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be a performer upon these boards, and to address you upon a subject of such great importance. I have, for twenty years of my life, been an upholder of the system of protection, I have been so conscientiously, and conscientiously am I now opposed to it. It will be necessary for me to take a review, not of the session, as opposition members generally do at its close, but of the system of protection which has extended over a period of thirty years; and I will, as briefly as I can, give you my reason for abandoning the ship, because I have found that, do what we will, we cannot make her seaworthy. I have no fear that any other man will address you who is so greatly interested in agriculture, who is so large a landowner, or who has so much property under his charge; but feeling the strongest conviction that it is my duty as a citizen to state the views which I have formed, although all I have in the world is in land, yet I have no hesitation in coming forward and saying that I think it is the duty and the interest of all to join in bringing about the consummation of this great struggle:

"I shall first of all ask my brother farmers, if there be any present: Have the laws of protection been of any service to you? (Cries of No, no.') In the year 1815 the Con Law Fas passed. You were then told that 80s. would be the price of wheat: that amount being guaranteed to 128 in terms as strong as any that could possibly be used. But in the year 1823 we found that not 80s., but 40s.—half that price—was all that we could obtain. Then, in 1825, we were told that it would be impossible to carry out the law that if it were carried oat there would be a famine; and Mr. Canning then considered it his duty to go down to the House of Commons, and propose to let all the wheat out of bond without paying any duty at all. Gentlemen, it was then said that the law would not do; but in 1827 or 1828 a new law was introduced, founded on what was termed the sliding scale; and that law was to ensure us 64s. In 1830 I was one of the parties who were called up to be examined before the committee of the House of Commons; and on that occasion it was clearly shown that 359. was all that we could get That was the whole amount which it was possible for us to obtain, although 64s. was the sum which had been promised, and in the expectation of getting which all our contracts as farmers had been entered