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 of Trade is a very able man; but it requires great ability indeed to speak against one's own convictions, especially when there is a feeling of conscicence and honour in the breast of the individual. The whole speech of Mr. Gladstone might be summed up in this way:—'You Mr. Cobden, and your friends, think so-and-so, but there are others who differ from you. No doubt, much of what you say is true, but there are other individuals in this House ready to question other parts of what you say, and seeing that is the case, it would be a very inconvenient thing to appoint & committee, to inquire whether what you say is true or not. Take the question of rent, which is very difficult and abstruse. The doctrine of rent is a crack subject with your Ricardo and your political economists. How hard, therefore, it would be to compel fifteen unfortunate gentlemen of the House of Commons to sit down and master the question of rent: they have enough to do to get in their rents as it is. Besides, Mr. Cobden confessed his willingness to allow a majority of protectionists on the committee—all he wanted was liberty to call his witaesses, and prove his case. But would it not be easy for these protectionists to protract the inquiry from session to session?—and would you adjourn the Anti-Corn-Law Agitation, and suspend all your meetings until that report was made?' Mr. Bright called out that he for one was willing to do so. 'Yes,' says Mr. Gladstone, you may be willing to do so, but there are others who would not be willing to do so; and can you, therefore, think of pressing for this committee of inquiry? Country gentlemen would take it into their heads that there was to be another Corn Law and another sliding scale, and that would play the very mischief with us. It is all very well for honourable gentlemen to wish to bring differences of opinion to the test of argument and reason, based on a searching inquiry into the facts of the case; but such an inquiry would disturb the progress of agricultural improvement. In every way it is much easier, much less troublesome, to go on asserting instead of proving that the farmer and the farm-labourer have a greater interest in the Corn-Law than the landlord; and, therefore, it was expedient that the motion should not be granted."

"Well did Mr. Hawes ridicule the utter inanity of the arguments of Mr. Gladstone, than whom no man could make a better defence if he had a tolerable case. Lord Pollington, one of the members for Pontfract, seemed to feel this; for he got up and said, boldly enough, that though he would not tax bread for the sake of revenge, he would do so for the sake of independence of foreigners and protection to agriculture. If this, in plain English, means anything, it signifies that he would not tax bread for the purposes of the nation, but he would do so for the sake of the landlords. This was pat a little clearer by Mr. Francis Scott, who represents Roxburghshire, and is a son of Lord Polwarth, the