Rosa, than which there is not one involved in greater obscurity, or more subject to variation. It would be quite useless to enter on this topic in detail, and it will be sufficient to refer the reader to Mr Lindley's admirable Monograph, or to Dr Hooker's own book; when a glance will suffice to shew him the nature of the subject, and the acceptable service Dr Hooker has done the Scottish student in giving Mr Lindley's views unaltered.

Several more complaints are enumerated, which it is scarcely necessary to mention: such as, some of the specific characters being too long plants omitted-habitats omitted omission of Gaelic names-omission of vernacular names in the cryptogamia!! &c. &c. The first of these only I think it worth while to an

swer.

Dr Hooker has been at much trouble in forming an English Flora, and the author does not seem to be aware, that much circumlocution is sometimes necessary to construct an English specific character.

I now take my leave of the author, having confined my strictures to that part of his paper which he has devoted more immediately to the criticism of the Flora Scotica.

To enter myself into its merits or defects, would be inconsistent with my present intention, which is solely to shew, that the author of the "Remarks" has ventured out of his depth, that many trifling and futile censures have been passed upon it, without sufficient foundation, and that the best and most learned part of the work has been entirely overlooked. I am, Sir, yours, &c.

SCRUTATOR.

CONSIDERATIONS ON A PETITION OF THE NOBLEMEN AND GENTLEMEN OF RENFREWSHIRE, TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONS; PRAYING THAT HONOURABLE HOUSE TO ALTER THE CORN LAWS, AND TO SUBSTITUTE, IN THE PLACE OF A 66 PROHIBITORY," A PROTECTING

SYSTEM.

BEFORE entering on the subject of this petition, which indeed is founded upon the very principle of the system it pretends to reprobate, it is necessary, in order to follow out the

observations to be made on it, to have the whole of the petitioners' views before us. These were detailed in several newspapers; but the fullest account, we think, was given in the Glasgow Chronicle. From it, therefore, we have extracted the report of the speeches, the petition, &c.

"On Tuesday, the Michaelmas Head Court was held at Renfrew, when several gentlemen were admitted on the roll of freeholders."

It was then inquired if any other business was before the Court?

John Maxwell, Esq. M. P. said, he had understood that the freeholders present were that day to give their opinion upon the corn laws. He had lately been consulting his friend, Mr Thomson, and a number of commercial gentlemen, and he

found that there was a considerable discrepancy of opinion on this question. He knew it would be brought before Parliament during the ensuing session, where it would undergo a warm and interesting discussion. It was seldom disputed that the corn bill operates to the hurt of the commercial classes; and, in his opinion, it operated materially to the injury of both the landlord and the manufacturer. Every three or four years, the ports were opened by a bad harvest, and then there were such vast quantities of grain poured into the country, as reduced the prices beneath their natural level, and thereby rendered the farmers totally unable to pay their rents. Some gentlemen were of opinion, that it would be best to abandon the restrictive system altogether, and at once to adopt the principles of free trade : but when he considered that the burden of the poor, the support of the church, yeomanry cavalry, &c. fell chiefly upon

the landlord, he thought it was evident that he should have a little more protection. He thought that a protecting duty of 5s. or 6s. lower upon wheat than the present prohibitory prices, would insure prosperity to the manufacturers, and would not be so prejudicial to the landed interest. Though he was favourable to a protecting duty, he could not consent to one so large as was advocated by Mr Curwen, and some other distinguished agriculturists; because, in his opinion, it would operate like a poll-tax upon the people, and would be as bad as the Corn Bill. He was for a fair and moderate duty, which would not operate to the prejudice of the manufacturers, and would, at the same time, afford protection to the landlords. He thought it would be highly proper, both for the landed gentlemen and the commercial classes, to lay their

opinions, on this subject, before the House of Commons, and his Majesty's govèrnment; and he would be very glad to hear the mind of any gentleman present.

Mr Alexander said, he approved of what had been said by Mr Maxwell, and would be very glad if the county would meet and give their opinions on this interesting subject. Like Mr Maxwell, he had talked with a number of his friends, and found they were all in favour of a protecting duty. For his own part, he conceived that a protecting duty would be more advantageous both for the agricultural and commercial classes.

Mr Spiers said, there would be no prosperity in the country till they got a protecting duty. He was anxious to see a full meeting of the county, to give their opinions. Mr Thomson was very well qualified to give the mind of the commer. cial classes, and Sir John Maxwell and Mr Alexander could give the opinions of the landed interest; and committees of the two classes should be appointed to correspond with each other on the subject. The interests of the two classes were inseparably connected. It was evident that their estates would not be half their value, were it not for the manufacturing classes: they were all embarked in the same ship, and ought to co-operate to promote each other's prosperity. He considered that the Corn Bill was the greatest curse that ever befel this country. He was in Parliament when it was passed, and was accused of voting for it, and the people several times threatened to burn his house: he did not even give his opinion, because he would not be bullied into any thing; but he never gave his vote for this pernicious bill.

Mr Thomson said, the Corn Bill was very unpopular. It had caused more misery and discontent than any other measure of his Majesty's government, and those gentlemen who were best in formed upon the subject were most against it.

Mr Spiers wished to know what they intended to do. They surely would not allow the matter to be forgot, after making these observations. The county was to meet about the roads on the last Tuesday of this month, and the subject might be discussed then. He was anxious that it might be considered on that day, because it would save Sir M. Shaw Stewart, Mr Wallace of Kelly, and other gentle men, from taking a long journey at this inclement season of the year.

Mr Maxwell said, that if any gentleman would take the trouble to turn over the roll of freeholders, he would see that it contained a body of most respectable and intelligent commercial gentlemen,

VOL. X.

and he thought, that by a full county. meeting, the opinions of both classes might be pretty accurately ascertained.

Mr Alexander thought it would be best to address a requisition to the convener in the usual way. Sir John Maxwell and Mr Spiers approved of this suggestion, and Mr Barr (their clerk) wrote a requisition, for the purpose of calling a meeting of the Noblemen, Gentlemen, Freeholders, Justices of the Peace, Commissioners of Supply, and Magistrates of Towns, at Renfrew, on Tuesday the 29th curt., to take into consideration the Corn Laws, which was signed by the gentlemen, and the meeting broke up.

Pursuant to that requisition, a respectable Meeting of the Noblemen, Freeholders, Magistrates of towns, Justices of the Peace, and Commissioners of Supply, met at Renfrew, to take into consideration the state of the Corn Laws.

The requisition being read, Mr Alexander, on the motion of Mr Maxwell, was called to the chair.

Mr Maxwell then rose, and said, the subject they were met to discuss was equally involved in ignorance and irritation, and hitherto rendered perplexing in proportion as it had been canvassed. A deviation from any uniform principle is an expedition in search of difficulties, and certainly one which intimates a preference to a powerful class of the community is not likely to be disappointed of its object. The principle which pervades our commercial policy is to admit the productions of all other countries upon payment of certain duties, and these duties have been large or small, according to the extent that the production imported was liable to do injury to the native whose property was invested, or whose labour was engaged in the business of supplying them. The wisdom of this restrictive legislation is at present questioned by some of the most powerful writers on political economy, but it is considered by practical financiers, to be the most easy and certain mode of collecting the revenue, and one which, if pernicious, has been so long customary, as rather to seem an obstacle to the greatest possible good, than to be felt to be a positive evil. Indeed, although it is not easy to deny the truth of these theories which are opposed to the restrictive system, and few men whose fortunes are guaranteed by, or whose bread and sustenance depend upon its continuance, have been able to obtain sufficient faith in them, so as to accede to the principles of a free trade; but the

H

restrictive system has been violated, and the theory of a free trade most rigorously repulsed, in the anomalous and indefinable mode of indemnifying the agricultural interest for the detriment of extraordinary taxation. It is to the effects of this mode of protecting the cultivation of the land that I have felt it to be my duty to call your attention; and I pur pose, as shortly as possible, to point out to you the impolicy of continuing under the influence of a system which gives the least possible protection to agriculture, at the greatest possible sacrifice to commercial prosperity. When I speak so strongly on this matter, it is as the representative of a manufacturing county; but I think the law, which has made such a breach between the poor and the rich-which has placed the farmer and manufacturer in direct hostility to each other which has betrayed speculators in foreign grain into collusive practices-I think I am morally justified in calling it the least beneficial law that could have been devised. Next to that, security for capital, and inducement to the exertions of skill, which are consequent upon equitable laws, the low prices of the necessaries of life must be the greatest attrac tion to manufacturing enterprize; and when we recollect the competition for the raw products of the land, which is excited by that valuable branch of domestic industry, we must be anxious to retain it, even at some apparent sacrifice. When we increase the power of consumption in any class of society, we stamp a value on the articles they require, exactly proportionate to that increase; and, vice versa, if we impede the trade of the country, we diminish the means of purchase a mongst the classes dependent upon com merce, and contract the sale of our ar ticles, and of course lower the exchange able value of the whole. It is thus, by prohibiting the introduction of grain, we choak up one of the vents of manufac. ture, and become liable, not only to the evil of giving undue encouragement to agriculture, but even of inflicting a sort of poll-tax upon the community. This, in practice, is to give a great nominal value to raw produce, and, in so far as it is consumable, it may bring a large price; but if only one half of it can be consumed, the other half is, in point of fact, without farther value. This at least is the case in Britain, because taxes on landlords have made grain too high priced to be saleable on the continent. The prohibition, although contingent in the letter, is now likely to become positive in the spirit, from the improved value of the currency; but, if otherwise, still it con

tinues to be injurious to the manufacturer, by creating fluctuations in price, by introducing stagnation of trade, and by making the introduction of foreign corn a speculation for the monied interest, and not a barter of raw produce against ar ticles of manufacture. Our great national policy ought to be, to direct labour into those channels which are most productive of remuneration to the workman; because he can bear greater burdens with less suffering, by attention to this object, and may consequently be less discontented, and of course more easy to govern. If, by working a certain number of hours as an artizan, a man can exchange the commodity he has wrought up against foreign raw produce, sufficient for his wants, whilst, by cultivation, for as many hours, he could only obtain a scanty and inade quate subsistence, trade is his proper em. ployment. All that the state has to do, is to see that it is the badness of the soil and climate which makes his farming fruitless, and not artificial causes; such as tithe, poor laws, roads, bridges, churches, jails, and other burdens, principally charged upon landed property.

But there may be another person who has not the same power of changing his occupation, and yet cannot furnish the artizan with food in return for his manufacture, because the burdens on his lease, are almost as heavy as the whole cost of the foreign husbandman. How to meet these two interests with equal impartiality, and with safety to the revenue, was a question with the Legislature; and at last it was resolved, that the artizan shall suffer two years out of three, and the agricul turist one, if we may judge from the past. But, in the meantime, by this uncomfortable process, the speculator grows rich, and articles of consumption, which never contributed to the revenue, are sold although, de facto, as contraband as Hollands, or lace, in the same place where they are the object of a sanguinary and expensive preventive service. In the meantime, the absence of British direct and indirect taxes, and public burdens, makes a very munificent bounty to the foreign grower, depreciating British capital and skill, and promoting that of foreign cultivators. Surely the national debt is quite onerous enough, without subtracting a single spot from the field of its operation; and surely, if we can afford exemptions, they should be extended to any other class of society, rather than the monied interest. We are told that it is not opening the ports which now hurts us. Dantzic wheat is the foremost on the list of prices daily. "We are told that a free and unrestricted admission of

foreign grain would be sound policy." We are told that every protecting duty is ruinous to commerce. We are told that we ought to betake ourselves to the employment of supplying the whole world with manufactures. But, when we look to the effect of the duty recently imposed upon foreign wool, as a protection to the agriculturist, and which, we were told, must be ruinous, we find, by the Leeds Mercury, that the woollen trade never was, in the memory of man, so good as now! And when we read the account of German fairs, we find that British manufactures cannot be sold, even on our present confined system of manufacture. A free trade is an object to be desired by an experienced and wealthy people; but it must have the consent of the freeholder, to be adopted immediately in the British Isles. But at all events, it is unreason able to ask the land-owner, and his tenant upon lease, to devote their fortunes to the illustration of theories; or, while manufactures remain shrouded in duties equivalent to prohibition, to offer themselves for a lonely experiment in political economy, the failure of which would be followed by the cession of their patrimony and their capital to fundholders, mortgagees, and Polish serfs.

Situated as we are, less apprehension might be felt in acceding to the principles of a free trade, than in districts purely arable, from the nature of our security from competition, in almost all the valuable, as well as the most bulky articles of our husbandry. Yet, when I contemplate the situation of remote agricultural districts, and the poor upon them, to the extent they are in England, and the financial condition of the empire, I would not concur in any petition for a free trade at present. A duty not so high as to be a prohibition, unless taxes can be shewn to authorise it to be of that height, which I know cannot be the case, and merely such as would place the British landed interest apon a par, în point of obstacles, to low prices, with its foreign competitor, in my opinion would be not only just, but, in our present circumstances, politic.

I conceive that the tenant and landlord must suffer the depreciation of nearly 30 per cent. on their respective properties, which all other interests have undergone, by the resumption of cash payments. I should wish to see union on this subject, between the grower and consumer, and I am most anxious to see such a trade as will give back some of those comforts to our operatives and mechanics, to which, I fear, the majority of them have been long strangers. I have been told, that by calling your attention to this topic, 1

should make myself unpopular, and do no service to any party; and I am fully sensible, that I have exposed myself to the suspicion of selfishness, and that I have advocated the ancient and unfashionable practice of this nation, in opposition to the writings of the ablest theorists of the age. But I have hopes that those gentlemen, whom I have the honour to address, and my countrymen of every rank, will believe me to have acted from a sense of public duty, and that my sentiments are grounded upon a conviction, that the in terest of one is the interest of all, and that Providence suffers no class of society to reap permanent advantages in the depression of its fellow.

Provost Carlile said, it was with the greatest diffidence he rose to give his opi nion on this very important subject, espe cially after the able and powerful speech of the Honourable Member. There were in this country two classes, which were called the landed and manufacturing interests, and, by a concatenation of events, they were both on the decline. Since 1810, landed property had sunk in value one-fourth, and the same might be said of manufacturing property. They all knew how this had occurred. Before the late war, the value of land was moderate, when compared to what it rose to during the war; and at that time the labourers were all employed, and well paid, and every thing went on smoothly and happily. The nominal value of property had now fallen about 50 per cent.; and since the peace, we had lost that commercial monopoly we had form erly enjoyed. The nations have all too much concurred in the restrictive system. They are all so deeply involved in it, that it would be very difficult to return to a free trade. Such were the industry and skill of our workmen, the ingenuity and enterprise of our merchants, and the perfection of our machinery, that this country had nothing to fear from a free trade. There was one great bar in the way of a free trade, however, and that was, a national debt of eight hundred millions, the inte rest of which was thirty millions, and other twenty millions were annually re quired for the exigencies of the state. There are only two ways in which this great burden can be lessened. The first is, by economy, and he was glad that principle had been adopted at the end of last Session of Parliament; and he trusted that Ministers, at the beginning of the next sesssion, would commence retrenchment on such a liberal scale, as to produce a blessing to the country. Besides the agricultural and commercial interest, there is another interest, composed of rich Jews and great men. There is a monied