Memoirs of Adam Black Author:Adam Black Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER IV. 1841-1849. Though defeated in the contest for the civic chair, Mr. Black continued a member of the Town Council for the next three years, an... more »d took a prominent part in its business. In February 1841 he made a motion to petition Parliament for the abolition of the Corn Laws, and the reduction of the duties on sugar, coffee, and timber. In the course of his speech he gave a calculation showing that the saving to the inhabitants of Edinburgh by the abolition of the Corn Laws, and the equalisation of the Sugar Duties, would amount to about twice the amount of their whole local taxation. The motion was carried by a large majority.1 From this time till 1846, when the Corn Laws were repealed, the question of Protection and the abolition of the Corn Laws was one of the chieftopics of public discussion throughout the kingdom. Great public meetings were held in Edinburgh on the occasion of a visit from Cobden and Bright, whose clear and powerful speeches carried the conviction and sympathies of the majority of the inhabitants entirely with them. Mr. Duncan M'Laren took a leading part in this agitation, and, chiefly through his exertions, a conference of deputies from all parts of Scotland met and sat for a week in Edinburgh, discussing the subject. 1 An illustration of the iniquitous effect of the Corn Laws is afforded by the prices of wheat in the autumn of that year at home and abroad. The average at Dantzig was £1 :14 :1, at Hamburg £2 : 10s., at London £4 : 2s. The members for the city, Macaulay and Gibson- Craig, were hampered by their allegiance to the late Government from going so far as the majority of their constituents. Both were totally opposed to Protection, and in favour of the abolition of the Corn Laws, but they had, with the approval of their con...« less