matters of charity; would base charitable persons allow their names to be seen in a division list against the good of the people? If they should, they would lose all their credit with the working classes, and consequently all their usefulness. The people, as their numbers multiplied without proportionate addition to the corn that should maintain them, descended to live on potatoes; thus the price of their labour was lowered, and the landlords, getting it so much cheaper, were interested to keep up the law that excluded corn.
Colonel Sibthorp gave an exposition of the friendly feeling that subsisted between him and his tenants, whose forefathers had lived for successive generations on his estate, and always without leases. He reprobated the "folly and humbug" he had heard. Mr. Milner Gibson warned Sir H. Douglas, whom he considered to have made a most anti-commercial speech, that his constituency at Liverpool were tending fast towards the opinions of free trade. With respect to the analogy which had been suggested between the sinecurist and the landowner, he thought the landowner the more formidable incumbrance of the two; for any member could ascertain the amount of the sinecurist's pension; but no man could tell the amount of the mischief produced by the legislation in favour of the landowner. The manufacturers desired no monopoly; when Mr. Huskisson proposed his great reductions of duty, they supported his measure. The maintenance of the church by the land was no argument for a Corn Law; if the church were abolished, her interest in the land would not devolve to the landlord. Mr. Villiers replied. He did not regret the length of time which the discussion had occupied. It would induce reflection, and must work for good. Its protraction had been blamed as impeding business; but he knew of no other business so important, He defended himself for having brought forward this monopoly, unconnected with others on which a repeal of duty would be equally desirable. He had taken it singly, because it had always been said by its advocates to depend on considerations peculiar to itself. He then went into the
