pleased God to make us all dependent upon each other. A mechanic might determine to be independent of his tailor; but whatever might be thought of his determination, we should think but little of his wisdom, in such an employment of his labour and time. The dangers attendant upon the repeal of those laws, he thought, had been very much exaggerated. Some persons had said to him, "If you repeal the corn laws, rents must fall; the circulating medium will be reduced; government will not be able to collect the taxes; the mortgagee will not be able to get his interest, and you will paralyse the whole nation." But the value of the land in this country was not to be measured by any protection supposed to be derived from the corn laws, but by the wealth of the country. In a wealthy country like this, land could never be at very low prices; for the wealth obtained by commerce would seek to invest itself in land, and thus keep up the level. He regretted that the consideration of this national question had been deferred from time to time by the legislature, till, at length, want seemed coming upon us with the power of an armed man. He moved, "That a petition be presented to the House of Commons, at the commencement of the ensuing session, for the repeal of the existing corn laws."

Mr John Macvicar (an East India and China merchant,) fully coinciding in the opinions expressed by the president, and by the mover of the resolution, had great pleasure in seconding it. The resolution was put from the chair, and passed unanimously.

The Chairman then read the draft of the petition, as follows:

"To the Honourable the Commons of Great Britain and Ireland in Parliament assembled.

"The petition of the President, Vice-President, Directors, and Members of the Chamber of Commerce and Manufactures of Manchester, agreed to in a Special General Meeting, held on the 13th day of December, 1838,

"Humbly sheweth,-That your petitioners feel it their duty to call on your honourable house to bestow its early attention on the present position of the corn trade.

"Wheat has again risen to a high price, and much apprehension exists of its becoming still dearer.

"The existing corn law has not proved satisfactory to the people. Its provisions will now be scanned with a jealous and scrutinizing spirit, and the principles on which those provisions rest will have to undergo the further consideration of parliament.

"From the period when the country was happily restored to the blessings of peace, it has been a leading object of national policy to break down monopolies, to remove restrictions, and to promote a free interchange of commodities with other states, in the well-founded belief that the national prosperity would thus be placed on its most stable footing.

"The corn trade has been made a striking exception to this wise policy, and has been trammelled with restrictions. Your petitioners are not aware of any satisfactory reason why this trade should be regulated on principles so different from those applied to other branches of commerce. They believe the exception to be unnecessary, and consider it to be permanently and most extensively injurious.

"To prohibit the importation of foreign corn in a country not permanently growing enough for its own wants, which was the object of the corn law of 1815, or to subject its import to heavy taxation, which was the intention of the law of 1828, must produce the natural consequence of all monopolies, and materially augment the average price of bread; although the injurious effects may, in particular seasons, be more or less counteracted by harvests of unusual abundance. A cheap supply of human food is one of the main sources of a people's welfare.

"To interfere with this cheapness is to place a barrier to the gradual acquirement of those comforts of life, by the industrious poor, on which their own social and moral condition, and the nation's true dignity and strength, so much depend.

"Steadiness of price, in the cost of human food, is another important element of public welfare.

"Great changes in the price of corn, such as have occurred since the passing of the law of 1815, are pregnant with evil: rapid and large reductions of price destroy the farmer's capital, and bring ruin on the dealer. An opposite extreme grievously impairs the needful comforts of many in the middle classes of life, and brings to the poor a complicated mass of helpless and lasting suffering-their furniture disappearsclothing cannot be replaced-their food becomes coarser and more scanty-debts accumulate-and penury and wretched

ness ensue.

"The best security for a cheap and steady price of corn will be found in ready access to many and varied scources of supply.

The attempt to limit that supply to the proauce of our own soil must produce much needless fluctuation, and will bring upon us at intervals, when our harvests fail, in what the

emphatic phrase of an eminent statesman, would be a famine price.

"To seek to overcome the evil tendencies of a bad system by the complicated frame-work of heavy graduated duties, fluctuating inversely with every change of price (as attempted in the law of 1828), must prove unsuccessful, inasmuch as the endeavour is not within man's agency to accomplish.

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Beyond the injury done to the immediate well-being of the people by the existing corn law system, other evils exist of a different character.

"The friendship of foreign powers is alienated by a refusal to receive their produce; they will not value, and are little likely to provide for, an uncertain and capricious demand, disappearing as suddenly as it springs up; restriction on our part, leads to restrictive laws on theirs; rival manufactures arise, and protecting duties are imposed to foster them. Capital becomes extensively invested; the evil gets beyond the reach of remedy; and jealousy and prohibition occupy the place of international confidence, and of natural and healthy commercial intercourse.

"But the mischief is not confined to the countries where our evil policy first plants it. Those who start as competitors at their own homes, become rivals in foreign markets.

"Twenty years and more of European peace has given an impulse to peaceful arts among the continental states, which has been diligently improved.

"Our former pre-eminence in the universal cheapness of our manufactures is already passing away, and though old recollections and national pride may make men loath to give ear to accounts of such changes, they have been long forcing themselves on the notice of those who directly experience their effects.

"If, from mistaken notions of an unassailable supremacy, we are indifferent about the price of human food, and require our manufacturers to eat dear bread, whilst our foreign competitors procure theirs at a cheaper rate, our industrious population will unavoidably be driven back in the scale of civilization, to a level with those whom they have hitherto excelled in physical comforts, and we shall speedily undermine the foundations on which both our agricultural and manufacturing industry repose.

"Another evil of the present system is the diseased state into which it necessarily throws the trade in foreign corn. Long intervals of inaction are followed by fits of great excitement; speculation and gambling are its dominant characteristics; and fortunes are won and lost as averages rise or fall.

"It remains to notice the two chief arguments urged in favour of the system.

"1st, the danger of foreign dependence for a supply of food is dwelt upon.

"There is a security against this in the ordinary workings of self interest. Sellers profit along with buyers, and have an interest not less strong to prevent any rupture of the connection.

'Tendencies to war are checked, and war itself is prevented, by those friendly relations of mutual dependence which grow up between nations bound to each other by the ties of a regular and profitable commerce.

"There is another security in the number and variety of countries where corn can be bought. If one channel of supply should be closed by accident or misfortune, many more will remain; and it is not for the nation which boasts of being mistress of the seas, to distrust her power to retain and protect her maritime commerce.

"This alleged danger of foreign dependence, however, be its amount what it may, exists at present; and it would be diminished, not increased, by the introduction of a more regular system.

"2dly, the necessity of securing, by prohibitory duties, a remunerating price to the growers of corn, is also dwelt upon. "An uniform standard of remuneration could not be established, inasmuch as it must be dependent on the quality and situation of land, and on the capital and skill employed in its culture, with which the legislature cannot deal. Whatever was done would be arbitrary in its operation, favouring some, falling short of the fair expectations of others, and fluctuating with the changing opinions of the times.

"The claim of the farmer to remunerating protection is not stronger than that of the manufacturer, and they should be placed on a similar footing.

"Your petitioners address your honourable house on this subject in no spirit of partisanship. They do not desire the exclusive advantage of a class, but the equal good of all; they wish to see the trade in corn conducted as far as possible on the principles of other trades, in a sober regular course, and not by perpetual jerks and impulses arising out of extraordinary emergencies; to see it flow in a regular equable current, supplying the real wants of the country without overwhelming it.

"Your petitioners hope, that your honourable house will take measures in accordance with these sentiments, and with the opinions they have ventured to offer to your notice.

"And will ever pray, &c."

Mr William Neild (calico printer, of the firm of Thos. Hoyle and Sons), moved, "That the petition now read be adopted by this meeting, and be signed by the chairman, on its behalf." If, as had been said, agriculture and commerce were twin brothers, he did think that the former regarded himself rather two much as heir-at-law. He had never been jostled about by that fair competition to which his brother had been subjected, and which had spread our commerce to every part of the habitable globe, and increased the prosperity even of the agricultural interest far beyond what it ever could have acquired without the assistance of the commercial energies which had been brought to bear upon it. Within seventeen or eighteen years, printed calico was reduced 75 per cent. in price, or from 100 per cent. to 25 per cent., from various causes, the most powerful of which was competition. Had the agricultural interest been fairly subjected to such competition? It was true that machines could be multiplied, and acres could not; but he was assured by celebrated agriculturists, that there were means of making the land vastly more productive, and there were cases in which, by proper management, the produce of the land had been doubled, and even trebled. As commercial men, we had great reason to complain of partial legislation for the agriculturists, and it was high time that the legislature gave to this question the consideration it deserved.

Mr Richard Birley, vice-president of the chamber, seconded the resolution.

Mr J. B. Smith (Mr Smith is a retired merchant and a county magistrate,) and Mr J. C. Dyer rose; and the latter having given way,

Mr J. B. Smith said he felt called upon to add a remark or two at this stage of the proceedings, on what had fallen from the president in his introductory address. He (Mr Smith) had the honour to be a director of this chamber as well as a member. Now, he understood the president to say, that the petition which he had presented spoke the sentiments of the whole of the directors. He (Mr Smith) begged to say the petition did not speak his sentiments. (Hear, hear.) [The President said he certainly understood that Mr Smith had agreed to the petition on the day before.]-He certainly did agree to what he then heard, but some passages had been since added. He believed it was in the prayer of the petition that passages had been added to which he could not but dissent. The inference to be drawn from that prayer was, that this chamber approved of a protective corn law of some sort -an inference which he could never allow to be drawn from 11

VOL. II.