the only one upon which I regret the part that I took. I am, and have been for many years satisfied, that that measure was founded upon the most erroneous principles, and that it has been attended by the most disastrous consequences. In this place allow me to draw your attention solely to the effects which it produced upon your tenants. Relying upon the wisdom, and upon the power of the Legislature, they were induced by it to expect those prices for their produce, which the law, and the proceedings which led to its enactment, held out as the prices of grain to be maintained in this country. They entered upon, and continued upon farms, the rents of which were founded upon the prices held out to them by an Act of Parliament. If prices rose to an extravagant height, as they did in 1817, in consequence of the deficient harvest of 1816, the expectations of the farmers and land valuers were raised still higher; while, on the other hand, if they fell below the Parliamentary standard, the fall: was attributed to some accidental and tran sient cause, and was disregarded in fixing rents, both by the landlord, the valuer, and the tenant. During the interval, from 1815 to 1822, the farmer experienced the most extraordinary fluctuations in the price of his merchandize, fluctuations arising from the variations of the seasons, but aggravated by the state of the law, which either rigorously prohibited, or indiscriminately admitted foreign_corn.* What, however, I am particularly anxious to direct your attention to, is the utter inefficiency of the law to accomplish either of its two purposes, of protecting the farmer from too low, and the consumer from too high a price. In the Spring of 1817, wheat sold at 120s. a quarter; in the Winter of 1821-2, it sold at less than 40s. a quarter; the average of the year 1817 being 94s., and that of 1822 being 43s. The highest price in Oxford, at Lady-day, 1817, was 148s.; at Michaelmas, 1820, 66s. ; at Michaelmas, * I purposely omit all reference to the Currency Question; not because I disregard its effects, but because it does not apply exclusively, or even peculiarly, to corn. 1822, 52s. a quarter. The consequence of this state of things cannot have escaped your recollection. Great difficulties had been felt by the agricultural interest in 1814, 15, and 16; but the difficulties of all former years were surpassed by the distress of the Winter of 1821-2. The insolvency of tenants, at this period, wast unparallelled in the history of the agricultural classes, and the inefficacy of the Act of 1815 was so universally acknowledged, that an alteration in the law was made in the Session of 1822; but the alteration being contingent upon circumstances which never occurred, no perinanent practical change took place till the year 1828, when the present system was adopted. During the period, therefore, from 1815 to 1828, the prohibitory system of 1815 was in virtual operation. How far it secured you from a diminution of rental, your tenants from insolvency, and your estates from injury, every landowner in England can testify. I am here, however, principally entreating your consideration of the effects produced upon the agricultural capital of the country. Year after year, the value of the farmer's produce had been diminishing, till it fell to little more than half the price at which Parliament considered that he could be remunerated for his industry. Year after year, he was deluded by fallacious hopes, excited by the law itself; his rent was paid out of his capital, instead of out of his profits, till that capital became insufficient for the proper cultivation of the land, and then you yourselves began to feel the calamity, by which many of your tenantry had been already overwhelmed.* Compare, then, the situation of that tenantry, under the protection of the Corn Law of 1815, with what it probably would have been, had the trade been avowedly free; or if you had been contented with the protection afforded by the law of 1804, under which it would have been practically free. Prices would, indeed, have It cannot be alleged, that these disasters, in which landlords and tenants participated, were occasioned by the want of adequate protection; for, during the whole of this period, their interests were protected by that very law, which, at the time of its enactment, was considered sufficient for its purpose by those who went great lengths in favour of the protecting system. lowered, but no such extravagant hopes would have been excited, no such erroneous calculations would have been made; rents would have fallen to a level corresponding with the price of grain, the agricultural capital of the country would have been unimpaired, and the land would have remained in a better state of cultivation. Your nominal rentals might have been diminished, but your rents would have been collected with facility, and you would not have been driven, time after time, to the wretched expedient of returning a per centage to your tenants at each successive audit, in order to induce them to remain on their farms,an expedient, which proclaims to your fellow citizens, that those who resort to it, are in the habit of demanding from their tenants a larger rent than they are capable of paying. Nothing, I must confess, is more distressing to me, than to witness these half-yearly annunciations of this mis-called liberality of certain portions of the landed interest. Has it never struck you, fellow citizens, that this proceeding is no evidence of liberality, but rather of extortion; that |