I am willing to admit that if the agriculturists are oppressed by peculiar burdens, they ought to be relieved from them, or be allowed a fair and just protection equivalent to all such peculiar burdens.

What farmers require is, that the prices should be moderate, and the markets steady and for this reason I did, in 1826, 1827, and 1828, take the course which I would now recommend to the House.

I will undertake to prove that the present corn laws have been detrimental to the public, without being beneficial to the agricultural interest.

Worse there cannot be; a better, I believe, there may be, by giving energy to the capital and skill of the country to produce exports, by increasing which, alone, can we flatter ourselves with the prospect of finding employment for that part of our population now unemployed.

I maintain that the existing corn laws are bad, because they have given a monopoly of food to the landed interest over every other class and over every other interest in the kingdom.

I am willing to admit that if the agriculturists are oppressed by peculiar burdens, they ought to be relieved from them, or be allowed a fair and just protection equivalent to all such peculiar burdens.

Our people are unemployed and anxious to work for the food which foreigners can give us.