friends on the subject of the Sugarduties, and also on that of Corn. He differed with them as to the first point because he thought that the change which they proposed would lead to an increased cultivation of sugar, and that must lead to an encouragement of the slavetrade. He thought that some negotiations might be entered into with the Brazils by which this country would consent to receive their sugar, if they entered into an agreement to abolish slavery. As to the Corn-laws, though perhaps they might be changed with advantage, he did not approve of the fixed duty sanctioned by the Government. The sort of Cornlaw he would support, would be one which contained the qualities both of a graduated scale and a fixed duty.

Lord Brougham in the course of a long speech said, that he should vote in favour of the Address, although he did not wholly approve of the conduct of the Government. After adverting to the extreme fallacy of any arguments upon the Corn-law question, founded on a system of averages, the noble and learned Lord went on to say that he deemed the position in which her Majesty's Ministers stood to be a matter of great regret in a constitutional point of view. In counselling a dissolution of the late Parliament, it did appear to him that his noble friends had been guilty of a great error of judgment. It was wrong towards the state; it was wrong towards the sovereign; and it was doubly wrong towards those questions themselves, which as responsible advisers of the Crown they had brought under the consideration of Parliament. Would the questions suffer nothing by such large majorities pronounced against

them? Undoubtedly a great injury would be done to these measures; they would be sacrificed in a hopeless attempt to prop up the fallen fortunes of a party in power who brought them forward. He would not admit that that was the construction to be put upon the verdict which the country had returned. He thought their Lordships would perceive that the verdict was on one issue and the trial on another, that the country had given its verdict against the men, but that on the subject of their policy no verdict had been given or opinion expressed. The shape in which the measures were brought forward appeared to be another and a very serious impediment to success. The measures were good in themselves. The principles on which they were founded were sound. They were calculated to relieve the trade of the country; but they were not brought forward as measures for relieving that trade. Upon that foundation they could have stood, and stood firmly; but they were brought forward as measures of finance. That was a rotten foundation, and upon that foundation they could not stand. As to the Corn-laws, it was a very considerable improvement upon the sliding-scale to substitute a fixed duty. He was against any sudden total repeal of the Corn-laws, or of what was called the protective duties, but he thought it ought to be gradual yet total, and no doubt in a few years the repeal might be completed. The total repeal of the Corn-laws would certainly reduce the price of corn, but the Ministerial proposition would not at all. He had always argued before their Lordships, and elsewhere, that the agriculturists as greatly exaggerated the effects to be anticipated one

way from the repeal, as the manufacturers did the other way. The Government had not the right to speak of their measure as calculated to cheapen corn, seeing that it could not possibly lower the price of corn one farthing. Still as a measure substituting a fixed duty for a sliding-scale it would produce

most important and most beneficial results. In conclusion, the noble Lord said, that he would vote heartily for the Address.

Their Lordships then divided on the original question, when there appeared; Contents 96; Not contents 168. Majority against Ministers 72.

on Mr. Shaw Lefevre in the last Parliament by Lord Stanley, and added a short panegyric of his

own.

Mr. E. Buller, in seconding the motion, expatiated on the attention, ability, and impartiality, which Mr. Shaw Lefevre had always brought to that important part of his duty which related to private business, and dwelt upon his power of controlling in the Chair the unruly passions of the House. The re-election of Mr. Shaw Lefevre would be a high gratification to those whose original selection of him would thus be sanctioned by another vote in his favour, while it would do honour to the members of that party which had originally opposed him. Mr. Buller proceeded to say, "that whether the House should adopt those measures which he himself thought essential to the public good, or whether an opposite course should be resolved on—(murmurs of disapprobation) -perhaps he was deviating from the strict course of the business in which the House was then engaged, and if so, he threw himself upon forgiveness; but, at all events, the advantage of so competent a Speaker could not fail to be felt in their deliberations."

its

Sir Robert Peel said, he intended on this occasion to act on the principle for which he had contended in 1835, and on which he had acted in 1837. That was the principle supported by the best precedents. Until the time of Lord North's objection to the reelection of Sir F. Norton, no Speaker in possession of the Chair had been deprived of it by an adverse majority. Mr. Pitt, Lord Grenville, and Lord Grey had acted on the principle he now supported. He admitted, certainly,

that to such a principle there would be a fair exception in the case of an incompetent Speaker; but he was bound, in the present instance, to bear testimony to the merits of a Gentleman who had established in the Chair a moral influence of infinite importance to the due conduct of their proceedings.

Mr. Shaw Lefevre rose to express his gratitude for the commendations bestowed upon him, which he regarded as an ample reward for the toil and responsibility of the Chair. His official experience had taught him to see more clearly than ever the necessity of preserving not only the privileges of the House, but likewise its rules and orders. With that feeling, he should have great apprehensions in resuming the station he had filled, were it not for his reliance on the kindness and support of the House.

Having been then led to the Chair between the mover and the seconder, the Speaker returned his thanks to the House for the honour done to him, and assured them that no effort should be wanting on his part toward the discharge of the duty intrusted to him.

Lord John Russell congratulated the House on the unanimity of their election, and on the qualification of the Speaker elected. It had been his own habit to agree with the present Speaker upon most political and constitutional questions, and he rejoiced to see that both parties equally concurred in this day's choice. In 1835 he had thought that circumstances connected with the personal conduct of Sir C. Manners Sutton made it necessary, that in spite of that gentleman's eminent fitness for the duties of the Chair, another Speaker should be chosen; he had

not proceeded exclusively on the ground that the Speaker's politics ought to be those of the majority. The House then adjourned.

Several days were then consumed in swearing in Members. This being completed, on the 24th August, the Speaker having read from the Chair the Speech delivered in the other House by the Lords Commissioners, Mr. Mark Phillips rose to move an Address in consonance with it. In adverting to our foreign relations, as indicated in the Speech, he declared the great satisfaction which, as the representative of a great manufacturing constituency, he felt at the restoration of pacific dispositions throughout Europe, and expressed his hope, that the dispute with China would be adjusted on a footing of general advantage to British commerce. He trusted that the House would adopt the recommendation in the Speech, for a careful examination of the present Customs' duties. Much complaint had been made on the opinions advanced in the report of last year's Committee upon Imports; but none of the objectors had attempted to correct those opinions by the appointment of another Committee for the revision of the subject. He intimated his approbation of the proposals made by Ministers respecting the Sugar-duties, and then proceeded to the question of the Corn-laws. He represented the distress in the districts within his own knowledge to be now unusually severe, and called upon the Members for other manufacturing constituencies to bear their testimony to the like effect. people would not bear their sufferings patiently, while the monopoly occasioned by the present Cornlaws should continue unaltered.

The

He had seen with disgust, in certain newspapers, an allegation, that England would be no sufferer if the ploughshare were driven through the manufacturing districts. Those who threw out such opinions should remember, that but for the manufactures exported from England, the articles of their own daily comfort would not be brought into the English market; they should remember, that the interests of the manufacturing were also the interests of the agricultural classes. He referred to the evils inflicted on the monied and other interests by that general contraction of a paper currency convertible into gold, which must needs ensue wherever gold was the only medium for the purchase of corn. He appealed to experience, to show the general inutility of protections to the very classes for whose profit they were intended. He urged the patience with which the people had endured their sufferings, and confidently appealing to the sympathy of the House, read the Address which he had risen to propose, and which as usual adopted, mutatis mutandis, the language of the Speech.

Mr. John Dundas, in seconding the Address, went cursorily through the principal topics of the Speech, and then expressed his hope, that the doctor about to be called in, who had declined to disclose beforehand his system of treatment, would in this, as in former instances, adopt the prescriptions of his rival practitioners.

Mr. J. S. Wortley trusted that the excuse would be found for his making so early an address to the House, in the circumstances under which he had been returned to Parliament, by a great body of that people to whom her Majesty had