that the landlords are, in effect, cajoling the tenantry, in their endeavours to make them believe otherwise, and to resist the change.'

6

Ill,' says the writer of a most able Letter from a Friend to the Agricultural Electors of Northamptonshire, Ill as I think of Lord Milton as a political character, it is with reluctance that I am compelled to believe this, while I thus state it-Landlords, as a body, deceiving and misleading their tenantry, and setting them against the public good for mean and private ends of their own! The very notion is quite monstrous; and equally insulting to both landlord and tenant. Such pestilent assertion (if, indeed, it be true that the son of Earl Fitzwilliam has had the hardihood to make it) is of direct tendency to tear asunder the whole friendly relation between the proprietors and occupiers of the soil, and to dissolve all confidence between man and man. To landlords, it virtually imputes that they must be either knaves in the gross, or blockheads;-knaves, if, with so wide and general a consent, they are in a conspiracy against their tenants; blockheads, if, with a consent hardly less general, (I may say unanimous, on the part of those who have most experience in land,) they have never yet been able to see, and cannot now tell their own true interests ;—as if Lord Milton alone, among landlords, could discover these, while all besides are groping in darkness! It is mere waste of words to argue upon such unwarranted assertions. The answer to it must proceed direct from common sense and common honesty. Do you, then, believe either of these things of such a body as the majority of the landlords of the British empire? Do you believe it of those whom you yourselves know?-to whom you feel yourselves in so many ways obliged-who are ever ready to assist you to the utmost of their power -in constant intercourse with whom so many of you live-whom you see on week days and on Sundays-whom you have always judged to fear God and honour the king? I trust not. The first and proper answer, then, to such a pestilent assertion as Lord Milton's is, that it is false?'

In the same spirit with the assertion imputed to Earl Fitzwilliam, a journalist-one of that fourth estate which threatens two of the others with destruction, and seeks to carry its threat into execution by deceiving and inflaming the third-calls the existing corn-law, that most wicked attempt to monopolize the market of the staff of life, and so curtail the sustenance of the people, while the measure held out as a protection to agriculture has been calculated for nothing more than a rank delusion upon the British farmer.' A good rat-catcher,' says Harrington, is not so great a blessing to any city, as a good juggler-catcher would be in this nation!'

The newspapers tell us at this time, that Earl Fitzwilliam has written to a friend, declaring his intention to leave no stone unturned for the purpose of obtaining a repeal of the present cornlaws.' It would be well, if, in the process of leaving no stone

unturned

unturned, he was to do no other harm than by undermining the foundation of his own prosperity to bring down an old house upon his own head! But the evils which may be brought upon a nation by the obstinate errors or incurable incapacity of an hereditary legislator afford an argument against one of those estates which, when the day comes for urging it, will not be overlooked by those who are now loudest in praise of this radical peer. The declaration that Lord Milton would pay no taxes till the Reform Bill should have been carried is recorded in our parliamentary history; and not among those silly or mischievous effusions of extemporaneous absurdity or malice prepense which remain there in the dead letter. The ministers who heard, and allowed it to pass unreproved, standing mute because it served their immediate purpose, have felt its effect in that systematic resistance to one tax which has already required the strength of the civil power, in aid of the law, to put it down. No one doubts that the assessed taxes are to be repealed in obedience to the will and pleasure of King People; King People we say, 'for at the Metropolitan meeting for the repeal of those taxes, Mr. Buckingham, according to the newspapers, said,

The time had now arrived when the toast so often proposed in that room by the Honourable Baronet in the chair, Sir Francis Burdett, should no longer be a mere by-word; it was necessary that THE

SCEPTRE SHOULD BE PLACED IN THE HANDS OF THAT SOVEREIGNTY.'

Earl Fitzwilliam has as many followers in his agricultural as in his financial politics, and they are of the same description-marchof-intellect men,-all of the Movement. There is an Anti-CornLaw Association in London, to which, it is said, several members of parliament belong, their object being to procure as unanimous an expression of feeling against the corn-laws as they possibly can.' If they succeed in their object, (and whatever may be the opinions and secret conviction of the majority of the cabinet, no one can calculate upon their ultimate resistance,) a very different expression of feeling will burst forth when the inevitable and irremediable consequences are felt; and Lord Fitzwilliam may then find that, great as his stake in the country is that stake to which, not to any gifts of nature, he is indebted for all his influence in this kingdom-it will carry with it less weight than a bludgeon in the hand of one of his disciples! What the farmer and the land-owner have to expect from the progress of 'liberal opinions' may be seen from the declarations of a great corn-factor before the Committee on Agriculture, a gentleman who has been engaged in that trade, on a very large scale, for some thirty years. After admitting that, though there may be slight defects in any system of corn-laws, it is very important, considering the commercial, manufacturing, and agricultural in

6

terests

terests of the country, to keep it steady, and not to be continually varying; and that the apprehension existing among farmers and corn-dealers, because parliament is constantly tampering with the law, is productive of great evil, no prudent man, as a merchant, a dealer, or miller, daring to go into a stock of free wheat,'-he delivers his opinion that, with the feeling of the commercial and manufacturing classes on this subject, it is wholly impossible to prevent a frequent and constant discussion of it;' and that while those classes think they have not justice done to them, the question cannot rest.' Being asked whether the question could be finally settled, except by the one interest prevailing in securing protection, or the other in abolishing it, he talked of a compromise between them.

6

"Do

"What compromise," it was then said, "can you contemplate as possible?"-"I confess," he replied, "that from the present disposition which now exists through the country, and seeing that the whole course of legislation now is to take away from the few to give to the many, I should consider it a matter of extreme doubt whether any corn-laws can be preserved at all. I do not feel confident." you think it possible," was the next interrogatory," for any measure, or course of conduct on the part of the government, to put a stop to the agitation of such a question?"" It is not," he made answer; "except that of repealing the corn-laws altogether. I think that protection to corn is now carried to greater length than protection to anything else; that the whole course of legislation is to destroy monopoly of every kind, and I do not see what is to resist it."

The consequences which he contemplates are then stated,the farmers would be reduced to very much the same state they were in between 1780 and 1790, when they lived among their servants, and all the habits acquired since that time must be thrown aside.' They were justified in living in the style in which they did some years ago; but their capital has slipped out of their fingers, and they must submit.'

4

A further reduction will take place in their outgoings of all kinds. The farmer must reduce the price of his labour, and all those articles necessary for the cultivation of his farm; he must go lower in his station; many persons who have been farmers have become labourers, or will become so; many have been ruined, and more will be ruined still. There will be many divested of all income.

Q. You think that, if the present law were not kept up, which you think there is but little chance of, agriculture will never rise?''A. No; not for some time. If you can set fire to a forest, and spread the ashes over the land,-plant that land again, and again in fifty or sixty years you will have a more vigorous forest than ever: but the original trees are gone. And so it would be with the land-owners of this country.'

We

We must proceed a little further with this edifying examination : 'Q. You have stated the great mischief that you saw produced by the change, partly in the monetary system, partly in the corn-laws, as affecting commerce, manufactures, and agriculture. On reviewing the past, are you of opinion that a steady adherence to the existing law upon that subject is preferable to change as affecting all those three great interests ?A. I conceive that the subject of the corn-law must again be mooted; it will be mooted again before long; and I think that the land-owners ought, and might very safely make a concession in the scale of duty, without very serious prejudice to themselves.'— Q. Would that give satisfaction ? A. Yes, I think it ought. When wheat is 63s. a quarter, it is then subject to a duty of 23s. 8d. a quarter. I think that is a duty higher than will be maintained under any future discussion of the subject; and I think if the duty were reduced 8s. or 10s. a quarter, it would perhaps settle the public mind upon the subject, and very little interfere with the protection the farmer now has. If I had what I wished, with regard to the existing corn-law, (for I think it is one with which the public will not be satisfied,) I would make concessions.-Q. In making the change, you would yield rather to clamour than to reason?'-' A. Yes; but I think it ought to be made.'-' Q. Do you think that would be final?'-' A. No; possibly

not.'*

To this, then, we are come! There are well-informed men whose opinion it is that concession ought to be made to popular clamour, though they do not themselves suppose that by any such concession the clamourers will be satisfied! Ask, and ye shall have-knock, and it shall be opened,' has indeed been the text of all practical political discourses since the first fatal concession by which the great bulwark of the great constitution was thrown down, Ask, but let your petition be couched in the menacing terms of a demand, and accompanied with a display of physical force! Knock, —but have sledge hammers and brickbats in readiness to force an entrance through doors and windows! Popular clamour has often been mistaken for public opinion; and the one, indeed, is not more easily raised at any time, than the other is, in this age of delusion, easily deluded.

The difference of temper and of feeling with which this question is treated, by persons agreeing upon it in their views, is strikingly exhibited in the evidence before the Committee on Manufactures, Commerce, and Shipping. The great capitalist delivers a calm opinion that the effect of the corn-laws is to restrict our export trade, from the want of any re urns being made in articles that we can consume, the great article of consumption, namely, food, being debarred from importation. Our manufactures,' he says, are exported in larger quantities than what can be returned readily, and the want of returns is a great obstruction to the expp. 222, 3, 4.~.

*

R 2

port

*

port of our manufactures.' A partner in a cotton-spinning and hand-loom calico concern, who states that there are 200,000 handloom cotton-weavers, with half a million persons depending on them for subsistence, and who says that the increased trade which has taken place in the last six or seven years is no indication of an increase of comforts to those who are engaged in that business, is asked whether he can suggest any means of relieving them, and he replies, Yes, I can suggest a very material relief by a repeal of the corn-laws.'

'You think that will materially relieve the distresses of those people?-Unquestionably.-When you speak of the repeal of the cornlaws, do you extend that remark to an entire abolition of the duty, or do you conceive that relief can be afforded by a change in the present law, altering it from the varying scale which the law at present enacts to a fixed and moderate duty ?-Not unless that duty was a very small one. What would you take to be a moderate duty?—I cannot say; but I am prepared to say, that, if it was wholly repealed, it would better the circumstances of the hand-loom weavers.-Do you think that a fixed duty of 8s. or 10s. would be better for them than the present state of the law?-I conceive it would be an improvement upon the present state of the law.-Would not the abolition of the cornlaws benefit them much more?—Yes; we want nothing else.-Would not that destroy your home demand?—No; I think we could almost keep the farmers and all, if the corn-laws were repealed.'—pp. 567, 8.

Mr. Sefton, an inhabitant of Stockport, and a person of no common ability, who, by his own account, writes more private letters for all the lower classes of the people than any one in that part of the kingdom, who'regularly contributes to a portion of the periodical press,' and whose favourite pursuit it has been to look into the state of society,' is asked what is the feeling among the people as to the state of the corn-laws?

Decidedly adverse to it," he says. "Throwing open the trade in corn, they think, would cause a complete revolution in wages and profits, an unbounded extension of manufactures, a great extension of outlay in trade, and higher wages, and place the labourers on a more independent footing. As much or more dissatisfaction towards the legislature prevails in consequence of this law, than upon any other question."-Yet he tells us, that "If a person was to advocate the free trade system (as applied to manufactures) among the operatives in Macclesfield, it would almost endanger his life!"'t

So well founded was Mr. Huskisson's assertion, that almost every honourable member or manufacturer was an advocate for free trade in every commodity or manufacture, except that in which he had an individual interest.' And not less true was the remark of Mr. Robinson, in the same debate in which this passage

*

p.

164.

† p. 628.

was