HOUSE OF COMMONS, Friday, Feb. 13. Corn Laws.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 228, 18 July 1846, Page 79

HOUSE OF COMMONS, Friday, Feb. 13. Corn Laws.

The renewed debate on the Tariff was opened by Sir H. Douglas, who said that having reviewed all the speeches he had delivered, and the votes he had given on this question, he saw no cause for regret in having resisted the changes in the Tariff. The honourable member terminated his speech by bewailing the anticipared loss of our colonies, including the East Indies, and declared his intention of opposing the! measure by every means in his power. Lord Villiers had hitherto favoured protection, but as it must always be a matter of contention, and the duties imposed had not succeeded in affording protection, he should support the alteration proposed by the Government.

The Hon. F. Scott followed in a speech of very great length, in which he began by stating thiit he had felt the most enthusiastic adrairatir • for I Sir Robert Peel from his youth, "even from his j childhood," and with these feelings his despair at finding Sir Robert Peel desert his principles was complete. The honourable gentleman told along story of a counsel being retained in a great cause, and on the day of trial this "great leader" was found pleading on the opposite side — the junior, too, he followed " his leader," and had the assurance to tell the parties whb retained them, to think better of their case, as ," they had changed their minds." Such crooked, tortuous policy never came to good. The honourable member had almost lost himself in an elaborate argument of rents, wages, prices, and labour in agriculture, when Sir R. Peel interrupted him by appositely inquiring " Who he (the Hon. F. Scott) was counsel for ?" upon which the honourable member grew very an^-y, and apologies aud counter-apologies were exchanged, after which he took a review of the whole of our colonial system, and contended, upon the feeble authority of Mr. Buchanan, of Cajriada, that the abolition of the Corn Laws, if parsed, would cause the severance of our colonie|s, and the next step would be a league against tliej Church and the law of primogeniture, which would entail anarchy and ruin. Mr. H. G. Ward replied to the honourable member, and exposed with great effect the contradictions in his speech ; the " bone-crushing " experiment of the Canada Corn Bill the member for Roxburghshire had himself supported, but now that " the Holy Alliance" of protection was broken up, as the West Riding clearly proved, he was quite at a loss, like his party, wlijat to do. The Tories, even when they had the game in their own hands in 1842, did not know their own true interest. They now denounced their best friend, Sir R. Peel, who only slightly differed from their own views. He (Mr. Ward) then ridiculed the " trash" uttered about the ruins of the colonial markets, and the idle, unfounded assertions of Mr. Buchanan ; he said that only one-eight of our goods went to the colonies, whilst with other countries, as with France, even under a hostile tariff, our trade had quintupled. The honourable gentleman then reproached the agriculturists with having claimed protection on account of the peculiar burdens of the land, whilst at the same time they resolutely refused to submit to any inquiry into any subject. He concluded by referring triumphantly to the article wool, the prices of which had advanced in spite of the " overwhelmitnports.

Mr. W. Miles then addressed the house in a speech of more than two hours' duration, in which the honourable member followed up the arguments of the preceding speaker on his side of the house, and supported his views of the policy of protection by a vast variety of documents, to which the house listened with great patience. The honourable member concluded by opposing the measure and expressing his confidence in the straightforward conduct of

Lord John Russell, rather than in the cautious, temporising policy of Sir R. Peel. The Earl of March then moved the adjournment of the debate. Colonel T. Wood supported the Government proposition.