THE CORN-LAWS.
Ministers had pledged themselves to bring the corn-law question before the house this session; and great anxiety was felt throughout the nation on this subject. It had been originally intended to introduce the subject simultaneously in both houses; but the illness of Lord Liverpool prevented it being brought forward in the upper house. Mr. Canning introduced the subject in the commons on the 1st of March, when he expressed his surprise that so much of hostile feeling should have been allowed to enter into the consideration of a question where none ought to have been found, and that this asperity should arise where there was no necessity to fly to extremes, and where the difficulties, in point of fact, were less than they were stated in argument. Every body admitted, he said, the necessity of protecting the agricultural interests; the only question was the mode and degree in which the protection should be administered. Of late years three modes of protection, without prohibition, had been proposed: the first, that of Mr. Ricardo, which imposed a duty of 20s. per quarter, to be diminished every year till it should have reached a minimum of about 10s.; the second proposed to begin with a duty of 16s., to be gradually lowered to 10s.; and the third was to impose a duty of 15s, or 16s. once for all, without any reference to the price. All these plans he been devised by persons generally favourable to a free trade in corn; but to all of them there lay the objection that when a pressure came it would bring with it distress to the agriculturists. Experience, he said, proved, that to impose a fixed duty without any reference to the variation of prices was objectionable and insufficient, because it was inevitably sometimes too high, and at other times too low with reference to the state of the country. It was therefore more advisable to adopt a scale of duties, which should vary in a relative proportion to the state of the country. He moved that—“Whenever the average price of wheat made up and published in manner required by law, shall be 60s., and under 61s. per quarter, the duty shall be for one quarter £1. And in respect of every integral shilling, by which such price shall be above 60s., such duty shall be decreased by 2s., until such price shall be 70s. Whenever such price shall be at or above 70s., the duty shall be for every quarter Is. Whenever such price shall be under 60s., and not under 59s., the duty shall be for every quarter £. 2s. And in respect of each integral shilling, or any part of each integral shilling, by which such price shall be tinder 59s., such duty shall be increased by 2s.” Mr. Canning moved resolutions similar to the above on barley, oats, rye, peas, beans, wheat-meal, and flour, oatmeal, maize, &c. If the produce of, and imported from any British possession in North America, or elsewhere out of Europe, he moved that wheat should be admitted at 5s. per quarter, until the price of British wheat should be 65s. per quarter; and that whenever such price should be at or above 65s., the duty should be for every quarter only 6d. Similar resolutions were also moved on other grains coming from the same parts of the world. Mr. Canning’s last resolution on this subject was, “That it is the opinion of this committee, that all the said duties shall be regulated and determined from week to week by the average prices of corn, made up in the manner required by law; which prices shall, at the several ports of the United Kingdom, determine the several rates of the said duties for and during the week next after the receipt of the proper certificates of such average prices at such ports respectively.” The debate on these resolutions was postponed for a week, that every appearance of precipitancy in such an important measure might be avoided. When the discussion was resumed, the motion for the house going into committee was opposed by Lord Clive, Sir E. Knatchbull, and other leading members of the landed interest. Their opposition rested on the grounds that domestic agriculture was entitled to all the protection which parliament could give it, even in the shape of a prohibition; that it was unjust to expose the home-grown, oppressed with taxes, and obliged to purchase costly labour, to a competition with the farmers of foreign countries, where taxation was light and labour cheap; that the plan was only experimental in its nature, in a matter where all experiment was mischief; that its effect would be to reduce prices much below what could be considered a fair remunerating price to the grower; and that, while it thus deprived the agriculturist even of the imperfect protection which he at present enjoyed, it would ultimately prove injurious to the public welfare, by throwing poor lands out of cultivation, thus leaving the country at every moment dependent for its food on foreigners. The chancellor of the exchequer and Mr. Peel replied, and the opposition to the speaker’s leaving the chair was not pressed to a division. In the committee, however, an amendment was moved to the effect of raising the medium price by taking 64s. instead of 60s. as the point at which what might be considered the prohibitory duty of 20s. should attach, on which the house divided. But this was lost; and an amendment, proposed by Mr. Whitmore, for an exactly opposite purpose, namely, to reduce the medium price at which the duty of 20s. should attach, shared the same fate. During the progress of the bill through the committee other alterations were likewise proposed, almost all tending to the benefit of the home grower. Thus it was proposed to raise the medium price of rye, peas, and beans, from 35s. to 40s.; to lower the quantity of oatmeal, on which, as being equivalent to a quarter of oats, a given duty should be paid from one hundred and ninety lbs. to one hundred and seventy-six lbs.; and a similar attempt was made to raise the duty on wheat-flour. All these amendments were lost; but ministers themselves, from the representations of county meetings both in England and Scotland, raised the medium price of barley to 32s., and the duty to 12s.; and the medium price of oats from 21s. to 25s., and the duty to 8s. This concession to the agriculturists gave great offence to those who advocated free trade. Mr. Wood told ministers that they had allowed themselves to be bullied by them; to which Mr. Peel calmly answered, that he did not see how a proper and justifiable addition of 2s. to the price of barley could require such an extravagant expenditure of indignation and abuse. The report was brought up on the 27th of March; and the resolutions were carried, after a division on an amendment moved by Mr. Hume. A bill founded on them was brought in; and on the second reading the opposition to it on the part of the landed interest was renewed with undiminished hostility. Sir Thomas Lethbridge described the bill as one which ought to be entitled, “An act for the more effectual encouragement of speculation in the corn-trade, the more rapid diminution of the growth of grain in Great Britain, and the better encouragement of the growth of grain in other countries for the supply of the British market.” He moved as an amendment, that the bill should be read a second time on that day six months; and its supporters gave ministers to understand that the success of the bill would deprive them, in regard to certain other questions connected with expenditure, of the customary support of their most valued friends. If the price of corn was reduced, they said, everything else ought equally to be reduced. Were ministers then ready, they asked, to reduce the taxes? The defence of the bill was chiefly undertaken by Mr. Grant, the vice-president of the board of trade, who entered into an elaborate view of the whole question. Possessing, as the landowners did, the law of 1815, it was necessary, he said, to show some good reason for the change proposed; and he found a most satisfactory reason in the fact that the law had failed in every one of the objects which had been contemplated in its enactment. The intention of that law had been to effect three objects; namely, uniformity of price, protection to the farmer, and independence of foreign supplies; but it was notorious that the law had not answered any one of these purposes. The amendment was pressed to a division; and the second reading of the bill was carried by a majority of two hundred and forty-three to seventy-eight. It subsequently passed a committee with no other alteration than a clause, authorizing the king to prohibit, by an order in council, the importation of grain from any country where British vessels should be subject to a higher duty than was imposed on the vessels of such country coming to British ports. The bill was finally read a third time, and passed on the 12th of April, on which day the house adjourned for the Easter holidays.