in this kingdom since the last bushel was imported. If your produce had fallen in this manner, if your prices had come down very low, immediately after the importation had taken place, there might have been some colour of reason to impute the fall to the importation; but it so happens, and as if for the express purpose of contradicting the crude notions of Mr. Webb Hall, that your produce has fallen in price at a greater rate, in proportion as time has removed you from the point of importation; and, as to the circumstance, so ostentatiously put forward by Mr. Hall and others, that there is still some of the imported corn _unsold_, what does it prove but the converse of what those Gentlemen aim at, that is to say, that the holders _cannot afford_ to sell it at present prices; for, if they could gain but ever so little by the sale, would they keep it wasting and costing money in warehouse? There appears with some persons to be a notion, that the importation of corn is a _new thing_. They seem to forget, that, during the last war, when agriculture was so _prosperous_, the _ports were always open_; that prodigious quantities of corn were imported during the war; that, so far from importation being prohibited, high _premiums_ were given, paid out of the taxes, partly raised upon English farmers, to induce men to import corn. All this seems to be forgotten as much as if it had never taken place; and now the distress of the English farmer is imputed to a cause which was never before an object of his attention, and a desire is expressed to put an end to a branch of commerce which the nation has always freely carried on. I think, Gentlemen, that here are reasons quite sufficient to make any man but Mr. Webb Hall slow to impute the present distress to the importation of corn; but, at any rate, what can you have beyond absolute efficient prohibition? No law, no duty, however high; nothing that the Parliament can do can go beyond this; and this you now have, in effect, as completely as if this were the only country beneath the sky. For these reasons, Gentlemen, (and to state more would be a waste of your time and an affront to your understandings,) I am convinced, that, in the way of Corn Bill, it is impossible for the Parliament to afford you any, even the smallest, portion of relief. As to the other point, Gentlemen, the tendency which the present measures and course of things have to carry prices _lower_, and considerably lower than they now are, and to keep them for a permanency at that low rate, this is a matter worthy of the serious attention of all connected with the land, and particularly of that of the renting farmer. During the _war_ no importations distressed the farmer. It was not till peace came that the cry of distress was heard. But, during the war, there was a boundless issue of paper money. Those issues were instantly narrowed by the peace, the law being, that the Bank should pay in cash six months after the peace should take place.