There can be no doubt that there has been, of late years, a great increase of manufactures and manufactured produce in this country. It is true, that this produce has given to the manufacturer but little profit, and that the wages of the manufacturing labourer are low; but, as I will show presently, the circumstance, equally with the cause of the agricultural distress, is beyond legislative control. My Lords, it is impossible to consider this branch of the subject without adverting likewise to the state of the commerce of the country. The produce of the manufactures of the country is greater than the country can consume; and, consequently, the price and the reward of the labourer must depend upon the foreign demand, as well as upon the demand at home. In respect to the distress felt by manufacturing labourers, there can be no doubt that the wages of manual labour have been lowered by the successful application of steam to the movement of machinery for the purpose of manufacture. Here, my Lords, is a cause of distress over which the Legislature has no practical control. As I go further in my observations upon the speech of the Noble Earl (Stanhope) who made the motion,[12] I will point out other causes of distress equally beyond the control of the Legislature. [Footnote 12: For an inquiry into the state of the nation.] My Lords, let me beg to call to the recollection of the House the state in which the world was at the end of the war in the years 1814 and 1815. Europe was absolutely overrun with armies, and had been so for about twenty years. There was absolutely nothing but armies in the world, and nothing was thought of but the means of sustaining them. Except in France and this country, there were but few manufacturers in Europe; but when the peace took place, all the world became manufacturers. I have already stated, that the country manufacturing more than it consumes, is under the necessity of resorting to foreign countries, and foreign markets with its produce, where this produce necessarily comes in competition with the manufactured produce of foreign countries, brought there by cheaper labour, and by machinery worked by steam. The prices in those foreign countries, of necessity, govern the prices in this country. Here again is a cause of the existing distress, over which it will be admitted, that the Legislature can have no control. Nothing that it is in our power to do, will raise prices abroad; and till these prices shall be raised, the prices of our produce must continue low, and profits and wages must be low likewise.