THE CORN-LAW QUESTION.
The new corn-law, which had been sent to the house of lords before the recess, only furnished them with an opportunity of triumph. It had originated in the late cabinet of which the Duke of Wellington was a member; but notwithstanding this, he moved an amendment, prohibiting the removal of foreign corn from bond until the price of wheat should have reached sixty-six shillings per quarter. This proposal, though at variance with the principle of the bill, which provided for the admission of corn at all times on payment of a duty proportionate to the average market price, was supported by the high Tory party and peers, who preferred their own interests as landowners, so that ministers were left in a minority of one hundred and twenty-two to one hundred and thirty-three. The consequence of this amendment was, that, when the bill returned to the commons, ministers rejected it altogether; it being fatal, they said, to the principle of the bill, and inconsistent with its application. As for the supporters of the amendment they were abused both within and without the walls of St. Stephen, as men who had sacrificed the public good to forward the purposes of mere faction. Even Mr. Canning, imagining that the opposition was directed personally against himself, described the Duke of Wellington as a tool in the hands of more crafty intriguers. He could not, he said, exclude from his consideration that even so great a man as the Duke of Wellington had been made an instrument in the hands of others on that occasion. As to the members by which that amendment was carried, he asserted, that he believed it impossible that such discordant materials could have been brought together by a conviction of its merits. He looked upon the union not as arising from the merits of the question, but from some deep-rooted design to produce another effect in the other house, or that house, or elsewhere. There was no reason, however, to believe that this step arose from the spirit of faction as a whole; and Mr. Canning’s language was, to say the least of it, indiscreet; language, which pique and provocation might account for, but which neither sound sense nor good feeling could justify. In consequence of the failure of this bill it became necessary to prevent a recurrence of that alarm which had arisen last year on account of scarcity. A temporary bill was therefore prepared and suffered to pass both houses, permitting the release of foreign corn from bond, on the same scale of duties as that proposed by the measure which had been abandoned.