" connected with its own power, and the renovation of its own prosperity, than the equality of civil privileges, and the universal equalization of religions. The exercise of their influence, moreover, tended to diminish its sources. The landlords were now taught the vanity of covering their estates with a swarm of mendicant voters, whose voices were neither their own nor their masters, and who could not bring even the advantage of being politically useful to him once in seven years, to redeem the ignorance and misery with which they surrounded him. If the landlords of Ireland had used the full powers of ejectment which they possessed, the condition of the lower class of tenantry would have been calamitous. In some instances the power was exercised; and the Catholic board voted a portion of its funds for the relief of the paupers whom they had induced to quarrel with their landlords, and to sacrifice their homes. The interest and bustle which had been excited by the elections, were succeeded by grave apprehensions concerning the result of the harvest. Wheat had produced what is commonly called an average crop over all England, or, at least, where it had partially failed, these failures were too limited to have any serious or lasting influence on the general price; but the heat and drought which prevailed, during the months of July and August, both for a length of time, and with a degree of violence, not ordinary in this country, threaten ed an absolute dearth in other species of grain, as well as in pulse and potatoes. Barley was far from reaching the extent of an average crop; but it was in oats, and pulse that the apprehended scarcity was most alarming. The accounts from every part of the country were all equally unfavourable; and the consequence was, that, in the end of July, and the beginning of August, the price of these latter articles began to rise rapidly and steadily in every market. In the middle of June, when the consumption of the preceding crop tends naturally to elevate the market, oats were 22s. 11d.; during the first two weeks of August they were at or above 27s. 3d.; on the 18th of that month they were 28s. 3d.; on the 25th, they were 29s. 4d.; and, by the 1st of September, the price had risen to 30s. At the same time, the most alarming, and apparently well-founded, apprehensions were entertained, that, while oats, in many districts, the most important article of food to the lower classes, were thus placed absolutely beyond their reach, the misery would be increased, and particularly in Ireland, by the failure of the potatoe-crop. Even the farmers, though obtaining high prices in one way, were suffering much in another; for the violent and continued heats were so prejudicial to the grass, that, on the richest meadow lands of England, it became necessary to feed cattle with dry fodder, almost as in the depth of winter. Subsequently, indeed, these alarms were dispelled by a favourable change of weather, and partly by precautionary measures; and the national root of Ireland produced a crop singularly abundant, instead of one miserably poor: but such were the prospects which the harvest held out in the beginning of September. The high price of 30s. for oats, at the season when they should have been most abundant, and pressing, too, as it did, precisely on those dis tricts of the country, and those classes of the community, which were already suffering so much from the languishing state of manufactures and trade, was of itself sufficiently alarming; and the fears thus excited were increased by the accounts which were daily arriving from the north of Europe, that the demand was every where increasing for that species of grain. But although the price which oats had reached by the beginning of September was above the importation price, the system of averages disabled government from legally applying any remedy to the threatening evil. Until an average price above the importa. tion price should have been struck, the ports must remain closed; and the first average that would be taken would not be struck till the 15th of November, an interval during which all the calamities of a famine might have overtaken the country. From this pros pect ministers had no means of escaping, except by violating the law, and taking upon themselves the responsibility of permitting import ation without waiting for the arrival of the quarterly average under which alone it could legally be al lowed. They very properly chose the latter course; and on the 1st of September an order in council ap peared authorizing the immediate importation of oats, oat-meal, rye, pease, and beans, and the bringing them into market if they were in bond, but imposing a duty of 2s. per quarter on oats, 2s. 2d. per boll on oatmeal, and 3s. 6d. per quarter on rye, beans, and pease. The duty was necessarily made conditional, and was not payable at the moment. Security only was required from the importers and holders of the grain to make payment of those duties, if confirms ed by parliament. The necessity of confirming these duties, and obtaining an act of Indemnity for ministers who had thus gone beyond the law, occasioned the assembling of the new parliament at a much earlier and more inconvenient season than usual. The same gazette which contained the order in council, contained a proclamation summoning parliament to meet for the despatch of business on the 14th of November. On that day, about an hundred members of the new House of Commons appeared at the bar of the House of Lords. The lord Chancellor, as one of the royal commissioners, addressed them in the following terms: "My Lords, and Gentlemen of the House of Commons; "We have it in command from his Majesty to inform you, that, as soon as the members of both Houses have assembled, his Majesty will declare the causes of summoning the present parliament; and as it is necessary that a fit and proper person be chosen Speaker of the House of Commons, it is commanded by his Majesty that you return to the place where you are to sit, and then proceed to the choice of a proper person as Speaker; and after such choice, that you present such proper person for his Majesty's royal approbation." The Commons having returned to their own House, Mr. Manners Sutton, on the motion of Mr. Sturges Bourne, was unanimously re-elected to the chair. On the following day, he was presented, with the usual ceremonies, to the royal commissioners, who declared his Majesty's approval of the choice made by the House; and the Speaker, in the customary form, craved and obtained assurance of the interruption of peace in dif all the ancient rights and privileges of the Commons of England. Till the 21st, the only business done consisted in the swearing in of members. On the 21st his Majesty himself proceeded in state to the House of Peers, and opened the new Parliament in person with the following Speech from the Throne: "My Lords and Gentlemen, "I have called you together at this time, for the special purpose of communicating to you the measures which I judged it necessary to take in the month of September, for the admission into the ports of the United Kingdom of certain sorts of foreign grain not then admissible by law. "I have directed a copy of the Order in Council, issued on that occasion, to be laid before you, and I confidently trust that you will see sufficient reason for giving your sanction to the provisions of that order, and for carrying them into effect. "I have great satisfaction in being able to inform you that the hopes entertained at the close of last session of Parliament respecting the termination of war in the Burmese territories have been fulfilled, and that a peace has been concluded in that quarter, highly honourable to the British arms, and the councils of the British government in India. "I continue to receive from all foreign powers assurances of their desire to cultivate the relations of peace and friendly understanding with me. "I am exerting myself with unremitting anxiety, either singly, or in conjunction with my Allies, as well to arrest the progress of existing hostilities, as to prevent ferent parts of the world. "Gentlemen of the House of Commons, "I have directed the estimates of the ensuing year to be prepared, and they will in due time be laid before you. "I will take care that they shall be formed with as much attention to economy as the exigencies of the public service will permit: "The distress which has pervaded the commercial and manufacturing classes of my subjects during the last twelve months has affected some important branches of the revenue; but I have the satisfaction of informing you, that there has been no such diminution in the internal consumption of the country, as to excite any apprehensions that the great sources of our wealth and prosperity have been impaired. My Lords and Gentlemen, "I have deeply sympathised with the sufferings which have been for some time past so severely felt in the manufacturing districts of the country. "I have contemplated with satisfaction the exemplary patience with which those sufferings have been generally borne. "The depression under which the trade and manufactures of the country have been labouring has abated more slowly than I thought myself warranted in anticipating; but I retain a firm expectation that this abatement will be progressive, and that the time is not far distant when, under the blessings of Divine Providence, the commerce and industry of the United Kingdom will have resumed their wonted activity." In the House of Lords the Address was moved by earl Cornwal lis, and seconded by lord Colville. The only opposition to it proceeded from lord King, who, mistaking, as so many do, or pretend to do, the real nature and object of a speech from the throne, complained that although it was very well so far as it went, it did not go far enough; and, after expending a great deal of very indifferent wit on the character of the late parliament, and the dulness of ministers as being the greatest" doubters" out of Chancery, amply compensated for the deficiencies of the address, by moving an amendment, twice as long as the Speech together, and embracing every difficult and dissputable question taxation, the national debt, the civil and military establishments, import duties, the Corn-laws, and the state of the currency. These topics were regularly brought out in it, as an exposition of the sentence with which it commenced : we hope that a steady adherence to just and liberal principles of policy will prevent a repetition of those distresses, which in the course of the last ten years, have repeatedly and severely afflicted all classes of your Majesty's subjects." The amendment was negatived without a division. 66 In the Commons, the address having been moved by Mr. Liddel, a new member for the county of Northumberland, and seconded by Mr. Wynn, Mr. Brougham, following the example of lord King, complained that the speech consisted of nothing but blanks: he had never, he said, listened to a speech which said so little, and omitted so entirely what it might have said. Among the omissions of the speech, of which he had to complain, there were two subjects of paramount importance; the one, the present state of Ireland; the other the necessity of retrenchment. It did strike him as a most extraordinary circumstance, that, at a time when, in the minds of all men, there was but one prevailing opinion as to the aspect of public affairs, and that an urgent demand was felt by every one that the affairs of Ireland should be earnestly and speedily, though maturely, considered, yet that, in the King's Speech delivered from the throne at this time, the name of Ireland should never once be mentioned. He hoped there was nothing ominous in it, but it must be confessed that it was in the last degree surprising. It was a singular fact that, just before the breaking out of the American war, at a moment when all men's eyes were pointed towards America, and when America was the word which hung upon the quivering lip of every man who thought or felt at all, neither mention nor allusion was made to it in the Speech from the throne. In a time of scarcely less anxiety, Ireland was omitted in the Speech which had been just read to the House. No man living could believe, knowing what had been doing in Ireland for the last six months, what was doing there now, and what ought to be done here, that the King's Speech contained no mention whatever of the condition of that country. For obvious reasons, he would not now enlarge on this subject; but he protested against the omission, and he earnestly expected to hear the reasons, if reasons could be given, why that omission had occurred. The most satisfactory proposition his majesty's government could make, would be some measure of sound and enlightened policy which should do justice to Ireland, save that country from the combined horrors of civil and religious warfare, and protect it in what were now its weakest points, but which, well managed, ought to be its strongest, and which would impart strength to the whole united empire. As to retrenchments, it might be said, that, when the estimates came to be submitted to the House, it would be time enough to discuss this topic; but, taking into his view, circumstances which forced themselves upon his attention, and listening to the reports which were abroad, and which were evidenced by certain outward and visible signs, he saw one reason why no pledge of retrenchment had been made. He alluded to the report that a certain proposition might be expected to be made to the House, savouring of any thing rather than necessity, and entirely opposed to the just feelings and expectations of the people of this country. It might be hazardous to prophecy what might happen in this House; but the measure to which he alluded, if carried, would be carried with the unanimous and loudly-expressed reprobation of the people of England. These were not times to trifle with the people. The distress of the country was admitted to be great: one means of alleviating it could alone be effectual, and that was retrenchment. The saving the public money, the reduction of the taxes, the cutting down the estimates, not merely lower, but as low as the necessities of the people required, these were what the duty of the government prescribed, and what they must resort to, if they expected to retain the obedience of the people. Talk of new palaces while the country is thus situated. New palaces! Good God! is this a fit time to discuss the propriety of VOL. LXVIII. adopting this or that order of architecture? If the House possessed the proper feelings of a British House of Commons--if it was not quite dead to those impressions by which on other occasions it had been influenced, it should know and feel that the purest and most ornamental order that art and science could invent and combine, would appear far less gratifying than to see palaces unfinished, while the people are suffering from want and starvation. Without any wish to excite the displeasure of those whom he (Mr. Brougham) had now the honour of addressing many of them for the first time-he nevertheless felt it to be his imperative duty, on the first night of this new parliament, to express his deep conviction, that the House would best fulfil its duty to the country, by admitting Ireland to a full and free participation of those rights from which she had been too long excluded, and by reducing the public expenditure of the nation. Mr. Canning said, it ought to be remembered, that parliament was not called together at this unusual and inconvenient season for purposes of general legislation, but because it was necessary to provide an indemnity for those who, under the pressure of a grievous necessity, had been forced to violate the existing laws; and if any complaint were made, that no notice of the corn question was to be found in the King's Speech, beyond a recommendation to grant the indemnity referred to, he would at once declare his decided disinclination to state, at this early period of the session, the opinions entertained by his majesty's ministers on the subject of the Corn-laws, and the way in which those laws operated [N] |