FACTS SHOWING THE FREE-TRADE PRINCIPLES OF WHIGS AND CONSERVATIVES.
To THE EDITOR OF THE SPECTATOR.
Lord Melbourne's Administration arose out of dissensions and separa- tions among the Reform party. It was feeble from the first. It subsisted only by sufferance, sometimes from foes, sometimes from friends,—Conserva- tives, English Radicals, Irish Repealers. It never possessed sufficient strength to have a will of its own. It resorted to discreditable expedients to save itself from extinction. After twenty years of peace, it had within five years added seven millions and a half to the National Debt, and was left with a deficiency of revenue to the extent of nearly two millions. At an advanced period of the session, Ministers suddenly announced their in- tention of proposing three measures for the relief of the finances,—viz. a revision of the Sugar-duties, a revision of the Timber-duties, and a new Corn-law. The only one of the three actually brought forward was the first. It consisted of a reduction of the duty on foreign sugar from 3/. 3s. to It 16s. per hundredweight, leaving that on British plantation sugar at 4s. as before, with the addition in each case of the 5 per cent which had been put upon all duties. This measure was resisted on the following grounds; which, whether right or wrong, were not of a nature adverse to the principles of free trade. I. That there was no reason to expect from it any material increase of the consumption of sugar, or any immediate addi- tional revenue to meet the deficiency; and therefore that it was futile as to its professed objects : 2. That its tendency was to give a stimulus to the foreign slave-trade, and to depress our own West India Colonies, suffering from want of labour since the abolition of slavery: 3. That it was only a sham; the real object being to raise a cry in favour of a tottering Ministry. The measure was rejected, on the 18th of May 1841, by a majority of 36. Oh the 4th of June the House of Commons passed a vote of want of con- fidence in the Government, without a word of disapprobation of free trade. Parliament was prorogued on the 22d June, and dissolved the next day. The new Corn-law had not been brought forward, but was to have con- sisted, of a fixed duty of eight shillings a quarter, instead of the former graduated scale of duties. Sir Robert Peel argued against the proposed abange of law, that the fixed rate was higher than the average rate which had actually been levied; that it could not be levied when corn was dear, and would afford no real protection when corn was cheap; that once taken off, it never could be imposed again; that the clamour against it would be incessant; and that the only alternative was between a graduated scale of duties and a free trade in corn. Nothing which has since occurred has served to show that these reasons were without validity. They prove at least that then, as well as in 1822, Sir Robert Peel approached quite as near free trade in corn as Lord John Russell. Whatever may have been the case with some of his followers, Lord John Russell, so recently as the general election in 1841, was no advocate for the repeal of all duty on corn. His conversion was of later date. The cry of " cheap bread" and "cheap sugar" was indeed raised: but it was not answered by a counter cry of " dear bread" and dear sugar." No; it was scouted as a delusion —the Government measures as a mere trick, which would not have re- duced the price of either article. Free trade had never been proposed in corn, or sugar, or anything else. It was only made a stalking-horse, when measures unconnected with free trade had been rejected, and the Government which had brought them forward was about to be turned out. Free-trade principles were strongly inculcated, and to a considerable extent put in practice, by Lord Liverpool's Government under Mr. Hus- kisson's immediate guidance. They were in abeyance for ten years under the Whigs. The public mind, however, had in that interval made great advances on the subject. The same principles were again taken up as soon as the Conservatives returned to power. As the Government was in efficient hands, and would not consent to remain in office without the con- fidence of Parliament, the principles it espoused were vigorously acted upon. V;e11-considered, comprehensive measures, were brought forward to be carried, not to make-believe, to be withdrawn, or set aside. The conse- quence is, that an Administration of five years, coming alter an Adminie•
oration of ten years which had done nothing for free trade, has, on retiring from office, left the other Administration comparatively little more to do. With these notorious facts before us, it must seem amusing that the princi- ples of Free Trade should be claimed by the Whigs as the badge of their party.
The case is much the same with respect to the Corn-law. It WM not a party measure when it was adopted at the end of the war. The price of wheat had been as high as 6/. per quarter. Landlords, tenants, and avi- culturists of every sort, looked with dismay at the prospect of foreign
portation reducing the price instantly to less than half that sum. Such a result was generally regarded as a social revolution. At first, importation was absolutely prohibited, unless when corn should reach what would now be thought a famine price. So little was this a Tory measure, that Lord John Russell, in his Huntingdonshire letter in 1822, expressed his belief that the Government of that day were taking steps "for subverting the Corn Bill altogether," and were "about to give up the question of trade in corn" to the political economists, with whom "wealth was the only object of their speculation." After ten years, the graduated scale, devised by Lord Liver, pool and Mr. Fluskisson, was introduced during Mr. Canning's quasi Whig Ministry, for the purpose of regulating and moderating the system of pro- tection. The late Earl Grey and his Cabinet asserted their authority
against any further change. Lord Melbourne declared still later, that the man must be mad who would repeal protection. In 1842 it was still fur-
ther regulated and reduced, by Sir Robert Peel's bill. Meanwhile, the public mind gradually underwent a change on the subject: perhaps the merits of the question were in some degree altered by improvements in agriculture and a general reduction of rents. At length, Sir Robert Peel on one side of politics, and, after him, Lord John Russell on the other, an- nounced themselves converts to entire repeal. Is it not a clever trick, under these circumstances, for the Whigs to throw all the reproach of in- consistency on the Conservatives, and to claim all the merit:of liberality for themselves?
That the Corn-law was not regarded as a party question, is clear from a review of the succession of parties during the whole period of its exist- ence. It had the concurrence of both the great parties in the state (with some individual exceptions) when it was introduced. It had no share in the change when the Canning Ministry was formed. The graduated seal of duties was resolved on by Lord Liverpool's Cabinet, brought forward by Mr. Canning's, and carried through by the Duke of Wellington's: it has had the sanction of all the three. Lord Grey strenuously supported the Corn-law. So did Lord Melbourne at first. Lord John Russell had been vehement in its favour; and all he has done against it was to propose a fixed duty at a higher rate than the average of the graduated scale. He argued, in opposition to Sir Robert Peel, that it was possible permanently to levy that rate; and he did not declare himself a Repealer till November 1845. The separation of Lord Stanley and the Duke of Richmond from the Whig Government had nothing to do with the Corn-law. No more had that of Lord Brougham, or that of the present Earl Grey. On the whole, from first to last, the Corn-law had never been a party question between Whig and Tory ; till at last the worn-out Whig Government be- thought itself of the advantage of making it one, and, in the end of April 1841, announced the subject for discussion in the beginning of June.
When that new sera had arrived and an appeal had been made to the country by the dissolution of Parliament, the agricultural interest was strenuously exerted to return Members pledged to the support of the Corn- law. The immediate object being to turn out the Whig Government, now for the first time hostile to that law, the great majority of Members returned under the agricultural interest were certainly Conservatives. Sir Rohm% Peel and the other Conservative leaders had opposed the Whig Government as incapable. They had reproached it for retaining office when too weak to carry its own measures, and for bringing forward measures against its better judgment, at the dictation of sections of its supporters, in order to prolong a precarious and discreditable existence. They bad also professed that no case had been made out to their conviction for substituting a fixed
duty on corn for a graduated scale. But the Protection party openly com- plained that Sir Robert Peel would not take their pledge. Accordingly,
the Duke of Buckingham left his Cabinet in a few months after it was for- med, because it did not carry the principles of agricultural protection so far as his Grace thought necessary; and the Duke of Richmond avowed want of confidence on the same score. From first to last, therefore, agricultural protection had never formed one of the principles of the Conservative party, any more than free trade in corn had formed one of the principles of the Whig party. It has also been shown that free trade in general was first re- duced to practice by the Tories; then, kept in abeyance for ten years by the Whigs; and last of all, carried to the full extent, which it was believed
the circumstances of our West India Colonies would for the time allow, by the Conservatives; not because Conservative principles were either more favourable or more adverse than Whig principles to the principles of Free Trade, but simply because Sir Robert Peel's Administration was strong,
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