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object and end of all my labours. The time is singularly auspicious. How have I toiled, head and fin- Distress has seized hold of those, gers; how many thousands of who had no feeling in their proreams of paper and how many sperous days. All are ready to scores of barrels of ink have I listen. The stupid, corrupt tradcaused to be employed for the ing press can no longer blind purpose of convincing the people men's eyes; the tide of convicof England, that they are miser- tion rolls on; and the long-eared, able slaves compared to what their tooting press goes along with it. forefathers were, that they are, The Scotch Economists are dumbin my lord's own judicious foundered. All their speculations words, degraded from the have become mere dreams. Their "character of Englishmen by doctrine of infinite augmentathe PRESENT SYSTEM!" tion of capital" has been blown And, ye gods, how have ye to air. Plain sense is coming "thundred" upon me for these back, and nonsense and fraud and my endeavours! What a running rascality recede at her approach. of the gauntlett ye have given me! And, how often have ye said, that I took " advantage of the "distresses of the people, and "deluded them," when I told them this very thing!

The Labouring Classes have to congratulate themselves on the bringing in of your bill. Their case has, in consequence of that bill, been fully stated. We now, for the first time, hear plenty of Faith, there was little need of people to support my old doctrine the present discussion to make the of deduction from wages; and I Labouring Classes see their de- must confess, that the people gradation. The discussion, how-" in doors" have, upon this ocever, has done a great deal. The casion, acted well and manfully. real cause never was before so Sir ROBERT WILSON, Mr. CALclearly placed before the eyes of CRAFT, Lord MILTON, Mr. the nation. The time is favour- COURTENAY, Mr. MONCK, Mr. able events work for truth, and, GURNEY (of Norwich) and of course, for me. I saw that several others, have stood forthey would, or I never should ward, as became English Gentlehave seen England again. I men, to reprobate a measure so never would have come to par- full of injustice, cruelty, and even take in permanent degradation. folly. Amongst the rest, not a

1

word do we hear from " Eng-covered, by the aid of my eye

salve, that a diminution of wages was the cause of the evil, did you not also discover that a remedy was not to be found in discouraging marriage? Having, I say, discovered, that an increase of

"land's Glory!" Oh, no! This is too trifling a matter to be grasped by his giant mind, which can no more feel it than the hand of the ploughman can a single clover-seed. It is not big enough for him. He must have some population was not the cause of grand affair, worthy of his mighty the evil, how came you to perse-genius; something incompréhen-vere in the project for checking sible and without end; and that population in the way of remedy has nothing to do with the back for that evil? or the belly. Now, in this I totally differ from England's "Glory." I give not a thought to any thing that has not a practical end in view. However, there are, in this case, quite men enough to prevent this odious bill" from becoming a law. There appears to me a mon- "the wages of labour." What! strous inconsistency in the grounds, stated by you, at different times, of this strange proceeding. At the second reading of the bill you said, that it was

clear," that it was not the in

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I find, in another part of the same speech, something like an attempt to reconcile this, and a very miserable attempt it is, as we shall now see. "The farmer

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finding that he was called on

to pay heavy poor-rates, resorted "to the practice of diminishing

Can you put the cart before the horse in one place, and behind the horse in another? The evil, of which you say so much, is the increase of the poor-rates. You tell us, in one place, that this is caused by the diminution of

crease of population but the "diminution of wages that pro- the wages of labour: and,

in another place, that it is the cause of that very diminution. I have heard you talk of the inconsistency of others. I have heard you join in that cuckoo cry But, can you produce, in the history of the whole life of any other

"duced the evil." You did not say this during the first debate! You said not a word about this, 'till after the twist in my Letter to Mr. HAYES. However, you did say it on the second reading of the bill. And, now, pray, Lawyer SCARLETT, having dis- person, inconsistency so flagrant

as this. In short, when you came covered, that the Labourers had to the second reading, you were been despoiled, was not the first what the Irish call bothered. thing to be sought for, the cause The subject had been tackled; of that spoliation? And did you and you, in your own proper per- not find that cause clearly and son, appear to have felt all the fully stated in the Letter to Mr. contending difficulties, with which HAYES? Was ever effect traced the whole system is labouring. to cause more clearly? Did ever brick, falling from a house and

duce death, than the paper money produced the robbery of the Labouring Classes?

But, come; the cause of the evil is, you now say, a diminu-killing a man, more clearly protion of the wages of labour, and not an increase of population. It is useless to ask you why you do not abandon the check-popu- Here was the cause of all the lation clause, seeing that you mischief. The accursed paper have arrived at this conviction? went on augmenting in quantity It is useless to ask you that, be- and diminishing in value. The cause no reason can be given. Labourer, who was paid in shilBut, if you found, from me, or lings and pence, got indeed an from any body else, that there augmentation in nominal amount, had been an injurious diminution but he got less and less food and of wages, was not the cause of raiment for his week's labour. this diminution a thing to be in- The farmer soon perceived, that quired into before you went any the "out-doors" men were cheapfurther? For, what are we to est; for he could not bilk the bɛlsay of the man, who could be lies of those "in-doors." His convinced, that a diminution of wages was the cause; who could be convinced that the Labourers wretches must die, or be too weak had been pinched and degraded from this cause; who could be convinced that they had been despoiled in this way; who could see them getting back a small part in poor-rates, and who could coolly propose to take even that the cause, and the only cause, of part from them? Having dis- the rise in the amount of the poor

next step was to get these out of doors. Finding that the poor

to toil, without an occasional augmentation of wages, he fell upon the scheme of giving the married ones something more than the single ones; and this under colour of poor rates! Here, then, is

rates. And this cause you, and, in- [their vices, their improvidence, deed, all of you, blink: you say their profligacy. Not a word about the master mischief. That was as hidden as the deeds of murderers.

not a word about it. Others talk of the diminution of wages, and now you talk of it, but they only lay the cause to the taxes, and do not show the manner in which the thing was done; while you say not a word either about taxes or paper-money.

All was plain and

clear as daylight if the true cause had been frankly stated; but this cause you had never thought of, though you had “devoted years” to the subject ! Bless your

That it did not is, I think, clear enough, from what I am now going to notice. It is very curious, that I, in reading your speech against the poor Rumpite, EVANS, at Manchester, "fus"tened," as Mr. BROUGHAM called it, upon several passages, and was beginning, as you probably may recollect, to serve them out. in weekly doses, when this bill drew me off, leaving several of

This being the cause, as clearly head! That this cause, so effias is nose upon face, what recient, so complete, so plain to be medy have you prepared for it? seen; that this only possible cause And how do the people deserve should never, during all those the charge of idleness and impro-years of application to the subject, vidence? What remedy have once creep under your wig! you for an evil proceeding from such a cause? The remedy, and only remedy, must, in the mind of any man of sense, have been to cause the deduction from wages to cease, seeing that that deduction was the immediate cause of the evil to he remedied. And, then, the question was, how this was to be effected? Whereupon would arise the question, what is the cause of the diminution of wages? The answer to which the passages unnoticed, one of would have been, the paper- which comes in here very pat to money. Remove, then, the paper- my purpose, in the following money. Cut off the spring-head words: "During seasons of pubof the mischief, and the mischief" lic distress and calamity, arising will cease. "in no degree from the acts or

Oh, no! Not a word about his!

But a long string of cen

"

measures of government, but "from causes which no govern

sures on the poor! Their idleness," ment could controul, such as a

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"division of capital into new make no sensible man adopt the channels of trade, from which doctrine. There are no causés alone a considerable share of of public distress, for which the 4 temporary distress would always government is not completely an4 result, it too often happened swerable." No controul !" Conthat those who were not the troul enough as to our purses best judges, though they were and persons, but no controul as the most numerous and severe to causes of our distress! Why, sufferers, adopted opinions here is the cause of it all. And which led to consequences did not the government create most dangerous." it? Did it not pour out the pa

Now, I call the gentlemen per-money, make the loans, and in doors to witness, whether lay on the taxes? Cannot I the former part of this sentence open the statute book, and put as not, almost word for word, my finger upon all the loanwhat Castlereagh said in 1816. acts, exchequer bill acts, subsidy "The division of capital into acts, bank-charter and restric-66 new branches of trade! "tion acts; cannot I show the tax What division? What new acts? Is not the cause there? branches? What preciously un-Did not the government create meaning jargon! He was told the cause? And will you, then, at the same time by me, that the say, that the government has had division would be very long about; no controul in the affair? and that, as to the new branches As to your motives for making of trade, he might hunt for them this apology for the government, in some other country; for that I shall leave others to express the would not find them here. He their opinions upon them; but was told it then; and Mr. WES- the "division of capital into TERN was told to take his eyes" new branches of trade" show from the clover-seed-sack, and clearly the size of your mind as to fix them on the bank-note to such matters. It is just the mill. sort of parrot-like talk, that one But, the apology for the go- would expect to hear from the vernment was neat! It showed leading politician of some little a good deal; though it could country town, who has caught