Page:Speech of Sir Hussey Vivian, Bart. M.P. on the Corn Laws, Thursday March 14, 1839.djvu/10

6 for a long series of years they had been in existence, and been found the most effectual and best possible, and that from the time of their being enacted up to the present hour no inconvenience, no difficulty, no distress had been experienced by the agriculturists. Those who have taken this view of the question, those who now object so strenuously to any alteration, appear to me entirely to have forgotten the several Committees that, within the last few years, have sat on Agricultural Distress—the many times it has been noticed in the Speech from the Throne—the taxes that have been taken off with a view to the relief of the agriculturists—and most of all, they appear to have forgotten that those laws have failed to answer one of their promised ends, and to secure to us a constant and ample supply of home-grown corn; thus preventing our being again driven to depend on the foreign grower, and on the importation of foreign corn, to preserve us from a famine in our land.

Sir, I am happy to find the agriculturists are at last so well satisfied. One advantage at least will, I trust, be the result of this discussion, supposing even that we do not attain our Committee (of which, I regret to say, I have no expectation): the advantage on which I calculate is, that we shall hear no more of agricultural distress, no more be called on for agricultural committees to take into