availed himself of the speculations into which the farmer, who was his tenant, was perpetually running. Many of these speculations had since failed, and had plunged those who had entered into them into great difficulties. These difficulties had then recoiled upon the land-owner, and had brought him to that House for redress. But the House would be deceiving itself, if it thought that it was in its power, or in the power of any human legislation, to change the course of events like these, which arose from unalterable causes. The difficulties of the land-owner, arising from this source, were, however, aggravated by others, in which the course of events had also placed him. He had fixed upon his estates, jointures, mortgages, rent-charges, &c., which, in the present state of money, he found himself unable to discharge. This led to a struggle about rent between him and his tenant, and thus increased the evil condition of both.

It was, however, contended by some honourable gentlemen, that all this distress was the effect of taxation alone. He maintained that it was not; and he would give the House a practical illustration of the correctness of his position, by the description of the situation of another country, upon which causes similar to those which had acted upon our own, had operated still more strongly. He did not apprehend that any gentleman would say that the pressure of those difficulties, which at present almost overwhelmed America, was the effect of taxation. He would not deny that the poor rates bore with great weight upon this country; but that could not be considered as one of the causes of the distress which prevailed in America, where a still greater fall of prices had taken place than what had taken place in England. He would read to the House, with no other feeling than that of regret, an extract from a Report which had been made upon the financial embarrassments of the United States, so late as the 15th of January last, to

show in what light the distress which prevailed there was considered, and to what causes it was attributed: :"In a country professing to be at peace with all the world, and without any national calamity pressing heavily upon it, the government is embarrassed with debts, and every thing labours under great depreciation. Agriculture and manufactures daily decline, and commerce struggles amid the decay, not of foreign produce, but of our own. Not one national interest is in a thriving condition. The operations of the Government and of individuals are alike impeded by difficulties, for which no remedy is at present found. In short, the nation is poorer than it was in the year 1790." He sympathized most sincerely with the Americans; not only because they were a great people, but because the best interests of England were closely bound up with theirs.

He thought he was at liberty to infer from the extract which he had just read, and from the remarks which he had just made, that the same causes which had operated in America, had operated also here, and had led to that distress, on which many gentlemen were accustomed to look with too desponding an eye. Confident he was, that if the country maintained public faith with its creditors—if it was true to the principles to which, up to the present period, it had always acted-if it disentangled itself from those regulations of trade which, instead of promoting, impeded its interests-if it avoided those infamous expedients to which other nations had thought it requisite to resort-it would rise superior to all the difficulties by which it was now surrounded, and would come out of the distress in which it was involved with unimpeached honour, and with a character rendered more bright by the very dangers to which it had been exposed. He concluded with moving the previous question.

The previous question being put, the House divided: Ayes, 149. Noes, 125. Mr. Western's motion was consequently agreed to. The honourable gentleman brought in his bill; but, on the 3d of April, on the motion, that it be read a second time, the House then divided: Ayes, 144. Noes, 242. Majority against the bill, 98,

AGRICULTURAL DISTRESS-AND THE FINANCIAL MEASURES FOR ITS RELIEF.

February 15, 1822.

This day the Marquis of Londonderry called the attention of the House to the subject of the existing Agricultural Distress, and entered into a detail of the Financial Measures which it was the intention of his Majesty's Government to submit to parliament for its Relief, The noble Marquis concluded by moving, "that returns be laid upon the table, of the revenue and expenditure, exclusive of the funded and unfunded debt, for the year ending the 5th of January 1821, together with similar accounts for the year ending the 5th of January 1822;" and he gave notice that he would in a few days move for the revival of the Agricultural Committee, and that the Chancellor of the Exchequer would bring forward a measure for enabling the Bank to issue four millions on Exchequer Bills, in loans to different parishes, and would also submit a proposition for reducing the present amount of the duty on Malt. After Mr. Brougham had entered into an examination of the proposed measure,

Mr. HUSKISSON rose. He began by remarking, that the motion then before the House was simply for an account, to the production of which there could be no possible objection. But inasmuch as the comprehensive speech of his noble friend, who had introduced that motion, necessarily embraced topics similar to those which had been brought under the view of the House by an honourable and learned gentleman* on a preceding day, and again that evening,

the present discussion might be considered in the light of an adjourned debate upon the nature and causes of the present distress. He was the more at liberty to look at it in that point of view, without violating either the forms or the rules of the House, as the honourable and learned gentleman's motion, on Monday last, had been met, and most properly disposed of, not upon its merits, but by the previous question. That motion, however, had answered the honourable and learned gentleman's purpose. It enabled him to range over the whole manor of political economy, to fire his shots at random, and then to day, when the minister of the Crown was obliged to go over the same beat, the honourable and learned gentleman came forward, in no very sportsman-like manner, to claim as his own the fruits of the noble lord's more steady pursuit. That the honourable and learned gentleman, however, was mistaken in supposing that the noble lord's plans had been changed, in consequence of his speech, he could assure him, from his own personal knowledge; but, independently of his assertion, he would leave to the House to determine, considering the circumstances under which the honourable and learned gentleman had made his motion, whether it was not more probable that the object of his speech had been to anticipate the measures of government, than that those measures, adopted after long and mature deliberation, had been altered to accommodate themselves to the impression made by the speech of the honourable and learned member.

Leaving him, however, in the enjoyment of his fancied triumph, he should think himself at liberty, in rising to state his own view of our present difficulties, to refer also to the honourable and learned member's speech of the former night, as far as it related to the subject of the present discussion. He felt this to be the more necessary,

whatever might be the indiscretion of entering upon so wide a field, and the indisposition of the House to attend to matters necessarily dry and uninviting, as he had never heard a speech more abounding in mistaken assertions, more fraught with erroneous principles and contradictory inferences, more pregnant with alarm, mischief and danger, or more calculated to mislead the judgment by a delusive appeal to the prejudices and sufferings of the people; and to hurry parliament itself into a course which, if once entered upon, it would be too late to retrace, however much they might afterwards deplore their error. He did

not ascribe this character to the honourable and learned gentleman's views, under the influence of party spiritfar from it; his wish was, as much as possible, to keep the mighty interests at stake out of the range of party feeling. Looking to the complicated relationships existing between the landed interest and all the other great interests of the country, and to the manifold difficulties of the subject, he could wish gentlemen to come to its examination in that House as calmly and dispassionately as they would to a similar discussion in the closet. This was the course which he was determined to pursue, stating fearlessly his own impressions, with the greatest deference certainly to the judgment of others with whom he had the misfortune to differ, either in or out of parliament, but without any personal consideration, except that of regret at the existence of any such difference between their sentiments and his own.

When the subject to be considered is the present distress, it is natural to look back to periods of past distress, in the hope that, by a reference to former sufferings, some useful lessons of experience, some valuable inferences, and some monitory cautions may be derived, to serve as a guide to carry us through the straits and difficulties of the