CONDITION OF FARMERS.
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Whatever relief they had procured for the farmer through parliament had been for the advantage alone of landowners. (Hear, hear, hear.) He would venture to say that not an honourable member in that House would repeat again to-night that the Corn Laws were enacted for the benefit of the farmers. He defied honourable members to repeat that the law was upheld for such purpose. The farmers were not only the most distressed class in the whole community, but they held their lands under circumstances the most disadvantageous for the purpose of agriculture. The assertion that these laws were for the benefit of the labourer was equally absurd and unfounded. No one would now venture to say that it was to the advantage of the labourer that the prices of food should be kept up, and that high prices ensured high wages. There was a volume before them, produced by the labours of a commission of the Crown, which effectually disproved that assertion. No man in the face of that volume could rise and say that these laws were for the advantage of the labourers. Their mouths were closed by the evidence of their own commission. This was an authority which they did not venture to dispute. That evidence proved that no one could be lower in the scale of civilization than the agricultural labourer; so much so, indeed, as almost to place him out of its pale. Scarcely a day passed but the papers were full of accounts of what were called the crimes of the labouring classes, which were, in fact, only the results of their necessitous condition. The honourable member for Stockport had asked for inquiry upon this subject; he had made a motion to that effect, but the landowners in this House could not assent to it; they felt that they dared not call upon a single farmer or labourer to give evidence with respect to their condition, their experience of the operation of these laws. The motion of his honourable friend was a perfectly fair one, and one quite in point; but the landowners were afraid to call upon their own tenants, and to ask them whether, in their opinion, the Corn Laws did not chiefly operate to raise their rents; and upon the poor labourers, to say whether their case was not made more desperate by high prices. Sure he was that the landowners would not bring forward either farmers or labourers to speak of their experience of the operation of these laws. He saw in the Times newspaper a statement, that in some parts of the country, where there had been once a great deal of disaffection, wherever the farmer allowed the labourer an opportunity of procuring provisions cheap, thus virtually repealing the Corn Laws, they became better affected, and property was safe. He would ask the landowners to answer this question, how it was that the labourer was always found to be contented and well affected when prices were low, but that they were always disaffected, and the property of the country endangered, when prices were high? He asked the honourable
