Page:Notes on the Anti-Corn Law Struggle.djvu/216

 Mr. Villiers, in his speech in the House of Commons, May 9, 1843, said:—

"'Let them remember what has been the consequence of urging that there are peculiar burdens on the land as a pretext for the Corn Laws. Inquiry into its truth was demanded. Two motions were made in this House for it. But they were not carried. No; the House shrank from them. And why? Because, after the matter had been thoroughly sifted, it was found that so far from there being exclusive charges, there were shameful exemptions.'"

After a few words respecting the tithes as a plea for raising rent by law, Mr. Villiers went on to the question of the Land Tax:—

"'As for the Land Tax, it is doubtless a deduction from rent, but one to which the State is entitled; and surely, considering the manner in which the landlords in Parliament have dealt with it since it was imposed, it never can be for their interest to have it discussed or inquired into: no man can learn that history without almost feeling that, as a class, the landowners have proved themselves utterly unworthy of public trust. Nothing ever was more shameless than the manner in which the State has been deprived of its due amount of the Land Tax by a gross violation of the bargain the landowners made with the Crown when it was imposed. It was strictly in lieu of the feudal services by which alone their lands were held, and from which 4s in the pound on the rental were required—clearly an inadequate commutation for the inconvenience to which such services"