a much fuller XXI. 1827. to 74. This majority, upon a subsequent division in CHAP. House, increased to 11, the numbers being Upon this the Ministers threw up the bill, not without many expressions of anger and disappointEven Mr Canning, in speaking of the subject in 133 to 122. ment. xvii. 1338; 1827, 147, the House of Commons, in the last speech he ever made 1 Parl. Deb. in that assembly, said that the Duke," while meaning no Ann. Reg. harm, had made himself the instrument of others for their 155. own particular views.” 1 * 80. and curious the course bate. As the Corn Laws were settled on a footing which lasted some years in the next session of Parliament, this defeat Important was a matter of little public importance; but three things things ocare very curious, and deserving of being recorded, which curring in occurred in the course of it. The first is, that Mr Peel said, of the dein reference to an amendment of Sir John Newport to raise the duty on wheat-flour by a permanent duty of 4s. at all times, "no other country besides the United States could enter into competition with our markets, and she had not much to send. The largest importation of American flour was in 1817, and that was only 100,000 barrels, equal to 68,000 quarters." To us, who see several millions of American flour annually imported into Great Britain, this is a curious instance of the danger of legislating for future times, on the supposition that they are to remain the same as the present. The second was, that, from the returns of prices for forty-four years prior to 1827, the average price of wheat had been 56s. a quarter, of barley 30s., and of oats 20s. 6d. Third, these returns were referred to by Mr Peel as affording the best criterion of the rates at which cultivation could be carried on * It appeared from a correspondence between the Duke of Wellington and Mr Huskisson on this amendment, that the Duke had laboured under a misapprehension of the views of Government regarding it. Mr Huskisson stated that Ministers would not object to the amendment, understanding it to apply only to the corn "then in bond;" but the Duke of Wellington thought he meant they had no objections to the prohibition up to 66s., as a permanent restriction on foreign importation. There is no reason to doubt the good faith of either in the affair; but assuredly they were very different things.-See the Correspondence, June 1827, in Ann. Reg., 1827, pp. 148, 153. XXI. 1827. CHAP. at a profit in the British Islands; and so they would, if no changes in the currency had taken place during the period embraced by the returns. But it never seems to have crossed his mind that the successive expansion and contraction of the currency had entirely changed prices of every article of subsistence during their continuance, and that the price of food was much more dependent on the number of notes in circulation than even on the number of quarters of foreign grain imported. But that was the prevailing error of the age; and it speaks not a little for the penetration and statesmanlike wisdom of Sir Francis Burdett, that nearly alone in the House of Commons he supported the opposite views, and referred to the bill of 1819 as far more instrumental in producing the depres1 Parl. Deb. sion of prices, of which the agriculturists so much complained, than either the variations of season or any importation of foreign grain.1* xvi. 1119, 1122. 81. 1826-27-28. The finances of the country during the years 1826, Finances of 1827, and 1828, exhibited a painful proof of the extent to which the industrial resources of the country had been affected by the monetary crisis of December 1825, and the contraction of the currency by the suppression of small notes in the spring succeeding. There was no more boast of a remission of £12,000,000 of taxation in three years, as had been done in the three preceding years it was with great difficulty, and only by pressing the dead weight into the service, that a surplus of revenue at all above expenditure was exhibited, or the real sinking fund in terms of the resolutions of the House of *The following parliamentary return, referred to in the course of this debate, will show how close had been, in the preceding ten years, the connection between the price of grain and the amount of the currency: XXI. 1827. Commons in 1819. As the dead-weight was in truth a CHAP. loan, paid annually by instalments on the credit of future years, this view was of course fallacious, and gave a melancholy proof of the shifts to which successive administrations were now reduced to conceal the effect upon the finances which their own measures had produced. During these three years the entire taxation reduced was £261,000 a-year; and the sums applied to Porter's the reduction of debt, funded and unfunded, were in all ii. 6, 8. £15,993,902.1 * 1 Parl. Tables, -Finance Accounts in Ann. Reg., 1827, 264; 1828, 271, 272; 1829, 256, 258. VOL. IV. H CHAP. XXI. 1827. 82. ceedings in -silk-wea vers, ship owners. The other proceedings in Parliament during this session do not require particular notice, as they were chiefly the consequence of measures already adopted, Other pro- and of which the bearing has already been discussed. Parliament Mr Peel, though out of office, continued his meritorious labours for the reform of the criminal law, and the capital punishment was taken from many offences which it was a disgrace to English legislation to have ever affixed to them. The silk-weavers and shipowners made loud complaints of the manner in which their interests had been sacrificed at the altar of Free Trade, and referred to numerous arrays of figures in support of their petitions, which produced long and interesting debates in both Houses of Parliament. No result, however, followed from these discussions, except the usual one of confirming both parties in their opinions. The weavers and shipowners referred, in support their complaints, to the miserably low wages-not a half of those of the preceding year-which they were able to earn, and the diminished number of ships and tonnage they employed. Mr Huskisson and the Free-traders replied by referring to the steady importation of the raw material, and the increase of the entire tonnage, foreign and domestic, employed in conducting our trade. Neither answer was decisive for persons in distress generally try to compensate lessened profits by increased production, and thus enlarged consumption of the raw material arises from the very suffering of those engaged in working it up; and the question in regard to shipping was not how our whole tonnage, foreign and domestic, stood, so much as the proportion increasing or diminishing of the one to the other, which has been already fully given.1 The curious thing, however, is, that scarce any mention was made by either party of the contraction of the currency as affecting prices, and imposing a weight on the springs of industry which all the energies of the country were unable to shake off. And the insensibility of the 1 Ante, c. xix. § 30. H XXI. 1827. legislature to the complaints of the persons suffering CHAP. under these changes is to be remarked, as one of the many causes concurring at this period to shake the confidence of the people in existing institutions, and spreading far and wide the opinion that any change would be for the better, and that some alteration had become Parl. Deb. xvi. 1266, necessary in the composition of a legislature which 1271; xvii. had proved itself indifferent to the sufferings of the 1265, 1300. people.1 1 547, 553, East Ret an ford are convicted Commence question. When men's minds were in this unsettled state, and 83. the working classes were in many places petitioning for Penryn and some compulsory law to arrest the fall of wages, event occurred which gave the ill humours which were of bribery. afloat a definite direction, and turned them into a ment of the torrent which ere long became irresistible. At the last Reform election as is generally the case when parties run very high, and great exertions are made on opposite sides to increase their adherents in Parliament-bribery had prevailed to a very great, and, as it was said by the advocates of reform, unprecedented extent. Numerous petitions against returns upon this ground were presented, and in two instances those of PENRYN and EAST RETFORD-the proof of corruption on the greatest scale was so complete that not only were both returns set aside, but leave was given to bring in bills to disfranchise both boroughs. The bill brought in by Government proposed only to extend the franchise to the adjacent hundred, that being, as Mr Canning said, "a mitigated penalty suited to the nature of the offence proved, although, in more flagrant cases, such as Grampound, he should not hesitate to vote for total disfranchisement." The Whigs, however, led by Lord Milton and Mr Brougham, insisted for total disfranchisement, and an amendment to that effect was carried by a majority of 124 to 69. No resolution was taken concerning the place to which the franchise should be transferred, but great anxiety was already felt on the subject. The Liberals contended for |