respectively which I have formed, we have this glorious result, viz. that the cultivators of the soil of the united kingdom, did, by their skill, capital, and industry employed in agriculture in 1813, earn for the landowners, the clergy, and themselves, a net clear profit of 99,840,6081.; while in the same period, all the boasted results of all the commerce and manufactures of the united kingdom, both at home and abroad, amounted to no more than a profit of 28,025,4681. If this statement will not convince the legislature, his Majesty's ministers, and the British public, of the justice, the policy, and the necessity of equal protection for the skill, capital, and industry of the cultivators of the soil, with the merchants and manufacturers, nothing but a continuation of their present sufferings can ever do so. For it is as clear as facts and figures can demonstrate, that if the productions of our own soil have depreciated one-third in value per annum since 1813, by the introduction of foreign produce duty-free, then has it cost this nation the third part of 216,117,6241. or the sum of 72,272,5411. per annum, for the single purpose of enabling our merchants and manufacturers to vend from ten to 15,000,0001. worth of their commodities in foreign markets, whereby a profit of a million and a half, or at most two millions sterling, may be gained, to set against this awful depreciation of 72,272,5411. and by which depreciation the labours of every man in the united kingdom, seeking to gain a livelihood by skill, capital, and labour, have been arrested, a large portion of our agricultural and manufacturing labourers have been sent to the parish for subsistence, the value of our lands have been reduced, our cultivators are dispirited and broken down, and, finally, every other branch of industry is paralized, because no longer supported and fed by the copious stream which gave motion to the whole, as long as our own productions maintained a remunerating price in our own markets. On the 11th, in a speech on Exchequer Bills, Mr. Maberly stated That the imports of 1819, were less by 6,000,0001. and the exports by 10,000,0001. than than they were the preceding year; and the total Revenue, ordinary and extraordinary, up to 5th April, 1819, was 50,388,2481. while the expenditure of that year was 69,448,8991. The boasted Sinking Fund of 5,000,0001. was merely nominal, and the real Sinking Fund would be found to be no more than 395,3161. On comparing the Revenue of last year with that of this year, up to the 5th Jan. 1820, there was a falling off; in the former year, the Revenue up to 5th Jan. was 49,056,5931. ; this year, up to the same period, it was 48,208,1751.leaving a deficiency of 848,4181. and if the deficiency of Ireland was taken, he believed it would be 1,000,0001. The only remedy, in his view of the question, was a tax upon property. If a tax of ten millions was levied on real property, and the Assessed Taxes were given up, it would be a boon to the people. If ever there was a time when property could be taxed with propriety it was this. Were not the corn laws a real tax on the people? This could be shewn if the corn bill was removed. The difference between the price actually paid for corn in this country and that for which it could be imported, were it not for the corn bill, was a tax on the people. Supposing this difference to be one pound per quarter, and supposing the quantity of corn consumed annually to be fifteen million quarters, then there was a tax on the people of fifteen millions annually going, not to the revenue, but to the landed proprietor. This was a fact which no man could contradict. The landed proprietors were better able to pay taxes than the lower classes of society, and therefore, if new taxes must be imposed, and they must be imposed, unless the public credit was to be abandoned, which he supposed the House would not readily consent to, they must fall upon property. He did not mean an income tax, nor a tax upon any profession or trade-no man detested such a tax more than he did, he meant a tax upon landed property. SPEECHES OF ARTHUR THISTLEWOOD AND OTHERS ON RECEIVING SEN- On Friday, April 28, the Judges took their seats on the Bench, and the prisoners were brought to the Bar, when the Clerk of Arraigns called upon Arthur Thistlewood, and asked him, in the usual terms, what he had to say Arthur Thistlewood said, he had been asked what he had to say why judgment should not be passed upon him. To this he would answer, that if he had been prepared with evidence, however pure, and that that evidence had been enforced by the eloquence of a Cicero, he was still satisfied that he could not escape the vengeance of Lord Sidmouth and Lord Castlereagh. The prisoner then inveighed in strong terms against the manner in which his trial had been conducted. He had been precluded from examining witnesses to prove the infamy of Adams, Hiden, and Dwyer. He had applied to have them called before the Solicitor General rose to make a reply; but the Court had inhumanly refused his request; this, he contended, was inconsistent with that spirit of British justice which on all other occasions, except the present, he had no doubt would have prevailed. He challenged the Learned Judges on the Bench to say, whether he had been fairly tried; and if not, whether, if execution should take place, he was not cruelly murdered.He could have called witnesses to prove that Dwyer had been guilty of the most atrocious offences. He could have proved that Adams was a swindler and the blackest of charactert; and of Hiden, he could have produced persons who would have spoken in terms of equal reprobation. These were the persons upon whose testimony alone was he sacrificed to the vengeance of the Ministers. denied that he had been actuated by any personal motives against Lord Sidmouth. He disclaimed every selfish feeling. A few hours hence, said he, and I shall be no more; but the nightly breeze which will whistle over the silent grave that shall protect me from its keenness, will bear to your restless pillows the memory of one who lived but for his country, and died when liberty and justice had been driven from its confines by a set of * He For life, as it respects myself, I care not; but while yet I may, I would rescue my memory from the calumny which I doubt not will be industriously heaped upon it, when it will be no longer in my power to protect it. Many people who were acquainted with the barefaced manner in which I was plundered by my Lord Sidmouth, will perhaps imagine that personal motives instigated me to the deed; but I disclaim them. My every principle was for the prosperity of my country. My every feeling the heighth of my ambition was the welfare of my starving countrymen. I keenly felt for their miseries -but when their miseries were laughed at, and when because they dared to express those miseries, they were * * my feelings became too intense, too excessive for endurance, and I lives of the instigators should be the requiem resolved on vengeance-I resolved that the to the souls of murdered innocents. In this mood I met with George Edwards. And if any doubt should remain upon the minds of the public, whether the deed I meditated was virtuous or contrary, the tale I will now relate will convince them, that in attempting to exercise a power which the law had ceased to have, I was only wreaking national vengeance on a set of wretches unworthy the name or character of men.This Edwards, poor and pennyless, lived near Picket-street, in the Strand, sometime ago, without a bed to lie upon, or a chair to sit in. Straw was his resting place; his only covering a blanket. Owing to his bad character and his swindling conduct, he was driven from thence by his landlord. It is not my intention |