I was informed that it had been produced by the decline in the Glasgow weaving trade, so that this lessening of manufacturing employment in the village of Methven gives 300 fewer customers to the farmers in the district than they formerly possessed, while those that remain are also less able to buy. (Hear, hear.) This is an isolated, but satisfactory, illustration of the injury that results to agriculture from an unprosperous condition of manufactures. I am a landlord myself, and if the Corn Law could be beneficial to any one, it would be so to me, inasmuch as the protection which it gives is principally a protection to wheat, and as my land is almost entirely what is called wheat land, or land upon which wheat is grown. Now, I find the Corn Law to be positively hurtful to me, instead of an advantage; for it impoverishes my customers, and, consequently, has an injurious effect upon my profits."
Mr. Kinloch, of Kinloch, at the opening of his speech, made interesting allusion to his patriotic father:—" It is about ten years since, at a meeting of the inhabitants of Dundee, I advocated a total repeal of every tax affecting the food of man. Upon the 14th of May, 1834, a meeting was held in the Magdalen Yard, and resolutions unanimously agreed to condemnatory of the Corn Laws—upon the same spot where, in 1819, my father presided at a meeting of the radical reformers of Forfarshire; and for having done so, and there expressed his detestation of the instigators of the Manchester massacre, and his belief that as long as the House of Commons remained as then constituted, no effectual remedy to the distress of the people would either be proposed or applied by them,' he was forced to flee his country, and live for years in exile." Mr. Moore and Colonel Thompson followed "Kinloch of Kirloch," and then the meeting separated; many of those who attended the meeting again assembling at a soirée given to the deputation, and which was also numerously attended.
