have been relieved by an
abundant harvest; and, lastly, from the depression of prices, affecting
not only the producers of corn in this country, but also the importers
of foreign grain. My Lords, evils like these can only be relieved by the
illegal interference of the Government, or by ministers coming to
Parliament, in order to induce it to consent to a suspension of the law.

Such, my Lords, is the history of the corn question as regards
prohibition; and there is not the least doubt that the system has
produced all the evils to which I have alluded at one period or another.

_March 31, 1828._

* * * * *

_Reason for repealing the Test and Corporation Acts._

I fully agree that the security of the Church of England, and the union
existing between it and the state, depend neither on the law about to be
repealed by the present bill, nor upon the provisions of this measure
itself. That union and security, which we must all desire to see
continued, depend upon the oath taken by his Majesty, to which we are
all, in our respective stations, parties, and not only on that oath, but
on the Act of Settlement, and the different acts of union from time to
time agreed to; all of which provide for the intimate and inseparable
union of church and state, and for the security of both.

The question is, what security does the existing system of laws, as they
now stand, afford the church establishment? My lords, I am very dubious
as to the amount of security afforded through the means of a system of
exclusion from office, to be carried into effect by a law which it is
necessary to suspend by an annual act, that admits every man into office
whom it was the intention of the original framers of the law to exclude.
It is perfectly true it was not the intention of those who brought in
that suspension law originally, that dissenters from the church of
England should be permitted to enter into corporations under its
provisions. The law was intended to relieve those whom time or
circumstances had rendered unable to qualify themselves according to the
system which government had devised. However, the dissenters availed
themselves of the relaxation of the law, for the purpose of getting into
corporations, and this the law allowed. What security, then, I ask, my
Lords, is to be found in the existing system? So far from dissenters
being excluded by the corporation and test acts, from all corporations,
so far is t