30 



for the patient attention which you have bestowed on my 

 feeble address — I thank you also in the name of the poor 

 whose cause we especially advocate. May it never be for- 

 gotten, that without the just employment of the poor there 

 can be neither happiness nor even security without stringent 

 cruelty in any community. If, gentlemen, I have not made 

 any apology for the inefficient manner in which I occupy the 

 honourable post to which you have elected me, be assured the 

 sole reason is, that I would not occupy your valuable time by 

 unproductive truisms. 



Mr. Warnes then spoke nearly as follows : — Mr. Chairman, 

 my Lords and Gentlemen, allow me to read the resolution 

 which I have the honour and privilege to move : — 



" Resolved, that as the Norfolk Flax Society aims at the 

 advancement of agriculture, the renovation of trade, and the 

 employment of the people, it is the opinion of this Meeting 

 that such laudable designs ought to be vigorously and imme- 

 diately adopted by every Englishman who has the interest of 

 his country at heart." 



The magnitude of these objects deserves a more able 

 advocate. In no part of the kingdom is that advocacy more 

 needed than in the county of Norfolk and in the city of Nor- 

 wich. Gentlemen of the county and of the city, I claim your 

 support at the first annual meeting of our Norfolk Flax 

 Society, in order that the objects to which my resolution refers 

 may be carried into effect, and the evils consequent upon an 

 unemployed population be alleviated, if not entirely removed. 

 The great and aggravated distress to which thousands of our 

 fellow-creatures are reduced, has occupied the serious attention 

 of all reflective minds in every grade of society, — in Parliament 

 and out of Parliament, in Church and State, from the highest 

 authority in the realm down to the humble individual who now 

 stands before you. Did not the Queen, in her address to 

 Parliament, express the deepest sympathy for her suffering 

 people ? and direct that measures should be adopted for their 

 relief? Have not both Houses of Parliament taken these 

 sufferings into consideration, and failed in the endeavour to 



