"What farmers require is, that the prices should be moderate, and the markets steady; and for this reason I did, in 1826, 1827, and 1828, take the course which I would now recommend to the House"
About this Quote
“Moderate prices” and “steady markets” sounds like a soothing, technocratic lullaby, but Joseph Hume is doing something sharper: he’s translating a political fight into the language of practical necessity. The line is built to feel non-ideological. Farmers don’t “demand protection” or “oppose free trade” here; they “require” stability. That verb matters. It frames policy not as a factional favor but as basic infrastructure for livelihoods.
The subtext is a rebuke to the melodrama of Parliament’s recurring trade debates in the late 1820s, when agricultural interests and industrial, freer-trade reformers jockeyed over tariffs and the Corn Laws. Hume, a prominent critic of government waste and a reform-minded MP, is staking out the persona of the empiricist: the man who has already run the experiment. By citing 1826, 1827, and 1828, he’s not merely reminiscing; he’s establishing a data trail. Repetition becomes evidence, and evidence becomes authority.
That “I did... take the course” is also a subtle flex. Hume anticipates the charge that he’s improvising or pandering. Instead, he presents consistency as credibility: he has a track record, and the House should treat it like a controlled study rather than a fresh ideological crusade.
What makes the rhetoric work is its quiet reframing of conflict. It doesn’t ask Parliament to pick sides; it asks them to pick conditions - predictability over volatility - and then implies that any reasonable legislator already knows which side that favors.
The subtext is a rebuke to the melodrama of Parliament’s recurring trade debates in the late 1820s, when agricultural interests and industrial, freer-trade reformers jockeyed over tariffs and the Corn Laws. Hume, a prominent critic of government waste and a reform-minded MP, is staking out the persona of the empiricist: the man who has already run the experiment. By citing 1826, 1827, and 1828, he’s not merely reminiscing; he’s establishing a data trail. Repetition becomes evidence, and evidence becomes authority.
That “I did... take the course” is also a subtle flex. Hume anticipates the charge that he’s improvising or pandering. Instead, he presents consistency as credibility: he has a track record, and the House should treat it like a controlled study rather than a fresh ideological crusade.
What makes the rhetoric work is its quiet reframing of conflict. It doesn’t ask Parliament to pick sides; it asks them to pick conditions - predictability over volatility - and then implies that any reasonable legislator already knows which side that favors.
Quote Details
| Topic | Money |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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