Chapter VI (3)

Would they have us wait, that we may once again hit the exact point where we can neither refuse with authority nor concede with grace? Would they have us wait, that the numbers of the discontented party may become larger, its demands higher, its feelings more acrimonious, its organization more complete? Would they have us wait till the whole tragi-comedy of 1827 has been acted over again; till they have been brought into office by a cry of “No Reform,” to be reformers, as they were once before brought into office by a cry of “No Popery,” to be emancipators? Have they obliterated from their minds—gladly, perhaps, would some among them obliterate from their minds—the transactions of that year? And have they forgotten all the transactions of the succeeding year? Have they forgotten how the spirit of liberty in Ireland, debarred from its natural outlet, found a vent by forbidden passages? Have they forgotten how we were forced to indulge the Catholics in all the license of rebels, merely because we chose to withhold from them the liberties of subjects? Do they wait for associations more formidable than that of the Corn Exchange, for contributions larger than the Rent, for agitators more violent than those who, three years ago, divided with the king and the Parliament the sovereignty of Ireland? Do they wait for that last and most dreadful paroxysm of popular rage, for that last and most cruel test of military fidelity? Let them wait, if their past experience shall induce them to think that any high honor or any exquisite pleasure is to be obtained by a policy like this. Let them wait, if this strange and fearful infatuation be indeed upon them, that they should not see with their eyes, or hear with their ears, or understand with their heart. But let us know our interest and our duty better. Turn where we may, within, around, the voice of great events is proclaiming to us: Reform, that you may preserve. Now, therefore, while every thing at home and abroad forebodes ruin to those who persist in a hopeless struggle against the spirit of the age; now, while the crash of the proudest throne of the continent is still resounding in our ears; now, while the roof of a British palace affords an ignominious shelter to the exiled heir of forty kings; now, while we see on every side ancient institutions subverted, and great societies dissolved; now, while the heart of England is still sound; now, while old feelings and old associations retain a power and a charm which may too soon pass away; now, in this your accepted time, now, in this your day of salvation, take counsel, not of prejudice, not of party spirit, not of the ignominious pride of a fatal consistency, but of history, of reason, of the ages which are past, of the signs of this most portentous time. Pronounce in a manner worthy of the expectation with which this great debate has been anticipated, and of the long remembrance which it will leave behind. Renew the youth of the state. Save property, divided against itself. Save the multitude, endangered by its own ungovernable passions. Save the aristocracy, endangered by its own unpopular power. Save the greatest, and fairest, and most highly civilized community that ever existed, from calamities which may in a few days sweep away all the rich heritage of so many ages of wisdom and glory. The danger is terrible. The time is short. If this bill should be rejected, I pray to God that none of those who concur in rejecting it may ever remember their votes with unavailing remorse, amidst the wreck of laws, the confusion of ranks, the spoliation of property, and the dissolution of social order.

RICHARD COBDEN.

The name of Cobden will always be associated with the great changes that took place in the economic policy of England about the middle of the nineteenth century. As the result of a public agitation that was carried into every hamlet of Great Britain, and that extended over a period of seven years, the policy of Protection was practically abandoned, and the policy of Free Trade practically adopted. Of that remarkable movement Cobden was the directing and inspiring genius.

Born in 1804, Cobden’s childhood was passed in the disastrous years of the later Napoleonic wars, and the financial distresses that followed. His father’s moderate fortune was involved in the ruin that was so general. As there were eleven children in the family, and as the means rescued from the financial wreck were but slender, the educational advantages of Richard were not great. At fifteen he was obliged to leave the grammar-school in order to enter the counting-house of his uncle in London. The most that can be said of his education is that it was enough to give him an insatiable taste for knowledge, that it implanted within him so ardent a desire, that throughout life he was indefatigable in the work of self-development.

At the age of twenty he became a commercial traveller for his uncle, and, in the course of the six years that followed, acquired a very comprehensive knowledge of the industrial condition of England. When he attained eminence there were many who remembered the discussions on political economy and kindred subjects with which he had enlivened his travelling associates. At twenty-six he induced two of his acquaintances to join with him in entering upon a business of their own. They founded an industry of calico-printing, and were so successful that the firm soon had three establishments, one at Sabden, where the printing works were, and one each at London and Manchester, for the sale of their products. Cobden prints soon becoming famous for the excellence of their material and the beauty of their design; the sales were large and the income of the firm very considerable. In eight years from the establishment of the partnership, the business was so flourishing and so well organized that Cobden was able to devote his energies almost exclusively to matters of public importance.

His first pamphlet, that entitled “England, Ireland, and America,” was published in 1835, and attracted such attention for its breadth and boldness that it ran rapidly through several editions. The views advocated were those of peace, non-intervention, retrenchment, and free trade,—in fact, the doctrines which he continued to hold throughout life. A tour of observation in the United States and Canada, as well as in the countries of Europe, intensified his convictions; and consequently when, in 1838, the Anti-Corn-Law Association was formed, it found him in every way fitted to take a leading part in the work of agitation. It was at his suggestion that the local association was soon changed into the National Anti-Corn-Law League.

The so-called Corn Laws have a long history. As early as 1436 an attempt was made to regulate the price of grain in England by means of export and import duties. The amount of duties imposed varied from time to time according to the needs of the state treasury and the prices of corn. It was not until the passage of what is known as Burke’s Act of 1773 that any deliberate attempt was made to bring the Corn Laws into some degree of reason and order. This act was the beginning of a policy which some years later resulted in the adoption of what is known as the sliding scale of rates. This policy culminated in the law of 1828, which proceeded upon the general plan of making the duty vary inversely with the price of grain in the home market. When the price of wheat, for example, was sixty-four shillings a quarter, the duty was twenty-three shillings and eight pence. For every rise of a shilling in the market-price, the duty was diminished; while, on the other hand, for every decline in the price the duty was increased. This was the general character of the law which prevailed when the agitation of the Anti-Corn-Law League began.

For some years before 1838 the impression had become more or less prevalent that the influence of the Corn Laws was favorable to the landowners and the landowners alone. The system was devised as a means of protecting the interests of agriculture. The financial disturbances occasioned partly by the Napoleonic wars, partly by the invention of labor-saving machines, and partly by a succession of bad crops, tended at once to diminish the price of labor and increase the prices of food. The consequence was a universal prevalence of suffering among the wage-receiving class. Cobden and his associates believed that the suffering was chiefly due to the system of protection. The league was formed for the purpose of arousing public opinion in opposition to the prevailing system; and it did not rest till, after the most remarkable agitation in the history of reform, it had convinced the public of its errors, and swept the Corn Laws from the statute-books.

For seven years Cobden had the ear of the public, and during that period his labors were incessant. He not only spoke in all the large towns and cities, but he directed and inspired the movements of hundreds of others. The policy of the league was not only to send speakers into every electoral district, but to flood the country with the most effective writings on the subject in hand. What may be called the statistics of the league are impressive and instructive. Five hundred persons were employed to distribute tracts from house to house. In a single year five millions of such tracts were put into the families of electors in England and Scotland, and the number distributed to non-electors exceeded nine millions. This work of 1843 was done at a cost of about £50,000; in the following year it was resolved to redouble the efforts, and before the end of 1844 nearly £90,000 had been raised and expended.

The whole theory of Cobden’s propagandism was simply that, if the truth was brought to people’s doors, they would embrace it. The method was twofold. It sought to bring the facts bearing on the question to the attention of the people by means of the press, and then by public speech to persuade and arouse them to action. Of all the speakers of the time probably Cobden was the most effective. His methods were always plain and straightforward, showing a transparent honesty, a definite purpose, an argumentative keenness, and an almost irresistible persuasiveness.

Cobden entered the House of Commons in 1841, and, from his first speech, delivered five days after the opening of the session, was an acknowledged power in Parliament. He compelled attention even from an unfriendly audience, by his thorough mastery of the subject and by the directness and boldness with which he charged upon the ranks of his adversaries. His methods of address were new in the House; but it soon came to be universally conceded that he was one of the most powerful debaters in Parliament. It is the unique distinction of Cobden among English orators that he converted to his views a government long opposed to him, and finally persuaded a Prime-Minister to reverse his policy and become champion of the very cause he had formerly condemned. In the March of 1845 Cobden thought the time had come for the appointment of a select committee to inquire into the causes of the prevailing agricultural distress. It was in moving for such a committee that he made the speech selected for this collection. That the argument made a great impression may be inferred from Mr. Morley’s account of its effect on Peel. “The Prime-Minister,” he says, “had followed every sentence with earnest attention; his face grew more and more solemn as the argument proceeded. At length he crumpled up the notes which he had been taking, and was heard by an onlooker who was close by to say to Mr. Sidney Herbert who sat next him on the bench: ‘You must answer this, for I cannot.’ And in fact Mr. Sidney Herbert did make the answer while Peel listened in silence.”

During the summer of 1845 the agitation went on without any very obvious results. Indeed the cause seemed to be making no headway in Parliament, and Mr. Disraeli, in one of his characteristic phrases, spoke of the appeals, varied even by the persuasive ingenuity of Mr. Cobden, as a “wearisome iteration.” But Cobden meantime felt sure of his ground. Speaking to one of those immense multitudes, “which,” he said, “could only be assembled in ancient Rome to witness the brutal conflicts of men, or can now be found in Spain to witness the brutal conflicts of animals,” he exclaimed: “What, if you could get into the innermost minds of the ministers, would you find them thinking as to the repeal of the Corn Laws? I know it as well as though I were in their hearts. It is this: they are afraid that the Corn Law cannot be maintained—no, not a rag of it, during a period of scarcity prices, of a famine season, such as we had in ’39, ’40, and ’41. They know it. They are prepared, when such a time comes, to abolish the Corn Laws, and they have made up their minds to it. There is no doubt in the world of it. They are going to repeal it, as I told you,—mark my words,—at a season of distress. That distress may come; aye, three weeks of showery weather when the wheat is in bloom or ripening, would repeal these Corn Laws.”

This remarkable prophecy was now to have a startling fulfilment. The autumn of 1845 was a long succession of rains. Disquieting rumors and even portents of actual famine came from all parts of the islands. On the last day of October the cabinet met in great haste; and three other meetings took place within a week. Peel was in favor of calling a meeting of Parliament at once, and suspending for a limited period the duty on importation. Others declared that it would be impossible to restore the duty when it was once removed; and the cabinet separated on the 6th of November without coming to any decision. But on the 22d of the same month the public was thrown into great commotion by an address launched from Edinburgh by Lord John Russell to his constituents of London. He declared that “procrastination might produce a state of suffering that was frightful to contemplate.” “Let us all unite,” cried he, “to put down a system which has been proved to be the blight of commerce, the bane of agriculture, the source of bitter division among classes, the cause of penury, fever, mortality, and crime among the people. If this end is to be achieved, it must be gained by the unequivocal expression of the public voice.” This was the first announcement that Lord John Russell was a convert to the doctrines of the league. As the old reformer was on his way to London, Mr. John Bright met him at a railway station in Yorkshire, and said: “Your letter has now made the total and immediate repeal of the Corn Law inevitable; nothing can save it.”

Another cabinet meeting was called, but still there was no agreement as to the policy of convoking Parliament. The public distress and excitement were such that the Prime-Minister now felt it his duty to resign. That event took place on the 5th of December. It was universally understood that the strenuous opposition was in the Duke of Wellington and Lord Stanley. In a great gathering at Birmingham, Cobden exclaimed: “The Duke is a man whom all like to honor for his high courage, his firmness of resolve, his indomitable perseverance; but let me remind him,” added the orator, in a magnificent outburst and amidst a storm of approval, “that notwithstanding all his victories in the field, he never yet entered into a contest with Englishmen in which he was not beaten.”

The voice of the public could not be resisted. On the 4th of December the _Times_ newspaper announced that Parliament would meet early in January, and that an immediate repeal of the Corn Laws would be proposed. On the day following this announcement, Peel tendered his resignation. The Queen sent for Lord John Russell; but the attempt of the Opposition to form a ministry was not successful, and Peel reluctantly consented to resume the leadership. The speech of the Queen in opening Parliament made it evident that the occasion of the meeting was the repeal of the obnoxious laws. The question was practically settled when Parliament met; and the long debate is chiefly memorable for the extraordinary succession of excoriations to which the Prime-Minister was subjected by Disraeli. But in spite of a most energetic opposition the repealing bill slowly made its way to ultimate triumph. It was on the 26th of June, 1846, that the bill was passed, and that the great reformer’s work was done.

Until his death in 1865, Cobden continued to exert a powerful influence in behalf of the ideas which from the first he had advocated. His political opponents were among the most hearty to recognize his worth; and his most intimate friend, Mr. Bright, spoke of him in the House of Commons as “the manliest and gentlest spirit that ever quitted or tenanted a human form.”

RICHARD COBDEN.

ON THE EFFECTS OF PROTECTION ON THE AGRICULTURAL INTERESTS OF THE COUNTRY; HOUSE OF COMMONS, MARCH 13, 1845.

SIR:

I am relieved upon the present occasion from any necessity for apologizing to the other side of the House for the motion which I am about to submit. It will be in the recollection of honorable members, that a fortnight before putting this notice upon the book, I expressed a hope that the matter would be taken up by some honorable member opposite. I do not think, therefore, that in reply to any observations I may have to make upon the question, I shall hear, as I did last year, an observation that the quarter from which this motion came was suspicious.[9] I may also add, sir, that I have so framed my motion as to include in it the objects embraced in both the amendments which are made to it. I therefore conclude, that having included the honorable gentlemen’s amendments [Mr. Stafford O’Brien and Mr. Wodehouse], they will not now feel it necessary to press them.

Sir, the object of this motion is to appoint a select committee to inquire into the present condition of the agricultural interests; and, at the same time, to ascertain how the laws regulating the importation of agricultural produce have affected the agriculturists of this country. As regards the distress among farmers, I presume we cannot go to a higher authority than those honorable gentlemen who profess to be the farmers’ friends and protectors. I find it stated by those honorable gentlemen who recently paid their respects to the Prime-Minister, that the agriculturists are in a state of great embarrassment and distress. I find that one gentleman from Norfolk [Mr. Hudson] stated that the farmers in the county are paying their rents, but paying them out of capital, and not profits. I find Mr. Turner of Upton, in Devonshire, stating that one half of the smaller farmers in that county are insolvent, and that the others are rapidly falling into the same condition; that the farmers with larger holdings are quitting their farms with a view of saving the rest of their property; and that, unless some remedial measures be adopted by this House, they will be utterly ruined. The accounts which I have given you of those districts are such as I have had from many other sources. I put it to honorable gentlemen opposite, whether the condition of the farmers in Suffolk, Wiltshire, and Hampshire, is better than that which I have described in Norfolk and Devonshire? I put it to county members, whether—taking the whole of the south of England, from the confines of Nottinghamshire to the Land’s End,—whether, as a rule, the farmers are not now in a state of the greatest embarrassment? There may be exceptions; but I put it to them whether, as a rule, that is not their condition in all parts?

Then, sir, according to every precedent in this House, this is a fit and proper time to bring forward the motion of which I have given notice. I venture to state that had his Grace of Buckingham possessed a seat in this House, he would have done now what he did when he was Lord Chandos—have moved this resolution which I am now about to move. The distress of the farmers being admitted, the next question which arises is, What is its cause? I feel a greater necessity to bring forward this motion for a committee of inquiry, because I find great discrepancies of opinion among honorable gentlemen opposite as to what is the cause of the distress among the farmers. In the first place there is a discrepancy as to the generality or locality of the existing distress. I find the right honorable baronet at the head of the government [Sir Robert Peel] saying that the distress is local; and he moreover says it does not arise from the legislation of this House. The honorable member for Dorsetshire declares, on the other hand, that the distress is general, and that it does not arise from legislation. I am at a loss to understand what this protection to agriculture means, because I find such contradictory accounts given in this House by the promoters of that system. For instance, nine months ago, when my honorable friend, the member for Wolverhampton [Mr. Villiers], brought forward his motion for the abolition of the Corn Laws,[10] the right honorable gentleman, then the President of the Board of Trade, in replying to him, said that the present Corn Law had been most successful in its operations. He took great credit to the government for the steadiness of price that was obtained under that law. I will read you the quotation, because we find these statements so often controverted. He said:

“Was there any man who had supported the law in the year 1842 who could honestly say that he had been disappointed in its workings? Could any one point out a promise or a prediction hazarded in the course of the protracted debates upon the measure, which promise or prediction had been subsequently falsified.”

Now, recollect that the right honorable gentleman was speaking when wheat was 56_s._ per quarter, and that wheat is now 45_s._ The right honorable baronet at the head of the government now says: “My legislation has had nothing to do with wheat at 45_s._ a quarter”; but how are we to get over the difficulty that the responsible member of government at the head of the Board of Trade, only nine months ago, claimed merit for the government having kept up the price of wheat at 56_s._? These discrepancies themselves between the government and its supporters, render it more and more necessary that this question of protection should be inquired into. I ask, What does it mean? The price of wheat is 45_s._ this day. I have been speaking to the highest authority in England upon this point—one who is often quoted by this House—within the last week, and he tells me, that with another favorable harvest, he thinks it very likely that wheat will be 35_s._ a quarter. What does this legislation mean, or what does it purport to be, if you are to have prices fluctuating from 56_s._ down to 35_s._ a quarter, and probably lower? Can you prevent it by the legislation of this House? That is the question. There is a great delusion spread abroad amongst the farmers; and it is the duty of this House to have that delusion dissipated by inquiring into the matter.

Now, there are these very different opinions on the other side of the House; but there are members upon this side representing very important interests, who think that farmers are suffering because they have this legislative protection. There is all this difference of opinion. Now, is not that a fit and proper subject for your inquiry? I am prepared to go into a select committee, and to bring forward evidence to show that the farmers are laboring under great evils—evils that I would connect with the legislation of this House, though they are evils which appear to be altogether dissociated from it. The first great evil under which the farmer labors is the want of capital. No one can deny that. I do not mean at all to disparage the farmers. The farmers of this country are just the same race as the rest of us; and, if they were placed in a similar position, theirs would be as good a trade—I mean that they would be as successful men of business—as others; but it is notorious, as a rule, that the farmers of this country are deficient in capital; and I ask, How can any business be carried on successfully where there is a deficiency of capital? I take it that honorable gentlemen opposite, acquainted with farming, would admit that 10_l._ an acre, on an arable farm, would be a sufficient amount of capital for carrying on the business of farming successfully. I will take it, then, that 10_l._ an acre would be a fair capital for an arable farm. I have made many inquiries upon this subject in all parts of the kingdom, and I give it you as my decided conviction, that at this present moment farmers do not average 5_l._ an acre capital on their farms. I speak of England, and I take England south of the Trent, though, of course, there are exceptions in every county; there are men of large capital in all parts—men farming their own land; but, taking it as a rule, I hesitate not to give my opinion—and I am prepared to back that opinion by witnesses before your committee—that, as a rule, farmers have not, upon an average, more than 5_l._ an acre capital for their arable land. I have given you a tract of country to which I may add all Wales; probably 20,000,000 of acres of cultivable land. I have no doubt whatever, that there are 100,000,000_l._ of capital wanting upon that land. What is the meaning of farming capital? There are strange notions about the word “capital.” It means more manure, a greater amount of labor, a greater number of cattle, and larger crops. Picture a country in which you can say there is a deficiency of one half of all those blessings which ought to, and might, exist there, and then judge what the condition of laborers wanting employment and food is.

But you will say, capital would be invested if it could be done with profit. I admit it; that is the question I want you to inquire into. How is it that in a country where there is a plethora of capital, where every other business and pursuit is overflowing with money, where you have men going to France for railways and to Pennsylvania for bonds, embarking in schemes for connecting the Atlantic with the Pacific by canals, railways in the valley of the Mississippi, and sending their money to the bottom of the Mexican mines; while you have a country rich and overflowing, ready to take investments in every corner of the globe; how is it, I say, that this capital does not find its employment in the most attractive of all forms—upon the soil of this country? The cause is notorious—it is admitted by your highest authorities; the reason is, there is not security for capital in land. Capital shrinks instinctively from insecurity of tenure; and you have not in England that security which would warrant men of capital investing their money in the soil.

Now, is it not a matter worthy of consideration, how far this insecurity of tenure is bound up with that protective system of which you are so enamoured? Suppose it can be shown that there is a vicious circle; that you have made politics of Corn Laws, and that you want voters to maintain them; that you very erroneously think that the Corn Laws are your great mine of wealth, and, therefore, you must have a dependent tenantry, that you may have their votes at elections to maintain this law in Parliament. Well, if you will have dependent voters, you cannot have men of spirit and capital. Then your policy reacts upon you. If you have not men of skill and capital, you cannot have improvements and employment for your laborers. Then comes round that vicious termination of the circle—you have pauperism, poor-rates, county-rates, and all the other evils of which you are now speaking and complaining.[11] * * *

Now, sir, not only does the want of security prevent capital flowing into the farming business, but it actually deters from the improvement of the land those who are already in the occupation of it. There are many men, tenants of your land, who could improve their farms if they had a sufficient security, and they have either capital themselves or their friends could supply it; but with the absence of leases, and the want of security, you are actually deterring them from laying out their money on your land. They keep every thing the same from year to year. You know that it is impossible to farm your estates properly unless a tenant has an investment for more than one year. A man ought to be able to begin a farm with at least eight years before him, before he expects to see a return for the whole of the outlay of his money. You are, therefore, keeping your tenants-at-will at a yearly kind of cultivation, and you are preventing them carrying on their businesses in a proper way. Not only do you prevent the laying out of capital upon your land, and disable the farmers from cultivating it, but your policy tends to make them servile and dependent; so that they are actually disinclined to improvement, afraid to let you see that they can improve, because they are apprehensive that you will pounce upon them for an increase of rent. I see the honorable member for Lincolnshire opposite, and he rather smiled at the expression when I said that the state of dependence of the farmers was such that they were actually afraid to appear to be improving their land. Now that honorable gentleman, the member for Lincolnshire [Mr. Christopher], upon the motion made last year for agricultural statistics, by my honorable friend, the member for Manchester [Mr. Milner Gibson], made the following statement:

“It is most desirable for the farmer to know the actual quantity of corn grown in this country, as such knowledge would insure steadiness of prices, which was infinitely more valuable to the agriculturist than fluctuating prices. But to ascertain this there was extreme difficulty. They could not leave it to the farmer to make a return of the quantity which he produced, for it was not for his interest to do so. If in any one or two years he produced four quarters per acre on land which had previously grown but three, he might fear that his landlord would say: ‘Your land is more productive than I imagined, and I must therefore raise your rent.’ The interest of the farmers, therefore, would be to underrate, and to furnish low returns.”

Now, I ask honorable gentlemen here, the landed gentry of England, what a state of things is that when, upon their own testimony respecting the farming capitalists in this country, they dare not appear to have a good horse—they dare not appear to be growing more than four quarters instead of three? [Mr. Christopher: Hear!] The honorable member cheers, but I am quoting from his own authority. I say this condition of things, indicated by these two quotations, brings the tenant-farmers—if they are such as these gentlemen describe them to be,—it brings them down to a very low point of servility. In Egypt Mehemet Ali takes the utmost grain of corn from his people, who bury it beneath their hearthstones in their cottages, and will suffer the bastinado rather than tell how much corn they grow. Our tenants are not afraid of the bastinado, but they are terrified at the rise of rent. This is the state of things amongst the tenant-farmers, farming without leases.[12] In England leases are the exception, and not the rule. But even where you have leases in England—where you have leases or agreements—I doubt whether they are not in many cases worse tenures than where there is no lease at all; the clauses being of such an obsolete and preposterous character as to defy any man to carry on the business of farming under them profitably.

Now, I do not know why we should not in this country have leases for land upon similar terms to the leases of manufactories, or any “plant” or premises. I do not think that farming will ever be carried on as it ought to be until you have leases drawn up in the same way as a man takes a manufactory, and pays perhaps a £1,000 a year for it. I know people who pay £4,000 a year for manufactories to carry on their business, and at fair rents. There is an honorable gentleman near me who pays more than £4,000 a year for the rent of his manufactory. What covenants do you think he has in his lease? What would he think if it stated how many revolutions there should be in a minute of the spindles, or if they prescribed the construction of the straps or the gearing of the machinery? Why, he takes his manufactory with a schedule of its present state—bricks, mortar, and machinery—and when the lease is over, he must leave it in the same state, or else pay a compensation for the dilapidation. [The Chancellor of the Exchequer: Hear! hear!] The right honorable gentleman, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, cheers that statement. I want to ask his opinion respecting a similar lease for a farm. I am rather disposed to think that the Anti-Corn-Law Leaguers will very likely form a joint-stock association, having none but free traders in the body, that we may purchase an estate and have a model farm; taking care that it shall be in one of the rural counties, one of the most purely agricultural parts of the country, where we think there is the greatest need of improvement—perhaps in Buckinghamshire,—and there shall be a model farm, homestead, and cottages; and I may tell the noble Lord, the member for Newark, that we shall have a model garden, and we will not make any boast about it. But the great object will be to have a model lease. We will have as the farmer a man of intelligence and capital.

I am not so unreasonable as to tell you that you ought to let your land to men who have not a competent capital, or are not sufficiently intelligent; but I say, select such a man as that, let him know his business and have a sufficient capital, and you cannot give him too wide a scope. We will find such a man, and will let him our farm; there shall be a lease precisely such as that upon which my honorable friend takes his factory. There shall be no clause inserted in it to dictate to him how he shall cultivate his farm; he shall do what he likes with the old pasture. If he can make more by ploughing it up he shall do so; if he can grow white crops every year—which I know there are people doing at this moment in more places than one in this country,—or if he can make any other improvement or discovery, he shall be free to do so. We will let him the land, with a schedule of the state of tillage and the condition of the homestead, and all we will bind him to will be this: “You shall leave the land as good as when you entered upon it. If it be in an inferior state it shall be valued again, and you shall compensate us; but if it be in an improved state it shall be valued, and we, the landlords, will compensate you.” We will give possession of every thing upon the land, whether it be wild or tame animals; he shall have the absolute control. Take as stringent precautions as you please to compel the punctual payment of the rent; take the right of re-entry as summarily as you like if the rent be not duly paid; but let the payment of rent duly be the sole test as to the well-doing of the tenant; and so long as he can pay the rent, and do it promptly, that is the only criterion you need have that the farmer is doing well; and if he is a man of capital, you have the strongest possible security that he will not waste your property while he has possession of it.

Now, sir, I have mentioned a deficiency of capital as being the primary want among farmers. I have stated the want of security in leases as the cause of the want of capital; but you may still say: “You have not connected this with the Corn Laws and the protective system.” I will read the opinion of an honorable gentleman who sits upon this side of the House; it is in a published letter of Mr. Hayter, who, I know, is himself an ardent supporter of agriculture. He says:

“The more I see of and practise agriculture, the more firmly am I convinced that the whole unemployed labor of the country could, under a better system of husbandry, be advantageously put into operation; and, moreover, that the Corn Laws have been one of the principal causes of the present system of bad farming and consequent pauperism. Nothing short of their entire removal will ever induce the average farmer to rely upon any thing else than the legislature for the payment of his rent; his belief being that all rent is paid by corn, and nothing else than corn, and that the legislature can, by enacting Corn Laws, create a price which will make his rent easy. The day of their [the Corn Laws’] entire abolition ought to be a day of jubilee and rejoicing to every man interested in land.”

Now, sir, I do not stop to connect the cause and effect in this matter, and inquire whether your Corn Laws or your protective system have caused the want of leases and capital. I do not stop to make good my proof, and for this reason, that you have adopted a system of legislation in this House by which you profess to make the farming trade prosperous. I show you, after thirty years’ trial, what is the depressed condition of the agriculturists; I prove to you what is the impoverished state of farmers, and also of laborers, and you will not contest any one of those propositions. I say it is enough, having had thirty years’ trial of your specific with no better results than these, for me to ask you to go into committee to see if something better cannot be devised. I am going to contend that free trade in grain would be more advantageous to farmers—and with them I include laborers—than restriction; to oblige the honorable member for Norfolk, I will take with them also the landlords; and I contend that free trade in corn and grain of every kind would be more beneficial to them than to any other class of the community. I should have contended the same before the passing of the late tariff, but now I am prepared to do so with tenfold more force. What has the right honorable baronet [Sir R. Peel] done? He has passed a law to admit fat cattle at a nominal duty. Some foreign fat cattle were selling in Smithfield the other day at about 15_l._ or 16_l._ per head, paying only about seven and one half per cent. duty; but he has not admitted the raw material out of which these fat cattle are made. Mr. Huskisson did not act in this manner when he commenced his plan of free trade.[13] He began by admitting the raw material of manufactures before he admitted the manufactured article; but in your case you have commenced at precisely the opposite end, and have allowed free trade in cattle instead of that upon which they are fattened. I say give free trade in that grain which goes to make the cattle. I contend that by this protective system the farmers throughout the country are more injured than any other class in the community. I would take, for instance, the article of clover-seed. The honorable member for North Northamptonshire put a question the other night to the right honorable baronet at the head of the government. He looked so exceedingly alarmed that I wondered what the subject was which created the apprehension. He asked the right honorable baronet whether he was going to admit clover-seed into this country. I believe clover-seed is to be excluded from the schedule of free importation. Now, I ask for whose benefit is this exception made? I ask the honorable gentleman, the member for North Northamptonshire, whether those whom he represents, the farmers of that district of the county, are, in a large majority of instances, sellers of clover-seed? I will undertake to say they are not. How many counties in England are there which are benefited by the protection of clover-seed? I will take the whole of Scotland. If there be any Scotch members present, I ask them whether they do not in their country import the clover-seed from England? They do not grow it. I undertake to say that there are not ten counties in the United Kingdom which are interested in the importation of clover-seed out of their own borders. Neither have they any of this article in Ireland. But yet we have clover-seed excluded from the farmers, although they are not interested as a body in its protection at all.

Again, take the article of beans. There are lands in Essex where they can grow them alternate years with wheat. I find that beans come from that district to Mark Lane; and I believe also that in some parts of Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire they do the same; but how is it with the poor lands of Surrey or the poor downland of Wiltshire? Take the whole of the counties. How many of them are there which are exporters of beans, or send them to market? You are taxing the whole of the farmers who do not sell their beans, for the pretended benefit of a few counties or districts of counties where they do. Mark you, where they can grow beans on the stronger and better soils, it is not in one case out of ten that they grow them for the market. They may grow them for their own use; but where they do not cultivate beans, send them to market, and turn them into money, those farmers can have no interest whatever in keeping up the money price of that which they never sell.

Take the article of oats. How many farmers are there who ever have oats down on the credit side of their books, as an item upon which they rely for the payment of their rents? The farmers may, and generally do, grow oats for feeding their own horses; but it is an exception to the rule—and a rare exception too—where the farmer depends upon the sale of his oats to meet his expenses. Take the article of hops. You have a protection upon them for the benefit of the growers in Kent, Sussex, and Surrey; but yet the cultivators of hops are taxed for the protection of others in articles which they do not themselves produce. Take the article of cheese. Not one farmer in ten in the whole country makes his own cheese, and yet they and their servants are large consumers of it. But what are the counties which have the protection in this article? Cheshire, Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, part of Derbyshire, and Leicestershire. Here are some four or five dairy counties having an interest in the protection of cheese; but recollect that those counties are peculiarly hardly taxed in beans and oats, because in those counties where they are chiefly dairy farms, they are most in want of artificial food for their cattle. There are the whole of the hilly districts; and I hope my friend, the member for Nottingham [Mr. Gisborne], is here, because he has a special grievance in this matter. He lives in Derbyshire, and very commendably employs himself in rearing good cattle upon the hills: but he is taxed for your protection for his beans, peas, oats, Indian corn, and every thing which he wants for feeding them. He told me, only the other day, that he should like nothing better than to give up the little remnant of protection on cattle, if you would only let him buy a thousand quarters of black oats for the consumption of his stock. Take the whole of the hilly districts, and the down country of Wiltshire; the whole of that expanse of downs in the south of England; take the Cheviots, where the flock-masters reside; the Grampians in Scotland; and take the whole of Wales, they are not benefited in the slightest degree by the protection on these articles; but, on the contrary, you are taxing the very things they want. They require provender as abundantly and cheaply as they can get it. Allowing a free importation of food for cattle is the only way in which those counties can improve the breed of their lean stocks, and the only manner in which they can ever bring their land up to any thing like a proper state of fertility.

I will go further and say, that farmers with thin soil,—I mean the stock farmers, whom you will find in Hertfordshire and Surrey, farmers with large capitals, arable farmers,—I say those men are deeply interested in having a free importation of food for their cattle, because they have thin, poor land. This land of its own self does not contain the means of its increased fertility; and the only way is the bringing in of an additional quantity of food from elsewhere, that they can bring up their farms to a proper state of cultivation. I have been favored with an estimate made by a very experienced, clever farmer in Wiltshire—probably honorable gentlemen will bear me out, when I say a man of great intelligence and skill, and entitled to every consideration in this House. I refer to Mr. Nathaniel Atherton, Kingston, Wilts. That gentleman estimates that upon 400 acres of land he could increase his profits to the amount of 280_l._, paying the same rent as at present, provided there was a free importation of foreign grain of all kinds. He would buy 500 quarters of oats at 15_s._, or the same amount in beans or peas at 14_s._ or 15_s._ a sack, to be fed on the land or in the yard; by which he would grow additional 160 quarters of wheat, and 230 quarters of barley, and gain an increased profit of 300_l._ upon his sheep and cattle. His plan embraces the employment of an additional capital of 1,000_l._; and he would pay 150_l._ a year more for labor. I had an opportunity, the other day, of speaking to a very intelligent farmer in Hertfordshire, Mr. Lattimore, of Wheathampstead. Very likely there are honorable members here to whom he is known. I do not know whether the noble Lord, the member for Hertfordshire is present; if so, he will, no doubt, know that Mr. Lattimore stands as high in Hertford market as a skilful farmer and a man of abundant capital as any in the county. He is a gentleman of most unquestionable intelligence; and what does he say? He told me that last year he paid 230_l._ enhanced price on his beans and other provender which he bought for his cattle:—230_l._ enhanced price in consequence of that restriction upon the trade in foreign grain, amounting to 14_s._ a quarter on all the wheat he sold off his farm.

Now, I undertake to say, in the name of Mr. Atherton, of Wiltshire, and Mr. Lattimore, of Hertfordshire, that they are as decided advocates for free trade in grain of every kind as I am. I am not now quoting merely solitary cases. I told honorable gentlemen once before that I have probably as large an acquaintance among farmers as any one in the House. I think I could give you from every county the names of some of the first-rate farmers who are as ardent free-traders as I am. I requested the Secretary of this much dreaded Anti-Corn-Law League to make me out a list of the farmers who are subscribers to that association, and I find there are upward of one hundred in England and Scotland who subscribe to the league fund, comprising, I hesitate not to say, the most intelligent men to be found in the kingdom. I went into the Lothians, at the invitation of twenty-two farmers there, several of whom were paying upward of 1,000_l._ a year rent. I spent two or three days among them, and I never found a body of more intelligent, liberal-minded men in my life. Those are men who do not want restrictions upon the importation of grain. They desire nothing but fair play. They say: “Let us have our Indian corn, Egyptian beans, and Polish oats as freely as we have our linseed cake, and we can bear competition with any corn-growers in the world.” But by excluding the provender for cattle, and at the same time admitting the cattle almost duty free, I think you are giving an example of one of the greatest absurdities and perversions of nature and common-sense that ever was seen.

We have heard of great absurdities in legislation in commercial matters of late. We know that there has been such a case as sending coffee from Cuba to the Cape of Good Hope, in order to bring it back to England under the law; but I venture to say, that in less than ten years from this time, people will look back with more amazement in their minds, at the fact that, while you are sending ships to Ichaboe to bring back the guano, you are passing a law to exclude Indian corn, beans, oats, peas, and every thing else that gives nourishment to your cattle, which would give you a thousand times more productive manure than all the guano of Ichaboe.

Upon the last occasion when I spoke upon this subject, I was answered by the right honorable gentleman, the President of the Board of Trade. He talked about throwing poor lands out of cultivation, and converting arable lands into pasture. I hope that we men of the Anti-Corn-Law League may not be reproached again with seeking to cause any such disasters. My belief is—and the conviction is founded upon a most extensive inquiry among the most intelligent farmers, without stint of trouble and pains,—that the course you are pursuing tends every hour to throw land out of cultivation, and make poor lands unproductive. Do not let us be told again that we desire to draw the laborers from the land, in order that we may reduce the wages of the work-people employed in factories.[14] I tell you that, if you bestow capital on the soil, and cultivate it with the same skill as manufacturers bestow upon their business, you have not population enough in the rural districts for the purpose. I yesterday received a letter from Lord Ducie, in which he gives precisely the same opinion. He says: “If we had the land properly cultivated, there are not sufficient laborers to till it.” You are chasing your laborers from village to village, passing laws to compel people to support paupers, devising every means to smuggle them abroad—to the antipodes, if you can get them there; why, you would have to run after them, and bring them back again, if you had your land properly cultivated. I tell you honestly my conviction, that it is by these means, and these only, that you can avert very great and serious troubles and disasters in your agricultural districts.