was saying that the quantity of goods used at home must be greatly diminished. Dear bread, in consequence of its being dear, absorbed too much of the wages of the poorer classes to permit a market to be found for the goods exported abroad.
Sir R. Peel: Did I understand you to say that the exports had diminished ?
Mr. Heyworth: The exports must be increased when the consumption at home is diminished.
Mr. Heyworth then handed to Sir R. Peel a pamphlet, entituled, "How does cheap bread produce high wages?" and this by no means decreased the anxious state of trepidation in which the prime minister had hitherto been, which was too evident, notwithstanding his wonderful command both of muscle and countenance.
The Rev. Mr. Bonner, of Bilston, gave a very alarming account of the physical and mental condition of the labouring classes in the iron districts from which he came. He could not say that he stood before the minister as the appointed representative of those who were out of employ and starving, for they had for some time past believed that all applications were hopeless, and that they must take the remedy into their own hands. He had seen the misery created by the want of trade, and had been very reluctantly constrained to leave the duties which he loved, and the people in whose affections he lived, in order to lay their case before those who had the power of granting relief. As a minister of religion, daily forced to witness the demoralizing tendency of the present distress, he earnestly implored her Majesty's government to adopt some prompt and efficient means of relieving the wretchedness which now everywhere abounded—wretchedness which, if suffered to continue, would most inevitably lead to desperation, violence, and insurrection.
Mr. S. Foster said he had been deputed by Stockport to state the distressed state of that borough, having had a
