resolution:--"That the indifference with which the just complaints
of the people have been received by the House of Commons, its
disinclination to adopt any measures for removing or alleviating the
existing distress; and the want of sympathy it has exhibited for the
sufferings of the people, have produced a widely-diffused feeling of
disappointment, discontent, and distrust, which is fast undermining
their reliance on the justice and wisdom of Parliament, the best
security for loyalty to the Throne, and for the maintenance of the
invaluable institutions of the country." The attendance of the noble
duke this day, observed Mr Ball, imposes a fresh debt of gratitude
upon us, and realises the hope we entertain, that whenever there is
a grand field day he will be found in his right position--at the
head of the troops. As our great commander, it is obligatory upon
us that we should observe his orders, and one of those orders is,
that we should express ourselves temperately and with moderation.
(Hear, hear.) But I am sure that, from his experience of the field
of conflict, he knows that sometimes the ardour and zeal of the
British troops carry them somewhat beyond the exact line marked
out by their leader and chief. (Cheers.) And if we should be found
upon this occasion to advance a little beyond that strict line of
propriety which he has chalked out for us, his kindness will excuse
it when he knows that it is out of the fulness of our hearts, and the
deep distress in which we are plunged, that we are assembled to-day
to make our representations and complaints. (Cheers.) Coming, then,
to the resolution which I have to propose, I ask is the allegation
contained in it true? For if the thing stated in it be not true, it
is useless for us to use it as an argument in justification of our
assembling here to-day. Is it true? (Cries of "Yes; it is true.") Is
it true that the House of Commons has shown great disregard to our
petitions? (Cheers.) Is it true that it has rushed on heedless of the
entreaties of the whole body of agriculturists, and passed a measure
which it was elected for the very end and purpose of preventing? This
(proceeded Mr Ball) constituted the bitterness of their grief, that
when Lord John Russell's commercial measures of 1841 were defeated,
a new parliament was called, and the voice of the nation proclaimed
through that parliament against free trade--that the great mass of
the constituencies rallied around the banner of protection--that
they raised such a number of men to represent them in the House of
Commons, that Lord J. Russell was obliged to throw up the reins of
government into the hands of Sir Robert Peel, who took the leadership
of the House of Commons with a good majority of 100, who were thought
truly and honourably to represent the agricultural interest, and
ready to protect their cause. (Cheers.) Then he wanted to know if
the complaint in the resolution was not just when they saw that very
house, which was congregated for the express purpose of maintaining
protection, unhesitatingly strike that protection down, defeat all
their objects, blast all their hopes, and prove untrue and unfaithful
to the great constituencies of the empire. (Loud cheers.) I say,
exclaimed Mr Ball, that we will never cease to represent that it was
not by fair and legitimate means that we were beaten (cheers;) but
that it was by the unfair, the foul play, the treacherous betrayal of
those who had headed us to lead us on to victory, but who conducted
the enemy into the camp, introduced the foe into the citadel, and
destroyed all our hopes and prospects. (Loud cheers.) That being
true, what is the language of the Free-trader upon the occasion? He
sees a consequence that he never anticipated. He sees the result
which we pointed out, and which he disbelieved. He finds that prices
are as ruinous as we stated that they would be, and that free trade
is as great a hindrance to the welfare of agriculture as we always
reported that it would be. And now how does he shelter himself?
Instead of coming forward, and honestly saying we have failed--it
was only an experiment, which was forced upon us, and having made
an error we will endeavour to correct it--he says that it is an
exceptional case; that it is not the legitimate consequence, but that
there are some particular circumstances which make the principles of
free trade press with unusual severity just now. (Hear, and oh.) Now,
look at the reasoning of this. If the foreigner, when he had no hope
of such a market being opened to him, could for the last two years
send in a supply of nearly twenty-two million quarters of various
descriptions of corn, and if he could do that out of his surplus
produce, what will he do now that he has the market entirely open
to him--when he has got our capital to improve his cultivation, and
when he knows that he may produce and send an unlimited quantity into
our markets? (Hear.) I want to know how it is that, with an express
declaration of the principles of the people upon the question of
free trade, the landlords in the House of Lords and in the House of
Commons, contrary to their own creed and in opposition to their own
judgment, swerved from all that they had promised us, and threw up
to those who were more impassioned and boisterous than themselves
all that protection which they were bound in honour and in interest
to uphold? (Loud cheers.) I feel that it is painful to speak of
the landlords of this kingdom in the presence of so many of that
aristocracy who shed a lustre upon their order, and whose presence
here shows us how much they respond to our own principles. (Cheers.)
We can never forget that those laurels which adorn the brow of the
noble duke who presides over us were won in the most terrible and
hard-fought encounters that ever brought glory, honour, and renown
to the British arms, and that the noble duke has, from the period
that he turned his sword into a ploughshare, ever stood true to the
best interests of agriculture--(loud cheers)--has ever stood true to
the declarations which he has made; and under all changes, and in
the midst of the vapourings of his opponents, has been steadfast,
untarnished, and unsullied, and now comes before us with renewed
glory and increased claims upon our gratitude and support. (Loud
cheers.) We cannot forget that the noble lord on his right--the
Earl Stanhope--(great cheering)--whom it has been my privilege for
five-and-twenty years to follow in the paths of philanthropy--who
has come to the evening of a long and a useful life, in which he
has shown sympathy to the poor, and has had the best interests of
his fellow-men at heart--that he comes here, too, for the purpose
of giving his powerful support to the great principles to which he
and we are alike devoted. (Loud cheers.) They had also several other
noble and honourable gentlemen present. They all knew the undaunted
courage with which the Marquis of Downshire had fought for their
right. They knew that the gentlemen around him were noble exceptions
to that great defalcation which had been committed by so large a
portion of the aristocracy. (Cheers.) Therefore, he (Mr Ball) could
not discharge what he considered to be his duty now, without pointing
them out as exceptions to the statement he was about to make--that
they had fallen, not by Cobden's--that they had fallen, not by the
League's tricks--that they had fallen, not by the treachery of Peel;
but because their landlords--the aristocracy--those who should have
upheld them--had swerved from their duty in the houses of Parliament.
(Cheers.) We had the power--we had the majority--we had the voice of
the country, not loud, but strong and firm, and ready to manifest
itself when the moment for action came; but they were faint-hearted,
they failed in the hour of need, and sacrificed us to the discordant
elements of demagogueism and free-tradeism. (Uproarious cheering.)
Moreover, they have contrived to take the full tale from the poverty
and the debilitated circumstances of a struggling tenantry. (Loud
cheers.) Let me put this simple case to you. I take the free-trade
landlord, and I take the tenant-farmer. They are in partnership, are
engaged in the same pursuit, and have a joint interest in the same
property. A is the landlord, B the tenant-farmer. A comes to B and
says, "We must make an experiment upon this land. We must introduce
certain fresh modes of cultivation. We must change our plan; and if
we do so-and-so you will farm better, my rent will be more secure,
and we shall be altogether in more favourable circumstances than
before." B, the tenant, says, "No, it is too frightful an experiment.
No, it may involve me in ruin. No, you risk nothing--I risk all."
(Great cheering.) But A is the richer man--A has the greater power,
and he insists upon the experiment being made, in spite of the tears
and protestations of the tenant. In the legislature A assents that
the experiment shall be made. Thus he sweeps away and brings down to
ruin the tenant who, in his wretchedness, looks up to the landlord
for relief; and I do say that, according to the immutable principles
of justice, and on the ground of what is due from man to man, the
landlord, who is a party to the passing of free-trade measures, is
bound to sustain and uphold his tenant, and reimburse his losses.
(Vehement cheers.) I want to know, also, if I have L.5000, L.10,000,
or L.20,000, placed in the funds, and a similar sum invested in the
land, both of them being sustained and supported by the law--I want
to know if the land be to pay the interest of the national debt,
whether it is fair and just to take away the income out of which
the interest of the national debt is to be paid, and what right
or justice there is in demanding the full payment of the national
debt? (Loud cheers.) If the fundholder has looked on and encouraged
the movement which was made to bring us to ruin, I want to know
with what propriety or consistency he can ask to gather out of our
ruined means the wealth which, under other circumstances, we would
gladly and cheerfully pay him? (Cheers.) But we are told that our
landlords cannot now reverse this policy--that they have gone too
far to recede--and Cobden, in that celebrated speech of his, which
he made at the close of last year in Leeds, said "Only let the
agriculturist come forward and put on one shilling in the shape of
corn duty, and I will create such a tumult as shall shake the kingdom
to its centre." (Laughter.) Most deliberately and dispassionately
my answer to that is--The sooner the better! (Tremendous cheering;
the whole of the vast assemblage rising to their feet, and waving
their hat and hands.) I say that we have a conscience, that we have
a superintending Providence, that we have laws violated, that we
have all these things which will sustain and give endurance to us in
any conflict that may approach; and that, therefore, we may laugh
at all threatenings, and set them at defiance. (Loud cheering.) But
what have the tenant-farmers to fear at the approach of discord? Can
you be worse off? (No, no.) Can any alteration damage you? (Renewed
cries of "no no.") All is lost! Persevere in your free-trade laws,
and there is no concealing the fact that, as a class, we are swept
away. (Hear.) Persevere in those laws, our homes will be taken from
us. Persevere in those laws, our wives will be without protection.
Persevere in those laws, our children will become paupers. (Cheers.)
Will you then tell me, when laws have been enacted that reduce
me to that position, that I, a broken-hearted man, passing into
poverty and my family degraded, that I shall fear the threats of
a demagogue? (Much cheering.) My answer for the whole body of the
tenantry of the country is this--that we are disposed to risk all,
brave all, dare all! (vociferous cheering, again and again repeated;)
and that we are prepared, come what will, and cost what it may, at
the hour of our country's peril, for our homes, our wives, and our
families, to take those terrible steps which are the most frightful
for a good and peaceable man to imagine, but which necessity and
unjust treatment hurry us on and bring us to the contemplation
of. (Vehement plaudits.) The most abominable part of it is this,
however. If it had been a calamity brought on in the Providence of
God--by the failure of the seasons, or by something which was above
legislative control, we would have humbly bowed to it. But here comes
the scourge--we fell through the cowardice and faint-heartedness of
him whom we considered to be the greatest of modern statesmen; and
when the history of the age that is passing has been recorded, it
will tell us that at the same period there was in Italy a man (Count
Rossi) who had been appointed minister of the Pope; that he was the
witness of a rising tumult and a coming desolation; and that on the
very morning of his death he was told not to go to the Senate, for
if he did so there would be danger attending him. His reply was, "I
have taken office--and when I did that, I took not only its honours
and emoluments, but its duties and its dangers." He went to the
Senate, and perished upon the steps of the Forum. But our statesman
(Sir Robert Peel) saw the approach of the storm, quailed at the
tempest, bowed down to the lowering cloud, dishonoured the country,
brought infamy upon his own name, and poverty upon the people. (Great
cheering.)
Mr J. ALLIN WILLIAMS, of Wiltshire, seconded the resolution. He stood
before them that day as a Wiltshire farmer, second to none in the
kingdom in his loyalty and attachment to the throne and his love of
the constitution of old England. (Cheers.) Moreover, he stood before
them deputed by the farmers of the county of Wilts, for the purpose
of protesting against the treatment to which the occupiers of the
soil of Great Britain, as a class, had been subjected by the measures
of her Majesty's Ministers and by the House of Commons. (Cheers.)
He wished he could think that those measures and their consequences
had been properly considered and contemplated by their framers
before they were brought forward. Despite the remonstrances of the
defenders of the agricultural interest in the House of Commons, and
of the noble duke in the chair, and of other noblemen in the Upper
House of the Legislature, her Majesty's Ministers persisted in those
measures which must ultimately reduce the tenantry of England to
beggary. (Hear, hear.) An individual, whom he would not name, as his
name appeared to grate upon the ears of every honest farmer in this
country--(cheers)--but whom it was impossible to forget, as he had
laid down maxims which they felt obliged to take up and consider--a
few years ago that individual laid down, as a rule, that the British
farmer could not grow wheat in this kingdom under 56s. per quarter.
(Hear, hear.) And upon the faith of that statement many of the men
that he saw before him, himself included, had entered into agreements
with their landlords for the purpose of occupying their estates for
a certain period of years. (Hear, hear.) He himself had taken a
lease for 14 years. What, then, must be the condition of the farmers
of those estates when they were obliged to sell wheat at 36s. per
quarter? The consequence was, that all, or the greater part of those
who were similarly situated with himself, must be ruined. Upon the
same figures was also based the Tithe Commutation Act; and by that
act, which, as they too well knew, was ruled by a septennial clause,
last year, when they were selling their wheat at the price of two
guineas per quarter, they were compelled to pay after the rate of
54s. 10d. per quarter as the tithe of their produce; and this year,
when they were selling their wheat at from 36s. to 40s. per quarter,
they had to pay upon an average of 53s. (Hear, hear.) It was on that
account that he came there to proclaim that her Majesty's Ministers
had done the farmers a great piece of injustice, and that they had in
fact emptied the pockets of the British farmers by their legislation.
If there had been a necessity for the late Free-trade measures, (and
he denied that there was any such necessity,) he contended that every
portion of the community ought to have been made to bear a fair share
of the burdens which had been placed upon the agriculturists. But
what was the fact? He maintained that the industrious classes, the
producers, alone were made to feel the burden, and that property
and capital were wholly exempt. (Hear, hear.) The Free-traders,
when proposing their ruinous measures, appear to have made a grand
discovery, and assert, that we have no right to tax the food of
the people. But did it ever enter their brains that on the wheat
produced by the British farmer he paid a large tax in the shape of
the superior wages paid to the labourers as compared with those of
the labourers of the foreigner, to meet the taxes that are imposed
on them upon the necessaries of life? That in fact the proportion of
labour in a quarter of wheat (which he would assert to be two-thirds)
was taxed to the enormous extent of 33 per cent? (Hear, hear, hear.)
Again, was not the wheat produced by the British farmer taxed by the
poor rates, the highway rates, &c.? and the heavy rents which he
paid as compared with the foreign farmer, (such rents as were not
heard of in any other country in the world,) was it not on account
of the heavy taxes the landlords had to pay? If these things never
entered the brains of her Majesty's Ministers, they were no men of
business. (Hear, hear.) If they did enter into their brains, then
their conduct was most knavish, most scandalous; for thereby they
compelled the farmers of England to compete on most unequal terms
with the foreigner. (Hear, hear.) The aristocracy of this country,
he regretted to say, had not as a body done their duty in this
matter. (Hear, hear.) Had the farmers of England had the aristocracy
and the clergy of the country with them, they might easily have
resisted the iniquitous measures of the Free-traders, and they would
not have been in their present deplorable condition. (Cheers.) But
now let them look for a remedy. Let them from that day call forth
those men who had hitherto been blind and apathetic as regarded
their own best interests, as well as those of their own immediate
dependents. Let them call upon the landed gentry and the clergy
throughout the country to do their duty. (Hear, hear.) He thought
he might say with confidence, if they responded to that call, that
the agricultural interest had nothing to fear. If nothing else would
rouse the aristocracy of the country to a proper attention to their
vital interests, as well as those of their common country, surely the
insolent language of Mr Cobden at Leeds was enough to rouse them from
their lethargy. But if they still refused to do their duty, he would
call upon them, in the language of Milton, to
"Awake! arise! or be for ever fallen."
(Cheers.) He knew that time was pressing on, and that he must be
brief. He would therefore conclude by again protesting against
the treatment they had received, and most heartily seconding the
resolution which had been proposed to them by Mr Ball. But he
could not resume his seat before he had conjured them to send Whig
principles to the winds. (Laughter and cheers.) His belief was, that
Dr Samuel Johnson never made so happy a hit in his definition of
those principles, as when he said that the devil was the first Whig.
(Great laughter and cheers.)
The resolution was then put and unanimously carried.
Professor AYTOUN, of Edinburgh then came forward, amidst loud
cheering, to propose the following resolution:--"That this meeting
attributes the depression and distress of the agricultural, colonial,
shipping, and other interests to the rash and impolitic changes
in the laws which had long regulated the importation of foreign
productions; that it is of opinion that those laws were based on the
most just principles, and dictated by the soundest policy; that,
under their salutary influence, the British nation had attained an
unexampled state of prosperity, and a proud pre-eminence in the
scale of nations; and that if their object and spirit in fostering
and protecting native industry be finally abandoned, many of the
most important interests of the state will be sacrificed, and the
national prosperity and greatness be ruinously impaired." The
learned Professor proceeded as follows:--Gentlemen, I have been
desired, perhaps, rather than requested, on the part of the Scottish
Protective Association, (hear, hear,) to attend this meeting, and
to move one of the resolutions. I most sincerely wish that the task
had been confided to abler hands than mine; but all of us have a
distinct duty to perform; and those of my countrymen who act with
me feel that, on such an occasion as this, it would be wrong and
faint-hearted if Scotland, which is so deeply interested in the
grand question of protection to native industry, were to hang back,
and refuse to come forward to testify to you and to the tenantry
of England that our zeal in this cause is as great, our feeling
as decided, our determination as strong as your own. (Cheers.) I
cannot offer to you the testimony of a practical agriculturist, but,
perhaps, I may be allowed to say that I do not consider this is a
meeting entirely of agriculturists. (Hear, hear.) Every man in this
nation, from the lowest to the highest, has, I conceive, a distinct
stake in this question. Every man, whatever be his occupation or his
calling, is entitled to come forward here and declare his opinion
upon those measures which have been thrust on the nation by an act of
perfidy and treachery, to find a parallel for which we shall search
the pages of history in vain. (Hear, hear.) I do not exaggerate
our case when I say that Scotland is, if possible, more interested
than England in the maintenance or the restoration of protection to
native industry. Far later in point of time were our fields broken
up, our moors reclaimed, our morasses drained; and the prosperity
of Scotland, great as it has been, can hardly be reckoned as of
older date than the last seventy years. Glasgow, the largest city
of Scotland, the second city of the United Kingdom, rose to its
present high wealth and distinction by its colonial connexion within
a comparatively recent period. Our counties and our towns are alike
interested in this matter. The "transition state" of suffering which
our opponents now affect to have foreseen as the inevitable result
of their measures--though they took especial care to conceal that
revelation from every human eye--is more than beginning to make
itself felt in the latter: in the former, it is evident and undenied,
and already, I am sorry to say, in our remote Highland districts
the work of desolation has begun. They may call it peace if they
please; it is not peace, alas! it is solitude. (Hear, hear.) Now,
there are certain things you have imported from Scotland for which
perhaps you may not thank us very much, and one of those things is a
certain race called Political Economists. (Hear, hear, and laughter.)
I do not, however, wish to include among the number the father of
political economy, Adam Smith, now in his grave three-quarters of a
century, who wrote at a time and under circumstances very different
from those in which we are at present placed. I observe that Mr
Cobden is going about the country with the works, as he says, of
Adam Smith in his hands, and favouring the public with his comments
on those works; but I hope those comments will be taken by the
public, as I take them, at their true value--estimating the quality
of the text at a different ratio from the perverted interpretations
of the expounder. There is another Scottish Political Economist,
Mr M'Culloch, who has written a great deal on the subject of the
corn trade, and who has been hitherto, during his long life, a
decided enemy to all restrictive duties; but who, I believe, is now
discovering at the last hour, that he has been going too fast in his
views, and that the total withdrawal of protection is not likely to
do all the good which he had at one time anticipated from it. Then,
there is another gentleman, who is an ornament to the present House
of Commons--the illustrious Mr Macgregor, (roars of laughter,) the
gifted and infallible seer, who won the suffrages of a benighted
city by telling its electors from the hustings that the nation was
to increase in wealth, under the free-trade system, at the rate of
precisely L.2,000,000 a-week. (Hear, hear, and laughter.) That was
to be the national gain; a gain in which we were all to participate
the moment the corn laws were swept away. Mr Macgregor also told the
people of Glasgow that in this matter he was the political tutor of
Sir R. Peel, (hear, hear, and laughter;) that he, the two million
a-week man, was the individual who laid down that grand plan under
which we are all at present suffering. If that be true, all I shall
remark is this, that surely never did any pupil select so singular
a master. Under these circumstances, I must admit that, however we
may be entitled to appear here as a deputation, one gift which we
have sent you from Scotland, in the shape of political economists,
is a gift for which you cannot be very thankful. This is, I may
add, an age in which men have been more befooled by figures than by
anything else which we can mention. (Hear) Half a century ago, when
any extraordinary account appeared in the newspapers, it used to be
said that it must be true because it was to be found in print. Now,
that delusion seems to have passed away; the charm of infallibility
is broken, and people do not at present suppose that the press has
got any particular exemption from error. But a delusion quite as
great, and even more baneful, still prevails with respect to figures.
There are men seated in their closets, with blue-books before them,
casting up long columns of accounts, and making out statements which
they call statistics, which are to form the invariable rules by
which mankind is to be governed, and by which the commerce of this
country is to be regulated; and it is by putting their noxious dogmas
into effect that this country has of late been exposed to so much
suffering. The system is older even than the days of Adam Smith; for
about a century ago there went forth from Edinburgh a man of the
name of John Law, the founder of the famous Mississippi scheme--a
scheme for enriching men by foreign trade and for conferring on them
fortunes at once, while it did away with native industry. History
has its cycles, and we have again arrived at a period when quackery
and imposture have usurped the place of sound common-sense, of wise
policy, and I fear not to add, of truthful and Christian legislation.
(Great cheering.) I know well that it is not my part to dwell long
upon topics with which others are better acquainted, but if you will
allow me, I shall make a few observations with regard to the present
state of agricultural industry in Scotland. We have of late years
been much flattered by commendations of our system of farming in that
country. Whenever any of the farmers of England were supposed not
to be quite up to the mark, it used to be said by Sir Robert Peel
and his friends, that those farmers had only to imitate the example
of the men of the same class in the Lothians. But in the beginning
of this year, after a fair trial had been given to the so-called
experiment of free trade, the farmers of the Lothians came forward,
and testified by the leading members of their body that they were
losing under the present system, and that their industry, skill,
energy, and frugality were employed in vain so long as that incubus
weighed upon them. (Hear, hear.) What followed? Why, the note was
immediately changed, and it was said that those men were not farming
high enough! That discovery was made by a gentleman who now appears
to be Sir Robert Peel's great authority upon the subject--a certain
Mr Caird. (Hear, hear, and laughter.) Now that gentleman, although a
farmer, does not happen to be able to say that he ever made anything
himself by farming. But he is acquainted with another individual,
who is the factor on an estate of a very liberal landlord, who lets
him have land for a merely nominal rent. That individual is at
present in possession of a fine peat-moss, exceedingly well fitted
for growing potatoes; and, as there has been less rot this year in
his potatoes than in those of the greater portion of other farmers,
he had derived from them a considerable profit. That is the farmer
whose example is now recommended by Mr Caird as the grand panacea
for all the evils under which the agricultural class is suffering.
(Hear, hear.) So you see, gentlemen, in what you are to put your
trust--peat-moss and potatoes! (Great laughter.) These are the twin
resources with which you are to meet unlimited importations of grain!
Pity, for the sake of Ireland, where both articles are abundant,
that the discovery was made so late! I believe, indeed I know, you
have something of the same sort here. Mr Mechi--(hear, hear, and
laughter)--a gentleman whose razors are of undeniable excellence--has
been attempting to show the farmers of England how to shave close
(a laugh;) and the unclean spirit of free trade, finding no other
place of refuge, has at last flown into the herd of Mr Huxtable's
swine. (Immense cheering.) But I must say a few words with regard
to the poorer districts--with regard to the Highlands of Scotland.
The misery prevailing in many of those districts, more especially
in the west and in the islands, did not proceed solely from the
repeal of the corn laws; for it was also in a great measure owing
to the noxious tariffs of Sir R. Peel, which admitted provisions
duty-free into this country. It appears--indeed I believe it is an
uncontradicted fact--that the British fleet is now victualled by
foreign product. (Cries of "Shame.") I hold in my hand a letter from
a banker in the town of Oban in Argyleshire, stating that emigration
is now taking place to a very considerable extent there, that most of
those who can scrape a few pounds together are taking their passage
to America, and that shortly the landlords will be left with no
class of people on their lands save the reckless, the improvident,
and the idle. Free trade is now rapidly driving from the Highlands
their most industrious inhabitants; and I believe that unless we
compel the Government to retrace their steps, a large portion of
Scotland will soon be brought back to the condition in which she was
placed at the time when the Heritable Jurisdictions were repealed,
and when the country was in a half savage state. (Hear.) I say that
Scotland is now rapidly assuming the place which Ireland has hitherto
occupied. A deluge of Irish labourers is already flowing over to
us, and forcing down wages all over the country. I believe that, if
this fatal experiment should be allowed to go on for another year,
the cry from Scotland, and especially from her remoter districts,
will become overpowering and appalling. We have seen the recent
revelations made by the public press with regard to the state of the
poor in this country. Everybody, I believe, has read in the graphic
letters in the _Morning Chronicle_ upon that subject, tales of the
most appalling distress, flowing from excessive competition in
every branch of industry. But that competition must necessarily be
increased by that crowding into the towns from the country, which I
know is now taking place in Scotland, of labourers who would emigrate
if they had the means of doing so. I observe that it has been
proposed, in a pamphlet recently published by an eccentric writer,
that the surplus population of our towns should be marched out in
industrial regiments, and sent to till the bogs and reclaim the hill
sides. Such schemes are utterly visionary; and they are founded upon
a shallow and perverted view of the social grievances against which
we emphatically protest. Why, it is the want of occupation in the
country just now which is doing the whole of the mischief, and which
is creating that mass of pauperism which we all deplore. (Hear,
hear.) It would seem, indeed, as if the present Ministers and the
Free-traders would wish to realise no better picture of Great Britain
than this--
"Wasted fields and crowded cities,
Swarming streets and desert downs;
All the light of life concentred
In the focus of the towns."