"distress" occasioned by the plentiful harvest, and demanding more protection. It was an opportune complaint, and an opportune demand. The ministry could again plead the imprudence of embarrassing them, after they had encountered the risk of utter exclusion from office, and could ask the impatient of monopoly how they could remove protection in the face of so loud a demand for its increase. It was quite enough for the period that a motion of the Marquis of Chandos, for a repeal of the taxes that bore upon agriculture, was negatived. It was not the right time to do more, for there was a promise in the appearance of the crops, that there would be an increase to the abundance, and consequently greater landlord complaint, and greater prosperity to commerce and manufactures.
There was a glorious harvest in 1835. In the September of that year, when on a visit to Mr. Childs, at Bungay, in Suffolk, I saw a barn floor covered with the finest wheat, which Mr. Feltham, the grower, told us could not at that time bring more than 4s. 6d. a bushel. He said he would keep it till the spring, when he hoped to get 5s. for it. How did the agricultural labourer fare? I recollected a saying of an old countrywoman in Scotland, when somebody was arguing that when the farmers got good prices the labourers were well off, "Na, na! Ye'll no persuade me that when there's plenty o' meal puir folks will get less than when it is scarce." In 1835, the farm labourers had more wholesome food at their command than they had ever had during my lifetime. In Manchester I had the gratification of again seeing the working man, on a Saturday night, helping his wife to carry home the heavy basket. There was no need for statistical tables, to show that there was a great additional consumption of necessaries and comforts. The fact spoke out in the manifest improvement in the appearance of the multitudes, now well dressed, and presenting undeniable proofs that they
