many and France. I would ask, with Mr. Deacon Hume, who has been before quoted in this house, 'To whom do the energies of the British people belong? Are they theirs, or are they yours?' (Hear, hear, and cheers.) Think you that these energies were given to the British people that they might struggle for a bare existence, whilst you take from them half of what they earn? (Cheers.) Is this doing justice to 'the high-mettled racer?' (Hear, hear.) Why you don't treat your horses so. (Cheers.)You give your cattle food and rest in proportion to their toil, but men in England are now actually treated worse. Yes, 10,000 of them were last winter treated worse than your dogs and your horses. (Cheers.) What is the pretence upon which you tax the people's food? We have been told by the right honourable baronet that the object of the law is to fix a certain price for corn. Since I have been listening to this debate, in which I heard it proposed by a prime minister to fix the price of corn, I doubted whether or not we had gone back to the days of our Edwards again, and whether we had or had not travelled back some three or four centuries, when they used to fix the price of a table-cloth or a pair of shoes. What an avocation for a legislature! To fix the price on corn! Why that should be done in the open markets by the dealers. (Cheers.) You don't fix the price of cotton, or silk, or iron, or tin. Why don't you? But how are you to fix this price of corn? Going back some ten years, the right honourable baronet finds the average price of corn is 56s. 10d.; and, therefore, says he, I propose to keep up the price of wheat from 54s. to 58s. The right honourable baronet's plan means that or nothing. I see in a useful little book, called the Parliamentary Pocket Companion, in which there are some nice little descriptions of ourselves—(laughter)—under the head 'Cayley,' that that gentleman is described as being the advocate of 'such a course of legislation, with regard to agriculture, as will keep wheat at 64s. a quarter—(hear, hear)—new milk and cheese at from 52s. to 60s. per cwt.; wool and butter at 1s. per lb. each, and other produce in proportion.'(Hear, hear, and laughter.) Now it might be very amusing to find that there were to be found gentlemen still at large—(hear, hear,and great laughter)—who advocated the principle of the interposition of Parliament to fix the price at which articles should be sold; but when we find a prime minister coming down to Parliament to avow such principles, it really becomes anything but amusing. ("Great cheering from the opposition.) I ask the right honourable baronet, and I pause for a reply, is he prepared to carry out that principle in the articles of cotton and wool?—(Hear, hear.)
"Sir Robert Peel said it was impossible to fix the price of food by legislation.—(Loud cheers from the ministerial side.)
"Mr. Cobden: Then on what are we legislating? (Counter cheers