If the corn laws were altered, the British artisan might again be able to subsist by twelve hours' labour, a most desirable event.

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.

Now, what produces a want of demand A refusal to take from other countries the commodities which they produce.

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.

The advantage to Great Britain of a regular free trade in corn would, therefore, be more by raising the rest of the world to our standard and price, than by lowering the prices here to the standard of the Continent.

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.

There is abundant proof that the opening of our ports always tends to raise the price of foreign corn to the price in the English market, and not to sink the price of British corn to the price in the continental market.