=—— 
GENERAL 
dering all the additional facts re- 
lative to the subject which fur- 
ther inquiry afforded. 
On Feb. 17th the right honour- 
able Frederick Robinson (vice pre- 
sident of the board of trade) moy- 
ed for the House of Commons to 
resolve itself into a committee of 
- the whole House, to consider of 
the state of the corn laws. This 
being done, he laid before the 
house nine several resolutions, of 
which the three first related to 
the free importation of grain to 
be warehoused, and afterwards 
exported, or to be taken for home 
consumption when importation 
for that purpose was allowable. 
The fourth, and most important, 
stated the average price of British 
corn at which free importation 
was to. be allowed, and below 
which it was to be prohibited, and 
this, for wheat, was fixed at 80s. 
per quarter. An exception was 
made in favour of grain produced 
in the British colonies, which 
might be imported when British- 
grown wheat was at 67s. Of the 
subsequent 4nd all the succeeding 
debates we shall decline attempt- 
ing to give any analysis, for the 
same reasons by which we were 
influenced in the last year’s nar- 
rative, and which became still 
more cogent, in proportion as the 
discussion has been rendered more 
voluminous, with less novelty.— 
The conclusion on the present day 
was, that the resolutions should 
be re-committed, and the report 
received on a subsequent day. 
The committee of the whole 
house being formed again on the 
22nd, the three first resolutions 
were read and agreed to, and the 
debate began on the fourth, by 
which the importing price was 
HISTORY. 
regulated. Mr. Baring, by whom 
it was opened, after much reason- 
ing, founded on the impolicy of 
making decisive regulations at a 
time when public affairs were in 
such an unsettled state, moved as 
an amendment, that the measure 
to be adopted should be tempo- 
rary, and intimated his intention 
of proposing 76s. as the price 
beyond which importation was to 
be permitted. The debate on this 
point continued by adjournment to 
thenext day, when theamendment 
was rejected without a division. 
A motion for substituting 72s. to 
80s. was then negatived, and the 
original motion for the latter sum 
was carried by 209 against 65.— 
The remaining resolutions were 
afterwards agreed to. 
The report of the committee 
having been voted by a great ma- 
jority to be received, and the price 
of 80s. for importation being also 
carried against other proposed 
amendments, Mr. Robinson, on 
March Ist, brought in a bill “to 
amend the laws now in force for 
regulating the importation of 
corn,’ which was read the first 
time. On the motion for its se- 
cond reading, March 3, an amend- 
ment was moved by Mr. Lamb- 
ton, for deferring the reading to 
that day six months. By this 
time, petitions against the bill, 
which began to be set on foot in 
the commercial and manufactur- 
ing districts as soon as the inten- 
tion was perceived of reviving the 
measure, were coming in, very 
numerously signed. This circum- 
stance afforded additional argu- 
ments to the opposers: the amend- 
ment, however, was negatived by 
218 to 56, and the bill was order- 
ed tobe committed. On the 6th, 
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