You admit that the farmer’s capital is sinking from under him, and that he is in a worse state than ever. Have you distinctly provided some plan to give confidence to the farmer, to cause an influx of capital to be expended upon his land, and so bring increased employment to the laborer? How is this to be met? I cannot believe you are going to make this a political game. You must set up some specific object to benefit the agricultural interest. It is well said that the last election was an agricultural triumph. There are two hundred county members sitting behind the Prime-Minister who prove that it was so. What, then, is your plan for this distressing state of things? That is what I want to ask you. Do not, as you have done before, quarrel with me because I have imperfectly stated my case; I have done my best; and I again ask you what you have to propose? I tell you that this “Protection,” as it has been called, is a failure. It was so when you had the prohibition up to 80_s._ You know the state of your farming tenantry in 1821. It was a failure when you had a protection price of 60_s._; for you know what was the condition of your farm tenantry in 1835. It is a failure now with your last amendment, for you have admitted and proclaimed it to us; and what is the condition of your agricultural population at this time? I ask, what is your plan? I hope it is not a pretence; a mere political game that has been played throughout the last election, and that you have not all come up here as mere politicians. There are politicians in the House; men who look with an ambition—probably a justifiable one—to the honors of office. There may be men who—with thirty years of continuous service, having been pressed into a groove from which they can neither escape nor retreat—may be holding office, high office, maintained there, probably, at the expense of their present convictions which do not harmonize very well with their early opinions. I make allowances for them; but the great body of the honorable gentlemen opposite came up to this House, not as politicians, but as the farmers’ friends, and protectors of the agricultural interests. Well, what do you propose to do? You have heard the Prime-Minister declare that, if he could restore all the protection which you have had, that protection would not benefit agriculturists. Is that your belief? If so, why not proclaim it? and if it is not your conviction, you will have falsified your mission in this House, by following the right honorable baronet out into the lobby, and opposing inquiry into the condition of the very men who sent you here.[16]