first under discussion. It had experienced early indications of no very favourable reception. Mr. Western had expressed his dislike of it; and Mr. Brougham, as soon as it was mentioned, had assailed it with sarcastic contempt. It was, he said, the most ridiculous contrivance which had ever been invented. The device amounted to neither less nor more than this: "Whereas there is a difficulty in obtaining a demand for corn, and the farmer cannot sell, God forbid that the government should come into the market as a corn dealer, because the government ought not to become a purchaser, and particularly in corn, that being acknowledged, by all political economists, to be one of the most absurd of fancies; therefore, let not government become a buyer, but only a hirer of corn-a hirer by the month, of so much as the farmer has not sold: God forbid that government should resort to corn dealing, but let it betake itself to pawnbroking, and let the three golden balls be fixed in front of the Treasury." No political economist has ridiculed this project. It never came forth before, and never was ridiculed or refuted. The ministers would not let government become a buyer; that was against principle. Nor would they agree to pawnbroking; that too was against principle. Government must not let; but the farmer might borrow, and the government might come forward as a money-lender to his aid. In the committee on the 6th of May, its merits were discussed more at length. Lord Londonderry defended the clause: contending that the proposed measure (which was to be treated merely as a temporary expedient) would operate beneficially by equalizing the markets, and securing the small farmer against the necessity of selling at a disadvantage.-Mr. Curwen expressed his approbation of it, and hinted that some advantage might accrue from a permanent measure founded on similar principles. Mr. Huskisson opposed the clause, and urged against it unanswered and unanswerable reasons. Looking to this as a temporary measure, his objection to it was, the time to which it was to be applied. His noble friend had stated that, since the last harvest, corn had been brought into the market to nearly double the quantity which had ordinarily been introduced at antecedent periods of similar extent. The reason his noble friend gave for this was, that the farmers had been called on to pay their rents; and, from the difficulties which pressed on the landlords, the occupiers of land, in order to meet their demands, were compelled to thresh out their corn, and to send it to market at an earlier period of the year than usual. Now, if this reason were well founded, it followed, that many of the farmers were no longer in the market as sellers of this commodity, but as purchasers for their own support, and for the maintenance of the poor in the parishes to which they belonged. The consequence then must be, if this measure had the effect of taking out of the market any considerable quantity of corn, and thereby of raising the price, that it would bear hard on the lower class of farmers, and render the maintenance of the poor more onerous. He believed, if any practical man asked, who were the most distressed? the answer Let the House consider what the effect of the law would have been, had it been passed last session. Agricultural distress was then pressing severely on the country; and, if the corn-market could then have been operated on to the amount of a million, he would ask his noble friend, who knew the state of the market in September, whether the price would not have been forced up to 80s., and the ports, in consequence, have been thrown open immediately? On the 8th of September the price of corn was 55s. 8d., and on the 29th it was 70s. 8d. being an advance of 30 per cent in twenty days. Now, if this plan had been then carried into effect, the corngrower might, at the former period, have called for this million -the price would then have risen above 80s.; and that which the agriculturist most apprehended, namely, the throwing the ports open, would have taken place. What would be the consequence, if there were a prospect of a rise in the market? Why, those perpersons, who had received money from government at 3 per cent, would be speculating against those who speculated with their own money, at an interest of 5 per cent. Considering the contingencies of this market, he thought it was truly desirable that its regulation should be left to the operation of nature. Prices were beginning to adjust themselves between landlord and tenant. They ought to be allowed to find their proper level; but this measure only tended to keep up the delusion, and to add to the difficulty. It would create a most dangerous precedent, which it would be necessary to keep up, if the harvest were abundant next season. Should the ensuing harvest be unfavourable, there would be no necessity for this assistance; and, if it were favourable, there would be a general scramble for this money. They would either do too little or too much. If the prices rose, there was no necessity to interfere; and if they were depressed, the measure would afford no adequate relief. Several other members spoke, the Opposition in general reprobating the clause very earnestly, and the country gentlemen treating it rather coldly; when, at length, the marquis of Londonderry declared, that he had himself opposed it in the committee, and that since the originators of it did not come forward in its support, he was willing to withdraw it. It was accordingly withdrawn. The House entered upon the consideration, on the 7th of May, of the proposed scales of duties. In opposition to lord Londonderry's second resolution, sir Thomas Lethbridge proposed a series of protecting duties, which included almost every species of agricultural produce down to apples and pears. The duty on wheat was to be 40s. per quarter; and 33 per cent ad valorem on all articles not enumerated. When this proposal was made, sir Francis Burdett took the opportunity of declaring his disapprobation of all the schemes that had been suggested. Relief, he maintained, could be found only in a diminution of taxation; and if that diminution could not be had otherwise, it ought to be effected by sacrificing the public creditor. All the expenses of the state should be reduced to the scale of 1792, as all prices had fallen to that standard; and, as the currency had altered, all the charges of government should be newly adjusted. Great stress, forsooth, was laid on keeping faith with the public creditor; but was not faith likewise to be kept with the country? It was not by high prices that agriculture should be expected to flourish, but by a diminution of the public burthens and an adjustment of them to the change in the currency. The public creditor, if he was to receive his due, ought not to receive more than he contracted for. After a long and adjourned debate, sir Thomas Lethbridge's resolutions were rejected by a majority of 243 to 24. The sense of the House was next taken on a proposal of Mr. Bennett for a permanent scale of duties on importation, at the rate of 24s. per quarter for wheat, 16s. for rye, 12s. for barley, and 8s. for oats, and also for a permanent scale of bounties on exportation. This plan was negatived without a division. Mr. Huskisson's resolutions, joined to the two last of Mr. Ricardo (who had previously withdrawn his other resolutions in favour of the series framed by Mr. Huskisson) were now sub Lord mitted to the committee. Althorp moved an amendment upon them, the effect of which was to impose on importation a fixed unvarying duty of 20 shillings per quarter, and to allow on exportation a bounty of 18 shillings per quarter. This amendment was rejected by 201 votes to 24. A division then took place on the propositions compounded of the series of resolutions originally drawn up by Mr. Huskisson, and of two of those which had been framed by Mr. Ricardo. The purport of these was, that there should be imposed a duty of 20s. per quarter on wheat, to commence as soon as wheat should reach 80s. per quarter, and to fall one shilling annually for ten years, at the end of which it would amount to 10s. and would thereafter remain permanent. They gave likewise a bounty of 7s. on the exportation of wheat. These resolutions were supported by 25 votes, and opposed by 218. Lord Londonderry's resolutions were then agreed to; and a bill founded on them passed into a law. In its progress through the Lords, several peers on both sides of the House expressed their dislike to it; and lords Erskine and Lauderdale entered their protests against it. The favourite theory of those, who called themselves the friends of the agricultural interest, was, that the embarrassments of farmers and landlords arose altogether from taxation, and from the change which had taken place in the currency in consequence of the bill of 1819. According to this system, there were two sure remedies the one, the diminution of the public burthens; the other, the depreciation of the currency; and finding that they had no chance of attaining the former to the desired extent, they turned with longing eyes to the latter. On the 11th of June, Mr. Western moved, "That a committee be appointed to consider the effect produced by the act of the 59th of George 3rd, cap. 14, on the agriculture, manufactures, and commerce of the United Empire, and on the general condition of the different classes of society therein, and to report thereon to the House." Although the terms of his motion did not recommend any specific measure. Mr. Western explained, that his object was, to obtain the sanction of the House to the establishment of a currency which should raise the price of wheat to 80s. per quarter, and the wages of labour to 15s. a week. To justify such a measure, he took for granted that the change, which had occurred in prices, had been occasioned solely by the resumption of cash payments; he further assumed, that the landholder had a right (we suppose, a divine right) to enjoy all the advantages, and be protected from all the inconveniences, that might at any time flow from fluctuations of the currency; and with the help of these two postulates, he easily arrived at whatever conclusions seemed good to him. Mr. Huskisson answered him in a speech, which united correct reasoning with clear, elegant, and forcible expression, in a degree rarely met with in the discussion of abstract topics. He rested chiefly on three propositionsthat the change of prices was attributable only in a very slight proportion to the resumption of cash payments-that the resumption of cash payments was a measure, which we were bound in justice as well as policy to adopt, and on the faith of which all contracts had been made that, even if it had been advisable not to have returned to a sound currency, the step was taken, and the widest mischief would ensue from endeavouring to undo what had been done. "The doctrine of the member for Essex," said Mr. Huskisson, "is, that it would be for the benefit of all classes of men in the community, that the value of money should be gradually diminished, and the prices of commodities raised. This was the system of Law, the projector, of Lowndes, and many others; but it was one, to which, it was to be hoped, this country would never lend its sanction. It was the doctrine of debtors; and especially the doctrine of those, who, being already debtors, were desirous of becoming so in a yet greater degree. "The extent," continued Mr. H., "to which the member for Essex wishes to go, is this:-he would lower the standard of the currency in, or nearly in, the proportion of the difference between the average price of wheat taken for the period between 1797 and 1719, and the average price between 1719 and the present year: for instance, if the average price in the latter case should be 45, and in the former 80 shillings; he would provide that, henceforward, 45 shillings should pass for 80 shillings; and, consequently, that, for every debt or contract now existing, a tender in this propor tion should be a payment in full. "The hon. gentleman, in order to pave the way for this proposal, has laboured hard to prove that corn is a better standard than gold. Like most gentlemen, who claim to be exclusively practical men, and who rail at those whom they are pleased to designate as theorists and political economists for no other reason than because they argue from principles which their adversaries cannot controvert, and proceed by deductions which they cannot refute or deny-the hon. member has, himself, launched into some of the wildest theories, and drawn his inferences from some of the most extravagant positions, which were ever promulgated in this House. 6 "As the foundation and groundwork of his plan, he lays down in principle, that the standard of value in every country, should be that article, which forms the constant and most general food of its population; and, therefore, it is that he fixes upon wheat. It follows from this principle, that wheat could not be the standard in Ireland. There potatos must be the measure of value. This, indeed, is a novelty even in theory! We heard a great deal in 1811, of fanciful standards-the ideal unit -the abstract pound sterlingand so forth; but who ever heard before of a potato standard? What a beautiful simplicity of system, and what facility it would afford to the settlement of all transactions between the two parts of the same empire, to have a wheat standard for the one, and a potato standard for the other! "I will admit to the hon. member, that there is no positive and absolute disqualification, either in wheat or potatos, to prevent the one or the other being a standard of value. Wheat, like any other commodity, possessing value, is capable of being made the common measure to which the relative value of all other commodities shall be referred, and the common equiva lent or medium by the intervention of which, they shall be exchanged the one against the other. But this is only saying, that a given measure of wheat, a bushel for instance, instead of a given quantity of gold, a sovereign for instance, shall be the money and legal tender of the country. For such a purpose, for reasons obvious to all who have ever turned their attention to the subject, wheat is one of the commodities the least adapted, always however with the exception of the new Irish standard, potatos. But the hon. member, I shall be told, does not propose to make wheat the currency, but only the standard. I am aware of it, but how does this help his theory? How can a given weight of gold, of a given fineness, and of a certain denomination, which in this country is now the common measure of all commodities, be itself liable to be varied in weight, fineness, or denomination, according to the exchangeable value of some other commodity, without taking from gold the quality of money, and transferring it to that other commodity? All that you do is, in fact, to make wheat money, and gold the representative of that money, as paper now is of gold. But to say, that one commodity shall be the money, and another the standard of that money, betrays a confusion of ideas, and is little short of a contradiction in terms. As well might you propose, that the Winchester bushel should be the measure of corn, and the price of a yard of broad cloth, the standard by which the contents of that bushel should be determined. What the hon. gentleman, therefore, aims at, as I conceive, is, not that wheat should be either money or standard; but |