Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 67, No. 416, June 1850Various
General
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 67, No. 416, June 1850
Various
England -- Periodicals; Scotland -- Periodicals
Mr H. HIGGINS, of Herefordshire, came forward to second the
resolution. He said that the county which he then represented
suffered greater distress than had ever been known within the memory
of the oldest inhabitant. He believed that if the present Free-trade
policy were persisted in they would no longer have any of those
fine exhibitions of cattle for which that county had hitherto been
so famous. An hon. gentleman who preceded him had told them of the
distress which at present prevailed in Ireland. But for his part,
he believed that England was now being Ireland-ised as fast as
possible. (Hear, hear.) And for whom had they (the tenant-farmers)
been victimised? Who were reaping the harvest of their ruin? Why, the
foreigner, the drone, and the millocrat. (Hear, hear.) It was not the
industrious classes, as asserted by Mr Villiers, that had effected a
saying of L.90,000,000 a-year by the repeal of the corn laws; for the
greater portion of that sum went into the pocket of the foreigner.
He told the Government that the industrious classes in this country
would not stand that much longer. He warned the Government against
driving these classes to desperation, and he told them that it was
their firmness and loyalty which had at all times mainly contributed
to keep the country in peace and quietness. But when a man lost his
property he became reckless of consequences: for, in the scramble
that might take place, he had everything to gain and nothing to lose.
He would address one word to the landlords of England. He would tell
them that they had not done their duty. (Hear, hear.) But he would
further tell them, not to be misled by the delusion that they could
derive from extra production a compensation for the depreciation
of prices. He would call on the Legislature of this country to
redress the wrongs of the agricultural classes, unless they intended
to excite those classes to exercise the strength which they still
retained in their hands. If they could not obtain justice by rational
means--if they could not succeed by moral force--he for one was
prepared to do anything in defence of his own. (Hear, hear.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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