would not be injurious to the consumer. He did not ask their Lordships to interrupt the progress of that great experiment, which he feared was leading inevitably to the most serious consequences. He only asked them, and he asked them with confidence, not to refuse their assent to the amendment, which affirmed that there were two causes for the distress of the agricultural interest-causes with which it was the function of the Government to deal; and they were entitled to say that in one shape or other the Government was bound to take some steps for the removal of that distress.

The Marquess of Lansdowne defended the Royal Speech from the objections raised by Lord Stanley, and advised the House to support the Address, and throw out the amendment.

After some observations from the Duke of Beaufort,

Their Lordships divided, when the numbers were,

Government, that he would not compromise or surrender, but maintain, those measures which he considered to be connected with the happiness and well-being of the people-proceeded to notice the salient topics of the Speech. On the subject of the laws passed last Session to regulate our navigation, he stated facts upon which he grounded a confident belief that the predictions of the opponents of the change would be falsified, and the expectations of its advocates fully realized. The announcement in the Speech of the prosperity of our trade and manufactures he considered highly important as a lesson to foreign countries watching the effects of the great experiment made by England, which had succeeded at home, as well as abroad, beyond his hopes, in the extension of our trade, the improvement in the wages and comforts of the operative classes, and the increase of the revenue, in the very first year of free trade. He admitted and regretted the sufferings of many of the owners and occupiers of land; but it would be delusive to hold out to them any expectations of the legislative relief they desired, namely, a parliamentary guarantee of price for their produce, which had been the ruin of the agricultural interest. The landowners, however, had at least this consolation, that land now fetched a higher price in the market than it ever did. The Address moved by Mr. Villiers was, as usual, a reflection of the Speech.

The motion was seconded by Sir J. Duke.

Sir J. Trollope moved an amendment upon that part of the Address which referred to the condition of agriculture and the complaints of

the owners and occupiers of land. He urged the difficulties experienced by those classes throughout the country, who felt that their complaints had been treated with levity and disrespect, and who had in a firm tone maintained their right to be heard with attention by the Legislature. He proposed to add to the Address a representation to Her Majesty that, in many parts of the United Kingdom, and especially in Ireland, the various classes connected with the cultivation of the soil were labouring under severe distress, which they mainly attributed to recent legislative enactments, the operation of which was aggravated by the pressure of local taxation. He denied that the principle of free trade had been applied equally to agriculture and manufactures, the latter being still protected, and he saw no resource but a reconsideration of the whole matter.

Colonel Chatterton, the new member for Cork, seconded the amendment.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer was glad that on the first night of the session the amendment moved by Sir J. Trollope, who called for a reconsideration of the recent legislative measures, would bring the great question to issue, whether Parliament should retrace its steps, or persist in that course of legislation to which he believed the universal prosperity of the country was owing. Charles Wood entered into various details, founded upon official documents, showing the augmentation of our foreign trade (our exports having increased about ten millions in the last year), and its profitable character, and the increase of shipbuilding in this country, even for foreigners.

Sir

The distress amongst certain classes of the owners and occupiers of land in some parts of the country had been exaggerated. In the great majority of the agricultural counties, there had been a diminution of distress, and a reduction of poor-rates, and he relied upon the energy of the farmers to overcome the unavoidable effects of so great a change of the law, as they had overcome the distress caused by still greater depressions of prices under protection; though he denied that the present fall of prices was to be solely attributed to that change, and did not expect that the permanent price of corn would range so low as at present. The people of this country had a right to food at as cheap a rate as possible; the producers of corn must therefore increase its quantity, and this could be done only by the application of additional industry, skill, and capital to land. Even a reduction of rent was not to be put into competition with the benefit of a cheap supply of food to the labouring classes, which was already felt in the diminution of poor-rates; these were 400,000l. less in 1849 than in 1848. Sir Charles read various returns, which showed a progressive falling off in the number of able-bodied poor relieved during the past year in most of the agricultural counties, as well as in Ireland; and he asked how this fact could be reconciled with the alleged increase of distress amongst agricultural labourers? On the contrary, it confirmed the information he had received from various parts of the country of increased activity in the culture of the land, and the improved condition of the peasantry. He read statements of the imports of foreign

and colonial produce, and of shipping entered in England, pointing out how much the results were at variance with the forebodings of the Protectionists; and he wound these statements up with an announcement that every branch of the revenue had decidedly improved, the result being that there was an excess of income over expenditure for the year of 2,098,0007.

Mr. H. Herbert disputed the deduction drawn by Mr. Villiers and Sir C. Wood from the diminution of the number of persons receiving out-door relief in Ireland; that fact did not show a diminution of destitution, since there had been additional house accommodation, thousands had come to England, and other causes had co-operated. He recommended the House to receive with caution anything which came from the Government on the subject of the prosperity of Ireland, taxing Sir C. Wood with a flagrant inaccuracy in a speech made by him upon the Irish poor law. He supported the amendment, and was replied to by

Mr. W. Fagan, who denied that the distress of Ireland could be ascribed to "recent legislative enactments," which, on the contrary, had produced some abatement of that distress.

Sir J. Walsh regretted that the Address had not been so framed that all could concur in it, instead of provoking a division. The Government were precipitating a contest between the landed interest on one side, and the spirit of demagoguism on the other. The energies of British farmers, he feared, would be overtaxed, and when agriculture was reduced to its lowest depression, our manufacturers would be altogether de

pendent upon foreigners for food. Our late legislation was experimental, not final and irrevocable; and the result of the experiment had verified the apprehension of its destructive effects upon the agriculture of this country.

Mr. G. Berkeley complained of the omission in the Speech and in the Address of any allusion to the state of the West Indian Colonies, and condemned the terms in which Mr. Bright and Mr. Cobden had spoken out of doors of our colonial possessions. He defied the Manchester school to prove that, with present prices, land could be farmed profitably without rent; he denounced the doctrines of that school as fraught with delusion and danger, and charged them with stirring up an ill-feeling between landlord and tenant, and with using language calculated to exasperate the humble classes. Free-trader as he had been, as well as a supporter of the Government, he felt the measure of free trade was a most disgraceful one, and that the agricultural interest had been ill-used by the present Ministers; and, unless something was done, that interest must be overwhelmed with ruin.

The Marquess of Granby, confining himself to the paragraph in the Speech to which the amendment was directed, and which he characterized as offensive to a large class of Her Majesty's subjects, combated the opinions of Mr. Villiers as to the real causes of agricultural distress. At large meetings throughout the country the language universally held had been, that under present prices it was impossible for the occupiers of land to cultivate it profitably-that they must have protection against foreigners. This, however, was a

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Mr. Excert Palmer, as representing a purely agricultural county, supported the amendment, consiering the words it proposed to add to the Address, framed as it was, of very great importance. He justified the calling of public meetings to ascertain the opinions of the classes interested in the culti