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

Destroy or take away the employment and wages of those artisans - which the corn laws in a great measure do - and you will, ere long, render the land in Great Britain of as little value as it is in other countries.

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.

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

I see no reason for giving the capital employed in agriculture greater protection than the capital vested in other branches of trade, manufacture, or commerce.

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