gard the effects,
and treat the public distress with indifference. The amendment moved by
Earl Stanhope was supported by the Duke of Richmond, and the Earls
of Carnarvon and Winchilsea. The Earl of Carnarvon declared that the
address called upon them to pledge themselves to statements inconsistent
with truth, and declared that he would never lend his countenance to the
fallacious representations of mere partial distress, as set forth in
the speech. That speech, he said, did not contain one word of the true
causes of the country's suffering; but gravely desired them to take "the
state of the seasons" into their consideration. He contended that no
small part of the distress was owing to the change in the currency.
There had been periods of distress in former times, but they had soon
passed away. Now, however, the kingdom was placed in very different
circumstances, as the circulation of specie was no longer commensurate
with the demand. He suggested that a silver standard should be adopted,
by which he conceived that the resources of the country would be
emancipated from the artificial fetters in which they were now bound,
and prove sufficient to feed the now starving population. The Earl of
Winchilsea said, that, if the house refused to take the distress into
consideration, an opinion would be forced on the country, that it was
unable to legislate for the public good. A spirit was springing up, he
said, in different parts of the country, for forming associations, not
to lay the grievances of the people before parliament, but to propose
remedies of their own, and to redress their own wrongs. To that spirit,
he contended, their lordships would be supplying encouragement if
they refused to institute an inquiry into the nature and causes of
the existing distress. The amendment was opposed by Lord Goderich, the
Marquis of Lansdowne, and the Duke of Wellington. Lord Goderich
said that the true object of its noble mover was to get rid of the
alterations lately introduced into our commercial system, and to
unsettle the basis on which the currency now stood. For his own part
he had never been able to learn, from the opponents of what was called
"Free Trade," what that was which they denounced under that name.
The noble mover seemed to menace by it the refusal to foster domestic
agriculture by prohibiting the importation of foreign wool. That refusal
was no modern invention. It was not till 1819 that the importation of
foreign wool