Page:Speech of Sir Hussey Vivian, Bart. M.P. on the Corn Laws, Thursday March 14, 1839.djvu/12

8 some acquaintance, that the manufacturers took their full share in contributing to fill the ranks of our army, and I suspect more than their share in proportion to their numbers; they were never found wanting, by the side of their friends and comrades, the agriculturists, when called on in the field, to face their country's enemies. In regard to the squalid misery that is to be found in the manufactories, holding such an opinion of the state of those who labour in them, it does seem to me, I confess, rather extraordinary that my honourable friend refused to inquire into their petition, and thus negative the first step even towards bettering their situation. Sir, I lament much that inquiry was refused. I think, on every account, we ought to have gone into it. My noble friend the Secretary at War objected to it, and stated that he had evidence sufficient to enable him to say a change was necessary. The right honourable Baronet the Member for Tamworth objected to it, inasmuch as that he had also made up his mind on the evidence furnished by the returns of exports and imports; but his opinion was, that no change was necessary. Now, Sir, the very circumstance of two such high authorities having founded on the same premises two opinions so distinctly at variance, afforded, in my mind, sufficient grounds for going into the inquiry. But