in the repeal of the Corn-laws was not reduction of prices, but the means of exchange with other countries. He acquitted the supporters of the Corn-laws of sinister motives; but it was an unfortunate coincidence that the peculiar interests in that House were so nearly allied with the preservation of those monopolies-they were told that the Corn-laws produced permanent employment for a large portion of the population: but how stood the fact? The fact was, that the Cornlaws did not even afford the means of giving employment for the agricultural population. If they referred to the state of the population between 1821 and 1831, the ten years included in the last census, it would be found that while the population of the whole country had greatly increased, the number of persons engaged in agricultural pursuits had diminished to no less an extent than 17,000 families. This was a very remarkable fact, if they looked to the circumstance that the population of the whole country had greatly increased. It should also be recollected that the Poor-law Commissioners in their Reports stated that pauperism existed in a much greater extent in the agricultural than in the manufacturing districts. Even if it were found that the Corn-laws afforded ample employment for the agricultural portion of the popula tion of the country, what advantage could possibly arise in thus keeping in employment one class of the community by keeping another class out of employment? No doubt gentlemen opposite were fully justitied in discussing the question of want of confidence ; but it was not respectful to the country to pass over the question of the Corn-laws, which pressed

so heavily on its great interests. From the general avoidance of the subject, however, it almost seemed as if that silence had been planned and arranged at the great divan, which,according to the newspapers, assembled at Sir Robert Peel's house on the previous Sunday.

Mr. Borthwick contended that the present question was substantially one of confidence in the Ministry: at the proper time he undertook to show that the existing distress had no connexion with the Corn-laws. The question before the House was not whether they should discuss the Corn-laws, but how they were to arrive at a discussion. The present Ministry were obstacles to it, and they must be removed before the subject could be fairly dealt with. The distress was owing to their conduct, in neglecting practical matters while they were wrapped up in theoretical abstractions. Look at Spain and Portugal, where they had lost a market for manufactures of 14,000,000l. sterling, the amount which those countries used formerly to take; while now they barely take enough to cover the pay of the miserable legion. Mr. Borthwick promised for Sir Robert Peel that he would govern Ireland with even-handed justice, and without mixing up theological and political questions.

Mr. Smith O'Brien supported the general policy of the Government.

Colonel Sibthorp made a humorous speech against the Ministry, especially with reference to the appointment of Sir John Campbell to the Chancellorship of Ireland.

Mr. B. Escott followed on the same side in a discursive commentary on the remarks of other speakers. He deprecated Mr. Roe

buck's imputing "sordid and mean" motives to the impugners of the Poor-law, and his calling the agricultural interest "the starvers of the poor." He contrasted Lord John Russell's claims to the confidence of the country with those of Sir Robert Peel; while the former talked of his regard for constitutional principles, the latter showed his regard for them rather by his acts than by his professions.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer said, that if the Government had forfeited the confidence of the country because it had broken the engagements of Earl Grey's administration, there were two gentlemen opposite whom he should beg to put into the criminal's box in company with the present Ministry: Lord Stanley and Sir James Graham: they shared the blame of the "little war" in Antwerp, and the war in Spain; they shared also in Parliamentary Reform, and even in the preliminary steps of Municipal Reform.

Mr. Baring defended Government from the easily-uttered charge of profligate expenditure. He quoted a return to show, that in the five years preceding 1830 the average yearly expenditure was 54,999,000l., while the average expenditure of Lord Melbourne's Government, since their accession to office in 1835, was 52,148,000l.: a decrease of 2,450,000l. Or, taking the three years of the Duke of Wellington's Government, which exhibited an average of 53,462,000l., the decrease appeared to be 1,313,000; or comparing the Duke of Wellington's average with the very expensive year just past, the decrease was 18,000l. When the Whigs came into office in 1881, the whole public debt was 838,549,000; in 1831, in

cluding the 20,000,000l. of WestIndian compensation, there was a decrease of a million; or excluding it, the debt was 815,597,000l. He went on to explain that the use of the Savings Banks funds caused no insecurity: the depositors had the same guarantees as the holders of the public stocks. He justified the policy of Government in getting rid of the cumbersome and delusive sinking-fund, by the increase which it had induced in the revenue; in 1831, the revenue was 51,000,000l. and odd; in 1839, it was 51,927,000l., though taxation had been taken off to the extent of six millions.

Mr. Goulburn combated these statements and inferences. By taking the average of the expenditure in the five years ending with the Duke of Wellington's Administration, a delusion was practised: for that expenditure in the first year was at a very high amount, and it was continually decreasing the proper point of comparison, therefore, would have been the last year under the Duke. The extravagance chargeable against the Ministers was not that they spent so much, but that they did not apportion their expenditure to their income. Mr. Baring's financial sagacity exceeded anything on record: he said that the Government had reduced the debt by 13,000,000l. in ten years.

Mr. Goulburn explained this fallacy. At the time when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, he brought into Parliament an act which gave the power to the Commissioners for the National Debt to cancel portions of the debt on granting to the parties annuities for terms of years. The effect of this was to create a sinking-fund, which dimi

nished the amount of the capital of the debt, but increased the annual charge to which the country was subjected. Suppose that these annuities were granted for twelve years, they were worth twelve years' purchase from the commencement only; but the right honourable Gentleman valued these annuities still at twelve years' purchase. Mr. Goulburn, having an additional charge to provide for, took care so to regulate his financial income as to meet it. At the end of ten years they had two years still to run, and were in reality worth two years' purchase instead of twelve; and what did the right honourable Gentleman do? Why, he conveniently took the difference as a material deduction from the national burdens! Mr. Goulburn expressed his satisfaction that Mr. Baring had disabused the public mind as to any insecurity in the Savings Banks: but he objected to Mr. Baring's conduct in that matter. The Savings Banks had the power of vesting the monies received by them in any security which they might think most eligible, and morever, if they invested them in Exchequer-bills, of ransoming them, and requiring the Government to furnish them with new stock, which must be added to the principal of the Funded Debt of the country. This power was given with a view to meet the cases of Exchequer-bills which from time to time it became necessary to fund, but not to enable a Government artificially to provide a temporary revenue without the knowledge of Parliament. Yet this was the course to which the Chancellor of the Exchequer had resorted; and the money thus obtained from the Savings Banks

was applied to the current expenses of the year.

Mr. Wakley ridiculed the way in which the public accounts were kept, so that one gentleman could prove a gain and another a loss at the same time. He then argued at considerable length to show that the Ministers were entitled to a hearing of their measures in the new Parliament, which Sir Robert Peel claimed and obtained to its fullest extent in 1835, though beaten from the first in division after division. By doing otherwise now -by setting the royal Speech at nought-the majority were acting to the injury of monarchical institutions. However, Sir Robert Peel should have no factious opposition from him. If Sir Robert Peel avoided bad advice, he might do incalculable benefit; but if he went on in the old Tory track, he would raise up a great national party to oppose him. Mr. Wakley recommended a revision of the Currency Bill of 1819: a debt had been contracted in paper which the nation was now called on to pay in gold. But if Sir Robert Peel should come into office, who were to be his colleagues?

Did he agree

with Sir James Graham about currency? or with Lord Stanley about Ireland? Mr. Wakley advised Sir Robert Peel to administer soothing medicine to Ireland; and commended the Poor-law to his serious attention.

After this speech the debate was again adjourned.

It was resumed on the following night by Mr. Villiers. He attributed the silence of the Conservative party on the topic of the Corn laws, to an apprehension enter tained by them, that at this critical moment the open profession of

their opinions might disgust the country. He believed their majority was owing to one section of the popular party, to the Chartists and the paupers, who wished to make them the instruments of chastising the other section. He believed with Mr. Roebuck, that the Ministers had lost their power chiefly by having failed to fulfil their promises to the popular party, though he thought that too much had been made of Lord John Russell's unguarded expression about finality. However, that noble Lord had gone far to redeem himself by his conduct upon the new measures of finance. The opposite party were coming in upon the ground of resistance to the principles of commercial freedom, and to such a party he could not give his support. He then read, from statements produced at the Manchester Conference, some details, showing an increase of mortality in certain manufacturing districts, which he ascribed to the want of food. Whenever the price of provisions rose, wages remaining the same, the labourer had less to spend in those coarser manufactures which they usually consumed, and by the consequent discontinuance of orders for goods, the manufacturing operatives were thrown out of employ. He then controverted the opinions expressed by Lord Stanley on the subject of protection to agriculture, in a speech lately addressed by him to his constituents in Lancashire, and professed his own inability to understand, why it should be better for a country to encourage a population dependant on landlords than on manufacturers. He believed that the opinions he now supported had gained ground in the country, and Sir Robert Peel, who possessed

great moral influence over his party, would be under a proportionate responsibility for the course which should be taken on this important subject.

Lord F. Egerton bore a general testimony to the distresses of the manufacturing population, but he apprehended that on the question of the remedy there was hardly less difference between the Ministers and the Conservatives, than between the Ministers and the whole-length abolitionists who supported them. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had complained that no explanations were given in this debate of the future policy of the Conservative party, that they were performing the play of Hamlet with that character omitted. But, for his own part, he did not wish the play got up at all till there should be a new company of performers. He then, in a graceful allusion to Lord Morpeth, to whose defeat in Yorkshire he ap plied the lines,

"Nec te tua plurima, Pantheu, Labentem pietas, nec Apollinis infula, texit."

inferred the people's disapproval of the Whig Government, since neither private character, nor public worth and talent could compensate in their eyes for the one defect of belonging to that Ministry.

Mr. O'Connell said, he stood there the representative of two of the largest agricultural counties of Ireland, containing more than a million of people, who had returned him with full knowledge of his opinions on the Corn-laws. The landlords supported those laws, so unjust to the operatives, for the purpose of increasing their own rents, and then affected a sympathy with the people. He would

only agree even to the 8s. duty, as an instalment, till he could get rid of all protection whatever. The present law was doubly iniquitous, as it raised prices, and at the same time diminished the vent for manufactures. He was weary of experiments on the poor. He had heard of a man who complained that nothing would fatten his horse, though he had tried tobacco, and twenty other things. A friend asked him, "Did you ever try oats?" He wished the legislature would try the people with bread. He then expatiated upon the benefits which, he said, the present Ministry had conferred on the nation, in the mitigation of the criminal law; in the diminution of the stamp duties on periodical publications; in the lowering of the postage; in the reduction of one-fourth of the tithes-a step, he hoped, towards their total abolition; in the destruction of rotten-boroughs and selfelected corporations; in the eman cipation of 100,000 slaves; in the improved and conciliatory administration of Ireland. What had the Tories done for a liberty-loving people? They had been the uniform opponents of civil and religious freedom; they had been the especial foes of Irish rights. England boasted her resistance to Charles the 1st and James the 2nd; but the Tory party were the supporters of both. They had not, however, yet got the crown into their custody-they, the inventors of so many disloyalties against their queen-a party, the curse of mankind. Never were there such gross briberies as at the recent elections. Much of their success the Tories owed to their hatred of Ireland, and much to the sordid selfishness by which

the farmers had been persuaded that their interests were knit up with those of their landlords. He inveighed against Orangeism in Ireland, and complained of the insignificant proportion of Irish voters to Irish population. If the new Minister should exercise his patronage fairly, he would lose his Orange supporters; if unfairly, he would, if not lose Ireland, deserve to lose her. But his power might not be of long endurance. Power was in its nature unpopular; and the millions without the franchise would make themselves felt. Never did party come into power under greater difficul ties; man's infirmity was God's opportunity, and justice to Ireland would at length be compelled.

The two most interesting speeches delivered in this long debate were those with which it concluded, the speeches of Sir Robert Peel and Lord John Russell; the former, now standing on the threshold of office, the latter, addressing the House, in his last words as a Minister of the Crown. The abi lity of these orations, and the great importance of the statements which they contained, the one as the programme of the future Government, the other as the vindication of that which had for so long directed the councils of the nation, demand a more expanded view of their contents than we have been able to afford to the arguments of the other speakers.

Sir Robert Peel began by commenting in terms of severe reprobation on the language used by the Member for Dublin. He said he would have felt more acutely the vituperation of Mr. O'Connell, if those very men, whom he described as having done so much good to Ireland, had not been