Free Trade will inevitably lead to the ruin of every great national interest, and it is therefore the duty of every one who wishes well to the British Empire, to assist in obtaining as speedily as possible a complete reversal of that policy. I will not detain the Meeting any longer, but at once read the resolution which has been intrusted to me, as follows:--"That a Memorial to the right hon. the First Lord of the Treasury be prepared, founded on the foregoing resolutions, protesting in the strongest manner against the continuance of the present system of miscalled 'Free trade,' and solemnly casting on the Administration, of which his Lordship is the head, the heavy responsibility of rejecting the appeals of the people for the abandonment of that system, and that a deputation be appointed for the purpose of presenting the same to his Lordship, and of representing to him the present critical and alarming position of many districts of this country, and of some of the most important colonies and dependencies of the British Crown."
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.)