At a meeting of the Middlesex Agricultural Association, on Mon-
day, old Mr. Byng, M. P., delivered the following wise observations on the Corn-laws- "1 have, from the earliest part of my life, felt attached to the agricultural interest. When I speak of it I do not mean to depreciate the mercantile and manufacturing interests. We are all fellow countrymen, and have but one interest. Thriving manufacturers may be good customers to agriculturists, and thriving agriculturists will be good customers to manufacturers. Gentlemen, it is not the tradesmen who wish to injure you in any respect, it is the public press, with some few brilliant exceptions, which wishes to run the agriculturist interest down. I think it impossible for bread to be cheaper than it has been for a number of years; and when you consider the immense amount of your Debt, which is larger than the debt of all the world put together, I consider it impossible for bread to be cheaper in this country. I have always found that in those countries where bread is cheapest, the labourer is always most op- pressed."
[It is probable that Mr. Byng will be excused from further attend- ance in Parliament at the next election ; and his retirement will cer- tainly not be premature. Bread will be cheaper, Mr. Byng, when the harvests again prove plentiful, though the Debt in the mean while should increase. The supposition that hostility to the Corn-laws is created by the press, unsupported by the trading interests, is as saga- cious as the notion that the rise of prices in Mark Lane is merely the effect of combination by a few Quaker jobbers.]
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