"8. That this louse will be ready to give its support to measures, founded on liberal and comprehensive principles, which may be conducive to the further extension of religious and moral instruction.
"9. That an humble address be presented to her Majesty, to lay the foregoing resolutions before her Majesty."
The country believed that with his lordship a fixed duty had become a fixed idea, and it looked with little interest to the debate; and it was remarked that he did not attach much consequence to an expression of opinion upon the Corn Laws when he included education, colonization, and parochial settlements in his resolutions. His lordship began by vindicating the policy of bringing them forward together, as they referred to subjects inseparably connected with each other. His opinion was that the House ought to endeavour to free trade from restrictions, and to relieve industry from the trammels of legislation, but that in so doing it ought to accompany measures of relaxation with other measures of great importance. He maintained that the general subject of education and instruction should form part of the system to be adopted by government, and of the measures to be by government submitted to parliament; for it could not be expected that any measure for the general education and instruction of the people would be effective unless their physical condition was essentially improved. He then took a retrospect of the condition of the country from the period of the French revolution down to the present time, and contended that during the course of the war, which commenced in 1793, many changes for the worse occurred, under which the nation was still suffering. Among these changes he enumerated the enormous increase of the debt, and of taxation to pay the interest upon it—the bank restriction act of 1797, which had degraded the labourer, diminished the value of his labour; and had at the same time led to an extravagant mode of living, and a neglect of forethought and prudence among the employers, who suddenly found themselves in the
