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.

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

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.

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 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.

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

In Great Britain the price of food is at a higher level than in any other country, and consequently, the British artisan labours at a disadvantage in proportion to the higher rate of his food.