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
of violence or force, and still less do I recommend that we should
band ourselves together not to pay taxes, (Hear, hear.) We are the
representatives of a truly loyal people. By constitutional means we
shall gain a victory of which we shall afterwards have reason to
be proud; but if we descend to the miserable and degrading tricks
of the Anti-Corn Law League, (hear, hear,) we cannot be respected,
because we cannot respect ourselves. I thank you for the confidence
you have shown towards me. I thank you, in my own name, and in the
name of many Protectionists who have not been able to be present
here to-day, for the unanimous manner in which you have carried the
resolutions, and the patience with which you have listened to him
who is now addressing you, who is so little worthy of attention.
But as long as I shall continue to have health, I shall take every
opportunity of meeting the tenant-farmers of this country, (hear,
hear,) notwithstanding that I may be told in the House of Lords, in a
majority of whose members I have no confidence, (hear, hear,) that by
presiding at meetings of this description I am creating a panic among
the tenantry. That, gentlemen, is the last attack that has been made
on me and on my noble friends around me. I was told the other night,
in the House of Lords, by a noble lord who is a disciple of Sir R.
Peel, that it was to myself and to those who pursued a similar course
to mine that the lowness in the price of corn is to be attributed.
(Hear, hear, and laughter.) His assertion was, "That the speeches
delivered in this country found their way into the German newspapers,
and that the German farmers, believing that shortly a duty on the
import of foreign corn would be imposed, sent over their corn to this
country and sold it here at a loss." In reply I stated that, if this
statement was correct, I could not regret that I had contributed
to the foreigners losing money, if they choose to send their corn
here. I have no bad feeling to the foreigner; but I may say that,
if we are exposed to taxes from which he is exempt, I could feel no
pity for any loss that he might sustain in his competition with the
agriculturists of this country. (Cheers.) One word on the subject
of the income tax, which is now so oppressive to the tenant-farmer.
When I stated in the House of Lords, a few evenings ago, that the
farmers had no right to be called upon to pay that tax whilst they
derived no profit from their holdings, Lord Grey said that he
admitted the hardness of the case, but that he and his party had not
originally enacted the law, but that it emanated from Sir R. Peel.
(Hear, hear, and laughter.) To that I felt it my duty to say, that
although they did not originally enact the law, they had extended the
time of its operation. (Hear, hear.) At the same time, I certainly
did not attempt to justify Sir R. Peel; for I would be the last man
to undertake such a task. (Hear, hear.) I again thank you for the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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