=Source.=—_Hansard_, Third Series, vol. 60, col. 420.
[NOTE.—The speech from which the following
extracts are made was delivered in the House of
Commons on February 14, 1842, on Sir R. Peel’s
Motion for the House to go into Committee on his
proposed sliding scale of Corn Duties.]
MR. FERRAND: Sir, during the recess I thought it my duty to
watch the proceedings of the Anti-Corn-Law League, who were agitating
the country by the most violent and infamous placards, headed in large
letters—“the base, bloody, and brutal landlords keep the bread of
life from the poor”; and who were sending forth agitators, uttering
falsehoods even more horrible than this, to pay whose expenses they
have lately been exposing their wives and daughters at Manchester to
the insolence of every coxcomb who chose to pay a shilling for his
amusement. I also made inquiries into the truth of their assertions
that the Corn Laws were the cause of the depression of trade, and of
the misery and starvation of the working classes; and I found that
during the operation of the Corn Laws in the last twenty years the
Messrs. Marshall, flax-spinners of Leeds, have accumulated two millions
in money, and have purchased immense landed estates; but this firm
were not satisfied with this enormous wealth; they must carry out by
themselves the principle of free trade, and set up mills in Belgium,
where there are no Com Laws, and where labour is at a starvation
price.... I will add a few more instances of the injurious effects of
the Corn Laws on Anti-Corn-Law League manufacturers. I am credibly
informed that the credit of the hon. Member for Manchester (Mr. M.
Philips) stands as high as ever on the Exchange in Manchester—that he
is still a man of immense wealth, and has purchased extensive landed
estates. The hon. Member for Stockport (Mr. Cobden) had during these
last twelve years accumulated half-a-million of money, and when, night
after night during the last Session, he was asserting that the Corn
Laws had ruined the trade in Lancashire, he was actually, at that very
time, running his mill both day and night; but, Sir, I must admit that
the hon. Member for Bolton (Dr. Bowring) has produced the only argument
in favour of a repeal of the Corn Laws; for his opposition to them has
enabled him to practise his principles of free trade on the public
purse to such an extent as very fairly to have entitled him to the
character of a freebooter.
Sir, these Anti-Corn-Law agitators assert that great numbers of the
manufacturers in the country are insolvent, and that the Corn Laws are
the cause of that insolvency. Sir, I have inquired into the truth of
this assertion, and I am sorry to say that as far as the insolvency
goes, it is but too correct. The Corn Laws, however, are not the cause;
the reason is—these men were never solvent in their lives. I will
now, Sir, endeavour to explain to the House who are the manufacturers
in the north of England in the present day. They are a remnant of that
high-minded and honourable class of men who raised the trade of this
country to the highest pitch of commercial respectability. There are a
few, Sir, who still endeavour to tread in the steps of these men; but
they have to contend against men who are gambling speculators in trade,
and who know no bounds to their insatiate thirst for wealth, a body of
men trading with false capital under the shelter of Joint Stock Banks,
many of which are themselves little better than societies formed for
the protection of swindling. These men get their names entered in the
books of one of these banks, they then wait upon a woolstapler, and
offer to purchase a quantity of wool, making use of this Joint Stock
Bank as a reference for character and capital—the reply, of course,
is, “Oh, they are highly respectable—they have their accounts in
our books—you are quite safe.” They then purchase the wool at three
months’ credit, have it converted by their power mills into goods, and
dispose of it at market during the ensuing week for ready money. The
consequence is, that they have to sacrifice a large amount, not only
to the merchant, but also to the woolstapler, who is not paid in cash
at the end of the three months, but in two months’ bills. These men
go on very prosperously so long as there is a brisk demand for the
goods in the market, but when there is a stagnation in trade, caused
by their recklessly overglutting the market, they inevitably become
bankrupts.... I will now, Sir, inform the House what are the ultimate
designs of this Anti-Corn-Law League. They commenced their operations
three years ago. At first they only attempted an alteration of the Corn
Laws; but finding very few supporters in the country, they held out a
promise to the enemies of the Established Church, that if they would
assist them in obtaining a total repeal of those laws, they would then
join them in an attack upon that Establishment; a treaty being ratified
between these parties, the hon. Member for Cork (Mr. O’Connell) was
immediately invited over to take a seat at their first banquet. They
there declared that the League was possessed of sufficient capital “to
buy up” the landed property of the whole English nobility. But, Sir, I
would ask what have the farmers to expect from these cotton lords when
they have bought up the landed property of the country? It is their
practice when they purchase land to have it immediately re-valued.
They carry the principle of the ledger into their rent-roll; the rents
are doubled; and I have known many families in my part of the country
ruined by the oppression of these men. The manufacturing members of
this League also want to increase their profits by reducing the price
of wages; they also want to become the corn merchants of England; to
convert one floor of their mills into a granary, and employ part of
their machinery to grind the corn. [_Laughter._] Hon. Members may
laugh, but you cannot deceive the working classes; you have tried to
make them believe differently; but all your hired agitators have failed
to do so. Yes, the poor of England would have to go down to these men
in the manufacturing districts with money in their sacks’ mouths to
buy corn, for there would be a great famine in the land. But this was
only a part of their designs; now mark what would follow. Have hon.
Members never been told of the Truck System? Have they never heard of
the labourers’ wages being paid in goods? Lest they should not, I will
expose to the House such a system of tyranny, oppression, and plunder,
committed on these half-starved operatives, as is a disgrace to any
Christian country. Sir, when the poor labourers go to receive their
work from these manufacturers they now find that it generally consists
of a very inferior article. They find the wool difficult to comb, and
the warps full of flaws. On the Saturday evening—that period which
ought to be the sweetest hour of the week to the working man—when
the reward of his labour ought to be as freely given as it would ever
be gratefully received—even this is pilfered from him. He takes his
work to the mill, and who do you think receives it? Not the master of
the mill—no, but an overlooker, who pretends carefully to examine it,
and, of course, finds fault with it. He says to the poor fellow, “You
have done this work ill; I must deduct so much from your combing.” And
the poor weavers, who are perhaps only receiving three and sixpence
or four shillings a week, are constantly mulcted in this manner by
these overlookers, who have their own wages paid out of what they can
deduct from these plundered wretches, and a percentage on the amount.
Then, again, mark what follows: they have not even the small remnant
paid in money; it is paid in goods, in rotten corn, in “cheap flour”;
and when the poor man carries it home to his wife and family, after in
vain endeavouring to induce the master to pay him his wages in money,
he finds the flour which he had received as wages in the previous week
still unconsumed, the quality being so bad that the stomachs of his
sickly children had been unable to retain it. Sir, I assert that all
this is true, for I have heard these statements during the course of
my life from hundreds of the working classes; and what is more, they
say that they have no hope of relief or succour from the Anti-Corn-Law
League. Sir, these manufacturers are the men for whom the landed
interest of England is to be destroyed!—these are the men for whom the
yeomanry of Great Britain are to be driven from their homes!—these
are the men who are to become the possessors of the English soil!—men
who live and move and have their being for money alone; they care
not how they obtain it; what cruelty and oppression they inflict, so
long as they amass wealth from the sweat of the poor man’s brow. They
refuse him the price of his labour; they look for nothing but enormous
profits; they declare that there is no religion in trade; in short,
they are, to use the emphatic language of Mr. Burke, a set of men whose
ledger is their bible, whose counting-house is their church, and whose
money is their God!