History of the Anti-Corn Law League/Chapter17
CHAPTER XVII.
MEETING OF PARLIAMENT.
Parliament met on the 19th August, and the Commons elected their Speaker. On the 24th the Lord Chancellor read the Queen's Speech, which was quite as explicit on the subject of free trade as any one could expect. After stating Her Majesty's anxiety that the revision of duties affecting the production of foreign countries should be taken into consideration, the assembled Parliament was told: "It will be for you to consider whether some of these duties are not so trifling in amount as to be unproductive to the revenue, while they are vexatious to commerce. You may further examine whether the principle of protection, upon which others of those duties are founded, be not carried to an extent injurious alike to the income of the state and the interests of the people. Her Majesty is desirous that you should consider the laws which regulate the trade in corn. It will be for you to determine whether these laws do not aggravate the natural fluctuations of supply, whether they do not embarrass trade, derange the currency, and by their operation diminish the comfort and increase the privations of the great body of the community. Her Majesty feeling the deepest sympathy with those of her subjects who are now suffering from distress and want of employment, it is her earnest prayer that all your deliberations may be guided by wisdom, and may conduce to the happiness of her beloved people."
It was a bold course taken by the whig administration to recommend such a speech from the throne, unless we attribute the courage to despair. The House of Lords, composed exclusively of landowners, and independent of the people's suffrages, was not likely to re-echo the acknowledgment of distress occasioned by selfish legislation, nor was the House of Commons, constituted by the Reform Bill to give a preponderance to the landed interest, and elected at a period when great distrust prevailed amongst reformers and free traders as to the intentions of the whig administration, likely to adopt the liberal commercial policy recommended. Everybody knew what would be the immediate, nobody knew what would be the ultimate result. That the whigs would be defeated every body knew—that the very same Parliament under a tory administration would reform the tariff to a greater extent than the whigs contemplated, and totally repeal the Corn Laws, which the whigs proposed only to modify, nobody could have dreamed of.
The debate upon the address, in the Lords on Tuesday August 24th, was a Corn-Law debate, ministers and their supporters endeavouring to show that an eight-shilling duty would not ruin the agriculturists; and their opponents, not knowing what was to come, protesting against any changes. Earl Spencer who moved the address, himself a practical agriculturist, gave evidence that the Corn Laws afforded no protection to the farmer, and that the substitution of a moderate fixed duty would not throw land out of cultivation. Earl Fitzwilliam, one of the largest landowners in the kingdom, spoke to the same effect. Lord Brougham declared that he was in favour of a total repeal of the Corn Law, but would prefer its accomplishment gradually. The Duke of Wellington who, some ten years before, had declared that the representative system needed no reform, now declared that the country, under the Corn Law, was the best country in the world for a poor man. The former declaration helped to carry the Reform Bill, the latter to hasten the repeal of the landlords' monopoly. The Duke of Richmond, in like manner, helped the cause which he was bitterly opposing. He said: "As to the proximate ministry turning round and refusing protection—if they did so, then he said, in the name of the agricultural interest, that they would turn out the new ministry also." The expectant physician, reserving his prescription until he was regularly "called in,"—the expectant minister must have boiled with indignation when he was thus told that he must be the mere servant and tool of the least enlightened part of the aristocracy, or be turned out at their bidding. The Earl of Ripon, (Cobbett's "Prosperity Robinson,") after complaining bitterly of the calumnies of the League, uttered against all who were in favour of protection, showing that its truths had been felt and feared, moved an amendment which expressed the alarm of Parliament at the continued excess of expenditure over income, promised careful consideration of the interests recommended to the house, but declared that nothing could be done while the government did not possess the confidence of the country, and that her Majesty's present ministers did not possess the confidence of the house or of the country. Lord Melbourne, roused from his usual indifference by the attacks upon the administration of which he was the head, gave utterance to some bold truths. He had formerly said it was madness to think of repealing the Corn Laws. Probably in allusion to that inconsiderate declaration he now said: "I have certainly been, on former occasions, for putting off the agitation and discussion of this question, which, whenever it came on, I knew must be attended with inconvenient circumstances, but I always knew that it must come. I always knew that it was not to be avoided. I always knew that it was entirely a question of time, and I beg of your lordships to consider what I have always looked upon as the pinch of this question, namely, that these laws have been introduced and supported by those who have a direct interest in maintaining them. They were sanctioned by two houses of legislature, one of which is entirely composed of landholders, and the majority of the other consists of the same class. I say that this is not a state of things which we should look upon with complacency. I am not accustomed to speak in the language of dictation or of admonition; but I tell you it is not safe for the governing powers of a country to stand in such a situation as to be open to an imputation of so popular, so plausible, and so specious a nature as that which I have described; and I do assure your lordships that you will find it absolutely necessarry to put these laws, some day or other, on a more reasonable and satisfactory foundation.”
Probably had his lordship and his colleagues spoken thus boldly two years before, they would have preserved the majority they possessed when they accepted office. The utterance of such truths should not have been reserved until they saw that they must inevitably relinquish power. The house thought one night’s discussion enough for the matter under their consideration, and, dividing, the numbers were:-
| For Lord Ripon’s amendment | 168 |
| For the address | 96 |
| Majority against ministers | 72 |
The result of the debate in the Lords was a strong encouragement to the monopolists, and the aspirants to office in the Commons, where the debate, however, lasted throughout four nights. The compliment was paid to Manchester (it ought to have been paid earlier) of asking Mr. Mark Philips to move the address, which he did in a speech highly creditable to himself and to the large constituency which he represented, but although he made the Corn Law the main subject of his remarks, and although Mr. Labouchere warned the house that "the markets once lost would be lost for ever," the tory chiefs would not be drawn into discussion, preferring to put forward Mr. B. D'Israeli, nothing loath, to rail against the general policy of the government. Mr. Stuart Wortley moved an amendment similar to that which had been passed in the other house.
On the second night's debate the same very cautious policy was observed. Mr. Ewart, Mr. Ward, Dr. Bowring, Mr. P. M. Stuart, and Mr. Sharman Crawford successively addressed the house most effectively, so far as argument and statement went, but without drawing out any leading defender of the monopoly. Mr. Cobden then made his first appearance, and by his obvious sincerity, his earnestness, his declared independence of all parties, his straightforward arguments, and his undeniable statements, made a powerful impression on a house disposed to receive him unfavourably, and little believing that the out-of-doors agitator would at once take rank amongst the most effective debaters there. Still the opposition leaders held back. A Mr. Bailey, one of their underlings made faint play, but his argument was demolished by Mr. Brotherton. Lord Worsley alone attempted to controvert the arguments of Mr. Cobden, but without success—and the second night's debate terminated.
The third night's debate was opened by Lord Sandon, who deprecated any discussion on the Corn Laws, the great question, he said, being whether ministers had or had not the confidence of the house. Mr. Milner Gibson assured him that the great question was not thus to be stifled. Mr. Borthwick (formerly the paid advocate of the slave owners in our colonies), with due humility, followed in the wake of Lord Sandon, and Colonel Sibthorp followed, appropriately, in the wake of Peter Borthwick. The main speech of the night was by Mr. Baring, who commented forcibly on the silence maintained by the leaders on the other side, and drew out his probable successor in the chancellorship of the exchequer, Mr. Goulburn, who attempted to evade the main question by a succession of pointless jokes, to which "heavy dullness" is prone. Mr. Wakley also attempted the same strain with like effect; and after his speech the debate was again adjourned.
The fourth night's debate was opened by Mr. Milnes, who said that ministers ought to feel every hour as a burthen till they left office. Mr. Rennie and Mr. Wallace spoke in favour of ministers and free trade. Mr. C. Hindley told the house that its refusal of free trade in provisions would rouse the country to demand its reformation. Mr. Villiers made an excellent speech. He produced an immense mass of evidence, furnished from all parts of the kingdom to the ministers who attended the Manchester Conference, of the existing distress, and concluded by saying that if the sufferings of the people continued, if commerce languished, if trade were checked, if the means of employment were compressed, the whole of the responsibility must rest with the right honourable baronet opposite, and he believed that the right honourable baronet had the power of changing the present system, and assured him that according to his determination to support the present system or to change it, would he receive the opposition of the country or its support. Lord Francis Egerton, who owed his election to defective registration, and who afterwards lost it by the correction of the list of electors, instanced his own return as a proof that manufacturing Lancashire did not wish for the commercial changes proposed to be made. Mr. O'Connell followed in a powerful free-trade speech.
And then rose the expectant minister, and in breathless house silence the listened for some indication of the course he intended to pursue. In accordance with Gerard Hamilton's Parliamentary Logic, he took advantage of the warmth of Mr. O'Connell, to make a diversion from the main question. He said, however, to the consternation of many of his supporters, that while he preferred a graduated duty he did not pledge himself to support the details of the existing law; and if the agricultural interest gave him their support on the condition of supporting those details, he was not prepared to accept that support. He had been called upon to develope his plans, because he was supposed to be coming into power; but he repudiated the absurdity of a public man irrevocably pledging himself to plans, which reconsideration, when in office, might deem it expedient to modify. If he could believe that the alteration of the Corn Laws would cure the lamentable distresses of which they had heard so much, he would recommend to the landowners, for their own sake, to submit to a sacrifice; and would propose a relaxation, nay, a repeal of the laws. But he did not believe that the Corn Laws were the cause of the great fluctuations in commerce, or of the distresses which they produced.
Lord John Russell followed. He said that Sir Robert Peel had not been called upon to give his detailed plans; he had merely been asked to state the principles which would guide him. The right honourable baronet would adopt the Reform Act, and all those great measures to which he and his party had been opposed; but still he resolutely adhered to the sliding scale, which he (Lord John) firmly believed to be the main cause of all the distresses of the country. The sliding scale was a prohibitory duty, destroyed all regularity in commerce, and was injurious to the great body of the people. He admitted that, if, according to Sir R. Peel's supposition, corn rose as high as 90s. or 100s. no duty could be maintained at all; but he considered that if the field of supply was extended, the less likely was it that a scarcity could occur. The principles of free trade were greatly promoted by such a discussion as the present. If Sir Robert Peel would give them effect, he might safely despise the menace which had been uttered of overturning any ministry that would act in respect to the Corn Laws as the present ministers had done.
The house divided at half-past two o'clock, on Saturday morning, and the numbers were;—
| For the amendment, | 360 |
| Against it, | 269 |
| Majority against ministers, | 91 |
On Monday, August 30th, Lord M. Hill appeared at the bar of the House of Commons, and said that her Majesty had been waited upon, pursuant to the resolution of that honourable house, and he was desired by her Majesty to read to the house the following most gracious answer to the address of her faithful Commons:— "It is the greatest satisfaction to me to find that the House of Commons are deeply sensible of the importance of those considerations to which I directed their attention, in reference to the commerce and revenue of the country, and the laws which regulate the trade in corn, and that, in deciding on the course which it may be desirable to pursue, it will be their earnest desire to consult the welfare of all classes of her Majesty's subjects. Ever anxious to listen to the advice of my Parliament, I will take immediate measures for the formation of a new administraton."
At a few minutes past five o'clock, Lord John Russell rose to address the house, which was then extremely crowded, and the most profound silence instantly prevailed. The noble lord, who appeared much affected, and was at times nearly inaudible in the gallery, said:— "I have now, sir, to state to the house, that, after the division on Friday night, her Majesty's ministers have felt it their duty at once to advise the answer which has just been read to the house, and humbly to tender their resignations to her Majesty, and to enable her Majesty to form a new administration. Her Majesty was graciously pleased to accept their resignations; and we, therefore, now hold office only till other ministers shall be appointed to the offices which we respectively hold. I have only further to say, with regard to those in this house with whom I have conducted public affairs for many years, whether they have been my supporters or my opponents, I wish personally to express a hope, that, in all our future relations, there may be no personal bitterness, and if our resignation tends to the future welfare and prosperity of the country, I shall always look back with satisfaction to this day, in which that event has occurred. I now, sir, move that the house, at its rising, do adjourn to Monday next."
Although some hope had been excited in the minds of free traders by Sir Robert Peel's declaration, that he would not pledge himself to uphold the Corn Laws in their existing details, nor even to prevent their repeal, if the circumstances of the country demanded it, his inclusion amongst his colleagues of the Duke of Wellington, Mr. Goulburn, Lord Ripon, and others opposed to all change, held out little prospect of the adoption of a liberal commercial policy, and the country, not grieving much at the resignation of the whig ministers, looked anxiously and doubtingly upon the probable course of their successors. The Queen experienced a disquietude different from that of her people. Miss Martineau says:—
The great object with Sir Robert Peel seemed to be to obtain time for consideration. Some was gained by the adjournment for the re-election of members who had accepted office. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had a vote to meet emergencies; and the powers of the Poor-Law Commissioners, which were about to expire, were renewed for six months, a little to the discomfiture of some of the tories, who had endeavoured to create what the Americans call political capital, by abusing the "Whig" Poor Law. While such business was in progress, Sir Robert cautiously avoided giving any indication of forthcoming measures. The Duke of Wellington, with less discretion, declared that there was no deficiency of food in the country that the distress had nothing to do with the food question; that it was owing to the want of work and low wages, and other causes; and that he had never heard how Parliament could do anything in such a case. Parliament was prorogued on the 7th of October, and the state physician, now regularly called in, obtained some four or five months of time to consider what he would prescribe.
The change of ministry caused no diminution of the zeal with which the anti-corn-law agitation was carried on. Hope, with some, that the Duke and Peel would yield upon an emergency, as they had yielded upon the Catholic question; indignation with others at the insolent declarations of the Duke of Richmond, and his class; an old dislike of the tories, now again in office; whiggism roused into action, now that the whig hitherto ins were out, and restored to their old functions of opposition,—all tended, not merely to aid the movement, but to give it additional activity. And then, above all, was the intense suffering of the people, most distressing to the humane, and filling the minds of the timid with apprehensions of a dreadful convulsion. After events convince us, that these four months of recess must have been spent by Sir Robert Peel with deep anxiety.
The return of the ministers of the gospel from their conference at Manchester, gave rise to meetings so numerous that even the names of the places would fill pages; and new anti-corn-law associations were formed—Birmingham setting the example in this revival. On the 8th of September, a meeting was held in the Manchester Corn Exchange, Mr. Cobden in the chair, at which Mr. Curtis, of Ohio, showed the mutual advantages of free trade between England and the United States. On the 10th of September, a great meeting was held in the Town Hall, Manchester, the mayor, William Nield, Esq., in the chair, in which Mr. Absalom Watkin, the Rev. W. Mc.Kerrow, Sir Thomas Potter, Mr. John Brooks, Mr. W. Rathbone, Mr. R H. Greg, the Rev. Dr. Beard, the Rev. J. W. Massie, Mr. J. C. Dyer, and Mr. W. Rawson, took effective part, and at which resolutions were passed, asserting the deep distress of the manufacturing districts occasioned by the Corn Laws, and a petition to the Queen was adopted, prayaing her Majesty not to prorogue Parliament until such time as that portion of her speech, at its opening, relating to the Corn Laws should be fully deliberated upon. In the borough of Salford and the populous township of Hulme similar demonstrations were made. At this time, also, was the design originated of holding a great Anti-Corn-Law Bazaar, at Manchester, a new kind of agitation, and the precursor of a great Art Exposition, held afterwards in Covent Garden, that probably furnished the idea for the grand Exhibition, which drew together visitors from almost every nation on earth, with the prospect of binding them together in the bonds of peace and amity after the alienating effects of wars, and "orders in council," and Corn Laws.
While in almost every town in Great Britain the people were expressing their opinions in favour of free trade in food, the first number appeared of a very useful series of tracts, written by Mr. Scott, of the firm of Webster, Geary, and Scott, published in London. In 1791, Sir John Sinclair commenced the publication of his "Statistical Account of Scotland," and it was completed in 1796. A new edition was commenced in 1832, and was still in course of publication in 1841. The account of each parish was written by each parochial minister, and the rent of land was given at each period. I had been enabled to make use of some of those statements, to show the great advance in rents in that part of the kingdom, and, by analogy, to judge of the increase in England, but I had not access to the whole of the last edition of the work. Mr. Scott, in his tract, "A Plea for the Total and Immediate Repeal of the Corn Laws, "gave a table of the rental of one hundred parishes in Scotland, showing that there had been an increase of more than one hundred and fifty per cent, in less than fifty years, the total rental of those parishes in the period 1791-1796, being £287,139, and in the latter period, 1832-1840, £744,273. It had been estimated by Sir John, and his estimate was confirmed by many of the parochial clergy, that the rental of estates increased at least from two to three fold from 1660 to 1750. This was doubled previous to 1770, and was again doubled in the next twenty years. Thus the land rental had increased from the period of the Restoration, in 1660, some twenty or thirty fold, or more than two thousand per cent.!
Mr. Scott gave the following instance of the increase of value in particular estates:—"In 1615, an estate in the parish of Langforgan, Perthshire, was purchased by Lord Strathmore for £2,222 in 1777 it was re-sold at £44,000; and now the annual rental is more than the purchase money in 1615. Nearly the whole parish of Craig, Forfarshire, was purchased about 1690 for £10,000, and resold about 1782 for £64,000 and the present rental is £9,500, which, at twenty-five years' purchase, would give the value at £237,000.
How differently has the much abused fund-holder been placed! Had the 10,000 been invested in the funds, his descendants would, perhaps, have received six per cent, until the five per cents, were reduced, and then, if it had been re-invested, less than four per cent, would have been the interest returned,—but the descendants of the purchaser of the parish of Craig are now enjoying ninety-five per cent., and yet protection to land is demanded." In a subsequent edition of his useful pamphlet, Mr. Scott exposed the disproportion of the land tax to what it was when originally imposed. In Scotland, that "exclusive burthen" is charged upon an official valuation of 1650, and although rents in general had advanced at least twenty fold, the exclusive burthen remained the same.
By the return to the "Statistical Account," for the parish of Fordun, Kincardineshire, by Dr. Leslie, corrected to 1837, it was shown that while the real rental was £11,420 at the latter period, it was assessed upon only £594 2s. 1d., the official value at the former, thus paying little more than a nineteenth part of what was justly due to the state. Mr. Scott also showed that an estate belonging to the Duke of Richmond, one of the loudest to complain of the exclusive burthens on land, paid only a halfpenny in the pound, or one forty-eighth part of what was due to the national revenue. Mr. Jonathan Duncan, in a lecture in favour of entirely free trade and direct taxation, delivered Ashton-under-Lyne, September 2nd, taking Mr. Scott's estimate of the increase of rents, calculated that if the land tax were levied in the spirit of the constitution, it would produce to the revenue 11,400,000 annually. The League, taking up the subject, published, in 1842, "The Constitutional Right to a Revision of the Land Tax.Being the Argument on a case submitted to Counsel on behalf of the National Anti–Corn–Law League." From that argument the following is an extract:—
On Monday, October 11th, Colonel Thompson, in the course of a tour to some of the large towns, where he expounded the principles of free trade, to large audiences, rendering his speech as effective as his pen had been during his long opposition to the Corn Laws, visited Manchester, and was received in the Corn Exchange at a tea party of the Operative Association, five hundred in number,presided over by Mr. John Brooks.
The gallant veteran, in allusion to the interruption of anti-corn-law meetings by the chartists said:—
This judicious advice, proceeding from one who was as much an advocate for a thorough reform of the representative system as for perfect freedom of trade, was not without its effect, for it gained over, at least from opposition, the more enlightened of the chartist body, Henry Vincent amongst them, and established a sort of understanding that, while they advocated radical parliamentary reform, they were not to put themselves into an antagonistic position to those who asked for the thorough reform of our commercial policy. On the 18th October, Mr. Vincent gave a lecture on chartism in the Carpenters' Hall, and at its conclusion there was a discussion between him and Mr. Finnigan and Mr. Warren, and it ended in the adoption of a resolution: "That in the opinion of this meeting the charter is just in principle and ought to be contended for; and that the Corn Laws are unjust in principle, oppressive in their operations, and ought to be repealed."
The manufacturing districts had responded to the recommendation of the League with respect to petitions, and a cart load was sent from Manchester, on Wednesday, October 7th, praying the Queen not to prorogue Parliament till the distresses of her people were taken into consideration. The prorogation had, however, been previously resolved upon, and it actually took place on the Thursday. Her Majesty's ministers had advised her to say that she would receive the complaints of her suffering people through the hands of the Home Secretary; and thus were Earl Radnor, Earl Ducie, Lord Kinnaird, and other patriotic peers, deprived of the opportunity of accompanying the written prayers with a verbal statement of the existing distress. Ministers, in the speech dictated to her Majesty, acknowledged the existence of distress, but, by the prorogation, they declared that no measures for its relief should be even taken into public consideration till the Houses of Parliament met again in February!
The distress amongst the industrial classes went on deepening day by day. There would have been fearful tumult but for the hope that the labours of the League would lead to some relief. While Sir Robert Peel, in his retreat at Tamworth, was pondering upon the difficulties of his position, the anti-corn-law agitators were preserving the peace. The lecturers, in their various grades of intellect and oratory, were out amongst all conditions of the people—a most efficient police force, the only efficient police force—for soldiers and constables would have been powerless, if the sufferers had despaired, or powerless without a frightful bloodshed. I had the painful task, in penning my "Historical Sketches of Manchester," to record details of the misery endured in the manufacturing districts in 1817-18-19 and 1829; the history bringing vividly to my recollection what I had witnessed in those years of wretchedness; and I feel it too heavy a task now to describe, at any length, the misery which selfish legislation inflicted upon the people in 1841—not to pass away with that year, but to be protracted till the famine becoming unbearable, the legislature at last yielded, and, reluctantly permitted the starving to find their food where it could be found. Let not those who have witnessed such distress be deemed uncharitable, if they do not join in the unbounded praise bestowed upon those who, having inflicted or permitted the infliction, yielded at last.
At the time when Parliament was prorogued, there were 20,986 persons in Leeds, whose average earnings were only elevenpence three-farthings a week. In Paisley, nearly one-fourth of the population was in a state bordering upon actual starvation. In one district, in Manchester, the Rev. Mr. Beardsall visited 258 families, consisting of 1,029 individuals, whose average earnings were only sevenpence halfpenny per head per week. A public meeting was held in Stockport, October 29th, at which the Rev. Mr. Baker, and Mr. Coppock (the town clerk), gave harrowing details of the wide extent and the intensity of the suffering. While millions were in this deplorable condition, the duty on the importation of wheat was 24s. 8d., on oats 13s. 9d., on barley 10s. 10d., and rye 14s. per quarter. And this was the season at which Sir Robert Peel and his colleagues demanded four months' leisure, at their country abodes, before they could permit Parliament to take the distress of the people into consideration, their excuse being that in all the three years of comparative famine their whig predecessors had devised no remedy. The following letter from Colonel Thompson is descriptive not only of Bolton but of most of the manufacturing towns at the close of this disastrous year:—
"TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.
Sir,—I have been at the siege of Bolton; for nothing but some such cause suggests itself as adequate to the phenomenon. And is it not a siege? not carried on perhaps by an enemy within gun shot, but by one working on a wider radius, and making his blockade by sea upon the means of life.
"Many sights it has been my chance to see. I think I know what is the minimum of help by which horse, ass, dog, hog, or monkey can sustain existence, and where it must go out for want of appliances and means of living. But anything like the squalid misery, the slow, moulding, putrefying death by which the weak and the feeble of the working classes are perishing here, it never befel my eyes to behold, nor my imagination to conceive. And the creatures seem to have no idea of resisting, or even repining. They sit down with oriental submission, as if it was God and not the landlords that was laying his hand upon them. And when their honourable representative in Parliament gave description of their sufferings, 'liar' was the best word applied to him by the organs of tyranny.
"Did you ever set eyes on a pennyworth of mutton? Come here and you shall see how rations are served out under the landlord's state of siege. It might bait a rat-trap; though a well fed rat would hardly risk his personalities for such a pittance. Pennyworths of mutton, and halfpenny worths of bread cut off the loaf, are what the shopkeepers of Bolton deal out to the inhabitants of their Jerusalem. I saw a woman come for one halfpenny worth of bread, which was to be the dinner of herself and children twain; and when I reflected that of this transparent slice the other half was gone to buy the landlord's sack, astonishment possessed me at the endurance of that long-bearing ass the public, and the extent to which ignorance and divisions will prop the rich man's robbery.
"I saw another mother of a family, who said she had not tasted meat for many months; and on one of the children being sent off to the butcher's for some of that strange luxury, she was discovered making many efforts to intercept the messenger. Her anxiety was to instruct the boy to bring back nothing but one pennyworth of bacon ; there was a to-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, for which she had conceived the idea of spinning out existence by means of the remainder of the fund.
"If you are curious in human misery, if you are anxious to know what a shabby tyranny can bring the rank and file to suffer, come, at your leasure, to the leaguer' of Bolton and see what the people sleep upon, if they do sleep. Chopped dirt, the sweepings of a hen house mingled with a proportion of sparrows' nests, to show that men had heard of straw, would be the best representatives of what they huddle upon in corners, and call it resting. And all this because Sir Having Greedy votes in the House of Commons for closing honest trade, as the means of doubling his rents.
"The minister, meanwhile, and his associates are racking their tender hearts to find a remedy. As in O'Connell's celebrated story of the horse, 'WILL THEY THY CORN?' They will try anything except allow the sufferers to keep themselves ; for that would interfere with the plans of those who, being rich already, use their riches as the means of doubling them by confiscation of the poor man's bread.
"There is danger in these schemes. Already people of all kinds are parodying the sentiment of the Italian's "AD OGNI NOMO PUZZICA QUESTO BABBABO DOMINIO; which may be translated for English use, 'Neither man nor woman will endure this dynasty of clodhoppers.' It wants nothing but for the privates of the regiment to know what hurts them, and to get rid (as they are doing fast) of the various false lights thrown out to induce them to run in every direction that will preserve the evil; and a quicker end than pleasant may be put to mischiefs, which nobody would remove by an earlier application of the prudential virtues.—Yours, very sincerely,