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 the county members could blame for it was Sir R. Peel, whom they had placed and still kept in office.

Dr. Bowring, Mr. Cavendish, and Lord Ebrington all followed, speaking in favour of the motion.

Mr. Cobden rose and said, that the question tooted by Mr. Villiers had not been met, but had been systematically evaded during the whole of the present debate. The question was—first, had they a right to restrict the supply of food for the people; secondly, was it true that they had a law to that effect; and, thirdly, if their Com Law was not to that effect, what was its purpose? He asserted that the Corn Law did restrict the supply of the food of the people, and called upon the members for Dorsetshire and other agricultural counties to deny it if they could. If they denied it, then he called upon them to explain whether the labouring classes in their respective districts were sufficiently and wholesomely fed, and if they were not, why they were not, He then proceeded to prove that the present system of Corn Laws was not only injurious to the community at large, but also to every portion of it. He denounced it as rash and perilous, inasmuch as it had left us with no more than 200,000 quarters of corn in bond at a period when Europe was drained of corn, and we had the prospect of a backward, not to say a failing harvest.

"Was there ever such rashness, as for twenty-seven millions of people, who could grasp the produce of the world, and who could mortgage it before it was grown, to leave themselves in this dilemma? (Hear.) Under a different system, what would have been the position of the country? Instead of having 300,000 quarters of foreign wheat in the country, they might have what it would well hold—four or five millions. That would be brought in, not by the government, but by the application of capital; and could the country more legitimately apply its capital than for the purpose of supplying itself with food? (Hear, hear.) The Dutch, at one time, held 700,000 quarters of foreign corn in their granaries. That was probably sufficient for a year's consumption What were the Dutch as capitalists as compared with the capitalists of England? They might as easily hold 20,000,000 of quarters as the Dutch held 700,000 many years ago. Honourable gentlemen opposite