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MR. VILLIERS' SPEECH.
Britain, he could not pretend to say; but the fact stood upon record, that it had not produced enough, and that we had been obliged to import 30,000,000 quarters of grain from foreign countries."
Condition of farmers and farm labourers:—
"He had heard from honourable gentlemen opposite, on previous occasions, when the subject was discussed, that those connected with the ownership of lands had no interest in their continuance, but they supported the Corn Laws because those who were dependent on them (the landowners) had all their interest involved in their continuance. It was now, however, ascertained beyond a doubt, that neither the farmer, nor the farmer's labourer, nor any other class in the community, derived any benefit from these laws except the landowners themselves. ('Hear,' from the opposition.) No member of any agricultural county would to-night, he thought, venture to urge this flimsy pretext, so demonstrably untrue, as a reason for the continuance of the Corn Laws; no honourable member would here stand up and say, I can prove that the farmers or their labourers benefit by this law. (Cries of ' Hear, hear.') The interest of these classes in these laws had been fully and fairly inquired into by those leagued together for the purpose, and so far from the Corn Laws being of any service to them, nothing appeared to be more identified with the permanent interest of both the farmer and the agricultural labourer than their total repeal. Every person is now familiar with the fact that the distress of no class had been more prominently or more frequently obtruded upon the public than that of the farmers. He (Mr. Villiers) would undertake to bring before the bar of that House, or before a committee, such a body of evidence as would leave no doubt that, for the last thirty years, the farmers had been, of all men, the most embarrassed, and that their distress had been more obtruded upon the attention of this House than that of any other class of persons. In fact, it is now matter of notoriety that they had derived no benefit from the Corn Laws. (Hear.) The farmer had been duped and deceived by the promise of parliament as to the effects of these laws. (Hear, hear.) The landlords had told him that they would ensure him a certain price for his corn; and what had been the result? Why, that he had been deluded into the payment of higher rent. The same had occurred with regard to all the exemptions that had been procured for the farmer in the payment of taxes; there was not a landlord in the House who did not know that they contributed only to swell the rent of the landowner. (Hear, hear, hear.) The members of the House dare not call a single farmer before them, and ask him whether what they had done in his behalf, as they said, had been at all to his benefit?
