against removing the impediments to increased trade, which existed at home. Another commercial treaty had been projected with Portugal. He did not lay this to the account of the present government, because it had been begun by the late; but it had been followed up by the right honourable baronot opposite. He did not wish to say anything offensive of another country, but Portugal was the poorest and most beggarly country in Europe.Where was the sense of thinking that a treaty with that nation could resuscitate the commerce of a country like England, or of talking about encouraging British trade by reducing the duty on port wine? The country did not want a reduction of those duties on luxuries. He spoke as a free trader, having a pretty large connexion with commercial reformers, and he said that they had not clamoured for a reduction of the duties on luxuries, but for a reduction of the duties on corn, sugar, and coffee; and those duties the reduction of which would not impair the revenue, but supply, according to the testimony of individuals connected with the Board of Trade, $3,000,000 or £4,000,000 of extra revenue, and at the same time create all the trade that was wanted."
On the 9th of May, Mr. Villiers brought on his motion: "That this house resolve itself into a committee, for the purpose of considering the duties affecting the importation of foreign corn, with a view to their immediate abolition." The motion excited great interest, not on account of what might be said in favour of repeal, but to know how it could be opposed, as all argument seemed to be on the other side Mr. Villiers said that the Corn Law had been tried, considered, and condemned, out of doors, and it now only waited the final sentence of that house, or to have cause shown why final sentence of condemnation should not be passed against it. He asserted that crime, misery, and social demoralization, were its result; that no language was too strong in condemning
