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try is, I beg to claim, the same feeling which prompted me in my duties, in addition to the obligations of the solemn oath I took when I was sworn in a privy Councillor. I now come to the question of Free Trade. I am not one who will be affected by it. I am not a monopolist and never was; it happening that I had never more than enough for myself. The principles of Free Trade were first brought forward by Mr. Huskinson and my friend Mr. Canning [Canning and Planta resided near each other in the neighbourhood of Hastings at the same time]. But their Free Trade principles were not pressed into notice at improper times: They were always brought forward at opportune moments; and I say this is not the time when such a system can be carried into effect either with safety to the State or benefit to the country at large. As respects the sugar duties, in which I successfully voted, it had been clearly demonstrated that if that had been carried the only relief it would have effected would have been 10d. in the cwt. to the wholesale dealer and nothing to the consumer, and therefore to say that the Ministers would have promoted cheap sugar for the people is a fallacy. It would have risked the question of slavery which to annihilate has been the glory of the Tories as well as that of the Whigs. You would have risked the trade of the West Indies, from whence, in succeeding years, there will be a great supply. It would have been a measure fraught with much mischief and it was therefore very properly thrown out. As respects the timber duty, I will put it in the simplest form. You all know from reading or otherwise the state of the Canadas at the present time; that lately there was an insurrection in that country and that within a short period a union had been carried into effect between the Upper and Lower provinces, and that at the present time it requires the nicest cultivation of goodwill, conducive to prosperity, to enable that country to recover from its late excitement and to properly appreciate the good effect likely to follow in the arrangements just made. And then when the United States are ready to pounce upon the Canadaes(sic) it is proposed to pass a measure that would ruin them. When the petition from this place in favour of the Ministerial measures was sent up to me for presentation, I returned for answer that I could not support it, because I considered those measures were based on error. I do not, however, know that Canada will remain in its present state, and I may be able to support some such measure as is now proposed. I now come to the corn question. The cry that is raised is cheap bread. Well then I want to ask, will you have cheap bread with starvation wages? The effect of getting rid of this law would be the lowering of wages. Should you get rid of it entirely, you would of necessity ruin the agriculturist and the farmer; or if not that, they would turn off their workmen or keep them on at much lower wages. By such a system the labourers would be forced into the towns, there to compete with others, and a reduction of wages among them would also take place. This seems to me to be as clear certain as that the sun now shines above us. But the Government do not propose a total abolition of the duty. They admit there must be a certain amount of protection - namely, 8s. per quarter. My objection to a fixed duty is that when corn is cheap it is not a sufficient protection, and that when corn is dear, it cannot be maintained at all. I think a sliding scale is the best system, and which can be so found as to meet both the wishes of the agriculturist and the people. If you have to depend on foreign lands for your corn in times of scarcity, what, let me ask, will be your position. Suppose you had a war with Russia, her first step would be to shut the great corn ports in the Black Sea against you. And if America declare war against you, thus shutting you out from the means of existence, what then will be the state of happy England? No man of feeling can contemplate. Such are my views of this all-important question. I am happy to say that in all my canvass I have not heard much complaint of the Corn Laws, and I do not think the cry of cheap bread has produced much effect in this -