Nothing can be more absurd, than to assert that there is free trade in this country; there is no such thing—there can be no such thing. Our manufactures and our produce have been at all times protected. We have always given protection to the productions of our own soil, and encouragement to our domestic labours; and we have, therefore, rather discouraged, than otherwise, the rivalry of other countries. That has been our system; and I should be sorry to see any measure adopted by this House, opposed to that system under which this country has so many years thriven and prospered. We have always proceeded on the principle of protecting our manufactures and our produce—the produce of our labour and our soil; of protecting them against importation, and extending our home consumption; and on that universal system of protection it is absurd to talk of free trade.
March 9, 1832.
* * * * *
The Lord Chancellor's Patronage. Its Private Disposal Defended.
My noble and learned friend (the Earl of Eldon) has been attacked for having, in the exercise of the patronage of his office, not overlooked the interests of his own family. To be sure he did not, and he ought not to have done so; if he had, he would only have been departing from the practice of all his predecessors. Let me remind your Lordships, that for at least a century and a half back, the Lord Chancellor and Judges have invariably dispensed the patronage attached to their offices in favour of their own immediate relations; so that my noble and learned friend, in providing for his own family as well as he could, was only acting according to the uniform and acknowledged practice of all his predecessors. The fact is, that the office of Lord Chancellor would be very inadequately remunerated, unless the individual filling it procured the means of providing for his family; and I believe it will be found out ere long, what with this inadequate remuneration, and what with stripping off so much of the Chancellor's patronage, and what with the surrendering up so much of his bankruptcy fees,—that the remuneration will be so inadequate to the labour and change of habits, and expense consequent upon the assumption of the office,—that few eminent gentlemen at the bar will, in future, be disposed to accept of it.
* * * * *
For the reason by which I justified my noble and learned friend, I will say that the noble and learned lord opposite, (Lord Plunkett) was justified in the exercise of his official patronage. That noble and learned lord has a large family, and was perfectly right in placing them in those situations to which their abilities and pretensions were adequate. The only blame in such a case would be if he placed them in situations to which their abilities were not equal. I will therefore say that the learned lord was perfectly justified in the course he has pursued; and I will say more, that his high office and his great intellectual influence, fully entitled him to expect that the government, of which he was a member, should give his family a preference in filling up any situations to which, as I have stated, their abilities were equal. I agree with the noble Earl at the head of his Majesty's government, in hoping that this will be the last we shall hear of this senseless outcry against public men for this mode of disposing of the patronage of office. The time of the house is but ill spent with such discussions; indeed, I am sure that nothing can tend more to injure its character in public estimation, than these investigations of the family affairs of men in high stations; at all events, they tend more to lower the house than benefit the public, and the sooner we put an end to them the better.
March 12, 1832.
Peace with France desirable, but difficult to maintain.
There does exist in the minds of the people of France, a sentiment, which their government at the present day are but too prone to flatter. I allude to that morbid desire of extended conquest, which, at least for the last forty years, has so much influenced the character and proceedings of that people.