138 BE COEDS AND REMINISOENCES OF GOODWOOD 



the argument that the effect of the bill before the 

 Committee would be the destruction of game, there 

 was just as much reason to apprehend it at present, 

 as any person who chose to destroy it could do so by 

 laying poison in the fields, as there was no law to 

 prevent it. He considered the whole system of the 

 Game Laws so disgraceful that he would vote for any 

 alteration in them that might be proposed ; for it 

 was not by law, but by an armed force, that game 

 was now protected. In 1828 he admitted that upon 

 this subject he was a great reformer, as he would repeal 

 the whole of the laws and substitute a Summary 

 Act in their stead." 



Any matter affecting the agricultural interest he 

 did not fail to entertain, as, for instance, when on the 

 5th of May, 1828, he moved for a Select Committee 

 to inquire into the state of the wool trade, stating 

 that he was satisfied he should be able to lay a case 

 before their Lordships which called for inquiry. 



In 1819 a duty of sixpence was laid upon the 

 importation of foreign wool. For a series of years 

 previous to that, the war which desolated Europe 

 prevented foreign wool, like many other commodities, 

 from being imported into this country. 



The duty of sixpence was, in 1825, reduced to one 

 penny, but the agricultural interest did not agree to 

 this reduction until they received what they supposed 

 to be an equivalent, in the permission to export their 



