MR. VILLIERS’S MOTION ON THE CORN-LAWS.
On the 11th of July, it having been moved to go into committee of supply, the opposition party brought forward the subject of the state of the nation. Mr. Villiers having moved as an amendment for the appointment of a select committee on the laws regulating the importation of corn, with a view to their total repeal, prefaced his motion with a speech, in which he said that he brought the subject forward in compliance with the request of the anti-corn-law delegates; and because, in the late discussion on the state of the nation, a taunt had been thrown out on the ministerial side, that, if the opposition thought that a repeal of the corn daws would remedy the evil, they ought to submit that proposition to the house. The motion was seconded by Mr. Fielden, and supported by Mr. Aglionby, who declared the new sliding-scale was a delusion. Sir Charles Napier and Mr. Gaily Knight conceived that these debates ought not to be protracted: it was an unfair way of conducting any opposition to a government. Sir Robert Peel bitterly complained of the continual interruption to public business, and of the impediments opposed to a fair trial of the new corn-law. Lord J. Russell, Viscount Howick, Sir John Hanmer, and Mr. Cobden supported the motion; but, on a division, it was rejected by two hundred and thirty-one against one hundred and seventeen.
While these discussions were taking place in the house of commons, the same class of topics were brought forward in the house of lords by Lord Brougham, who moved that a select committee be appointed to inquire into the distress of the country. This motion was supported by Lord Kinnaird and the Marquis of Clanricarde; and opposed by the Earl of Ripon, Viscount Melbourne, and Earl Stanhope. On a division it was rejected by a majority of sixty-one against fourteen.